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Alarms were blaring in the loading bay as metal creaked and smoke erupted from pipes and strained engines. Fighters boomed and whizzed outside the Rebel command ship, more streaming out of the bays every second.
Striding down a hallway, Matt’s helmet was tucked under an arm, and he was buckling and rechecking his blaster on his thigh, checking his daggers, the solid weight of the metal stave at his back a now familiar comfort, along with the dusty green cloak that fell around his shoulders, warding off the permanent chill of space. He felt his mind start checking off boxes, shutting down non essential components, readying for battle.
When Shiro had taken his place in the arena, he had been a scientist; little more than a space tourist, really. Now, two years and about half a dozen prison breaks later, he was a member of a rebel group fighting against the Galra empire, undermining it, slowing it’s rampage of every starsystem imaginable in every way they could.
Rechecking his gauntlets, he fails to pick out her footsteps in the rush of people on the ship, and before he notices her, her hand is on his forearm, and she's effortlessly yanked him into an alcove, fury radiating off her in waves that make Matt swallow.
“How dare you.” She hisses, her low, accented voice muffled through her helmet. She taps the side impatiently, and it folds back into the collar of her suit. Her feathers burst free, glimmering purple and blue plumage in place of hair standing fluffed out in mark to her anger.
“Travka-” he starts,
“Don’t you ‘Travka’ me!” she hisses, shoving his shoulder back into the wall, baring her pointed canines at him. He swallows. He’s never seen her in such a rage before. “This is a suicide mission.”
He swallows. “I have my orders, Travka.” he says gently, reaching out to her, a hand going to her hip, just above her blaster holster.
“Say no.” she says, growling like a mountain cat- he hadn’t known she could do that either- “Tell them to send someone else. Tell them-” her voice is ragged, almost hoarse.
He buries his other hand in the plumage at the back of her head, pulling her against him, pressing his lips against her forehead.
“I’m sorry.” he says against her delicately blue skin. “I’m sorry we didn’t get more time together, Travka.” The ship rocks, right on cue with Matt’s heart wrenching so painfully he wondered if he’d die here and not at the helm of the medi supply cruiser he was about to crash through half a fleet of Galra fighters down to the planet below them.
“I will go instead.” she says, desperately into his chest plate, nevermind that she had never flown anything in her life.
“You know that’s not how it works, love.” he gets out, fighting around the lump in his throat.
A ragged noise, exhale and sob, at his favorite pet name for her. Matt pulls back, looks into yellow eyes hazy with fear and an anguish that mirrored his own.
A month.
He’d gotten a month to love her. Nearly a year to know her and bicker with her, to wriggle laughter out of her. His crabby diplomat.
The ship listed in space again, and he knows he has to leave. Now. If he wants to give the civilizations on the planet below them a shot.
“I will find you.” he breathes, “I will find you in the next life and boombox Careless Whisper outside your window-”
“You know I don’t understand your Earth movie references!” she’s saying, in tears fully now. The ship takes another hit, and he kisses her, one last time, and is running down the strip to the medical supplies cruizer before he falls apart completely.
…
Hurtling through the battlefield around the planet, Matt used every trick he knew to avoid debris and the attention of the fighters or Galra war ships. Maybe he would live, he thought to himself, over and over. If he could get the shuttle through the upper atmosphere intact he’d be fine, he just had an entire fleet of enemy combatants in his way; and the possibility of burning up in the atmosphere of this planet like a small comet to contend with. He took a deep breath, whizzed past burning wreckage of Galra ships and rebel alike, and increased his speed. Every second he was in space made it more likely a Galra ship would shoot him out of the sky.
He thought of Travka. Of his sister. His parents.
Screens caught movement to his right. One of the massive ion cannons on the nearest was slowly rotating, setting its sights away from the main rebel ship… and onto him.
Certainty of death dropped through him like a stone in water. This medi cruiser had no shields to speak of that could contend with that. He jams the throttle down, getting out of range his only hope now. His only hope for seeing Travka and Pidge again lays in this outdated rusty hunk of metal outpacing a Galra death ray. He pours power into the thrusters, muttering, ‘c’mon, c’mon’ frantically as the ship gathers more speed, the gravity of the planet adding to it’s awful velocity.
It’s not fast enough- it’s not going to be fast enough.
He watches that awful ball form, purple energy gathering in the center of the canon. He closes his eyes. Picturing Travka, smiling over at him from across the bed they’d shared. That morning. It could have been years ago.
Darkness sweeps across the medi cruisers sensors, and he hears an explosion, but seconds later, his heart is still hammering in his ribcage. And then he and his huge hunk of junk are out of range. What the hell..? He looks behind him, at the wreckage of the second Galra cruiser who had emerged from hyper space at exactly the wrong spot.
Its shattered wreckage floats amongst most of the rest of the Galra fleet, the two big ships left functioning had taken heavy damage, and those who could were making hyperspace jumps out of the star quadrant.
Sheer, dumb, stupid luck. A heady grin spreads over his face, and he pulls back the speed of the cruizer, slowing it down enough to make it through the atmosphere without ripping apart. He bursts through and into clear skies, setting down on the agreed landing spot.
On worlders and Blade members and rebels are waiting to unload, so he lowers the bay doors, but doesn’t leave the cockpit immediately.
Rummaging through the electronic coms system, he has communications up to the main ship up in less than five minutes, and more supply ships coming down after him, now that the Galra had fled.
With no way to contact her directly, Matt leaves the ship, settling in to wait for word to reach her that he was still alive. Perched on and enjoying the still hot-from-atmospheric-reentry roof of the ship, he watched the rebel ship loom closer to the planet out of space, pods raining down from it carrying passengers, one, specifically. He hoped.
She was on the first shuttle down, wrenching open the door and hurtling out of it before it even fully touched down, somersaulting with inhuman grace onto the tarmac and screaming his name overtop of the jets, bolting for him when she saw his shape outlined against the light.
He’s standing, and jumping up and down on the roof of the cargo ship, whooping and laughing as he watches her sprint for him.
She’s on him in a few moments, leaping up the ship faster than he’d ever seen anything move, and she slams into him. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, and he's thrown back, staggering with the impact and laughing as he cried, holding onto her as he fell into a sitting position and buried his face into the crook of her neck and shoulder. He inhaled her airy honeysuckle scent, breathing her in, feeling her weight against him.
And then she was cupping his face and murmuring in her purring home language, and he was kissing away the tears on her face and catching words like “precious” and “terrified” and he got one whole sentence, “I’ll kill you myself if we ever have to go through that again.” before she was on to more advanced things than he’d picked up.
He stroked her back and smoothed her feathers until she growled herself out and took to kissing up his neck instead before he suggested they find somewhere a little softer than the roof of the ship he’d just almost died on, and she bites his earlobe, hands tipped in pointed claws digging into his cloak. Chuckling darkly, he sweeps her up and into his arms, her birdlike bones rendering her much lighter than her strength suggested.
“I’ll get you for that.” he teases, and her eyes hone in on his face in a near predatory way, feathers rustling. He feels himself redden at the intensity in her gaze, and realizes he wants to find a room with a lock. Quickly.
Her smile curves, and it makes him happy he’s alive all over again.