AN: Hey, everyone! So recently I posted on Tumblr (dadboyshiro) about this ridiculous Shiro/Pidge cop au, and it got quite a few reactions that it seemed I should turn it into a full-blown fic. I've never written action/comedy before, so I really hope this turns out alright! I'm cross-posting this on AO3 (Costellos) as well for anyone who'd rather read it there; personally, I like it much better than FF. Anyway, sorry for wasting your time with my ramblings, but your thoughts and criticisms would be super appreciated. Thanks, and enjoy! :)

On a hot, muggy night under cover of darkness, Katie "Pidge" Holt sat cross-legged on the ground of a dimly lit back alleyway, hunched over her laptop outside of the back entrance to 54th National Bank.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Uh, a little help here, Pidge!"

"I'm trying!" Pidge shouted, tapping away measuredly as she tried to troubleshoot the remote viewing program that for some reason was giving her a blank feed. Lance, who was supposed to be the eyes of the operation, continued to panic in her ear. "Are you sure you turned the glasses on?" she asked.

"Yes, Pidge, I'm not an idiot! Plus that little light thingy is totally flashing like crazy."

"The red one? That's not supposed to do that," their lookout, Hunk, chimed in from two streets over.

"Well that's what it's doing!" The beeping on Lance's end was steady and slow, but it still served as an unnerving reminder that they didn't have time to dawdle around. "Seriously, guys, we've got about fifty seconds before this thing goes off, and as much as this beats working at Dairy Queen—"

"Do we at least have any sort of visual yet?" Hunk asked.

"Unless I can suddenly see inside Lance's head? Then no." She smashed a few more keys over Lance's defensive complaining, but it was in vain; her screen was still pitch black. "Guys, I think the camera might be broken."

Hunk groaned. "Oh, no. This is bad."

"Relax, big guy! It's not like we've never disabled an alarm without being able to see it before," Lance said a little too loudly, making everyone else's earpiece buzz.

"Okay, yeah, sure, but those weren't bank alarms."

"Hm. Fair point."

"Alright, we're just gonna have to do this old school," Pidge said, closing out of the program and cracking her knuckles. "Hunk, you circle the block a few more times, then park over at that gas station down the street. Stop at a pump, but don't get out."

"On it."

"Lance, can you describe to me what you see?"

"Weird, but whatever. Tile floor, sort of off-gray walls… I think that's a—"

"The alarm, Lance!"

Blindly talking him through it was a lesson in patience, but temporarily disabling the alarm was easy enough, having been somewhat old and outdated, almost a complete replica of the ones that she and Hunk took apart and reverse engineered back in their training days; the temporary proxy passcode chip that Pidge had equipped Lance with helped, too. But the door to the bank vault quickly ate up their borrowed time.

"Lance, what the hell are you doing!" Pidge shouted. The six minutes that the chip had bought them had run out, and the alarm was blaring so loud that she could feel the high-pitched ringing reverberating down her spine through the brick wall.

Lance scoffed. "Well sorry for never having cracked open a bajillion pound bank vault door before. Not all of us are as privileged to go to Super Spy Academy like you."

"I thought you said that you practiced!"

"I did! On cash safes!"

"You mean those little twenty-dollar things you can buy at Wal-Mart?"

"Oh, jeez. Oh, man. This is worse than bad." Hunk fretted. "Lance is gonna go to prison, Pidge and I are gonna lose our jobs, I'll never be able to qualify for that mortgage loan Shay and I've been saving up for—"

"Hey, why am I the only one going to prison!"

"Would the two of you just shut up already!" Pidge massaged her temples and breathed. "Hunk, nothing's going to happen, alright? We're gonna be fine. Lance, just—focus on getting the vault open, okay?"

For two whole minutes there was nothing but uneasy silence, peppered with Lance's frustrated grunts and metallic clicking. Then there was a heavy clang. Lance promptly erupted into self-appraising cheers.

"Uh, guys? Not that it isn't totally cool that Lance just successfully committed, like, at least three different felonies, but you might wanna get outta there," Hunk said. "Cops are on their way, coming from Main and Jefferson."

Pidge checked the time. "Lance, hurry up and find Morvok's box. Should be #1984."

"Don't you worry your pretty little head, my Pidgerino. I'll be in and out in a—"

Bip!

"Whoops."

Pidge's heart stopped. "'Whoops'?"

A second alarm sounded, this one a low, bloodcurdling wail, akin to what one might imagine it would sound like if the seventh seal were to be broken and all hell let loose. Police sirens could be heard in the far distance.

"Lance, what did you do!"

"I didn't know there'd be motion detectors!"

Hunk panicked. "Guys, the police—!"

"Yes, Hunk, we can hear them," Pidge chided as she scrambled to pack all of her things back into her bag. She wasn't worried about the second alarm as much as she was annoyed—the police were already on their way, after all—but they still needed to get out of there. Fast. She tied her hair back and slid her bandana up over her nose in preparation. "Alright, Hunk, I'm gonna need you to punch it. Like, now. Head south, Lance and I will go east. Lance, don't worry about the other alarm, it's not like it makes any difference. Just find the box and grab the card!"

"Done and done," Lance said, audibly shuffling around what Pidge presumed to be Morvok's safe deposit box for a moment before suddenly falling silent. "Hey, so, silver bullions. Can you just take those to a bank and trade 'em for cash, or...?"

To say that Pidge was starting to regret ever letting Lance in on her operation would be an understatement. "Grab. The. Card!"

"I got it! But—"

"THEN LET'S FUCKING GO!"

Just then, a slew of police cruisers zipped past in a flurry of red, white, and blue, continuing southbound and completely bypassing the dark alleyway where Pidge was pushing herself up off the rain-soaked ground. Pidge breathed a sigh of relief, until one of the cruisers—a newer Ford Explorer model and one that she'd become more acquainted with than she would have ever preferred to be over the last few weeks—came to a screeching stop right at the end of the alley, effectively blocking the street.

The reinforced steel back door to the bank flung open and Lance nearly tripped as he threw himself out, wearing what Pidge could only presume was a face-splitting grin beneath his own bandana and holding up his knapsack like a trophy for the entire world to see—cops included.

"Alright," he said, gulping down air. "Now what?"

A gunshot rang out and ricocheted off the door next to them.

"Stay right where you are and put your hands above your head!"

"Come on!" Pidge shouted and grabbed Lance by the elbow, pulling him out of his momentary shock and dragging him along with her. Behind them, the passenger side door opened, slowly followed by the driver's.

"Wait, Sh—hey! Hold on!"

Pidge did nothing of the sort. She didn't even know if the order had been directed at her. The voice was different from the first one, more frustrated than aggressive, and not quite as familiar. Regardless, it still belonged to a cop, and it was pointless to wonder about such things when they had RoboCop hot on their trail.

Lance started digging around the bottom of his knapsack.

"Are you serious right now?" Pidge asked, unsure if Lance was just an idiot or if the thought of prison life was just suddenly starting to seem like a good idea to him. Lance chuckled as he procured a hearty handful of something from his bag.

"I have an idea."

"Oh, great."

"Just trust me, alright? My nephew does this to me all the time. It totally works."

Pidge wanted to ask what it was that Lance's apparently-genius nephew had in mind for successfully evading an obsessive, trigger-happy, police academy poster boy; but then Lance threw whatever he'd been holding down behind them as they rounded the corner.

Marbles.

"I cannot believe—"

"You didn't even give it a chance!" Lance argued, and threw back another two handfuls.

By the grace of some unknown deity—or perhaps what they just thought would be some sort of hilarious joke—it worked. Or at least Pidge thought it did, judging by the winded "Oof!" and the sound of something clattering behind them.

Pidge chanced a look over her shoulder to find their pursuer face down on the ground, wrist twisted in a way that couldn't possibly be natural and his gun at least a good six feet from his reach. Pidge decided that she could at least let Lance have this, as he whooped and laughed, jogging backwards to flip RoboCop dual birdies while proclaiming "fuck the police!" before he remembered who he was with and sheepishly apologized. They hung a left onto the desolate main road, where across the street in the empty parking lot of a closed realtor's office sat a forest green Triumph Bonneville and not a police cruiser in sight.

Back in the alleyway, Officer Takashi "Shiro" Shirogane pushed himself up onto his knees, wincing in pain as he massaged his right shoulder. His partner, Officer Keith Kogane, finally caught up to him seconds later.

"Shiro! Are you okay?" Keith asked, rushing over to his side. He quickly noticed the marbles surrounding them, having almost stepped on one, and furrowed a brow. "Are those marbles?"

"Apparently they think this is a game." Shiro fumbled with his prosthetic arm, manually cracking his wrist back into the proper position; it was loose. To make matters worse, he couldn't move his fingers when he tried. "Great."

Keith held out a hand, which Shiro accepted. "How's the arm?"

"I'm not sure," Shiro said as he tried shifting his arm around, hoping that maybe the electrodes just weren't picking up his muscle contractions. Still, nothing. He sighed. "I think it's broken."

"Maybe it just needs a charge," Keith suggested, although there was little optimism in his voice. He eyed the gun on the ground near the dumpster and frowned. "Shiro, you—"

The sound of a motorcycle revving took precedence to Keith's oncoming reprimanding, which Shiro knew he'd be hearing ten times over on the way back to the precinct, anyway. He looked up just in time to catch it roar past, only for a fraction of a second, the Paladins' faces obscured by their helmets.

"Dammit!" Shiro slammed his boot against the dumpster while Keith simply looked on.

He could've finally put an end to all of this; he could've been back working on the Galra crime ring case with rest of the department. He'd been so close to finally catching one, no, two of those petty little crooks, only to be bested by a child's plaything.

Shiro snatched his gun from the ground and started heading back to their abandoned police cruiser at the other end of the alley, leaving Keith to heave an exasperated sigh before jogging after him.

He didn't know when he'd get another chance like tonight, but he swore that the next time he saw them, it would be the last.