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“Are you sure? It really is no hardship for one of us to stay with you if-”
“Allura.” Shiro stressed. “Go on the mission. I’ll be fine.”
The princess of Altea did not look convinced. Shiro supposed that was fair enough - it had been two days since his operation and the seizure that followed it, and he did have something of a history of saying he was fine when he really wasn’t. Still, he was telling the truth this time. Since replacing the new arm’s power core with the crystal from Allura’s crown, he had experienced no further troubles with it. And the Garrison medics didn’t look too concerned when they periodically came in to check his vitals, which he took as a good sign. He felt about as well as one could following a surgery - in fact, the only thing bothering him was how useless he felt lying here when other people were out there fighting.
“-but what if your arm glitches out again?” Hunk was saying. “It could do that, right? Yeah, maybe someone Altean should stay with you.”
“I don’t even fly a Lion!” Coran added helpfully.
Shiro sighed. “Our numbers are small enough already. I am no reason to reduce them further.”
Today’s mission was a supply run to Olkarion. The Olkari - long-standing allies of the Voltron Coalition and one of a dwindling number still resisting the Galra all these years later - had been more than eager to reconnect with Voltron when they learned of the timeskip. The mission was simple: a collection of parts - primarily crystals for the Garrison’s new ships - to give Earth the best chance possible in their counterattack. The tricky part would be getting in and out of Earth’s atmosphere without Sendak’s fleet noticing. They only had one vessel that stood a chance at sneaking by, and that vessel was Voltron.
Shiro looked between the members of his team. In their eyes he still saw a group of cadets thrown together by circumstance seated around the battered coffee table in Keith’s desert shack. He saw the lounge in the Castle of Lions, multi-coloured uniforms and overly dramatic retellings of missions over dinners of food goo. He saw warriors, friends so tight-knit they were family, and after all they’d been through, he couldn’t be more proud that they still stood tall.
“Go,” he said again. “They need you.”
And at last, Allura’s eyes softened. If he had her convinced, he knew the others would be soon to follow. “Promise me that you will take care of yourself?”
“I promise.”
Pidge pushed her way to the front of the group and pressed a plastic rectangular object into his left hand. A walkie-talkie of sorts, with a single grey button. “If you need us,” she said, “this’ll connect you straight into the Voltron communication system.”
“That won’t be necessary-”
She raised her voice over his to cut him off. “If we come back from Olkarion to find that you died because of your stupid stubbornness-” A bony finger prodded his chest. “-then I will resurrect you myself just to kill you again.”
He rolled his eyes good-naturedly, but closed his hand around the walkie-talkie all the same. “Noted. If dying, press the button.”
That seemed to appease her. The others went about their goodbyes, hugging him and promising to be back soon. Finally the door clicked closed, and Shiro sank into his mountain of pillows, a breathy laugh escaping from his mouth. He understood where they were coming from, but they really didn’t need to worry so much. He was in the medical wing, for goodness sake. If he needed help - which he wouldn’t - then all he had to do was yell loudly enough and someone would come running.
Much as he loved his team - he would die for them; he had died for them - Shiro was looking forward to a day or two alone. Even before their return to Earth, living in such close quarters while roadtripping through space had made it impossible to get away when he’d wanted to. And before that he’d been dead, which hadn’t been as relaxing as one might hope.
Then they’d reached Earth and life had become a frantic mass of meetings, swapping intelligence on the Galra for the last few years of Earth history. His downtime had been minimal, and even then he found himself a centre of attention. A legend. He’d lost track of how many times he’d told his story. The officials probed at his mind for Galra battle tactics and he’d wrung it dry remembering all he could. The cadets - the fighters - asked eagerly for stories of distant planets, of the worlds they hoped to see when this war was over.
Those stories were his favourite to tell. He loved how their eyes shone as he spoke, blazing with the passion that made them join the Galaxy Garrison in the first place. It was so much better than the apprehension in their voices when they asked him what it felt like to die.
The room was quiet. Not quiet like some of the seminars he’d given lately, nor quiet like the communications channel while drifting through deep space. This was a quiet free from tension, where the only sounds were the soft hum of the electric light overhead and the rhythmic clickings of the ventilation system. It would be an exaggeration to say such mundane noises allowed him to forget the chaos his life had become, but they did provide a temporary sort of distance. Like this room existed outside the flow of time, and so long as he remained inside, he was safe.
His body ached dimly. With every inhale he felt the strange rise-and-fall of the new port moving alongside his muscles. Whatever material this thing was made of, it was much lighter than Galra metal; his body was yet to catch on to the fact that he had none of his natural limb left at all, and subconsciously he still braced for the pain of dislodging the beat-up old port before each breath.
His shoulder muscles hadn’t felt so loose in years. According to the medics, supporting his heavy old Galra arm for so long had done copious amounts of damage to his right shoulder, leaving it a mess of knotted muscle and trapped nerves. Carrying the port had probably been even worse, as whatever mechanisms allowed the Galra arm to compensate for its own weight had either been lost or damaged beyond repair during this body’s fight with Keith. Regardless of what caused the damage, much of the tissue had been removed when installing his new prosthetic, and the medics assured him that the rehabilitation process for this new arm would be far better than for the old one, so he shouldn’t have to deal with the same problem again.
Gingerly, he traced a finger over the seam where flesh met metal. The skin was still tender and he hissed in pain when he accidently pressed too hard. Though currently red and inflamed, this new arm should heal neater than the old one had. It had been carefully integrated into his nervous system by people who both understood the human body and wished him no harm; the old one had been fused to an unhealed stump while he was still (if scarcely) conscious. He could still smell his own flesh burning, dark magic mingling with the black corners of his vision as he slipped from consciousness-
No, don’t go there. He quickly diverted his train of thought away from that particular memory, away from the claws that threatened to tear the present moment from him. Describing things in as much detail as possible often helped anchor him so he distracted himself with the metal casing. It was smooth; new and thus unscratched. Strangely warm for something made of metal. It ended with a semi-circular indent covered by hardened mesh, kind of like a loudspeaker.
His fingernail caught the edge of a button located on the underside of the port. Shortly after he had first woken up, a couple Garrison technicians had walked him through a series of tests to make sure everything worked as intended. This little button, the only real feature of the port, was his new prosthetic’s on/off switch.
While he would begrudgingly admit that his old arm had been very good at accessing Galra systems and breaking their sentries, he hated how it served as a constant reminder of all they’d done to him. He couldn’t get away from it, not even at the end of a long day when all he wanted was for the damn thing to stop hurting so he could think about something other than the Galra for a few hours.
At its worst, it had filled him with a strange kind of claustrophobia. Even before learning about his clone, Shiro feared that the arm could somehow be used against him. Hazy prison memories of an override command - of being forced to finish arena fights against his own will - nudged at the back of his mind. Sometimes, he would claw at it in his sleep until the pain woke him up, panicking because he couldn’t break free from his own body.
But this new arm was optional. He had chosen to have it installed, and while the port was permanently affixed to his body, the arm itself could be distanced from him if he so desired. For that feature, he wanted to hug Allura and never let go.
He held the button down. One, two, three, four, five… The port thrummed to life, emanating a soft blue glow. Across the room, the lower part of his arm lifted free from the shelf it lay on, its meshy end thrumming in unison as an invisible link formed between it and the port. He focused on the sensations of his left arm and mentally duplicated them where his right should be. As if the connection between flesh and metal were seamless.
He tried to close his right fist.
Across the room, metal fingers twitched.
It would take practice, he knew that, but this small success alone was gasoline to his smoldering hope. The new arm worked. It worked , and when he returned to the field he would fight better than ever before. And it was so much more than just the fighting - his entire life would be easier now that he had two hands again. No more putting things down to open doors, no more struggling with the buttons on the Garrison uniform, no more half-guilty half-sad glances when Keith caught him struggling to do things one-handed…
He could be so much more useful now. More efficient. Less frustrated.
Go , urged a voice at the back of his mind. You said it yourself - the Garrison are low in numbers. There must be something you can do to help.
He was awake, and his arm was clearly working. He had no excuse to lounge around when a million things needed to be done.
And then he paused with one leg dangling over the side of the bed. No, he had been prescribed five days’ rest minimum (he’d already talked them down from a full week), and he was going to make the most of it. Partially because he knew this could well be the last chance he got to relax prior to the battle for Earth, and partially, though he would never admit it, because he knew the others would find out if he left the medical wing, and he really didn’t want another lecture on Taking Care Of Yourself So That When You’re Replaced By A Clone Who Constantly Complains About A Headache, People Don’t Just Assume That’s A Normal Shiro Thing Until It’s Too Late.
Slowly, he drew his leg back under the duvet and settled down. It was foreign to his brain, so used to seizing any shred of free time and finding use for it, be it training or planning or ensuring the other paladins were okay. Anything but rest and render himself useless; vulnerable.
But for now, he would make the most of this room and its strange illusion of a world on pause. He didn’t have to do anything but rest. No responsibilities, no shots to call… just himself and the tablet beside his bed loaded with films the others thought he might enjoy.
And if taking a moment alone could be considered a little selfish? Maybe, just this once, that was no bad thing.