Chapter Text
Shiro flinched at a small hand on his shoulder. He was in Black’s bay—although he wasn’t with Black, per se—he was sitting against the wall, looking at his Lion, and wondering how it all could have gone so wrong so fast.
He looked up and met Katie’s haunted eyes with his own. Smiling sadly, he reached up with his left hand to give her fingers a reassuring squeeze.
“You didn’t come to dinner,” she frowned.
Oh. Was it that late already?
“Here.” She placed a bowl in his lap. “Hunk—” she paused, as though she wasn’t quite sure what to say. “Hunk’s been cooking. He spends as much time in there as you do in here.”
To each their own, he supposed.
The only time they were ever all in the same place lately was when the alarms went off, or when they flew. Occasionally Allura would fly Blue, or Red, but only when it was determined that she wouldn’t be better off flying the castle. They couldn’t form Voltron regardless of whether or not she took a Paladin’s seat, so most of the time she simply chose not to. Within the remaining Paladins, they didn’t really mind. It was easier to stay focused when there wasn’t that split second of relief that came with seeing the Lion of a lost Pilot fly, and the pain of realization that came with it.
He couldn’t speak for Black’s feelings; they wouldn’t tell him, and that alone lead him to assume that Black was in pain.
As she had nearly every day since Their boys had been taken, Katie sprawled herself and her equipment on the floor in front of him.
She didn’t ask him how he was; she already knew. She didn’t try to help him, there was nothing she could say. She knew better than to expect a response, so she didn’t talk. She simply worked on finding their lost family members.
Eventually, her eyelids began to droop, and Shiro stood; ready to carry her to her room if need be. He might not be able to be—all there, for Hunk and Katie right now; but he refused to let them wear themselves thin. He was responsible for all of the Paladins, both the lost, and the weary. That would never change.
Katie groaned and walked under her own control towards her sleeping quarters, but did nothing to dissuade Shiro from putting his hand over her shoulder. He needed the contact as much as she did, she understood how he felt.
They stopped at her door, and Shiro watched to make sure she put her equipment away. He wouldn’t be able to sleep if he knew she was still working somewhere, she knew that too.
He almost left without a word, as had become habit.
Something changed his mind.
“We’ll find them,” he said hoarsely. “We’ll find them.”
“Of course we will.” Katie replied. It was the only possibility.
Katie stared at her screen for a long time before she realized what she was looking at.
“C-Coran” she said nervously. “Can you come verify this for me?”
The Altean was working on the other side of the room, and looked up in surprise at her voice. “Of course! I’ll be just a tick!”
Pidge nodded.
It was about thirty impatient ticks later that he finally read through what she’d found. “Could this be?” he asked, upon examining the data Pidge had collected on her tablet.
The usual methods hadn’t worked. They hadn’t been able to track them through BLIP, through the Lions, even through Allura’s new Quintessence abilities-
It had been a long shot- but finally it seemed like she’d found something that could scan through whatever interference was being broadcasted to hide the Red and Blue Paladins from the Castle.
She bit her lip, and for the first time in weeks, began to genuinely smile.
From there it was only a matter of organizing and implementing the rescue. Some space ‘Pirates’, for want of a better word, had snatched Lance and Keith almost three weeks prior from a celebration hosted by a planet they had liberated. The Paladin’s inability to locate them so far had been—frustrating; to say the least.
Disheartening might have been a better word.
Now though, she had found them. Finally, she’d found them.
It was decided that she would fly the three of them in using Green’s cloaking technology, and Leave Allura and Coran on the Castle ship as backup and cover.
Shiro and Hunk would go get Lance and Keith, using a smaller version of the device Pidge that had put together to find their lost paladins in the first place.
She would set off explosives at key points with the use of a program of her own design from the nearest computer terminal, and then defend their exit with Green.
They would get their lost boys back.
Hunk dogged Shiro’s heels as the Black Paladin followed two lonely dots on the holo-map Pidge had uploaded into his armour.
He swallowed thickly as they ran through the ship, trying his hardest not to gag, and even harder not to throw up.
When Lance and Keith had first been taken, they’d heard stories about the pirates, the unilos who had stolen them. Many of the locals, and their host government at the time had horrible tales, and they’d gathered every scrap of intel they could.
It seemed the Galra put up with the Pirates because from time to time, they actually delivered useful intel. As long as they didn’t get in the way of the Galra, the Galra didn’t care.
The pirates also didn’t have a planet they could call home—much like the Paladins they preferred to work out of a ship—and they were notorious for turning off non-essential systems, often hiding out in space junk when they had captives. This made it incredibly difficult to track them, (especially given the vast amount of new space junk that had accumulated due to the Galra in the past ten thousand years, the voids of the universe differed greatly from the Castle’s maps).
As Hunk walked the halls, the stench of pain and fear in the air nearly overwhelmed him. The scent of blood and vomit stung his lungs with every breath, as if death itself was caught in his throat. The ship was dark—running on minimal power—but Pidge had hacked its defences before they boarded. Hopefully they would have time before the breach was detected.
Hunk’s fought back the instinct to inhale deeply, something that normally settled his nerves and stomach. In this place a deep breath would probably just make the nausea worse.
Then he thought about how this was where Lance had been for the last few weeks. This was where Keith had been. He swallowed his gag reflex back again, not wanting to throw up on such an vital mission.
At least they were together, right? That had to count for something.
Shiro turned to him, and pointed at the dots on the screen. Lance and Keith were behind the door in front of them. Once they went through it, it was doubtful they would remain unnoticed. There might even be someone in there with Lance and Keith, He and Shiro couldn’t know, the device tracked Quintessence signatures; not life signs. Shiro was asking: was he ready?
Hunk nodded. Of course he was ready. He just wanted to get them back.
Nothing, could have prepared him for the sight inside. Keith and Lance were both chained to opposite sides of the room. Keith sat against the wall, his eyes frantic as he heard the door open, and scared as he skittered backwards. Lance was lying down, and his eyes slit open as they broke down the door. They were both decorated with blood, any skin that could be seen though their ruined civilian clothing was caked in red, and each of their faces sported splotches of blue and black. It wasn’t hard to imagine that the rest of their thin frames didn’t as well.
“Keith?” Shiro said slowly, moving through the door. “Lance?”
“It’s going to be alright,” Hunk spoke softly as he approached Lance, not wanting to scare either of them and he saw Shiro doing the same with Keith. “We’re getting you out of here.”
Lance continued to look at him blankly, before turning his head slightly to Keith. “Keith?” He asked nervously, “do you-?”
Keith nodded nervously. “Yeah, I do.”
In an instant, Lance’s face broke out in relief as he tried to sit up. “I knew it. I knew you guys would come.”
“Of course we came.” Hunk soothed, while part of his brain registered what had just happened.
“They’re-?” Keith looked over at Lance, the question in his eyes: they’re real?
Lance nodded, and Keith reached out and grabbed Shiro’s wrist, a desperate need in his eyes to make sure for himself. Shiro smiled worriedly, and reached forwards with his mechanical arm to cut him free of the cuffs and chain holding him to the wall. “Hold still,” he murmured.
Hunk was still trying to assess all of Lance’s injuries when Shiro came over, Keith’s arm was pulled across his shoulder to support the Red Paladin. Shiro used his prosthetic to carefully slice Lance’s chains, and it hurt hunk to see how Lance first winced away before turning his wrist to make Shiro’s job easier. Hunk helped Lance to stand, and Lance immediately lurched for Keith, wincing as he pulled him into a desperate hug, while Keith buried his face into Lance’s neck. The result was an odd embrace in which both participants were barely upright, but didn’t seem to care.
“Did you find them yet?” Pidge’s voice crackled over his helmet comms, and Hunk smiled.
“Yep, we found them. Neither of them are looking too good though. They’re definitely gonna need those pods. We’re on our way back now, let’s get out of this dump!”
Shiro nodded at him, and they each took their respective charge.
“Hunk-“ Keith started, determined, “Lance can’t walk.” Lance scoffed slightly at the implication that he’d need to be carried, but Hunk simply nodded and swept him up into his strong arms, bridal style. Shiro toyed with the idea of doing the same with Keith and eventually chose not to, letting him walk on his own.
Hunk and Shiro exchanged a significant look as they progressed down the hall. Both boys were clearly malnourished, but of the two Lance was definitely in worse shape. He had what looked to Hunk like an infection setting into a very deep gash in his leg, and the way he cringed as Hunk carried him, there was probably a wound just as bad on his abdomen. Keith was pale, covered in cuts and bruises, but the most worrisome thing about him was that his eyes would dart from side to side. At those points he would press as close into Shiro’s side as he could, for comfort, or support, or both. Keith was determined not to let whatever it was slow him down, and Hunk could only surmise that he was seeing things the others couldn’t. That wasn’t good.
The Pirate’s ship wasn’t big- and it wasn’t long before they could hear Pidge fighting in front of them. Damnit, they’d hoped to be gone before the pirates knew they were there.
“Pidge, why didn’t you say something?” Hunk yelled as both he and Shiro gently put Lance and Keith down just around the corner, hopefully in a defensible enough position that they would be alright while the other three fought their way out.
“Wouldn’t have changed anything!” she shouted back, and one of the attacking party fell with a shock from her Bayard. “Finally!” she shouted, “they have some kind of armour that absorbs kinetic energy, look for the chinks!”
“Nicely done Pidge” Shiro praised as his hits now started to find their mark, and both she and Hunk stole a short moment to stare at him in shock. Ever since Keith and Lance had been taken, he hadn’t been one to say much. It was odd to hear him speak so freely.
Between the three of them, and Pidge’s keen observations, the battle was over quickly. The last Pirate fell, and without hesitation Pidge ran to ready Green. Hunk and Shiro raced back to where they’d left Keith and Lance, eager to get them home and safe and healing as soon as physically possible.
“Keith,” Hunk heard Lance muttering weakly, the combination of physical exertion and emotional turmoil clearly taking its toll as he and Keith lay in the dark hall of the ghostly space ship. He had one hand pressed around the Red Paladin’s middle, which was now covered in blood. The other was trying to hold Keith’s head steady as Lance’s own body shook with sobs. “Keith, Keith, no- why- Keith-“
In front of them was a dead guard. Keith was holding his Luxite Blade tight, and sporting a new blossom of red around his abdomen where he’d been hit. Hunk swore under his breath as he realized from Keith’s position on the floor, that he’d taken a hit to protect Lance.
Shiro’s eyes widened in terror as he came around the corner right behind Hunk, and he dropped to his knees, quickly gathering Keith in his arms. “You idiot.” He mumbled. “I didn’t give you your blade back so that you could go and get yourself killed. You stay with me, you hear? Stay.”
Hunk could see the tears in Shiro’s eyes, and felt wet tracks down his own cheeks as he gathered Lance in his own arms and ignored the Blue Paladin’s cry of protest when he no longer had physical contact with Keith as both he and Shiro sprinted to Green.
“Hurry Pidge! Go!” Hunk yelled as his feet touched the ramp.
Pidge gave a small worried gasp as they all fell messily to the floor of Green then nodded, her jaw set in determination and her eyes glistening with tears.
Keith groaned as Shiro applied pressure to his new wound, and the Black Paladin fumbled with Green’s first aid kit, various supplies landing everywhere as her frantically searched for something to stop the bleeding.
“ ’S not as bad as it looks,” Keith said, “promise-“ he lurched over to the side and coughed, blood tinging his lips and teeth pink as it dripped into a small puddle on the floor.
“You’re going to be fine.” Shiro told to him, his voice less certain than Hunk had ever heard. “We’re almost there, its gonna be alright Keith, it’s gonna be fine.”
Hunk was trying to wrap Lance’s leg with a clean bandage rather than the dirty torn up shirt that Lance had used in their prison. The wound had opened up again in their escape and Hunk was doing his best not to vomit at the sight of blood, and the smell the wound produced. Vomit wouldn’t help anything. Lance bit his lip hard enough to draw blood as he tried not to cry out, and Hunk apologized profusely as he pulled the gauze taught around Lance’s leg.
“You’re both going to be fine.” Shiro insisted, and looked over at Hunk with panic in his heart.
“Pidge;" he begged, "Hurry.”