Archive of Our Own ^beta

‘Lance, you’re with me.”

His heart surged at the memory of the open trust he had seen in Keith’s eyes. It had been the same marvel one felt at the sunrise, when the sky showed its most beautiful colours. A regular occurrence but breathtaking and marvellous all the same

Lance clung to the memory, turned it into steel to reinforce his nerves, now that Keith wasn’t there to do it for him. To remain calm when the world around them had decided against it.

Lance checked the holographic map on his arm for any additional heat signatures, while he memorised the guards patrolling patterns for an opening. It was a painfully slow process, he kept losing track of counting, again and again, cursing Keith for suggesting they split up.

Of course, let’s act like white people in horror movies, Keith. Sharp work, Samurai.

He forced back an aggravated sigh and resumed counting again until ─ there! An opening. He slipped past the guards ─ his weight on the balls of his feet, breath permanently caught in the back of his throat so that he wouldn’t make a sound ─ and into the control room. The door slid shut behind him, its w hoosh deafening to his ears.

But Lance didn’t allow himself to relax. Not yet. Him getting in was only half the battle.

“I’m in,” he spoke into his helmets communicator, “Keith, do you copy?” The link remained quiet and Lance forced his hands still. No need for panic now. Galran bases had terrible signal and not even Altean technology could get through all the time. No need for panicking.

Their base was low in the ground, so of course, their signal would be bad. Keith was probably still trying to infiltrate and speaking could jeopardise his safety.

That and a myriad and of other completely logical arguments ran through his mind. But it was an attempt in vain. His heart kept banging against his ribs and if it weren’t for his gloves his bayard would have slipped out of his hands by now. This didn’t feel good, the situation pushed itself forward like a deja-vu of the worst kind.

The last time one of the Paladins hadn’t answered their comms, had brought them to this situation. Flying across the universe, destroying Galra bases and hacking all kinds of their databases to find something, anything, that could act as a clue─

“I’m in. Lance, do you copy?” His train of thought screeched to a halt and his shoulders dropped by just about a mile.

“Copy. What took you so long?” His voice sounded tenser than he intended to, his worry sharper than he could afford to right now.

“Weird patrolling patterns,” Keith answered with what Lance had dubbed his Black Paladin voice , strong and commanding and unshakeable. Then it softened and Lance’s heart melted right with it.

“I’m okay. Nothing happened and there’s nothing to worry about.”

Lance’s throat swelled with guilt. “I’m sorry─”

“Don’t be. You─ I... ” Keith fumbled with his words, a trait so unexpected but that made him infinitely more endearing, “I love you. Don’t ever apologise for worrying.”

“I love you too.” And just like that, the darkness looming in his periphery seemed less menacing than before. Lance smiled and turned towards the dashboard he had to crack.

It seemed pretty much abandoned, Dust settling on the different buttons that gave off a faint glow, much less visible than the rest of the base. Weird.

“Does your dashboard also look like it hasn’t been used in at least 20 decapheebs?” He ran his fingers along the sleek edge of it and narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

“No?” Keith answered and Lance heard the hum of his dashboard coming to life beneath his fingers.

“Mine pretty much looks abandoned.” He pulled out the gadget Pidge had given him to work around the barrier of his needing to be Galran to power up the dashboard. He put the thin, translucent foil onto the identification pad and then applied pressure on it to simulate the weight of a hand.

Purple exploded from the dashboard and spilt into the room as the dashboard and the giant screen mounted to the wall above it came to life. Rows upon rows of foreign characters covered the screen.

In another universe, where they weren’t currently missing one-seventh of a whole and had spent the last month riding a rising wave of fear, in the desperate hopes they would learn to swim before it was too late, Lance just would’ve just admired the work of a culture so vastly different from his own.

In another universe, even from that one, he would have tapped a few buttons on the bracelet Hunk and Pidge had built together to extract the data they needed and then gotten out of there.

But in this one, he didn’t even get to form a thought. As if on cue, all of the purple lights in the room turned an angry red and alarms came blaring out of the speakers.

“ Keith! What did you do?” Lance yelled over the alarm. But he didn’t get an answer instead, he heard the steady rhythm at blasts. Blasts, fired at Keith.

Oh, goddammit.

That and a string of other curses, English, Spanish and even some French from that one semester at the Garrison, rushed through his mind as he activated his bayard and burst into the hallway.

Without even thinking about what he was doing, he shot down the two sentries at the end of their patrol round before they even had the chance to face him and checked the map.

“Keith, stay where you are. I’m on my way.” He doubted that Keith even heard him but it was easier on his mind if Lance imagined he did.

He began to sprint down the hallway and around the corners, alarms still blaring, red lights still flashing. He was about to turn into Keith’s hallway when shit hit the fan. Like, even harder than it had before

Lance ran around a corner and chest first into a blast

He flew backwards and collided with a wall. Even though his suit took the brunt of the impact, a feat only performed once, never twice, his chest caved inwards as all air rushed from his lungs. The sentry took aim again and Lance just barely managed to activate his shield to deflect the blast.

He fought himself up to his feet and readjusted his grip on his bayard. He took a deep breath and for the first time, it felt like it finally went where it was supposed to. He took aim, fired and─

Missed .

The sentry dodged his shot and charged forward like it had nothing to lose. Lance aimed for its feet but missed again. The sentry stormed closer until the range was too small for Lance to properly take aim. So he had to get creative. He spun his rifle around and, with as much force as he could muster, rammed its butt into the sentry’s power core.

It cracked and went from a blazing red to black, as it crumbled like a house of cards.

Lance allowed himself one second of rest, one lung full of breath before he forced his legs to keep going. He slammed his hand onto the pad next to the door and stared at it for one long agonising second until it became clear that it wouldn’t open.

Of course, it wouldn’t.

Grunts and clashes and blasts blaring through the comms stole any composure he might have had. The pad remained red and the door didn’t move.

So Lance did the most sensible thing he could think of.

He barked out a curse, aimed his bayard at the pad and fired. It exploded in flames and Lance was, at once, hit with a wave of grim satisfaction.

The doors banged as it slid into the wall but the sound was swallowed by both the blaring sirens and the chaotic fighting inside.

He saw Keith lifting his sword and sprung into action, as he brought it down into the sentry’s shoulder. It wasn’t enough, somehow the sentry was still moving and Lance needed to do something.

Lance forced himself calm as he lifted his rifle. Exhale, steady your hands, take aim and ─

Fire!

Keith just heard a shot then his last opponent, that one that had come too close, too many times collapsed into itself and left him breathless, muscles burning, but alive. He was alive.

Keith’s head shot up, eyes set to the door where the shot had come from. But when his eyes caught onto Lance ─ beautiful, amazing Lance with determined eyes still on the sentry ─ his shoulders sank. Tension left them all at once as if saying Lance is here, so now I don’t have to.

Lance crossed the room in three long strides and contracted his bayard so fluidly, that Keith was once more left amazed by how much Lance had just become one with his role of Paladin. How much of it had become second nature to him, like he was never supposed to be something else. Lance’s hands shot up to frame his face through the helmet and Keith closed his eyes, imagining his touch on his skin.

Imagining wasn’t hard anyway, Keith had memorised the feel of his hands, hands that remained soft despite the hard labour they endured every day, that even in complete despair, in times of peril and anxiety, they would act as his anchor, his tether to sanity.

“Are you okay?” Lance breathed out those words and somehow seemed like he didn’t inhale again afterwards. (His voice sounded so much better when it wasn’t distorted because of the comms) His hands drifted across, Keith’s shoulder pads, his arms, his chest, his back. Their pressure intentional, Lance’s face pinched in worry.

Keith caught his wrists in his hands and forced Lance to meet his eyes. “I’m fine. Thank you for saving me, Starlight.”

“Always, Starboy.”

Keith would have said something about the blush high on his cheekbones. Teased him about the way he averted his eyes or maybe he just would have smiled at Lance because that was all he wanted to do, whenever he saw him. But reality caught up to them in right that moment. The alarms kept swelling and pounding in his ears and the comm link on the inside of his helmet’s visor was showing that Pidge was trying to get through from the castle.

He opened the link and both Lance and he flinched when it was Allura yelling through the comms and not Pidge. “What in the stars are you doing?!” Her voice somehow managed to cut through the blaring of the alarm and Keith really wished it didn’t.

“There was an issue with a hidden sentry. I fought it off but it managed to activate the alarm beforehand. ” Keith admitted through clenched teeth, the gravity of his misstep, his carelessness, catching up to him.

Lance pulled his wrists out his grip and instead laced their fingers together. “Is there a way to turn off the alarms?” He didn’t even look down at his hands as he spoke, the movement more like muscle memory, rather than conscious thought.

“There is a way...” Pidge began but quickly trailed off.

“I hear a ‘but’ coming,” Hunk commented.

“A big one, too,” Lance added, his grip on Keith’s hand tightening.

“I can override the alarm code through the same link that we used to get the floor plans and manually redirect all of the sentries away from your location. The problem is it would only give you a window of fifteen minutes. At best,” Pidge explained, her typing already ringing through the comms. Keith lifted his eyes to meet Lance’s gaze and raised an eyebrow. They both knew they wouldn’t let the mission go unfinished.

‘Unfinished’ was a word they both knew how to spell but refused to write anyway.

The actual question was whether or not Lance trusted them to fight their way out, once their time window had closed. Lance squared his shoulders and tightened his grip on Keith’s hands. The movements were minuscule but their meaning rang loud and clear.

“Pidge, shut down the alarm and redirect all the sentries away from the hallways between our two data extraction points. We’ll get the data we need and be out in fifteen minutes.” Keith let go of Lance’s hands and walked over to the dashboard that was mounted to the wall.

“Already on it.” The typing sped up.

“Keith are you sure that you can make it out in time?” Hunk asked the new voice of caution, now that Shiro wasn’t there anymore to fill that role. Keith’s chest burned at that thought.

“Yes, absolutely certain.” Keith forced all the conviction and determination he carried in his body to ring through his voice.

“But you don’t have to─”

Lance interrupted him. “If Keith thinks we can do this, then I trust his judgement. He’s the team leader and his is the call to make.”

Exactly the right words at exactly the right time. Keith would kiss Lance all over when this was done.

As if he heard his thoughts Lance lifted his head and shot him a smile Keith answered with one of his own. His six when he needed him the most.

“Alright then,” Pidge returned to the comms, “You have 15 minutes. Starting… now !”

At once, the red lights flashing and the alarms blaring cut out, silence flowing through their ears like a balm to soothe the previous aching.

Keith turned and immediately got to work. His fingers flew across the dashboard, his mind sunk deeper and deeper into what he was doing now that he didn’t have to worry about what was going on around him.

Because Lance was there to keep him safe.

That thought alone was enough to soothe any fears he might have carried with him and let trust take their place. The corners of his mouth curled into a satisfied grin when the bar on the dashboard turned green and the little flash drive-like gadget shot out into his hand.  

Lance looked at him over his shoulder. “Done?”

Keith nodded. “Time?”

“Roughly around 8 minutes,” Lance answered. That would never be enough. “Let’s keep moving then.” Keith blinked at Lance’s answer. Must have said that one out loud.

Lance didn’t comment further on that (although Keith would have killed to have him break the tension with one of his witty comments) but Keith saw the corner of his lips curl in amusement, so he’d have to accept that for the moment.

They wove through the halls unnoticed, always light on their feet and bayards raised in case of the sentries managed to slip through. But the vigilance went unneeded. The hallways were completely empty, not a single trace of a sentry, save for those that lay incapacitated against the walls.

When they reached the second data extraction point, Lance arranged himself in front of the dashboard and brought it to life with quick furious typing. Keith positioned himself between Lance and the door sword and shield ready. He planted his feet and squared his shoulders.

No matter what happened, he wouldn’t go anywhere. He would remain right here, at his rightful place, between Lance and danger. Because fighting came so much easier when there was something worth fighting for.

The typing sped up and then slowed again only to speed right up again, like the ebb and flow of the tides. Keith furrowed his brows. Lance hissed out a curse.

Then the alarms began blaring again.

“What did you do?!” the question came both from his throat and rang in his ears.

“I don’t know!” Lance cried out and for one brief moment, Keith thought he was about to cry, fear and desperation a violent spark of blue against the angry red of the alarm.

“Probably triggered some sort of backup alarm system,” Pidge said into the comms.

“Those are a thing?” Hunk asked.

“Of course, they are,” Lance answered drily and Keith wanted to agree but the words lodged themselves inside his throat when he heard something.

There were steps in the hallway, faint and far away, yes, but they were there.

“What do we do?” Lance turned towards him, eyes serious.

“Lance, Keith, you need to get out of there!” Pidge commanded. But Keith eyed the flash drive in his hand as the footsteps grew louder and nearer.

Lanc’s eyes also went to the flash drive and then turned back to him. There was a beat of silence, then he nodded. They both now knew what they had to do.

“We’re not abandoning the mission,” Keith said into the comms, as the first sentry arrived in the doorway. Without waiting for an answer he charged forward, intent on keeping any sentry as far away from Lance as possible. But a shot sailed right past him and the sentry went down before Keith even got a hit in.

Showoff.

“We didn’t get this far, just to fail. You’ll hear from us when we’re out.” Lance closed off the comm link before the others had a chance to answer and Keith couldn’t help but grin at the amount of shit they would be in when they got back to the castle, as he embedded his sword in the robotic sentry’s chest.

It went down in a flurry of sparks. But Keith didn’t even wait for it to hit the ground before moving on, his movements fluid and purposeful. Hesitation didn’t have a place in battle. The next sentry appeared in the doorway and steps echoing in the hallway promised more were on their way.

Keith gritted his teeth and fought even more viciously when he saw that Lance still was still typing at the dashboard. He pulled his sword out of the bot's chest and jumped back to evade the next sentry’s blow.

These bots for some reasons weren’t armed with blasters, instead, they wielded daggers, short wicked blades, and went for his neck without any mercy to give.

That was good, Keith didn’t have any either.

His entire arm vibrated up to his shoulder when he rammed the grip of his katar into the sentry’s sternum. The metal chest plate of its armour caved inwards and its power core cracked but the bot remained standing. Goddammit.

Keith retracted his shield, gripped his sword with both of his hands and used his entire body weight to give his next blow momentum. He swung and finally. His sword met metal, said hello and went right through it as if they were just passing each other on the street . One loud bu zz later, and the sentry collapsed.

Keith finally had the time to take a breath, but only one because two would be way too much.

A stark blue blast shot past his temple and incapacitated the next sentry that already came running for him.

“Done?” Keith asked into the comms as he stepped out into the hall, “Took you long enough.” Keith and Lance were alone in the hallway but sentries were already coming, their echoing steps like promises of evil and doom.

Lance gripped his hand and made a bolt down the way they had come from. Keith already thought his teasing would go unanswered and focused on keeping his lungs working while Lance his long-ass legs dragged him to God knew where.

“I had twice as many files, mullet,” Lance panted back.

Keith shot him a teasing grin. “ Excuses, excuses.”

Lance rolled his eyes at him and kept walking. Only to abruptly freeze before rounding the corner.

“What?” K eith asked, brows furrowed in confusion but Lance only turned his head and shot him a heavy stare. Keith swallowed down the rest of his words when Lance began to gesture.

An open palm, then he pointed towards his bayard before pointing at Keith’s bayard. Keith narrowed his eyes for a second, then he recognized the system they had worked out months ago and they widened in understanding. Five sentries, armed with guns and swords.

Lance raised his eyebrows at him and Keith nodded as a show of understanding. Lance gripped his hand and squeezed it, hard, then he shot around the corner and their little pocket of tense silence gave way to fighting.

Keith was right behind him and ran right past him when Lance sank down on one knee to better brace the brunt of kickback. He stormed forward and charged at the first sentry. His bayard met its curved blade and Keith’s bones vibrated with the force of it.

It hurt, badly, but he didn’t yield. He wouldn’t yield .

Instead, he only fought harder. He reached back into the small space between his armour and his bodysuit and pulled out his Marmora blade. Keith adjusted his grip on the dagger which grew into a blade and gave in, just a bit and the sentry took the bait like it was supposed to.

Keith spun the blade in his hand and sliced right through the sentry’s wrist. Its sword, with the hand still on the hilt, clattered to the floor. But Keith didn’t stop there. He kept his arm up but changed its direction. With all his might, he brought it back down.

Into the sentries neck.

Sparks exploded as it went and stayed down but Keith didn’t get to celebrate his victory.

“ Behind you!!” Lance yelled and Keith just managed to turn and jump back before a new sentry’s blade struck down where his head would have been. This one was massive , twice as large as the other ones had been, not even flinching at Lance’s blasts pelting its back.

Keith ground out a curse while he forced his burning muscles to keep moving.

“ Lance, can make you make a shot at its neck?” Keith yelled into the comms when the sentry’s blade went down on his bayard so hard he lost his grip on it. It flew to the other end of the hallway, now completely unreachable for Keith.

“I have a better idea. Activate your shield,” Lance answered, his voice broken up by a constant stream of blasts. Keith didn’t even hesitate, Lance had proven himself time and time again to render that useless.

His shield snapped into place and Keith inched backwards as the sentry approached him like a death finding its last victim.

“Keith whatever happens next, don’t move,” Lance warned, his voice slowed in concentration Keith clenched his jaw when the bots sword met his shield again.

Don’t know if I can do that, Lance.

He saw Lance line up his shot and squashed any doubt that dared to arise. Lance pulled the trigger and shot at the … ceiling?

What on earth─?

The blast bounced off the ceiling and came directly at Keith.

Holy sh─

It banged against Keith’s shield and hit the sentry. Square in the chest.

Its red power core, right in the middle of its chest plate went dark and the sentry froze mid-motion. At once silence settled inside the corridor.  Lance bolted towards him and pulled him to his feet. “Are you okay?” His hand glid across his shoulders and the rest of his torso, and only calmed when they didn’t find any injuries. Keith caught his wrist and pulled him closer.

“Yeah, I’m fine. But we have to keep moving.”

Lance nodded at that and pulled up the three-dimensional floor plan Pidge had given them before they had left the castle. “The main entrance is off limits but there is an alternative─” Lance cut himself off.

“What’s the catch?” Keith demanded. That tone of voice couldn’t bear good news.

“It’s on the other side of the base. So we’d have to get around the base unseen to get back to our lions.”

Keith briefly remembered Coran’s account of all the different security systems put in place around the base to make sure that everyone that got into it, had to stay there too. He also remembered the whiplash he had gotten when Coran had pulled up his third slide.

“There is no other choice. Let’s do this, then.” This time it was Keith who squeezed Lance hands before he let go. Lance flashed him a small smile, that spoke of how tired he really was, not just how much he portrayed outwardly and followed his lead down the hallway.

Their way through the base remained relatively easy (though, now in hindsight, that should have been an indicator for how much shit was waiting for them at the end of the line) they snuck past the sentries doing their patrol rounds and made their way to the top floor.

It wasn’t until they had made their way out of the window and deactivated their jetpacks that shit hit the fan. Again.

At once, all of the light around them flicked on and it began to rain gunshots. “Holy shit!” Lance gripped his hands and booked his way down the sand dunes. Through a miracle and a half, all of the gunshot that hit them pelted off their armour.

That didn’t mean they didn’t hurt, though. Keith cried out in pain as Lance did the same but regardless their movements didn’t slow. They had survival to ensure, pain could come later. They made their way up and down numerous dunes until they gained enough high ground to actually make a difference.

And promptly lost it again.

Keith turned to look whether or not their pursuers were actually following them or not. Turned out they were, turned out they were also faster than he had thought.

“ Keith watch out!” Lance yelled but Keith only saw how one of the sentries took aim and fired.

Right at his chest.

His armour cracked and he could’ve sworn his sternum caved with it as he tumbled backwards and slid down the dune. Keith moaned out in pain when he saw Lance sprint after him.

When he reached him Keith tried to listen to him but the thunder of his blood rushing through his ears drowned out any sound there might have been.

Lance reached for his shield, activated it and mounted in the sand. Then he did the same with Keith’s until they had some type of front, with just enough space for his bayard to fit through. Keith frowned and tried to get up.

He had to help! Even if the whole world was swaying and spinning under his feet.

But Lance wasn’t having any of that. Keith saw his lips move, in what sure as hell was a yell and then Lance straddled his shoulders, essentially caging him with his thighs so that he couldn’t move. And then he started shooting.

Pow, pow, pow.

And Keith was stuck doing nothing, half unconscious with the other half clinging to his vision and trying to breathe against the pain in his chest. Time had lost all meaning when Lance’s rain of blasts slowed until it died down completely.

Lance lowered his gun and looked down at him ─ It was like the sun had just begun to shine. he retracted his bayard and reached for his helmet before stopping the motion.

"Are you okay?” He asked softly and so, so, scared but Keith didn’t get to answer.

His gaze went over Lance’s shoulder and the sentry who was taking aim. His hand shot up to the back of Lance’s thigh. He floundered for a bit before ─ there! ─ he found what he was looking for.

He scraped all of his strength together and then imagined some more because it wasn’t enough and hurled the throwing knife as fast as he could. It sailed through the air and (some deity apparently had mercy on him) hit its mark. The sentry’s power core went dark and it froze mid-air. Keith exhaled and sunk back into the sand.

Lance scooted back until he was in his lap and pulled him upright. His entire face fell at Keith’s punched out a groan but to Keith that actually felt worse than the pain in his chest. “I’m fine,” he ground out, “Really. Just give me a minute.”

It wasn’t even a lie. His chest felt lighter, now that gravity wasn’t working again it and each breath came easier than the last.

“Don’t do something like that again! I swear─” Keith shot forward to stop Lance’s angered rant and forced his arms up and around his torso.

Lance paused and reciprocated his hug. Keith sighed, as the last bit of tension in his body bled away, and Lance melted against him. It felt like an eternity before Keith could bring himself to speak. “What are the oxygen levels on this planet again?”

Lance stirred and tapped a few things on the side of his helmet. “Slightly lower than ideal but bearable.”

“Perfect.” Keith pulled off his helmet and Lance did the same. Keith reached out his hands, his eyes locked onto Lance’s.

He smiled at him, the action inevitable and more reflex than conscious thought. Lance traced his finger along the curve of his bottom lip and Lance wished for nothing than for them to take off their gloves. For them to meet, to truly meet, skin against skin.

Lance stared at him some sort of reverence and Keith stopped holding against the pull between them, stopped leaning against Lance’s gravity.

Their lips met and the world finally felt right again.

The pain in Keith’s chest faded from the front of his mind as every atom in his body slotted back to where they were supposed to be. They broke off, desperately gasping for air ─ or rather Keith broke off. Lance followed his lips like a starving man, eyes still closed and a pleading not yet, please, whispered in the space between them.

Who was Keith to deny him his wish?

So stayed that way, lips meeting lips. Again and again.

When they finally broke off to catch air and put their foreheads together, love left its traces on their cheeks in a bright red.

“We made it,” Keith whispered, his smile as bright as the stars themselves and Lance just beamed right back at him.

“Yeah, we did.”