Chapter Text
"What do you mean Akira's gone?"
"I mean..." Matt trailed off, then made his way over to the table where Shiro had been eating breakfast. "We don't know what happened. Everything seemed to be going fine--all the readings look normal--Pidge was monitoring the whole process and everything. We just... lost the signal."
Shiro stared at Matt, then down at his toast, his stomach rebelling at the thought of forcing down any more. He'd woken on edge, every nerve on alert for danger. He'd figured it was just because Matt had never made it to bed last night, and Shiro wasn't used to sleeping alone. He'd go down after breakfast and pry Matt away from whatever project had made him forget the time.
Except he hadn't imagined the project in question would involve experimental teleportation getting his brother stranded god knew where, alone and without a way to contact the rest of the team.
"Shiro?" Matt's voice was small, and it snapped Shiro out of the terror-fueled haze that had stolen over his thoughts. He looked down, surprised in a vague sort of way to see that he'd dented the edge of the table with the force of his prosthetic's grip. Matt reached out, cautiously trailing his fingers across Shiro's forearm. "We're going to find him."
Shiro clenched his jaw, refusing to say anything until he remembered how to breathe. He wasn't sure if what came out would be terror or rage, but either way, Matt didn't deserve to have it flung in his face.
Akira was gone.
The enormity of that simple truth tore through Shiro's chest like a hurricane, ripping out pieces of him without regard for the damage it wrought. A vice had closed around his lungs, making breathing difficult, and Shiro couldn't keep his hands from shaking.
"Show me," he said.
Matt didn't put up a fight, just led Shiro down to the Green Lion's hangar, where Pidge, Hunk, and Ryner were already absorbed with something on Pidge's laptop screen. All three of them looked up when Shiro and Matt entered, and Pidge immediately stiffened. They had gone pale, their face scrunching up in the instant before they whirled around, curling in on themself as they returned their attention to their computer.
Hunk went on staring a moment longer, blinking furiously and opening his mouth every few seconds like he was trying to find something to say.
Shiro should reassure them.
Matt had given him enough of an explanation to make it clear that all three of them had been behind the experiment, but they hadn't meant any harm. It was just an accident, and Shiro knew that if Akira was here, he'd be tripping over himself to reassure them that it wasn't their fault.
Shiro couldn't make himself say the words. His brother was gone. Lost, injured, dead, captured by the Galra--
The vice around Shiro's chest squeezed tighter, and he could barely hear what Matt was saying as he pictured, in sudden, vivid detail, Akira coming face-to-face with one of Zarkon's princes. He wouldn't go down without a fight, but without backup, without transportation, without even a weapon, Akira wouldn't last. And then--
"We have to find him," Shiro whispered, and his voice sounded like he'd just run a marathon.
"We will," Matt promised. "None of us is going to give up until we have him back."
Be fast, Shiro wanted to say. We need to find him before anyone else does.
He lingered in Green's hangar for a time, but there was nothing for him to do there. Nothing that wouldn't just slow the others down. So he left, extracting a promise from Matt and Ryner both to call him the second they found anything, then headed down to the training deck to work out his frustrations. He set the simulator to level nine and sank into the rhythm of battle.
At this level of difficulty, there was no time for distractions. It took all of his focus just to stay on top of his enemies--three of them, all armed with swords. A longsword or a spear might have been more use in this duel, or better yet a pistol or other ranged weapon, but Shiro wanted the rush of close combat. He extended his daggers from their wrist-mounted sheathes and charged in, yielding to battle instinct.
He was pure motion, spinning from one target to the next, diverting their attacks and using their momentum against them. He didn't slow, even when swords cleaved into his armor and tore gaping holes in the thin bodysuit underneath.
When his opponents fell, he called for more, and he took them down with the same mindless ferocity.
An hour in, his strength was flagging. He'd had to drop the difficulty to level eight, and even that was pushing his limits, but each time an enemy fell he only saw Akira, alone and bleeding, fed into the same Arena that had consumed Shiro, or strapped to a table and cut open while Haggar looked on.
Akira was fine. He had to be.
Shiro clung to that hope. Wherever Akira had ended up, the Empire was no more likely to find him than anyone else. He might be alone, he might have found friends. Even if danger found him, he might at least have time to hide, to prepare a defense.
But hopes and probabilities weren't enough to sustain Shiro, and so he threw himself against another wave of gladiator bots. His body protested, a hundred little cuts and bruises compounding beneath his armor. Legs shaking, arms screaming with every blow he blocked, he fought on. He knew he was being stupid, that he was only wearing himself down, and if Akira needed him, he was screwing himself over.
He didn't care. Akira was in danger, and Shiro couldn't do anything to help. If he had to punish himself to keep from falling apart, so be it.
There were always the cryopods.
The intercom on the wall buzzed, and Shiro reversed at once, dodging one last strike from a gladiator as he called an end to the training sequence. "I'm here," he said, breathing hard. "You found him?"
"...No." Matt hesitated. "Are you busy, though? Can you come down to Green's hangar?"
Shiro glanced over his shoulder at the gladiator bot, wincing as doing so aggravated his aching muscles. "I'll be right down."
"He's not dead."
Matt spoke the second Shiro walked through the doors, before Hunk or Pidge even noticed his arrival.
Shiro's steps dragged, time slowing as he searched Matt's face for signs of a lie.
"I thought you said you hadn't found him yet."
Matt hesitated. "We're... still looking. But he's not dead. Red is sure of it."
Shiro glanced toward Hunk, who looked just as sick to his stomach as he had last night, and Pidge, who only hunched their shoulders and glared even more intently at their computer screen. On the pile of beanbags against the wall, Keith and Lance were settled in, Lance apparently trying to get Keith to relax, and having little success.
Shiro turned back to Matt. "I thought Red couldn't sense him."
"Well..."
"She can't," Keith said. "But she keeps insisting that she'd know if he was dead."
Pidge's shoulders hitched higher, the frantic clatter of their keys faltering for a long moment before they picked it up again.
Mouth bone dry, Shiro wrenched his gaze away from Pidge and stared instead at Matt. "Is that all you called me here for?"
Matt's expression fractured, and guilt tore through Shiro's chest, but before he could apologize, Matt was shaking his head. "No--fuck, sorry. You're right. Allura said you'd been on the training deck for hours. She was getting worried. I thought a little bit of good news might help you..." He trailed off, gesturing vaguely at Shiro's battered state.
He looked horrible, he knew. Beaten all to hell and seconds from collapsing. He appreciated that Matt was trying to help, and in another situation his words might even have been a comfort, but right now Shiro couldn't bring himself to be optimistic.
It was his brother out there, and Shiro would have gladly thrown himself back into the Arena if it meant keeping Akira safe.
With a sigh, Lance picked himself up, squeezing Keith's hand before he slithered off the pile of bean bags and stalked over to Shiro and Matt. "Allura's right to worry," he said, crossing his arms. "You look terrible, and all of you could use some sleep." He glared at the back of Pidge's head in particular, then clapped his hands. "Hunk, Pidge. Go take a nap. Matt, maybe you can get Keith to talk about this instead of spiraling. If not, sleep for you two, too. Shiro." He turned, and Shiro bristled, ready for a fight.
But Lance's expression softened, and he laid a hand on Shiro's shoulder. "Let's go get you cleaned up."
They headed to the med bay, and even though Shiro caught on quickly, Lance wouldn't let him duck out of it. Protests that he was fine were met with a hard stare, unimpressed, that left Shiro feeling like his mother had just found him playing in the mud and was unamused by his insistence that he didn't need a bath.
"You're hurt," Lance said, more serious than Shiro had ever heard him outside of battle. "You're not doing anyone any good in this state. Spend an hour in a pod, let it clear your head. Then we'll find some way for you to help."
Shiro laughed. "We're dealing with something beyond the scope of theoretical physics, Lance. There's nothing I can do to help."
Lance rolled his eyes. "You think the others don't need someone to drag them away for food every now and then? You think you can't grab stuff for them, or be someone for them to bounce ideas off, or help Coran keep the ship running while he tries to help out with this as much as possible?"
"I--"
"If this was anyone else in this state, you'd be saying exactly the same thing," Lance said, his lip quirking upward. "Don't even lie."
Lance's words left Shiro speechless, and he flushed, meekly accepting the medsuit Lance handed him and going to change. Lance was right, of course--just as he was right about the cryopod. Once Shiro looked at himself without the armor, he had to admit he'd overdone it. More than just that.
"Thank you, Lance," Shiro said haltingly as he came out of the changing area. "I guess I'm not thinking straight."
Lance pulled him into a hug. "He's your brother. Of course you're not thinking straight. That's why you've got me to be your common sense. So come on. I'll have a list from Coran by the time you get out."
Shiro followed without a word, even though a part of him still felt like putting himself under, no matter how necessary, was selfish. He didn't deserve to rest until Akira was home.
(Fortunately, it was hard to keep up those thoughts once the pod began its cycle, and Shiro slid rapidly into a much-needed rest.)
Shiro wasn't alone when he woke up, which was probably for the best. Even before he'd regained his balance, he felt a familiar, frantic energy welling up inside him. Akira. He had to find Akira.
It wasn't Lance who was there waiting, though, catching his arm as he tried to sprint out the door.
"Slow down," Karen Holt ordered, steering him away from the door and toward the adjacent med bay, where Matt and Pidge were already waiting, Matt collapsed in on himself on an exam table, Pidge prowling the edges of the room like a caged tiger looking for an escape route. "Sit."
Shiro stared at Karen for a moment, dumbfounded, but the quirk of her eyebrow dared him to argue, and he decided he was better off listening to her advice, for now. He sat beside Matt, who offered him a water pouch and a weak smile.
"Thanks," Shiro said. "Is everything okay?"
"Mandatory down-time," Pidge said, pulling open drawers and cabinets at random to examine their stock. "When Lance got back and realized we hadn't listened to his nap demands, he dragged Hunk down to the kitchen to help with dinner, and Mom roped us into..." They waved a hand vaguely at the med bay. "Whatever this is."
"Group therapy?" Matt suggested wryly, and Shiro reached down to take his hand. There was strain around his eyes Shiro hadn't noticed earlier. Strain, and an underlying guilt that pulled his face taut. Shiro had been so caught up in his own panic nothing else sank in.
"This isn't your fault," Shiro said, and the way both Matt and Pidge stiffened at his words, spines straightening like he'd just delivered an electric shock, said he'd guessed right. Karen smiled at Shiro, who intertwined his fingers with Matt's and squeezed, waiting until Matt looked up at him before pulling him into a hug. "I'm serious. Don't beat yourself up over this."
"I won't if you won't," Matt shot back, which was a cheap shot, but infuriatingly fair all at once. One of them had just come out of a cryopod, after all, and it wasn't the one Shiro was giving a pep talk.
Karen sighed, balling a spare blanket up around her arms as she took a seat on the end of the exam table. She glanced at Pidge, and Shiro could practically see her debating whether or not it was worth a fight to get them to stop wandering and join the others on the exam tables.
"I know this is hard for you," she said at length, staring at her lap. "I know you all want to work yourselves to exhaustion just in case it brings him back a single second sooner. I know you don't want to leave the hanger, just in case something changes while you aren't looking."
A jar full of plastic sticks that reminded Shiro of tongue depressors clattered to the ground, its contents spilling everywhere. Pidge seemed not to notice the noise or the mess; they were staring at Karen with wide, hurt eyes. After a moment, they noticed Shiro staring and flushed, hastily collecting the scattered sticks and dumping them all on the countertop beside the half-empty jar. Then they hunched their shoulders and slunk over to the table, hopping up to sit beside Shiro.
Shiro frowned at them, then at Matt, who was wholly focused on Karen. "What...?"
She looked up, forcing a smile. "After I got the call saying there had been a disruption in the Persephone's signal, it was three days before they officially announced your deaths. Three days of sitting by the phone, waiting for a call that never came. Three days of calling everyone I could think to call in hopes that someone would have more information. So, I understand. I understand how hard it is to not know."
Shiro stared at her, his heart sinking. He hadn't thought much about the aftermath of the Kerberos disaster from the point of view of the people back on Earth. He knew Akira had been told they'd all died. He knew there had been a coverup.
He'd never stopped to imagine what it must have been like when the news first broke.
"Mom," Matt said, his voice brittle. He reached out for Karen, who gave a teary smile and leaned into him. Shiro turned the other way, to where Pidge sat with their arms wrapped around their legs, glaring at the far wall. They stiffened when Shiro placed a hand on their back, then glanced his way, tears welling in their eyes.
Cursing, they turned away again almost instantly and wiped their eyes on their sleeve. "Akira got me through a lot of that," they said. "Not the very start. I didn't meet him til the memorial. But everything that came after. We both knew the Garrison was up to some shady shit, and we talked about it. A lot. He thought you'd been stranded on Kerberos, and he kept saying you'd Mark Watney your way out of whatever had happened until the Garrison could mount a rescue mission."
"That does sound like something he'd say." Shiro slid his arm around Pidge's shoulders, pulling them into a one-armed hug, and they didn't fight it.
Pidge sniffled once, squeezing Shiro around the middle. "No offense to you guys or Mark Watney? But none of you have anything on Akira." They craned their head back, grinning through their tears. "Wherever he is, he's probably doing something weird, stupid, and more than a little dangerous, and it's going to keep him alive until we find him and bring him home."
It was little more than a fantasy, the idea of Akira pulling one reckless stunt after another, but it was comforting--even if it was obvious to everyone in the room that Pidge didn't believe their own words. Not entirely. With a sad smile, Shiro reached up to ruffle Pidge's hair. "You're right," he said. "Maybe we should eat potatoes until he gets home. Out of solidarity."
They stared at him for a brief moment, one hand going to protect their hair. Then they burst out laughing--helpless little giggles, interspersed with sniffles. Matt squeezed his hand, offering a smile when Shiro turned his way.
"We're going to get him back," Matt said. "I swear we will."
Shiro shut his eyes and tried to believe it.
We'll find you, Akira, he thought. We're not going to give up until you're home.