Archive of Our Own ^beta

          Blaster fire rained down. The crumbled walls muted the rumble of fighting. Today was NOT going well. Of course negotiations would fail at the worst time. Of course everyone got seperated. Of course it had been a trap. What the hell was new about any of this? Lance wondered briefly how the others were. Allura was already suspicious of the negotiations. The whole thing had made him uneasy.

          The planet’s request to join the coalition felt rushed. It was obvious something else going on. Things became even more suspicious, once they met the dignitaries. Then they had gotten split up. A chef came up and wanted to show Hunk the kitchens. One of the guards offered Keith a tour of the armory. He and Pidge went to the communications building.  One of the techs asked Pidge about some possible upgrades to their system. A few minutes later, the bombs started.

          While she worked, Pidge found the evidence coded in some outgoing messages. A coup was currently overthrowing the local government. Apparently, it had been planned for months. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. At least a first. Once the rebellion found out the Paladins of Voltron were on the planet, they became targets too.  

          When she rushed in to the lobby to find Lance, the building shook from the first bombs. Lance shoved her out of the way as some of the ceiling collapsed. Unfortunately, the floor buckled and slammed her into a wall, knocking her out. Lance lost his balance a bit and twisted his leg, trying to stay close to her. Blasts rocked the ground and everything around them crumpled.

          It had been at least fifteen doboshes since that disaster. Pidge was slumped against the side of the wall they were hiding behind. The idea of how little he could do, if the enemies found them was making his stomach twist. Lance sighed in resignation and leaned back, wincing at the sharp pain it caused. He didn’t bother looking at his side, he already knew it would be a bruised mess. He managed to duck away from some of the larger pieces of the ceiling, but still took several bad blows to the side and his leg. Lance dragged Pidge as close to him as he could, worry racing through his veins.  

          He had checked her a few ticks ago. She had a nice gash across her arm, a good sized lump on her head and a bloody lip. The gash would be easy to wrap. It was big, but thankfully not deep. What had Lance far more concerned, was her head injury. From what he could tell, Pidge’s eyes seemed to react to the light properly. Then again, he didn’t really have a flashlight so it was impossible to tell.  He chuckled at that thought. He didn't even have basic first aid supplies. He knew he was a bit delirious.

          Outside, it sounded like the fighting was dying down. If they were going to have any chance of getting rescued, he needed to find their helmets. He saw a spot of blue peeking out from under the rubble, but he was hesitant to move. Pidge was still unconscious and with how much the building was still rumbling ominously, he felt safer staying with her. Nevermind the fact that he didn't think his leg could support him or that he was pretty sure he had some internal bleeding. Keeping Pidge safe was the most important thing right now. He thought he heard one of the others calling, for one hopeful moment, but then the sounds of fighting started again. The building rocked dangerously as another bomb detonated nearby.

"Crap!" was all he could think, as he immediately wrapped himself around Pidge and rolled to the side.

          He came to in darkness. Everything hurt. It felt like someone had stuffed his chest with cotton balls and his head was spinning slightly. It only made the delirium mildly worse. There was enough of a glow from the armor to let him know that Pidge was right there. She seemed to be breathing, which was really good. He was hunched almost all the way over her. Which was awkward. If she woke up like this, he'd get punched for sure. He tried to shift his weight, only to find there was an enormous pressure holding him in place. Peeking up, he could see a rather large gap to the far right. It was letting in the feeble night light and fresh air. At least they wouldn't suffocate. That was one way he did not want to attempt dying.

          He surveyed Pidge again. It looked like his body blocked most of the rubble from falling on her. She was still out cold. He needed to wake her up though. This was getting really uncomfortable and he was sure he was going to start coughing up blood shortly. He really didn't think Pidge would appreciate that. Shifting slightly he whispered, "Pidge. Pidge! I need you to wake up! It's important Pidge. Please wake up!"

She shifted slightly and groaned. Soon her eyes were blinking open. "Lance? What's going on?" She asked as she tried to sit up, but he shushed her.

"Look, I need you to try to slide up as far as you can. Is there any room near your head?"

Nodding faintly, she did as he said. She managed to get to the open area and sit up. "Oh....My head. What in the - Oh my god!! Lance!! Can you move at all?"

Lance just smiled. “For right now, see if you can wiggle out and find the others. I'll be fine.”  

          The cavern was that formed wasn’t even tall enough for her to crouch low. She tried to reach the hole to climb out, but the building shook dangerously. Taking a deep breath, Pidge started screaming for help. They heard a commotion, then voices yelling as they got closer. Pidge kept shouting, once it became clear that Hunk was yelling back at them. Then the rocks began to shift.

They heard Shiro's voice echo down, “Hang tight guys. We know you're there, it's just going to be a little bit of slow going. How you guys holding up?”

Pidge open her mouth to answer but Lance spoke over her, “We're okay. But Pidge really needs some help. She took a seriously bad blow to the head. I don't know if she can stand all the way.” Pidge just glowered at him.

“Give us a few more doboshes?”

“I can- whoa.” Pidge sat down heavily.

“Pidge!?” Lance couldn't see very well, but she did look like she was turning white. “Stay still!”

“I don't feel so good.”

          “I can guarantee, it's only your head that's spinning.” Lance tried to chuckle. His lungs and side protested severely at that idea. The cough he had been holding back finally escaped. Just as he guessed, some blood dribbled out. He took several breaths, very shallowly and stole another glance at Pidge. She perked up a little bit at the sound of his voice, he didn't want to alarm her. She was now busy watching the opening.

The hole above Pidge’s head got a bit bigger and Keith’s face appeared over the edge.

“Pidge! Alright, give me just a tick. Shiro! Hunk! We have to start shifting things more to the right.”

Lance immediately felt more weight on him. He groaned audibly, as he tried not to shift any more, afraid it would cause him to collapse. Pidge’s head jerked up.

“No! Not that way! You're going to crush Lance!”

Keith’s face appeared over the opening again. “WHAT! Lance where are you?”

Lance forced a laugh. “I'm over here Mullet Man.” His vision started white out, but he fought through it.

          He heard them in the background. He also heard Pidge yelling back at them. He focused on the voices to help ground him. Another cough wracked his body. This was getting annoying. He liked breathing, it would be great if he could do that more. Then suddenly, the weight started to vanish. Breathing became a little easier. There were a few angry rumbles but the debris stayed in place. His vision started to clear. The opening near Pidge was wide enough for Keith to help lift her out. Lance relaxed a bit.

“Make sure to check her! I’m pretty sure she has a concussion!” Lance yelled up.

“I got it Lance!” Keith yelled back in exasperation.

          Lance smiled a bit at that. He felt a more of the larger pieces of rubble move. He was able to finally take a deeper breath. It made another cough escape, but he suppressed it as much as he could. He pulled himself forward to the opening and tried to ignore every muscle in his body that was shrieking in protest.

“You okay there buddy?” Hunk called down.

“Yeah,” he panted a bit. “Just trying to get out of the way. Hey, Keith! Can you see our helmets?”

“Little busy right now!”

Lance froze. Was there more fighting? Then he heard the sounds of someone getting sick. Pidge definitely had a concussion. They needed to get her to a pod fast.

He turned to sit up, trying not to scream, when he put too much weight on his bad leg. He knew his ankle was at least twisted. He slid himself over to the opening the rest of the way and saw Hunk ready to help him out.

Hunk noticed right away he was favoring his leg. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just twisted it a little. We need to find our helmets.”

“I’ve got them. We need to get you two into pods.” Shiro strode over. He handed Keith the helmets and scooped up an indginatnt Pidge.

“Hey! Shiro!”

          “Nope! You can’t stand straight without getting sick, you’re slurring your words, you lost consciousness and light is bothering you. You do not get to argue about this. Besides, we have a bit of a walk to the shuttle. Most of the fighting is on the other side of the city right now. We should get out of here while we can. Allura is waiting for us.” Shiro said as he set off at a swift pace, while Pidge pouted.

          Lance chuckled and he leaned on Hunk a little to get his balance. He was finally able to figure out how to put weight on his leg. It hurt, but it wasn’t bad. Hunk and Keith started chatting with him. He managed to keep up with the conversation, and the pace, for few doboshes. He slowly fell back as his pace slowed. Suddenly, a hard cough wracked his body. He doubled over in pain as the cough made his side throb and blood dripped down. His vision whited out as he shifted his full weight onto his leg. Then he crashed to the ground in a heap.

He heard someone yelling at him. His eyes opened to see Hunk and Keith, faces pinched with worry, kneeling next to him. Lance tried to sit up, but Hunk shook his head and practically pinned Lance to the ground.

          “No. We are going to see exactly how hurt you are. Before you say anything, Shiro is still going to the shuttle with Pidge. By the way, she is absolutely furious with you. Then again, so am I.” Hunk’s voice was firm as he began moving Lance’s leg. Keith started on the other one.

          Lance sagged. Hunk rarely got mad at him. It wasn't like he was trying to hide it. Okay that was a lie, he was. Lance didn’t want to know how badly he hurt himself. As a Hunk straightened his leg Lance let out a sharp hiss. A sharp stab of pain raced up his leg. Keith just nodded.

          “I thought that looked like it was more than twisted.” Keith poked it a few more times, causing more sharp hisses from Lance and a glare.He was convinced Keith was trying to torture him. Each spot he touched sent currents of agony through Lance’s leg. Keith just ignored him. “It's definitely broken. What's the best way to get him back to the shuttle?”

Lance opened his mouth to protest, but Hunk scowled at him. “I think the smartest thing, would be for each of us to let him lean on us. He's going to keep trying to walk on it.”

"We could always just knock him out.”

Hunk laughed at shock on Lance's face. The he and Keith helped Lance stand up. They acted as human crutches, by wrapping an arm around his waist and swinging his arm over their shoulders.

“Guys, I can do this.” Lance whined.

“Yeah I don't think so. Now, either you let us help you, or I carry you.” Hunk said flatly.

Lance attempted a feeble smile, Hunk was really mad at him. “I didn't know you cared so much!”

Hunks response was to scoop him up, just like Shiro had done with Pidge. Lance let out the same sort of indignant squawk. Keith tried to suppress a smile, but gave in as Lance flailed for a moment.

          Allura had the shuttle ready to go. Her eyes became as wide as saucers when she saw Shiro and Hunk carrying Pidge and Lance. She held off on her questions until everybody was into the shuttle and settled the best they could. Keith and Shiro piloted them out of the atmosphere as fast as possible.

“What happened?”

“It's no big deal princess, we just got caught in a little bit of trouble.” Lance tried to joke

Pidge glared at him. “Sure. If you call getting trapped under a building, that was blasted to the ground, a little bit of trouble.”

Allura narrowed her eyes at that. “Were you purposely attacked?”

“It's hard to tell with how many of the bombs were going off at once.” Lance said drily.

“Wait, where were you guys?” Keith demanded

Pidge looked a bit surprised. “We were in the Communication Center. Didn't they tell you that's where we were going?”

Shiro and Allura were furious. “No, they made sure to split us up pretty good. Looks like you guys were right at the epicenter of everything. You're lucky we found you when we did.” Shiro tried to keep his voice even, but the rage seeped in.

          Lance listened in a fog, as the conversation wandered closer to the coup and what they should do. His eyes slid closed as exhaustion set in. He didn't hear Pidge after a while, so he tried to open his eye to check. Hunk noticed and gave a small nod. He was keeping a close eye on her. Lance relaxed and drifted off to sleep.

As the shuttle landed in the Castle, Hunk woke Lance and Pidge up. Hunk and Shiro scooped them both back up, ignoring their complaints once again.

          Coran had the pods prepped and ready for them. Lance was not looking forward to taking off his armor. He watched as Pidge was stripped down and helped into the tan healing pod suit. He was worried she had graver injuries. Luckily, it looked like the cut on her arm and the head injury were the worst ones. He sighed in relief. Before he could argue, Hunk was already taking off his armor.

          Lance let out a yelp of pain, when the chest piece came off. Keith began helping peel off the outer suit. After a second he stopped. Lance heard sharp gasps from everyone. He looked down, almost afraid to see what happened. His side was an ugly purple mess. From the color, it definitely looked like there was some internal bleeding. He felt Hunk's large hand on his back and let out another screech of pain as ribs shifted. They continued to helped him take the under suit off all the way. When it came time for his leg, he almost fell over. More disapproving noises came, but Lance couldn't tell if they were from Hunk, Keith or Shiro.

“Lance! What the hell? You were trying to walk in this condition? What happened?”

          “He was protecting me. I don't remember much, but I do remember...You took the brunt of that last collapse! That's why we were trapped like that! He was practically holding up all that rubble so it wouldn't crush me.” Pidge started crying. She refused to go into the pod until she saw how badly hurt Lance was..

Shiro shook the surprise off faster than the others. “We can talk about this later. You and Lance need to get into those pods immediately.”

"Those in charge will be held accountable. This was unacceptable.” Allura barely contained her fury as she stormed off to the bridge.

          Keith helped Pidge into the pod. Hunk and Shiro manhandled Lance into another. Just as the pod was getting ready to seal, Shiro looked at him and smiled with pride. “You did an amazing job keeping Pidge safe. Without you there we would have lost her. Next time, try to take better care of yourself though. We need our sharpshooter. We'll be waiting for you.”

Lance sighed in happiness as the pod closed over him and darkness fell.