Keith kept his eyes trained on the screen displaying information; location, entrance and exit, time of set departure. He drank it in.
"Who am I supposed to recover?" He asked. He crossed his arms.
Kolivan hesitated before swiping the holographic screen. "This is her. Do not let her small stature fool you," he warned as Keith scoffed. "She's highly dangerous and an excellent fighter. Unfortunately, we have no photos or videos of her face. She is rarely in the areas we placed our cameras, so you will have to rely on the subtle markings on her attire. But it is extremely imperative we retrieve her soon, so she can inform us of what she's learned."
Keith nodded, jaw set in determination, violet eyes ablaze. "This will be no problem." He turned to go, hands reaching to pull on his hood when Kolivan stopped him. "Keith."
He waited until he locked eyes with the young man before he said, "Do not let your emotions jeopardize the mission."
"I know, sir," Keith said. Kolivan didn't miss the quick flash of irritation on his face. But he felt that the warning was necessary; Keith didn't know who that girl was. But Kolivan did. And it's someone who Keith had not seen since Team Voltron disbanded to let a younger group from Earth step in. Kolivan couldn't tell Keith the face behind the mask. The shock to his system would distract him and he wouldn't get in successfully. He only hoped that the surprise would wear off fast enough for him and the girl to get back in one piece.
Kolivan turned away from Keith's retreating back, closing his eyes. Please let this end well.
It was darker than Keith thought. The only light came from the faint flow on his suit, a purple glow dusting the walls and floors of the Galra communications base. He knew the markings he had to look for on the other Blade member's suit, and he also knew she was smaller than other galrans, a fact he didn't know how she explained to the communicators.
He hugged the wall, his mask allowing him to see heat signatures. He watched as two colorful blobs walked the hall around the corner and he held his breath and blade ready. But they turned away from him and didn't notice the glow in the shadows. He made quick work of locating his fellow Blade member's sleeping quarters, and even quicker work dismantling the lock system and slipping inside the dark room.
He only had to wait a few minutes before the door was slowly pushed open and the tip of a blade was seen. Light spilled into the room and Keith stayed in the darkest corner, not wanting anyone else to see him if they happened to pass by in the corridor. No sound emerged from the silhouetted figure in the doorway, and if Keith hadn't been staring right at her, he wouldn't have known she was there at all. In one fluid motion the door slammed shut, plunging the room into pitch blackness, and a blade was whistling towards his face.
Keith ducked and twisted, using the momentum from the spin to whip his own blade out of its sheath, pointing it at the girl. The fight hit pause in seconds when Keith came face to face with another blade, identical to the one now lodged into the wall where his head was only moments before. They stood there, chests heaving and stances rigid, knives out and aiming towards the other's throat. From the subtle light coming from both their suits, Keith could only make out the Blade's scowling mouth from underneath her hood.
"Not the welcoming I was expecting," Keith panted from underneath his mask. His voice was muffled, and he felt the heat of his breath on his face.
She didn't respond. But she did slowly lower her blade. Reaching past Keith, she yanked the other blade out of the wall, and it came out like it was stuck in soft butter. Keith didn't put away his own blade until he saw the girl's were safely in her thigh sheaths.
"Maybe some lights?" Keith hesitantly walked past her and groped the wall for a light switch. A loud clap sounded from behind him and he pivoted, hand gripping his knife's handle. But he relaxed when he noticed the girl's hands go back to her sides and the lights flickered on. With the room shrouded in light, Keith could now take in the Blade member.
She was significantly shorter than Keith, but her suit hugged the muscles lining her body and her curves, obviously depicting that she was a woman. Metal armor was on her chest only and she had tall boots on, also metal. He caught sight of her gloved hands when she crossed her arms, shifting to cock a hip out. She looked almost exactly like a Galran, except for her height and her pose.
"We need to leave. I'm here to safely extract you from this base and take you to Kolivan for a debriefing and full release of the intel you collected," Keith said, ignoring the way this girl stood straighter when he talked. "We should leave as soon as possible, so pack up your things and—"
"Take off your mask."
Keith stopped talking and frowned at the girl's voice. It sounded oddly familiar, and it tickled his brain. Keith scratched the back of his head and asked, "What?"
She stepped closer and gripped her upper arms, and Keith winced at how her fingers dug into her skin. "Take it off."
Confusion and wariness lacing his body, he deactivated the mask and slid his hood off. A gasp erupted from the woman in front of him and he watched as her whole body trembled and a hand shot up to her mouth.
His name trickled from her lips like honey. "Keith?"
He backed up and hovered his hand over his blade, but his heart thumped loudly in his ears. He felt like he knew her. "How do—how do you know my name?"
A watery laugh came from beneath the hood and she shoved it off her head. It was Keith's turn to let out a cry of shock. There was purple paint—maybe ink—on her face, and her hair was much longer than when he last saw her, but her smile and golden-brown eyes were unmistakable. "Pidge?"
As if saying her name broke down the invisible wall dividing them since the lights turned on, she ran across the room and threw her arms around him, burying her face into his neck. It took Keith a second to shake out of his frozen state, but once he did, he held her tight and shoved his face into her fluffy hair. He squeezed her when he felt her shaking, and it felt like eternity had passed when they finally broke apart.
Questions streamed out of both of them, and they let out laughs. Pidge swiped at her eyes. Whatever was coating her face didn't seem to have worn off from her tears, or the hasty wiping of her gloves.
"When did you join the Blade?" Keith asked, hands resting on Pidge's shoulders.
"A little while after we left Voltron. I still wanted to help the universe, and this was the next best thing," she answered. She reached up and clasped his hands, her smile wide. Keith almost buckled with the contact of this simple gesture, and he beamed down at her. No one had been like this with him since Voltron was passed down to a younger generation.
"What about the rebels?" Keith slowly dropped his hands from her shoulders and let them hang by his sides. Pidge glanced at them for a split second before looking back up at him with a smirk. "Not enough danger."
Keith threw his head back and laughed but then covered his mouth. "Is the room soundproof?"
Pidge rolled her eyes and headed to her bed, crouching to pull out a box filled with gadgets and gizmos and wires and everything in between. "Of course. Who do you think I am, an amateur? That's the first thing I did when I got here. Plus, there's barely any people in this base. That's why I didn't have to dye my hair. Not enough reason to." She started rifling through the box and setting things aside.
Keith stood and watched her, a grin still plastered on his face. It's been three years since everyone went their separate ways after a few more years of serving as Paladins. Pidge had to be, what, in her twenties, now? That's where Keith was.
"We should probably get going soon. Kolivan wanted us in and out as fast as possible," Keith told her, going to her and stopping to help. His hand went to grab a canister-looking-thing but Pidge shot out and stopped him. "Don't touch that!"
Keith recoiled and held his hand to his chest. "Why?"
Pidge turned away and shrugged. "I don't know, I just don't want you to. Might explode."
"Then why is it in a box filled with other things stuffed under your bed?!" Keith's eyes were wide. Pidge ignored him and stood, shoving the box back under the bed with a swift kick.
"I'm ready," she said, picking the things up that were still on the floor. There was what looked like a watch, but instead of a clock there was a small screen, and another thing: a—"Hand? Is that a hand?" Keith looked on with horror at the limp hand in Pidge's grasp.
Pidge peered up at him and tilted her head, some of her hair spilling out of its braid. She strapped on the watch. "I'm not Galran, Keith, I can't activate the locks on the doors without Galran fingerprints. I took this from a sentry I dismantled and use it instead."
"But I'm Galran. I can open the doors myself," he pointed out, holding up his hand for emphasis.
Pidge's gaze held his for a moment, causing Keith to have the urge to fidget before monotoning, "They can see who opens the doors when a hand is set upon the screen. If you use your fingerprints then you'll give away our location to everyone in this base and they'll know you're here."
Keith closed his mouth, another argument dying on his tongue, and nodded, feeling dumb. Even though he was used to Pidge's explanations—he heard them all the time when they were paladins together—he could never shake the feeling of stupidity when he received them. "Right. Let's move."
Pidge swept her hair away and flipped her hood back on, concealing her face. Keith copied her and then turned on his mask, thermal vision a go. He stretched his hand back and felt Pidge grab on. Electricity zinged from his fingers, traveled up his arm, and into his chest and up his neck. He scowled and shook himself. What was wrong with him? This feeling was unfamiliar. Unwanted. He growled.
"You okay?" Pidge's voice came from behind him and he coaxed the weird tingly feeling from his body. He was on a mission to bring Pidge back safely. He would not let his emotions get in the way.
Instead of answering, he tugged her forward and shut off the lights, then slowly pulled the door open. Pidge let go of his hands and came up to stand behind him, blades glinting in the dim light from the corridors. Her head jerks and she gives Keith a thumbs up, blades glinting. They headed out. Pidge led them through the halls with confidence, relying on Keith's thermal vision whenever a corner came up.
It felt like a piece of Keith's life was set snugly into the puzzle when he and Pidge were traversing down the corridors; him sensing sentries and Pidge guiding them both through the base. It felt right, it felt good, working together, and it also made Keith wonder how he had lived so long without that sense of contentment. It also left him a little nervous; he's never felt like that with someone, never relied on someone in that manner. What if he had to let Pidge and that feeling go? She would eventually have to move on to the next mission, or decide to settle back on earth. She would want a family, a husband. She would go away, and take the puzzle piece with her and leave Keith just as lost and unfinished as he was before. The realization left him breathless with the weight of it.
He was so entangled in his thoughts that he didn't warn Pidge in time of the sentry coming at them from the next hall. Keith already had his sword out when Pidge stumbled upon the guard. But she held up a hand to him. Keith barely had the willpower to stop, but he did; his body quivered with energy and his muscles were taut.
"Technologic Engineer number 308, state your business for ignoring curfew," the guard asked, his voice dead and mechanical.
"Oh, I was just—" Pidge cut off her sentence. She reached up to the sentry's head and twisted it and in a blur the sentry was on the ground, twitching, gun casted aside.
Without needing to be asked, Keith housed his sword (now back in knife form) and helped Pidge lug the body into the nearest storeroom. When they stuffed the last finger through the crack they shut the door and started to the hangar.
They almost made it.
The first guard was blocking the hangar doors, and Keith didn't so much as blink. He took his blade and with a flick of the wrist, that guard was no longer a problem. But the next ten guards certainly were.
"Run behind and attack the back five, I'll get the front," Keith yelled to Pidge, rushing forward and slicing the gun right out of one of the guard's hands.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her twin blades flash and she slid between the legs of one guard, popped up, and stabbed him in the back, turning just in time to deflect a gun barrel and take down another.
Keith advanced with a cry and plunged his sword into a guard's chest, twisting it free. He heard gunfire behind him and he ducked and spun, kicking out his leg as he did so. He connected with something solid and a guard fell with a thud. Keith ended him in a slash.
Something hard hit him in the head and he was thrown onto the ground, his breath leaving him in one huff. Stars littered his vision and his head throbbed in tune with his pulse. He groaned and deactivated his mask, finding it hard to breathe.
Another thing collided with his skull and his head slammed into the ground, fire spreading from his scalp all the way into his brain. This time Keith's entire vision went black, but he could still hear the sound of a battle: Gunfire, blades, the sound of guards falling to the ground, Pidge screaming his name. They all faded as Keith descended into unconsciousness.
"Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty." Keith's eyes sprang open but he immediately shut them when the light sliced his mind. A beep kept sounding in the air and it screamed through his brain. It felt like a million hammers were pounding every nerve in his head, and on those hammers were little knives trying to cut him from the inside out. He moaned as nausea encased him.
"Yeah, I know. You hit the ground pretty hard, didn't you?" He felt something stroke the sweat-encrusted hair from his forehead, and for a second the pain was gone. He sighed through dry lips.
"Ho—" Keith winced at the new wave of agony his voice caused. He pushed forward anyway. "How long was I...?
"A few hours," came the quiet answer. Keith recognized the voice as Pidge's. Suddenly, Keith gasped and he struggled to sit up, squeezing his eyes tightly and gritting his teeth as the throbbing intensified, now met with dizziness. But he needed to know. "Pidge," he breathed. Hands found his upper arms and he trailed them up to their shoulders and then up the neck and finally to the face. A sharp breath reverberated through the tense air but Keith didn't hear it. His heart was in his ears like the ocean and he held his breath as he traced her jaw, her cheeks, her nose, her forehead; searching, asking an unspoken question.
"Keith, what are you doing?" Pidge's voice was a squeak but she cleared her throat and clutched Keith's hands away from her. "Stop."
Keith did. "Are you hurt? Did they hurt you? Where are we? Did we make it? Are you in—"
"Keith, we're fine. I took a guard's gun and plowed them down in two seconds. We're on your pod ship heading to Kolivan. It's set to autopilot right now so I can watch your vitals," Pidge soothed. Keith didn't listen to that. She avoided the most important question.
Keith stole his breath and carefully pried his eyes open to see the most beautiful sight he's ever seen. Pidge sat in front of him, a green glow silhouetting her, similar to when they first reunited and she stood in the doorway. Her hair was messy and falling out of her braid, and strands of it stuck to the sweat on her brow. But she was magnificent; a relief to the storm thundering behind his eyes.
"You are okay?" Keith asked. He took one hand away from Pidge's grasp and brought it to her cheek, thumb hovering over a small cut in the outer corner of her eye. It was barely bleeding, but Keith's eyes narrowed at the sight.
"Yes, Keith, you big worrywart. I'm okay," Pidge whispered, squeezing his hand. She let go with a frown and glanced down at the watch still on her wrist. "You're the one I'm most concerned about."
Keith closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, the lapse in pain gone and the roar of misery back. Although he didn't foresee his head giving him any sort of reprieve, his heart certainly did. The knowledge that Pidge was unhurt gave him the comfort he was lacking. It didn't matter what happened to him; Pidge was safe and secure.
"Your heart seems steady and consistent, thank goodness. Unfortunately that's all I can see with this stupid piece of junk," Pidge was telling him. He looked on through a half-lidded gaze and watched as Pidge chewed her lip while glared down at her watch and then back up at a holographic screen hovering in the air from her watch, the source of the green light. He traced her eyes then to his chest, when he then realized that it was bare except for a single sticky square taped to it.
"It's monitoring your heartbeat and then it's sending it to my watch so I can project it on the hologram," Pidge answered before Keith could open his mouth. Her cheeks were pink and she looked away from Keith's naked torso. "Making sure you don't die on me. But you took three hard hits to your head and I'm nervous there's something that I'm not seeing. I mean, obviously you probably have a concussion but there could be a brain bleed or a fracture somewhere or—"
"It'll be fine," Keith croaked, grimacing as he cut her rambling off. He held his stomach as vomit rose in his throat but he swallowed it down and shut his aching eyes.
"It'll be fine," Pidge repeated, her's sounding not as sure. He sensed her fingers settle on his neck, as if making sure herself that he was still alive. He lifted his hand and took Pidge's small one in his own, and brought it to his chest, resting above his heart. It made him feel at home, much as he also felt like his head was trying to detach itself from the rest of his body. Her hand cradled in his, her breath fanning his face, their pulses in sync, this was what he was missing those past few years, she was what he was missing.
It was in that silent, intimate, moment, that he came to the conclusion that he loved her.
A/N:
Let me know if you want a part two of this particular story. I love these two together and I even have a playlist on Spotify dedicated to these smol beans. Thank you for reading and don't forget to R&R! Love you all,
~This Multishipper Author