Work Text:
Lance huffed in annoyance as he scrubbed at the outside of the healing pod. “This sucks.”
“You were the one complaining about being bored,” Pidge grumbled from another one. “I still have no idea how I got dragged into this.”
“Because you’re a good frieeeeenndddd? And Shiro ordered you out of the bridge.”
“It’s not like it’s my fault his super organized folders are a mess.”
“No, I suppose not.”
They scrubbed in silence for another minute. He finished the pod he was working on looked around the room to admire their handiwork.
Their handiwork consisted of precisely one and a quarter scrubbed pods out of eight. He sighed and leaned against the next one. “I still don’t understand why we’re stuck here and other people get to go off on a mission.”
Pidge had given up on scrubbing her pod and was now sitting on the floor, poking at her tablet. “Because we need supplies, the Golkans love Hunk, Shiro’s still on forced medical leave as much as he hates it, and everyone but Keith thinks the only way to learn how to deal with whatever weirdness he and Kuro accidentally did is more piloting?”
“It’s not like there’s even blood on it, why is Coran making us clean them?”
“Actually, I think that one does.”
Lance tripped over his own feet in his haste to move away from the pod. “What???”
Pidge snickered at where he had ended up on the floor. She turned a little more solem when she got up to poke at the pod. “Yeah, this is the one we shoved Keith into. That stain on the bottom is prooooooobably blood.”
The two stared at the dark stain spread across the floor of the pod, leaking onto the rim and out slightly onto the floor.
“Let’s go do something else! Like, make something that can clean that up for us so I never have to be reminded of that whole thing again.”
Pidge nodded slowly. “Make some…thing. Oh my god I know what we need.”
Keith rolled his shoulders and let Kuro settle himself down in the big hangar. He yawned, tired after a very long three quintants of diplomatic necessities and very glad to be back on the Castle.
The yawn pulled the fresh scar on his cheek and he paused. He was used to scars, he had enough of them, but this one…this one was different. It was the only one of the new ones he really remembered the circumstances it had occurred in, and he remembered with vivid clarity. Sometimes he considered the Navarea a curse, despite the fact that it was the only thing that had saved his life.
(He was told Lance had also contributed to that, after his body had given out from his injuries and the sheer amount of quintessence drain he and Kuro had pushed their combined self through. Keith had no idea how to thank him.)
Pidge waved at him from outside the Lion’s cockpit, bouncing up and down like a toddler on a sugar high. Curious about what the hell she wanted, he slipped out of the pilots chair. She met him halfway down the ramp. “Keith Keith Keith Keeeeeeeith give me your knife.”
“Keith, absolutely do not give her your blade!”
Keith blinked at Pidge, who was still bouncing expectantly in front of him, and at Shiro who was running in from the hallway. “Aren’t you not supposed to be running?”
“Emergencies require me to run.”
Keith raised an eyebrow. The Castle still seemed to be intact (given the rather large holes they hadn’t managed to patch yet) and Kuro and Scarlet both confirmed that everyone was still alive and nothing was on fire. “And can I ask what your current definition of emergency is?”
“Pidge, I brought the thing! Do you have the knife? Oh, hi Keith! Can we have your knife?”
Keith stood bewildered on the Black Lion’s ramp as Lance sauntered into the hangar behind Shiro, a black disk about the size of his hand in his arms. He placed his cargo at Pidge’s feet and poked a button in its back. It beeped, blinked, whirred, spun once, then made a happy little noise and trundled off to a grease spot by Kuro’s nose. “What?”
Allura and Hunk appeared from Azul and Sama. Hunk took one look at the thing and asked “Oh my god, is that a roomba?” at the same time Shiro pointed to the thing and said “That is my current definition of emergency.”
“Oh come on, Shiro, were just trying to have some fun!”
Shiro glared at her, and then informed the other three “I locked them out of the kitchen and the training room and confiscated their bayards because I’m not entirely sure Scarlet or Jade would prevent them from doing something incredibly stupid.”
Keith turned his gaze back to Pidge. “And what, exactly, incredibly stupid thing do you need my knife for?”
Pidge and Lance were wearing twin shit-eating grins. “Roomba deathmatch.”
“We figured you could fight it for your honor or some shit. You know, ‘cause it has your knife.”
Keith sighed, head in his hands. What did he do to deserve these people.
Keith walked back into the hangar a few minutes later with the intention of grabbing some more supply crates.
“Lance, give me my bayard back right now!”
“No can do, Princess! You’re gonna have to fight Stabby!”
He turned on his heel and walked right back out.
Stabby the Space Roomba was actually capable of cleaning things, which was the only reason Keith hadn’t immediately scrapped the thing when it first came trundling up to him. That, and Coran had started treating it like a dog.
And yet it didn’t surprise him when the robot cut across his path to the training room a few days later, a tiny probably-plastic (he hoped it was plastic) knife taped to its top. It paused, then turned around so the pointy end of the knife was facing him. Stabby made an angry sounding beep, like it was challenging him to a duel.
“Pidge.”
She was grinning at him from down the hall. “Go on, give it what it wants!”
“No,” he deadpanned.
Stabby made another beeping noise and started trundling at a respectable speed towards his legs. Mostly on reflex he grabbed his blade, extended it, and cut neatly through the poor robot’s plastic knife. It stopped and made a surprised shriek before whirring back to its master. “Noooooo! Keith! Poor Stabby, don’t worry, I’ll make Hunk get you a new one.”
Keith ignored her overdramatics and continued on his way to the training room.
Incidents like that continued over the next few quintants. Usually Pidge was right behind the robot, goading them into some sort of “final showdown for our resident stabby Paladin’s honor as King of Stabbiness—or, uh, Marbakal of Stabbiness? Am I allowed to jokingly call you that or does that violate some weird Galran thing?”
So when Stabby showed up where he was sitting on the observation deck in the middle of the night, sans Pidge, Keith wasn’t quite sure what to think. He stared at the robot as it trundled in, cooing to itself every time it picked up something larger than a dust particle. It beeped in surprise when it noticed him, doing a little backwards roll before making its way over.
Keith sighed. “I’m not fighting you right now.”
It made another beep and Keith looked down at it to discover the usual plastic knife was pointedly facing away from him. Stabby seemed to be asking for a truce. He smiled and patted the robots top. “Truce it is.” Stabby beeped happily and did a little dance. It settled back down next to him, seemingly facing out at the stars like he was.
They sat in silence until a questioning beep filled the room. Keith blinked down at the robot. Was it….asking him why he was up here? “Nightmare. Can never sleep after that one. I know it’s barely been two movements but….it sucks. This sucks. My head is constantly full of Kuro thinking and he can’t figure out what the hell we did to cause this and I can’t talk to my brother because every time we’re alone in a room now the terrified part of my brain starts screaming and I have to concentrate on telling it to shut the hell up and he doesn’t deserve that because it wasn’t him and I told Sasa I was fine and she could go back to the Blade base with Kasa but I’m really really not okay and I don’t know what to do and I just want everything to be back to normal.”
Stabby made a mournful sound and butted up against his leg in an attempt at comfort. Keith sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I’m just so tired of my brain fighting me every time I try and satisfy a basic human need. Which is ironic. Because I am beyond tired.” There was silence for a moment. Keith pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes in an attempt to….something, he didn’t know at this point.
Stabby beeped, and Keith looked at the robot again. It beeped, distinctly determined sounding, and whirred around him in what looked a lot like a patrol circle, plastic knife held out.
He raised an amused eyebrow. “Are you….protecting me?”
Stabby beeped triumphantly, and then bumped into the wall. Keith laughed. “Alright, little guy, you can be my faithful knight for the night.”
Pidge found Keith slumped against the control console of the observation deck the next morning, head pillowed on Stabby, fast asleep. The robot hissed at her and she backed out of the room slowly.
Sometimes she questioned just how much sentience she managed to give her creations.