#You're just exposing how little Shiro actually matters to you.

[kismetconstellations]

♡ ♡ ♡ for @sockdooe

[velkynkarma]

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Karmaaaaa, happy birthday toooo youuuuuu!!! Hope you're having a lovely day filled with lotsa fandom goodness! :) Now, I'm sure you saw the Keith whump prompt coming a mile away so uhh.. Keith takes one for the team and Lance is feeling protective? ;)

Haleykim you got it :) Thanks for the birthday wishes! I hope this suffices…————“Are you in position?” Shiro asks over the comms. Lance can’t see him from from their position yet, but he knows they’re waiting far below for the signal.“As good a position as I’m gonna get,” Lance says.“It’s too exposed,” Keith mutters. He’s crouched beside Lance up on the high catwalk, sword at the ready, although at this moment there’s not much to use it on. They’d snuck up without incident, despite Keith’s tendency to attack anything that moves (and some things that don’t). No one knows they’re here, because Lance actually knows how to do the whole ‘stealth’ thing properly. Honestly, why did Shiro even bother sending Keith with him again?“Anywhere else and I can’t cover the others when they actually get to work,” Lance counters. “It has to be here. I can hit anything from this point.”“We’ll be sitting ducks,” Keith argues. “As soon as the firing starts they’ll know we’re up here, and there’s only one exit. Which they’ll be using.”“That’s why you’re there too, Keith,” Shiro says, with a lot more patience than Lance thinks is fair, really. “You’re covering Lance while he’s covering us. Lance has the advantage of range—the Galra will try to remove that by getting too close for his sniping to be effective to take out the threat he represents.”

Lance bristles a little at the implication that he can’t handle himself in a close-combat fight. Okay, so Keith’s got a sword, and spends a whole bunch of his time punching things up close, and Lance doesn’t—so what? Lance doesn’t need babysitting. He could do this just fine. He doesn’t need Keith sitting there waiting to save his ass.Keith sighs. “I don’t like it,” he says. “Something about this doesn’t feel right.”Lance snorts. At least they’re agreed on that.“We don’t have a choice,” Shiro answers over the comms. “We’ve got a time limit. If we can’t disable that particle barrier in the next ten doboshes, there’s no way we’ll be able to destroy those fighters before they get in the air and start harassing these citizens. It’s now or never. Are you ready?”Keith sets his jaw for a moment, and then says, “Yes.”“Hey, I’m the critical piece here,” Lance snaps. To Shiro, he adds, “I’m good to go,” and summons his bayard, settling it against his shoulder. “Your guardian angel’s waiting, guys.”Keith’s eyes narrow slightly in irritation, but he doesn’t argue. Instead he turns away, back to Lance, and keeps an eye on the doorway to the catwalk.

“Alright,” Shiro says. “Ready? Go!”There’s movement down in the wide open room below as Shiro bursts into view, followed by Pidge and Hunk. They all make a beeline for the massive pylon in the center of the room, which hums loudly. This, according to Pidge and Hunk, is the center of power for the massive particle barrier covering the facility they’ve managed to sneak into. Take it down, and the Galra’s defenses drop, and Allura can wreak havoc with the Castle of Lions and the other races of the Voltron Alliance waiting outside. The three of them don’t waste time on their part of the mission—Hunk and Pidge immediately get to work on the complicated process of messing with the barrier, while Shiro takes up a defensive position in front of them, arm raised and ready.But the Galra won’t make it so easy as that. As soon as Pidge and Hunk get to work, alarms start blaring, and within moments soldiers and sentries start filtering in, weapons at the ready.And that’s where Lance comes in. He grins as he sights his first target down the barrel, a sentry raising its own firearm towards Hunk. “Not on my watch,” he mutters, and fires.The sentry bursts in an array of sparks. Before it even hits the ground Lance turns on his next target, another ranged sentry, and that one bursts in a flash of blue as he fires again. Then a third, and a fourth, and a fifth. He’s firing almost as fast as he can sight, concentrating on any targets below that have the ability to hit his friends from far away. Shiro’s able to handle the remainder in close combat with ease, but Lance backs him up whenever he has a spare tick to keep the press of attackers from overwhelming them.Lance takes down dozens, and Shiro collects his own sizable pile of scrap metal in front of him, but it’s like there’s no end to these guys. Lance is constantly readjusting, constantly firing. Then he hears the banging noise to his right, and feels the tremble of the catwalk faintly beneath him.“Company,” Keith mutters behind him. “They found us. Keep it up, I’ll take care of them.”Sort of the plan to begin with, but Lance is concentrating too hard on his task to make a snappy comeback. “Got it,” he says instead, as he hears Keith stand and rush towards the nearby door. There’s a clang of metal and a wet sounding thud, and the whole catwalk shakes.Annoying, that. Lance hastily readjusts his aim before firing again before the fight on the catwalk shakes it up so much it ruins his shots. He’s had a lot of practice sniping while in motion, at least, and adjust the angle instinctively. Ignoring the fight to his left is a little harder; the grunts and thuds of combat are loud and close, and once he feels the woosh of air on his face from what is definitely way too close. But nobody actually hits him, and he’s able to keep focusing on the swarm below.Okay. Well, he admits grudgingly, maybe Shiro was a little right about sending Keith with him. It’s not like he needs babysitting or anything, but, well, this is kind of useful. It lets him focus on his job without worrying about his life.The swarm finally starts to slow down six doboshes later, and Hunk is able to withdraw from the machine to help Shiro with the fight, mowing down sentries with his own high-powered bayard. A massive Galra officer has arrived, though—the final boss in this mission, Lance thinks—and he looks pissed. One of his arms is solid metal and he’s at least half again Shiro’s height, towering over the team on the ground. Lance decides his shots are best spent helping with that guy, and he levels his rifle bayard at the opponent.“Lance! Look out!”“Almost,” he mutters, lining up the shot. This guy is tricky; he’s so well armored there’s only so many places he can try to hit. “Just a…sec—““Lance!”Something hits him hard from the side at the exact moment he takes the shot. He yelps when he’s bowled over sideways, and the blast from his bayard flies painfully wide. The edges of his curiass dig painfully into his side as he’s slammed into the metal grating of the catwalk, and something heavy presses him down.For a moment the movement dizzies him, but then he blinks and shakes his head as he recovers his wits. “What the hell?” he grouses. “Damn it, Keith! You’re supposed to keep them off me—I lost my shot!” He tries to push himself up—from this angle he can’t see the fight below that well, and he’s not sure if they’re still in trouble. Maybe if he hurries he can still back Shiro and Hunk up against that monster.But the heavy weight holding him down doesn’t leave. Lance has to actively shove it off, and wonders what the hell hit him. It’s too organic to be a sentry, and——and he feels wetness on his fingers, even through the gloves, at the same time he catches sight of the red, white and black of the paladin armor now sprawled next to him.Oh.“Keith!” Lance hisses, wide eyed. “Keith, you’re—bleeding, oh geez—“Keith doesn’t look good. Even flopped on his side where Lance had shoved him, the awful wound in his back and side is still painfully visible. It looks like some sort of blast from a Galra firearm, and the edges of the wound are partially cauterized. But the rest of it bleeds sluggishly and there’s still so much of it and——wait. Wound from a firearm?Lance’s eyes widen, and he snaps up his shield barely in time, leaning forward to crouch over Keith to protect him as well. The blasts smash into the shield in a flurry of sparks, and Lance grunts at the pressure on his arm.The Galra soldier firing approaches on the catwalk, laying down a thick barrage of fire as he paces closer. There’s a nasty-looking wound in one arm and another cracking the armor of his leg, both clearly courtesy of Keith’s bayard. But even so, he limps steadily forward, eyes narrowed and hate in his expression.Lance winces as another shot hits the shield, and glances down at Keith again. Keith’s in a bad way. He looks dazed—not quite unconscious, but clearly in pain. The wound is positioned in such a way that he could only have taken it when turned away from his opponent, but Keith never ran from anyone. Even with his shield broken—and a quick glance at the shattered wrist mount indicates it’s very broken—Keith should have charged right in.Unless…unless Keith had deliberately taken that hit for him.“You idiot,” Lance hisses in a panic, adjusting the shield again. “You stupid…don’t you dare die!”Keith doesn’t respond, but it hardly matters. He definitely will die if that soldier gets close enough. Lance’s shield is already starting to flicker alarmingly from the number of shots it’s taken, and Keith’s bleeding out and can’t even move.Running’s not an option; Keith will die for sure. But he can’t use his bayard and keep the shield up at the same time. The others are below in the middle of their own battle—there’s no rescue coming. What the hell is he supposed to do?You’re the one who insisted you could do this without Keith, he tells himself harshly. How about you prove it for once in your life?Lance sets his jaw. He’s still scared as hell, but now he’s determined, too. Nobody’s dying on his watch. “Hang on, man,” he tells Keith, although he’s not sure the other can even hear him. “One sec and we’ll get you out of here.”He’ll just have to time this really, really perfectly.The soldier fires. It its Lance’s shield, and shatters his last defense in a final burst of smoke and sparks. Already, the soldier is pulling the trigger again—but in the split second in between, Lance raises his own rifle and fires, blasting the firearm out of his opponent’s hands.The soldier howls in pain when the gun is ripped from his claws, but recovers quickly, and immediately lunges. Lance is already moving, ducking away from Keith to lead the fight away from him, and fires again. The blast takes the Galra in the shoulder, but then he’s too close. He lashes out angrily with his claws, scoring a deep gash into Lance’s armor.Lance panics, and immediately tries to backpedal. He lashes out with his bayard like a club as he tries to put a little distance between him and the enemy, and it catches the Galra on the side of the head. The opponent isn’t stunned, but he does stumble sideways—into the railing of the catwalk, and straight over it.The room is full of noise from the battle and the blaring alarms, but Lance swears he’s going to hear that final scream and the awful, sickening crunch far below until his dying day.He’s trembling as he stares at the empty space where the Galra soldier had been, but then he shakes his head. Keith. Focus. The bayard disappears into its thigh holster as he hastily dives for Keith again, pressing his hands over the wound in the red paladin’s side to try and stem the bleeding. “Keith! Keith, hang on, man. You hear me? Stay awake.”Keith doesn’t answer, exactly, but he does groan a little, and curl tighter into a ball, as though trying to stem the pain. Lance moves a hand to Keith’s shoulder to try and hold him still. “Stop that. Stop moving. Just…hang on.”“Lance?” Keith slurs. “What…?”“Oh thank God,” Lance says, relieved. “At least you’re talking. Kind of.” The feel of blood soaking his gloves is awful. He scowls. “The hell did you do that for?”“Do…?”
“You got shot! On purpose!”Keith blinks dazedly. After a moment he seems to remember, and mutters, “Gonna kill you.”“You could’ve died instead!”“Didn’t,” Keith mutters. His eyes slide closed.“Oh no, no no no you don’t,” Lance hisses, half furious and half terrified. “Awake, stay awake, damn it—“But Keith doesn’t listen—because he’s a stubborn, contrary ass like that. Lance can feel his hands shaking as he presses harder on the wound to try and stem the bleeding better, but even that doesn’t get a reaction out of Keith, and that’s when he really starts to get scared.“—ce, what’s going on? Lance! Report, now!”Lance suddenly realizes there’s been yelling going on in his ear for quite some time now, and he’s been tuning it out. “Sorry, Shiro,” he rasps. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to drop cover, I—Keith got shot, I had to—I don’t know—”“Lance.” Shiro’s voice is firm, and Lance cuts himself off mid-ramble. “You’re fine. Calm down. We’re done down here, we need to get out. Can Keith move? Can you help him get down here?”“No, he’s out c—“ Lance freezes when he hears more voices from the door. “Oh, crap. There’s more coming. I can’t take on that many more guys! I barely took out the one and Keith is bleeding—““Lance.” He shuts up again. “Calm down. Breathe. Can you jump? Fly you both down? Hunk will cover you.”“I…I think…yes.” Lance takes a deep breath. “I think…no, I can. But he’s bleeding bad, it’s gonna hurt him.”“Just get him down here. That’s all we need, and we’ll get him out of here safely.”Lance nods, and glances down at Keith. “Sorry, man…this is gonna hurt. A lot, probably,” he mutters under his breath. Removing his hands from blocking the wound feels wrong, but he doesn’t have much of a choice as he loops one of Keith’s arms over his shoulders, and hooks the other around his non-injured side.He leaps off the railing just as the other soldiers burst out the door, and kicks on the jetpack. Keith is all dead weight, and the jetpack struggles to support both of them, but it slows them enough that they don’t meet the same end as that first soldier. The other Galra soldiers try to lean over the railing to fire while they’re helpless in midair, but Hunk’s energy cannon chews up the catwalk near them and keeps them thoroughly distracted.Lance stumbles awkwardly as he finally lands, and Keith almost immediately starts to sink from his shoulders, dripping blood alarmingly. Shiro is there in an instant, and Pidge on the other side. They help steady Lance, and Shiro lifts Keith away from him, supporting the red paladin more easily in his arms. Lance feels a little sick at the sight of so much red staining his and Shiro’s white armor in just a few moments, and at the sticky feel still on his gloves, but he made it. Things are gonna be okay. They got to Shiro, they finished the mission, they’re gonna get out of here and get Keith medical help immediately.“Let’s get out of here,” Shiro orders, as if he can hear Lance’s thoughts.Lance nods shakily, but his hands are surprisingly steady as he summons his bayard again, and takes the point position ahead of Shiro and his unconscious burden. They’ll get Keith out of here. He’ll make sure of it himself if he has to.