Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After what was already being called the ‘Battle for Earth,’ Shiro visited the hospital to see the Paladins every day. There were thousands of things to do, and he had more demands on his time than he would ever have believed possible, but he had a responsibility to his team. No one, not even the joint chiefs of staff, argued with him over it.

Shiro was in a weird position, because had been the one to awaken Atlas, to transform her. She was like the lions now, sentient in her own strange way, and while she accepted the crew (Shiro got the impression that she was actively fond of Coran, maybe because of the Castle of Lions was her heart now), it was clear that only Shiro could make her transform. So while technically Shiro was still a part of the chain of command, he was also outside of it in certain key ways.

He tried not to abuse the privilege too much, but it let him have the freedom to go check on the Paladins every day, and he wasn’t about to give that up.

Allura was the first one to recover, probably due to Altean toughness and the luck of the Blue Lion having landed in water, softening the impact considerably. She was probably fit to be discharged within the first three or four days, but Coran insisted that she should rest longer and since the doctors knew basically nothing about Alteans, they listened to him. She was generally cheerful each time Shiro saw her.

Lance was also recovering well, having sustained some internal injuries, but nothing that would take longer than a month or so to heal. Shiro didn’t tend to stay long in Lance’s hospital room, because it was always crowded with a minimum of four of Lance’s family members, and Shiro always felt a bit like he was intruding. Lance’s niece and nephew would run notes back and forth down the hall from Lance’s room to Allura’s, and they had already taken to calling her Auntie Allura. Shiro was happy for them.

Pidge’s hospital room was also filled with her family members, but Shiro felt less like an intruder there, since Sam and Colleen had all but adopted him. He suspected that it was in part due to Sam – recently promoted, now Admiral Holt – that no one higher up the chain of command begrudged him the daily visits. Pidge had broken her leg badly enough she’d needed surgery to set the bone, and she had several screws and plates in it now. She was looking at quite a bit of physical therapy even once she was discharged from the hospital, but she also seemed pretty happy, and joked about how she was going to become a badass cyborg like Shiro.

Hunk was doing well enough, considering. His parents were with him and safe, but they still weren’t sure about his aunt and uncle or cousins. They were still trying to get global communication reestablished after Sendak had so utterly destroyed it, and with billions of people trying to find their loved ones in the aftermath, what little communication they had was mostly reserved for whatever government remained. It took over a week before they finally got confirmation that they were alive and safe back on Samoa. After that, Hunk seemed to be doing much better, and he got better still when Shiro was able to tell him that they’d gotten word that a Balmera was on the way – and yes, it was the one Shay lived on.

The only one of the Paladins not making a quick recovery was Keith, and it was almost killing Shiro with worry. He had been the worst injured, with a skull fracture, a broken rib that had punctured his lung, and two cracked vertebrae. The doctors were doing the best they could, but Keith was only half-human and his body just didn’t work the way everyone else’s did, and they didn’t know anything about Galra physiology. While some of the Galra had survived the battle and were in custody, none of them were doctors, and even if they had been, no one liked the idea of letting them near Keith, lest one of them took it in their head to take revenge for their defeat.

There was nothing that Shiro could do but wait and hope. He usually spent two hours in the hospital each day – one hour divided between the other Paladins, one hour at Keith’s bedside, holding his hand and praying for him to recover. Keith had to recover. Ever since Shiro had been brought back to life, he’d put distance between himself and Keith. It was partly out of guilt over what he (technically his clone) had done while being controlled by Haggar, and partly because his feelings about Keith had been changing. He’d needed space to try and figure everything out.

He didn’t want to think about how he would feel if Keith died and Shiro had spent the last weeks of his life being distant toward him. How fucking selfish that had been, withdrawing like that without a word of explanation to Keith. When Keith woke up, Shiro would apologize for that.

It was nine days after the battle, when Shiro was in Keith’s room, holding Keith’s limp hand with Kosmo’s head on his knee, when a lieutenant Shiro didn’t know burst into the room, looking frantic.

She snapped a smart salute despite her obvious worry, and said, “Captain Shirogane, sir!”

Shiro sighed, “At ease, lieutenant…?”

“Mason, sir.”

“Where’s the fire, Mason?” Shiro asked, not letting go of Keith’s hand. Shiro felt like he did nothing but put out metaphorical fires.

“Sir, we’ve received a communication from a ship claiming to be affiliated with the Coalition.”

“And?” Shiro asked, trying not to let himself get too annoyed at her for this. It must have worried someone important if they’d sent an officer to deliver a simple message.

“Sir, the ship and its crew are Galran. They claim to be allies of Voltron, but we absolutely cannot let them land unless we’re certain. The admiralty are in favor of blowing them out of the sky, but Atlas won’t power up her weapons for some reason.”

Shiro carefully kept his face blank at hearing that, but he was pleased. Atlas didn’t feel at all like the Black Lion had, her consciousness felt… well, young, but he felt like she’d absorbed a sense of right and wrong already. Refusing to fire on a non-aggressive ship? That was the choice Shiro would make.

Good girl, he thought gently in her general direction. He wondered if she’d felt it.

Lieutenant Mason opened her holopad, “Let me patch you through.”

She handed it to him, and Shiro was greeted with a familiar, scarred face.

“Kolivan!” he said in surprise. He hadn’t expected to hear from the Blade of Marmora so soon, but he thought it was probably good news. The Blade tended to contact them when they had useful intelligence.

Kolivan nodded respectfully, “Shiro. Although I’ve heard you’re ‘Captain Shirogane’ now. Congratulations on your promotion.”

“Thank you,” Shiro said automatically, “You’re coming to Earth?”

“We are already here,” Kolivan said, looking amused, “What remains of the Blade of Marmora has regrouped. We had intended to use one of our old bases as a place to rebuild from, but then we heard the news of what occurred on Earth. Krolia convinced me that this would be a better option.”

“Krolia? Is she with you?” Shiro asked.

“Yes. Would you like to speak with her?”

Shiro glanced down at Keith, still laying in the hospital bed and looking more fragile than he had ever seemed before. The doctors had said that Keith wasn't ‘technically’ in a coma, since he still had some responses to external stimuli, but ‘not technically comatose’ wasn’t exactly a promising diagnosis. Krolia needed to know. Maybe if one of the Blades with them had medical training, they could help Keith...

“Yes. I need to tell her something about Keith – he’s alive!” Shiro added quickly, seeing the way Kolivan’s expression changed, “But he was hurt badly in the battle, and… he’s been very slow recovering.”

Kolivan nodded solemnly, “She’ll want to see him when we land.”

“I’ll let the admiralty know that I vouch for you,” Shiro said, “They’re… a little distrustful of Galra at the moment.”

“That’s no surprise.”

Shiro looked at the screen for a moment, tapped an icon on it, and a video feed of the admiralty meeting room came up. As he expected, they’d clearly been listening in on the conversation. It was a breach of protocol, but he didn’t salute, since that would have required him to let go of either Keith’s hand or the pad.

“The Blade of Marmora are friendly,” Shiro said, “I only personally know a few members, but I would trust any of them with my life. We should allow them to land with the rest of the Coalition.”

It took Shiro half an hour of arguing to get them to agree, which was honestly less than he expected, but eventually the Blades ship landed and Shiro went to greet them. The Garrison personnel looked very unsure about the situation, and Shiro did his best to dispel their worries. He couldn’t blame them for being wary of Galra in general, but if Allura and Coran, who had their entire planet destroyed by the Galra could accept that the whole species wasn’t evil, Earth could do it, too. He wondered how people would react once it got out that Keith was half-Galra.

He sped through the introductions as quickly as he reasonably could, since Krolia was looking very impatient. She was no doubt just as worried about Keith as Shiro was. Once they were done and Kolivan was in conversation with Sam and Iverson, she pulled him aside and asked him to take her to Keith.

Shiro agreed, and got Kosmo to teleport them both over to the hospital rather than wait for a vehicle. He wasn’t surprised when Krolia began interrogating the doctors about Keith’s condition and giving them instructions on his care. After a little while, he left her to it. Shiro did have other responsibilities, and he felt much more comfortable going about them when he knew Keith was in good hands with his mother.

Once Krolia was there to direct the doctors on the details of Galra biology, Keith started to recover much more quickly. By the next day, his coloring was better and when Shiro came to do his daily visit, Keith seemed more like he was sleeping soundly than unconscious. The day after that, the younger man was fully conscious and coherent, talking with Krolia and Kolivan when he arrived.

His eyes lit up when he saw Shiro, and Shiro very nearly cried from relief. He crossed the room to the bed in two strides and hugged Keith as tightly as he dared, given Keith’s broken rib.

“Keith,” he said, “Thank god.”

He hadn’t quite realized the full magnitude of his worry until that moment, when he was relieved from the pressure of it. He’d come closer to losing Keith than he ever had before, and it wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat.

“I thought I was going to lose you,” he said softly, “Never scare me like that again.”

“Guess it was your turn to worry about me, huh?” Keith asked with a tired smile.

Shiro laughed in spite of himself, and kissed Keith’s forehead gently. He thought he could feel Krolia and Kolivan’s eyes burning into the back of his head as he did so, but he’d been waiting nearly two weeks for Keith to wake up and he didn’t care what they thought.

They still hadn’t talked about what had happened before, at the clone facility, but this level of affection had to be okay. Keith had nearly died, and Shiro had been worried sick about him.

Keith looked up at him with a smile, opened his mouth to say something, and yawned widely.

“You still need rest,” Shiro said softly.

“I don’t know why, I was asleep for ten days,” Keith grumbled.

“Well, as it turns out, skull fractures, cracked vertebrae, and punctured lungs take a lot of energy to heal,” Shiro said, the worry he’d felt only covered by the faintest of joking tones.

“I’m sorry for scaring you so bad.”

“It’s okay,” Shiro said, “I mean, I was scared. Really scared. But it was exactly what I would have done in your position, and it saved the lives of at least a billion people. I’m so proud of you, Keith. You’ve come into your own as Voltron’s leader.”

Keith smiled at him with obvious pride and said, “Same to you, Captain.” He yawned again.

Shiro ruffled his hair, “Get some sleep, Keith. We’ll talk later.”

“Okay. Don’t forget that you need to sleep, too.”

Even lying in a hospital bed, Keith was always looking out for him. Shiro couldn’t help but smile. For all his confusion, all the distance he’d tried to put between himself and Keith, the answer suddenly seemed crystal clear, and so obvious that he wondered why he’d ever needed to sort his feelings out. They were sorted and he knew: he loved Keith.

Pulling away had been stupid of him as well as selfish. When he was with Keith, everything felt simple to understand.

“Don’t worry, I will,” he promised, “And I’m sure I’m going to sleep a lot better tonight now that I’m certain you’re recovering.”

Later. He would ask later if Keith felt the same way, but it wasn’t what Keith needed while he was recovering.

Keith smiled and closed his eyes, and within thirty seconds he was snoring faintly. Shiro left the hospital room feeling lighter than he had in weeks.

The next day, he made his visit to the hospital early in the morning, before anyone had a chance to catch him and demand his attention again. Maybe he should have felt guilty about avoiding his duties to the Garrison and Earth in order to see Keith again as soon as he could, but he didn’t. Today’s problems could be dealt with just as easily at 10:00 as they could at 8:00.

He’d been stopping by the other Paladins’ rooms first this whole time, but this time he bypassed them and made a beeline to Keith’s room. Keith was asleep again, and Krolia appeared to be asleep as well, but the moment he stepped into the room, she opened her eyes and looked at him.

“Good morning,” he said, not sure what else to say.

“Is it? I haven’t checked yet.” She got to her feet and walked over to Keith’s bed, placing her hand on his arm and giving him a gentle shake. “Keith, wake up.”

“No, don’t wake him up!” Shiro protested.

“He asked me to wake him when you got here,” she said, and gave Keith another gentle shake, “Shiro is here.”

Keith’s eyes fluttered open. He looked disoriented for a moment, then his gaze found Shiro’s and he smiled. “Hey,” he said.

“I’ll go get us some breakfast,” Krolia said, “Shiro, do you need anything?”

“Oh, uh… maybe just some coffee?”

“Alright. I’ll be back in a bit.” She leaned down, gave Keith a kiss on his temple, and left the room.

Shiro stood there for a moment, feeling awkward. After a pause that felt like a lot longer than it probably actually was, he walked over to Keith’s bedside. Keith held up his hand, and Shiro grabbed it automatically.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“A lot better,” Keith said, “So I guess it turns out I’m lucky I never got seriously hurt on Earth before, ‘cause most of the standard stuff they give you after major surgery was slowing down the healing process a lot.”

“Yeah, I kind of guessed that. You got better so much faster once your mom was here to start bullying the doctor.”

Keith laughed, then his expression got more serious, “Everything’s been so crazy. I feel like this is the first down time I’ve gotten since before we lost the Castle. And I’m only getting it ‘cause I’m stuck in a hospital bed.”

Shiro smiled ruefully, “It’s probably going to stay crazy for a while, sorry to say.”

“Yeah, but… we’ve got a few minutes to ourselves now,” Keith said. He looked uncomfortable, but asked, “I’ve never asked… do you… do you have any of the clone’s memories?”

Shiro’s breath hitched a bit, but he nodded, “Yeah, I do. Most of them, I think. It’s weird. Some of them feel more like… like I was watching it through a camera lens instead of actually there, and some of them feel like… like it was just me, like there was never a clone at all, like I was the one who did those things.”

His eyes lingered on the scar on Keith’s cheek. He reached out to touch it with his floating hand, then hesitated, his fingers a few centimeters away, “I’m sorry for hurting you.”

“If you’re going to blame anyone, blame Haggar,” Keith said fiercely. He seized Shiro’s arm and pulled it closer to actually touch his face. “This was – god, Shiro, I would have – do you remember what I said to you, before cutting off your arm?”

You’re my brother. I love you. Shiro would never, ever forget those words. He nodded, unable to speak.

“I meant it,” Keith said, his eyes intense, “I’ve never meant anything more.”

“Oh,” Shiro said softly, “You mean that you -”

He stopped, unable to voice it.

“Yeah,” Keith said. He smiled at Shiro and said, “I know that everybody always thought of me as the loner, and they were right, kind of. I’d push people away before they had the chance to do the same to me. But now I’m not alone anymore. I have a family again. Mom and the other Paladins and even some of the Blade. And you were the start of that, Shiro. The one who reached out to a discipline case and a troublemaker and made me believe that there really was someone who would be there for me no matter what.”

“Keith...” Shiro murmured, somehow feeling both happy and like his heart was breaking. Keith loved him, but saw him as a brother.

“Do you,” Keith paused, biting his lip, “Do you feel the same way?”

No, but he couldn’t possibly admit his love for Keith was romantic in nature now. So he smiled gently and said, “Of course I do, Keith.”

He leaned forward and carefully gathered Keith into a hug, mindful of his injuries. This… this would be enough. It would have to be. If a brother was all Keith wanted him to be, then that was all that Shiro would be.

Keith sighed happily and relaxed against Shiro. “I love you,” he murmured.

“I love you too, Keith,” Shiro replied. He meant it wholeheartedly.

Keith let out a soft huff of laughter, his warm breath tickling Shiro’s collarbone, “I was pretty sure you did. But it’s nice to hear the words sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Shiro agreed. It was nice to hear the words, even if Keith didn’t mean them in the way Shiro wanted him to. “That’s one of those things people don’t really tend to say enough, isn’t it? Not to their friends, or even their families. It’s like we all think it’s only okay to say it to a romantic partner.”

“I’ll be sure to tell Hunk, Pidge and Allura that I love them, too.”

“Not Lance?” Shiro asked with a smile.

“Saying it to everyone but him is just the kind of thing that’ll really get under his skin, but he won’t be able to admit that it does without admitting he’s my friend and loves me too,” Keith laughed, “How are they doing, by the way? I haven’t had a chance to see anyone yet.”

“They’re all recovering,” Shiro said, “Allura’s back on her feet already. I’ll make sure to let her know you wouldn’t mind some company. I’d stay here all day if I could, but.”

“I know. You’re as busy as I’m going to be once they give me a clean bill of health. I understand,” Keith sighed, and shifted position a little in Shiro’s arms, “The nurses told me you’ve been in to see me every day since I was admitted, even though you’ve got so much to do. Thanks for that.”

Shiro told Keith about the rest of the team, about Lance and his family and how they teased him about his crush on Allura and kept nudging him to make a move, about Pidge and the design she and Matt were making for something they swore would be ‘a serious improvement over crutches’, about how happy Hunk was now that Shay had arrived and how much his parents already liked her, and how Allura was already talking with Garrison engineers from her hospital bed about other Altean technology and how it might be adapted to use Earth materials.

He was still holding Keith’s hand when Krolia returned with a breakfast that looked like it consisted of roughly half the food from the hospital cafeteria’s buffet. She handed Shiro a small cup of coffee and put a plate piled high with bacon in front of Keith.

The lure of bacon was enough to make Keith let go of Shiro’s hand, and he dug in happily. Kosmo teleported into the room and trotted over to Keith’s bed, looking up at him with pleading eyes. Keith laughed, and tossed Kosmo a piece.

“I gave him food in the cafeteria,” Krolia said, “You need to eat more than he does.”

“There’s like thirty pieces of bacon on this plate, mom, I can share,” Keith looked at Shiro and picked up a piece of bacon, “Do you want some, Shiro?”

“Sure,” Shiro said. He didn’t exactly feel hungry, but it did smell good.

He realized he had miscalculated when Keith held up the food before Shiro’s face, and Shiro realized that Keith was going to feed him. Willing himself not to blush and make it weird, he opened his mouth and took the offered piece of food.

It was pretty good bacon, and Shiro stole the next three pieces off Keith’s plate before Keith could try to feed him again and make Shiro feel awkward.

Eventually, Keith got tired again, and Shiro left him to rest with a promise that he would be back the next day. He made his rounds quickly, checking in on the other Paladins briefly before getting a call from Sam, telling him he was needed back on the Atlas.

She had been acting up all morning, apparently. Not in any dangerous ways, but in ways that caused inconvenience and annoyance for the crew. In short, she was cranky, and Shiro wondered if that was his fault in some way.

He got back to the bridge and spent about half an hour communing with her, and eventually came to the conclusion that she’d just been feeling neglected and a bit lonely, as almost all of the non-essential crew was on the ground.

“Acting up to get attention, huh?” Shiro asked her fondly, not caring about the odd looks he was getting from the bridge crew, “You’ve got to learn to be patient.”

He got an impression that she felt like he was scolding her, and he softened it by silently praising her for refusing to fire on the Blade of Marmora’s ship earlier. That did the trick, because her presence in his mind immediately settled down.

“Sentient spaceships,” Ensign Callahan muttered, “Who thought that was a good idea? Atlas can just stop working because she’s in a bad mood.”

Shiro patted the console, “Hey, she’s not even two weeks old. She’s still learning.”

He spent the rest of the day on Atlas, and he was busy enough that he could mostly keep his mind off of Keith. There were tests to run on Atlas’s new capabilities and he had to meet with a public relations expert who wanted him to make a speech and he had contact the Balmerans to ask the Balmera to move to an orbit around the moon since it was massive enough to completely fuck with Earth’s tides. And that was all before midafternoon. By the time Shiro was finally able to call it quits for the day, he was so exhausted that he could barely walk straight, all but staggering down the hall to his quarters.

He’d hoped that he would be tired enough to fall asleep instantly, but he wasn’t. The moment he laid down on his bed, his thoughts turned back to Keith. Strong, brave, confident, beautiful Keith. Who always stood beside him, who had saved his life more times than Shiro cared to count, and who loved him – but not in the way Shiro wanted him to.

You’re my brother.

It hurt. But Shiro had certainly endured worse pain before, and at least he could still be close to Keith, be a part of his life. That would be enough.

It would have to be enough.

Chapter Text

Lance was in a pretty great mood when he was finally released from the hospital. Sure, internal injuries were no walk in the park, but the downtime to just be with his family had been good. Great, even. He’d told them all the stories of his space adventures, emphasizing his triumphs (to excite his niece and nephew) and downplaying his narrow escapes (to keep from worrying his parents). He had promised to take all of them for a ride in the Red Lion when he was cleared to fly again. According to the doctor, the Red Lion was ‘heavy machinery’ and he wasn’t cleared to operate heavy machinery yet.

He was, however, cleared to go up to the Atlas and finally have a proper look around the ship. In theory, it was supposed to be Voltron’s new base of operations – everyone generally liked that idea, but the problem was in figuring out whether Voltron being there meant that Earth was in command of Voltron. The Admiralty wanted that, Lance certainly had some reservations, and Allura was flat-out against the idea of Voltron belonging to any one planet, even Earth.

Ugh. Politics. That kind of stuff was not Lance’s forte. But he was good at giving a charming smile to the media people camped outside of the hospital to get pictures of him when he left. He managed to look pretty cool, at least until Veronica elbowed him in the ribs and told him to stop showboating.

A reporter – pretty, but nowhere near as pretty as Allura – asked him a question about Voltron and its place in Earth’s military, and Lance shrugged.

“Sorry, I don’t have any details on that. I’m sure Princess Allura and the Joint Chiefs of Staff will work out an arrangement everyone can agree to, though!” That was a good kind of non-answer, right?

“But if Voltron is under the command of aliens, isn’t it a potential threat to everyone on Earth?” the reporter asked.

Lance frowned, but Veronica saved him from having to answer by wrapping her arm around his shoulder and ushering him toward the transport.

“No comment!” she snapped at the two other reporters who tried to get in their way.

Veronica took the controls on the transport, and Lance relaxed on the seat. Earth gravity was nice after so long in space. Even if the artificial gravity was supposed to be set to Earth’s level, it never quite felt right.

“I can’t believe how little time it took for the obnoxious reporters to come back,” Veronica grumbled, “A word of advice? Never answer questions from reporters who are lying in wait for you outside of whatever building. They’re just trying to get a provocative-sounding clip for the evening news.”

“The struggles of fame,” Lance said with a grin, and she rolled her eyes at him.

They arrived in one of the hangars in due time, and Veronica gave him a sort-of tour of the ship as she guided him up to the command deck. They passed other crew, many of whom clearly weren’t certain if they were supposed to be saluting Lance or not. He’d never actually graduated from being a cadet, so he didn’t really have a rank, but he was a Paladin, and had just helped save the entire planet, so they were obviously in awe of him.

It was pretty cool, and Lance was almost chipper when they got to Shiro’s office. Shiro’s head was bowed over a holopad, and he looked… well, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders, which was fitting, Lance supposed.

“Knock knock!” he greeted, since the door was open and he couldn’t actually knock, “How’s it going, fearless leader?”

Shiro looked up at him in surprise, “Lance! I didn’t know you’d already been discharged!”

“Yup,” Lance said cheerfully, “I’m under doctor’s orders not to exert myself, so I was thinking I'd take the family to the beach. Y’know, sunbathing, cold drink, sound of the waves… very relaxing.  But I’m also not allowed to operate heavy machinery, and apparently that includes the Red Lion. Can you believe that?!”

Shiro laughed a little, “Lance, the Red Lion weighs almost nine tons. That definitely counts as ‘heavy’.”

“Red is also sentient, so, y’know...” he shrugged, “Anyway, how are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” Shiro answered automatically.

“No, I meant that as a real question, not like when you say it and it basically means ‘hello’. You look like they’ve been running you pretty ragged.”

Shiro sighed heavily, “There’s a lot to do. There’s a lot of stuff that needs to happen that only I can do right now.”

“Mm-hm,” Lance responded, “And I bet there’s a lot of stuff that needs to happen that for some reason you think only you can do, even though you should probably delegate it?”

Behind him, Veronica snorted with barely contained laughter. Shiro gave her a baleful look.

“He’s got your number, Captain,” she said, “And on a related note: we saw Keith as we were leaving the hospital, and he told me to remind you to eat or he’d send the space wolf to come get you so that he can watch and make sure you have lunch.”

Shiro hid his face in his hands and groaned.

“We all know what a workaholic you are,” Lance said, “You’re like Allura that way. It's like you never take a break until someone makes you.”

“That’s not – look, it’s just that staying busy is a good way to… to keep my mind off things I’m not ready to think about yet,” Shiro said softly, like he was admitting a deep secret.

Oh. Lance suddenly felt like an asshole. Of course Shiro would want to keep busy. Hadn’t Lance been distracting himself, too? They'd been through a lot.  The only difference was that Lance had been around his family. Shiro, though… Shiro didn’t have anyone here on Earth, did he? He hadn’t sent home any messages to Earth with Admiral Holt, after all.

Lance was no therapist, but he was a good listener. He grabbed a chair, pulled it over to Shiro’s desk, and sat down.

“You wanna talk about it? I mean, I know you just said you’re not ready to think about it yet, but… it might help?” he offered.

Veronica gave a little cough from the doorway and said, “I’ll get back to my duties, sir. Lance? If Keith does send the space wolf over, let me know.”

He gave her a wave of acknowledgment and she left. There was awkward silence for a moment, then Lance said, “Come on, Shiro. Spill.”

“I…” Shiro hesitated, then said, “I kind of realized that I, uh, have feelings for Keith. Romantic feelings. And it’s becoming a problem.”

Lance didn’t know how to respond to that. He hadn’t expected something like that to be what was bothering Shiro, but he thought he could handle helping Shiro out with this way better than he could with PTSD or dealing with the admiralty.

“Wow,” he said, because not knowing what to say had rarely been able to get Lance to keep his mouth shut, “Okay. I admit I didn’t see that coming, but… why would it be a problem?”

Shiro looked almost anguished as he said, “Keith only sees me as a brother.”

“What makes you think that?” Lance asked. He thought back to the number of times he’d seen Keith and Shiro looking at each other. He’d never paid much attention at the time, but they didn’t exactly seem brotherly.

“He told me so,” Shiro said.

“Oh. He turned you down?” Lance asked, wincing in sympathy.

Shiro shook his head, “No. I was going to tell him how I felt, but he told me that I was his family. If I were to tell him how I feel, at best it would make him uncomfortable, and at worst… it might make things so awkward we couldn’t be friends anymore.”

For a moment, Lance considered telling Shiro just how stupid that was, but then he thought about his feelings for Allura and stopped himself. He understood where Shiro was coming from all too well.

But still, it was ridiculous. “Shiro, I have older brothers, you know. And I’m telling you right now, if I looked at them the way Keith looks at you, it’d be really, really weird. Maybe he was just trying to tell you that you’re important to him? It might be worth asking.”

“No, Lance,” Shiro shook his head, “I appreciate you trying to be optimistic, but he said it in so many words. I’m fine, okay? Keith might not feel the same way about me as I do about him, but… what we have now is good, and I don’t want to mess it up.”

“Well, alright, if you’re sure,” Lance said dubiously. Shiro looked miserable, not fine, so he had his doubts, but he decided to drop the subject for the time being. Maybe he’d ask Keith about it later, and see what was going on. Seeing Shiro so obviously upset was weird, and if his love wasn’t actually unrequited, then he deserved to be happy.

Besides, Lance had been both Keith and Shiro’s literal right-hand man, he could probably rock being their wingman, too.

“Anyway, the Atlas is pretty amazing, and I’ve only seen like… five percent of it so far,” Lance said, and was pleased by the way Shiro perked right up, “Tell me that a spaceship this swank has a pool. And not a weird Altean pool that’s on the freaking ceiling for some reason.”

Shiro chuckled, “No, she doesn’t. She was built as a military ship, not a cruise liner.”

“You sure? Maybe one appeared when you made her transform!” Shiro laughed harder, and Lance put on a mock-indignant face, “Hey, don’t laugh! Try and tell me that we haven’t seen weirder stuff happen!”

He cheered Shiro up by listing off all their most bizarre encounters, and by the time he was done, Shiro just looked like he needed a good night’s sleep instead of utterly heartbroken. Lance congratulated himself on a job well done.

Allura showed up a little while later to talk to Shiro, and she smiled in pleased surprise when she saw Lance.

“You’re out of the hospital! I thought that you said that your injuries were going to take a…” - she hesitated over the word - “month? To heal? It hasn’t been that long yet, right? Am I converting Earth time measurements properly?”

She was so freaking cute. She even looked cute in the awful orange cadet uniform that didn’t look good on anyone. Lance felt his heart turn backflips as he smiled back at her.

“No, you’re right. It hasn’t been a month yet,” he said, “But being in a hospital isn’t like the cryopod, where you just stay in it and when you get out you’re all done. I’m still healing, but I’m well enough to come and check Atlas out.”

“I’m glad,” Allura said with a soft smile, “Although does that mean I’ll be seeing less of your family now? Your mother said that she’d stay until you were out of the hospital, so...”

“Oh, don’t worry, they’ll be around for a while!” Lance said quickly, “No one is sure if their houses are still standing, and travel is still a problem, so they’re going to stay in the Garrison’s living quarters for at least a couple more weeks.”

Allura nodded, “That’s good. I like your family a lot.”

Was she blushing? Lance was sure that his smile had to be the goofiest grin in the world as he said, “They like you, too.”

Shiro got to his feet, and suddenly Lance remembered he was in the room. Maybe staring at Allura wasn’t the thing to do when he was trying to cheer Shiro up from his unrequited (supposedly, but Lance doubted it) love. He cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Anyways, you needed to talk with Shiro about something, right?”

“Oh, yes,” Allura turned to Shiro and said, “Some of the representatives of the Coalition are hoping to get a tour of the Atlas. Admiral Holt thinks it’s a fine idea to foster diplomatic relations, but...”

“But?” Shiro asked, looking like he was resigned to Allura laying the worst case scenario on him.

“Slav is one of the people who wants a tour.”

Lance had never seen someone’s vein literally pulse in their forehead before. He would have laughed, but Shiro’s new floating arm meant that he could never avoid the retaliatory smack.

“If I have to deal with Slav,” Shiro said in a very carefully controlled voice, “On top of everything else I have to handle. I will take Atlas to the stratosphere and jump out.”

Despite himself, Lance snorted. Shiro scowled at him, and Lance tried to hide his laughter behind a sudden coughing fit. He didn’t think Shiro was fooled.

“Then perhaps someone else could give the tour, while you’re busy with something that will keep you off of the Atlas for a day or so?” Allura suggested, “Coran and I are planning to take some of your engineers to the Balmera for crystals to power the next generation of MFEs. If you wanted, I could say that we need you to come along.”

“Princess, you’re an angel.” Shiro was looking at her with so much adoration and gratitude that Lance would have been jealous, if he hadn’t literally just admitted he was in love with Keith.

“Although, speaking of touring the Atlas,” Lance said brightly, “I think you should take me on a tour to the mess hall so that we can get lunch and I can tell Keith I made sure that you ate.”

Shiro sighed, “Fine.”

Score one for the right-hand man.

Lance took it easy for the next few days, just like the doctor ordered. He did cheat and take a short flight in Red, just ‘cause he didn’t want his Lion to get bored, but he got so thoroughly worried over by his mother for ignoring the doctor’s orders that he decided not to do it again, just for her peace of mind. She didn’t need to know how often he had flown with worse injuries.

Hunk was let out of the hospital two days after him, and Lance convinced Hunk to make chocolate cake as a celebration of their liberation from hospital food. It hadn’t taken much convincing. Hunk was halfway to the kitchen by the time Shay had even had a chance to ask what chocolate was.

Apparently, chocolate affected Balmerans like alcohol did humans, and Lance was going to tease Hunk about getting his alien girlfriend drunk on cake forever.

It sure was cute, though. Lance was glad they were happy together, though he never would have guessed that Hunk would be the first one of them to be in a relationship. A good relationship, he amended, thinking about Lotor.

He told Pidge all about it the next day, and it made her laugh. Her leg was still in a cast and she hadn’t finished making the tricked-out, high-tech crutches she’d designed yet, so she was stuck in a wheelchair. She wasn’t technically discharged from the hospital yet, but she’d gotten permission to leave so that she could join the tour that Admiral Holt was giving the Coalition representatives. She and Matt asked more questions about the ship than all the aliens combined. Lance couldn’t really follow their science talk, but he was happy she wasn’t letting something like a broken femur dampen her mood.

Slav told them that there had only been nine percent of realities where all of the Paladins of Voltron had survived the battle, and that he was relieved they were in one. Lance guessed that was a sort of ‘congratulations on not dying’ comment, but it was… uncomfortable.

He sort of understood why Slav got under Shiro’s skin so badly. Hearing someone give their slim chances a numerical value was the kind of thing that could give a guy anxiety.

A week after that, Pidge was released from the hospital to go stay with her parents and Matt, leaving Keith the only member of their team still stuck in a hospital bed. He was trying not to show it, but it was really freaking obvious to everyone that Keith was going stir-crazy, so Lance arranged an unofficial rotation for everyone to take turns sitting with Keith and keeping him company.

When he arrived for his first shift on ‘Keith duty’, Shiro was there, watching nervously as a physical therapist helped Keith walk around the room.

“Hey, they’re letting you walk around!” Lance said brightly, “That’s a good sign!”

“Yeah,” Keith agreed, sounding a little annoyed, “But only under supervision.”

“You’re still having vertigo,” the physical therapist said firmly. She was a no-nonsense woman who looked to be in her fifties, and she sounded like she’d been fielding complaints like Keith’s for a really long time. “So you’re not walking anywhere without help yet.”

Keith scowled, “If I promise to be on my best behavior, can I at least go for a walk outside?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” she said, and Keith groaned.

“Come on, Keith,” Shiro said soothingly, “I know it’s frustrating, but what if you were to fall and hurt yourself worse? Then it would be even longer before you could get out of here.”

Lance noticed the way Keith’s expression softened completely as he looked at Shiro. Adoringly. Shiro thought that an expression like that was platonic? Seriously?

“I know, I know,” Keith said, “I’m just sick of being stuck here. I want to be up on the Atlas with you.”

Shiro blushed, and Lance rolled his eyes, because neither of them were paying the slightest bit of attention to him and he could get away with it.

“It’ll happen soon enough, Keith,” Shiro said, “Just remember: patience -”

“Yields focus,” Keith finished with him, and laughed, “Like I’m ever going to forget that.”

Lance endured fifteen minutes of agonizing second-hand embarrassment at their ‘subtle’ flirting before Keith’s physical therapy session ended and Shiro was called away to attend his duties on the Atlas. Before he left, he held Keith’s hand and gave him a hug, and Keith watched him until the door swung shut behind him.

Okay, this? This was unbearable.

“So...” Lance started, “About Shiro...”

“He’s running himself ragged, I can tell,” Keith said, “He’s trying not to let me see how tired he is, but it’s so obvious. I think the name Atlas was prophetic or something, ‘cause he’s trying to carry it all on his shoulders.”

“He’s got a bad case of helium hand, that’s for sure,” Lance agreed.

“Helium hand?” Keith repeated.

“The kind of person who, when they hear someone go ‘hey we need some help with this,’ is just like...” Lance raised his hand, “You know. Chronic volunteer syndrome.”

Keith laughed, “Oh, yeah. That’s Shiro all over. When I get out of here, I swear I’m going to lock us in his quarters for a day or two and make him get some fucking rest.”

Oh yeah, Shiro desperately needed him to be a wingman. Time to be blunt, Lance decided.

“Keith, buddy, I’m going to ask you straight out: Did you tell Shiro that you see him as a brother? ‘Cause, uh, I gotta tell you: there’s nothing brotherly about the way you two were acting just now.”

Keith blinked at him and then, to Lance’s surprise, he started to laugh.

“What?”

“I already figured that out a while ago,” Keith said with a giggle (an actual fucking giggle, was Lance in an alternate reality again, or was Keith just high on painkillers?).

“So then what’s going on with you and Shiro?” Lance asked.

“We’re dating,” Keith answered simply.

“Oh,” Lance said, feeling a little bit like when he was walking down a flight of stairs and missed a step. So much for being Shiro’s wingman, but at least they’d talked?  Lance flopped into the chair by Keith’s hospital bed, “Man, I was going to be wingman for you two and you ruined it by figuring your shit out before I could do anything. You suck.”

Keith rolled his eyes. Lance laughed, unable to pretend to be upset, “Do you mind if I tell people?”

“Just the team for now. We haven’t talked about it, but I think Shiro would rather be discreet,” Keith smiled, an almost dreamy expression, “He’s shy. I would never have expected that, but it’s so cute. He gets flustered whenever I compliment him or hold his hand and it’s just… it’s so different from Shiro in confident leader mode.”

Keith stopped abruptly, blushing, and Lance gave him a knowing smile. Obviously Shiro wasn’t the only one getting flustered.

Keith shook his head as if to clear it. “And, besides, I don’t want the whole Garrison or the Coalition knowing our private lives, either. It’s none of their business.”

“I’ll be the soul of discretion,” Lance vowed, “Although if you don't turn down the flirting a bit, everyone's gonna know anyway.”

“Is it that obvious?” Keith asked.

“Keith.  Buddy.  Your physical therapist and I just stared at each other and both thought 'can you believe this shit?' so hard that we shared a moment of pure, transcendent understanding,” Lance laughed at the way Keith's face went furiously red, “But seriously, I’m happy for you guys. Really.”

“I’m happy for you and Allura,” Keith replied.

It was Lance’s turn to blush, “We aren’t – I mean, I like her, but I don’t think -”

“You should talk to her,” Keith said, “I think you’ve got a chance with Allura. I mean… things worked out for Shiro and me.”

“Smitten is a weird look on you,” Lance teased.

Keith flushed and took a halfhearted swipe at him. Lance dodged it with a laugh, and then told Keith the story about Hunk and Shay and the chocolate cake. He hung out with Keith until Krolia and Kolivan arrived, and then he left.

He wouldn’t make a big deal about it, but he bet that the rest of the team would be happy to hear the good news.

Chapter Text

Hunk was having a pretty good day. He’d had a good night’s sleep, a whole bunch of cool engineering projects to work on, nothing had tried to kill him in almost a month, and he was standing in the fully-stocked kitchen of his quarters (officer-level quarters were so much nicer than the cadet quarters had been – easily large enough to share with his parents), trying to decide what to cook for dinner.

He opened the fridge and looked into it, considering. He had to feed at least four people, perhaps five – himself, his parents and Shay, and Romelle might be by, too – and what he had was a whole lot of vegetables. Soup, then? That would do.

“Can I help you to cook?” Shay asked.

Hunk smiled at her, “Sure! Can you fill that pot about a quarter of the way with water for me?”

She did so cheerfully, and Hunk grabbed a few carrots and began to chop them. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his mom smiling in approval, and he smiled too. It hadn’t taken his mom long at all to be won over completely by Shay’s personality, and his parents were almost as happy as Hunk himself was when they learned that the Balmera intended to stay in Earth’s solar system.

Hunk had spent an hour lecturing the Garrison’s corp of engineers to make sure they understood that the Balmera was a living, sentient creature that they absolutely had to treat with respect. He swore to Shay and her family that Earth would never hurt their home if he had anything to say about it. As a Paladin of Voltron, he had plenty to say about it.

There was a knock on the door, and Hunk braced himself. Was that going to be Romelle coming to join them for dinner, or someone with a problem they wanted him to solve?

Neither, actually, because Hunk’s dad called from the doorway, “Your friend Lance is here!”

“Great! Ask if he wants to join us for dinner!” Hunk called back.

“What are you making?” Lance asked, entering the kitchen, “My mom’s making dinner tonight, but if what you’re doing sounds good, I might just make room for two meals.”

Hunk laughed, “It’s just soup. What’s up?”

Lance grinned in a way that made Hunk suspect he was about to be roped in to some kind of half-baked scheme, “Wanna hear the latest juicy gossip?”

“Um… something about the way you ask that makes me feel like I’m going to regret it if I say yes.”

Lance ignored him, and continued, “Shiro and Keith are dating now.”

“What?”

“Yeah, Keith just told me.”

“That’s -” Hunk cut himself off. He was going to say that it was a surprise, but as he considered it, he realized it actually kind of wasn’t. They had always been closer to each other than anyone else on the team. “- actually not a surprise, now that I think about it?”

“Yeah, that’s kind of how I felt,” Lance replied, “The two of them are kinda…” - he made a vague gesture - “y’know?”

“Well, good for them,” Hunk said, “They’ve been through so much, they deserve to be happy.”

“That seems to be the case for all of the Paladins,” Shay said softly, “And… all of Earth as well. You deserve happiness after suffering under the Galra.”

Hunk smiled at her, “I mean, Earth wasn’t under Galra occupation for nearly as long as you were.”

“That doesn’t mean that Earth doesn’t deserve happiness. Freedom is worth celebrating, no matter how long you were enslaved.”

Hunk’s smile grew to a beaming grin, and he turned his attention back to cutting vegetables, “I don’t know about the rest of Earth, but I’m pretty happy right now.”

It was good to be home. Hunk picked up the cutting board and slid the chopped carrots into the pot, then started in on the celery.

“So when did they start dating?” Hunk asked, “Is this new, or has it been going on for a while?”

“Oh, it’s new,” Lance said, “I’m not sure exactly when, but like a week ago Shiro told me that Keith only saw him as a brother and today they were flirting with each other while Keith was doing PT. Like, I’m pretty sure the only reason they didn’t start making out was that the physical therapist and I were both in the room.”

Hunk made a face, “Are they one of those really sappy couples?”

“You’ve got no room to judge, buddy,” Lance said, with a meaningful look between him and Shay, “But yes, they’re extremely sappy.”

“Cute.”

“Sickening,” Lance retorted.

“Like you wouldn’t act exactly the same way if you and Allura started dating,” Hunk shot back.

Lance blushed and sputtered, but he couldn’t actually deny it. Hunk laughed at him. It seemed like romance was in the air lately. Not just for the Paladins, either, because Matt had come back to Earth with an alien girlfriend of his own, and it seemed like half the people in the Garrison were starting new relationships, all caught up in the elation of the Galra occupation being over.

He wouldn’t be surprised if there were a lot of babies born over the next year, because people were nothing if not kind of predictable. Humanity had taken a serious hit, but they were already bouncing back.

Hunk was going to enjoy the peace while it lasted.

~ ~ ~

Being stuck in a wheelchair made working tricky. Pidge wouldn’t have expected that, since 95% of her projects were all done on the computer anyway, but the remaining 5% was an issue. Especially when she managed to do something like drop her screwdriver just out of reach.

“Dammit!” Pidge yelled.

“Uh-oh, that sounds like the exact opposite of eureka,” Hunk said from the doorway, and Pidge looked up in surprise.

“Oh! Hey, Hunk. What are you doing here?” she asked.

He held up a box and gave her a smile, “I was hoping that if I bribed you with peanut butter cookies, you’d let me help with your project.”

“Heck yes, gimme!” Pidge replied, holding out her hands for the box of cookies, “Peanut butter cookies are my favorite!”

“I know, I asked your mom.”

Hunk gave her the box, and Pidge immediately opened it and popped one of the cookies into her mouth. It was really good, and (not for the first time) Pidge wondered why Hunk had chosen to go to the Galaxy Garrison instead of some top-notch culinary school.

“So what are you working on?” Hunk asked.

“I’m trying to make the response time on the gyros quicker. There’s about a quarter of a second delay, and while that doesn’t seem like a lot, it’s enough that it could make the difference between the crutches helping me maintain my balance properly or me falling and breaking something else.”

She looked down at the cast on her leg and frowned, “We got really spoiled by the healing pods at the castle, didn’t we? This would have been fixed in a day or two tops.”

“Allura thinks we can probably get the healing pod we saved from the castle working again, we just need to hook it into Atlas to give it juice. You may not need these crutches at all really soon.”

“But we’ve only got one pod, so we’re going to need to triage,” Pidge pointed out, “And while the leg thing sucks, it’s a clean break and it’ll heal just fine. There are people who are gonna need it a lot more urgently than me.”

“You’ve got titanium pins and a plate in your leg, that’s not a ‘clean break.’”

Pidge shrugged, “It’s a break that’s going to heal the way it’s supposed to. Besides, even if I do get in a pod before this break heals naturally, these will probably be really useful to a lot of people. And… it’s kind of nice to work on something that won’t alter the fate of the universe, y’know?”

Hunk nodded, “Yeah, I totally get that. It’s a break from all the craziness we’ve been through. That’s why I’ve been cooking so much. If I try to make a flan and end up with milky, sugary soup ‘cause I didn’t let it set long enough, nothing bad happens, right?”

“That’s a really specific example,” Pidge said, “Did you screw up a flan recently? And hand me the screwdriver, will you?”

“Yesterday,” Hunk admitted, picking up the screwdriver and giving it to Pidge, “I was making it because it’s Lance’s favorite dessert, and hey, I like flan too. I’d never made it before, though. The second one turned out right, though.”

Pidge laughed, “So are you just making everyone’s favorite dessert?”

“Yep. Speaking of which, do you know what Shiro’s favorite dessert is? The guy could probably use some comfort food, he’s so stressed out with the Coalition and Atlas and Keith still being in the hospital.”

Pidge thought for a moment, then shook her head, “No idea.”

She frowned. Now that she considered it, there were a lot of those kind of personal details about Shiro that she just didn’t know. Shiro… didn’t really share much about himself, which was a weird thing to think about. He was so good at making people feel comfortable talking to him and sharing their own thoughts in such a way that you didn’t realize the sharing had been going pretty much all one way.

Most of the stuff she knew about Shiro’s life before Voltron, before the Kerberos mission, had been things she’d learned from her dad or Matt, not from Shiro himself. He had been more open back then.

“Keith might know,” she said, “You could try asking him.”

“Oh, yeah!” Hunk exclaimed, “That’s the sort of thing that a boyfriend would know, isn’t it?”

He paused, looking at her with an expression like he was waiting for her to react in a spectacular way. Pidge ignored it and turned her attention back to the lines of code on her computer screen.

“Uh, Pidge?”

“What?”

“You’re not gonna react at all to finding out that Shiro and Keith are dating?”

She shrugged, “Haven’t they been dating for a while now?”

“No! This is a new thing!”

“Are you sure? Maybe you just didn’t notice before?” Pidge asked. Lance was usually the oblivious one, but Hunk could certainly have his moments, too. But Shiro and Keith… okay, so she’d never seen them kiss or anything like that, but they both looked at each other as if the other one had hung the moon.

“No, seriously!” Hunk said, waving his hands a bit for emphasis, “They only started dating like a week ago. Lance told me.”

Now that was actually surprising. “Wow, really? I would’ve sworn they were together already.”

Hunk nodded, “Yeah. Looking back on it, I can totally see why you would? They always kind of had a thing.”

“Better late than never, I guess. Dibs on planning Shiro’s bachelor party when they get engaged,” she said with a grin. Although if they’d taken this long to start actually dating, it might be fifteen years before they got married.

“Why Shiro’s?” Hunk asked.

“’Cause it’ll be more fun to embarrass Shiro than Keith. And I know Matt will be in on it and we scheme great together,” Pidge laughed.

“Why are we scheming to embarrass Shiro?” Matt asked from the doorway to his room. He looked like he had just woken up from a nap, and he yawned widely, covering his mouth with his hand.

“For his hypothetical/future bachelor party,” Pidge explained, “He’s dating Keith now.”

“Really? About goddamn time!” He crossed the room and took a seat on the couch next to Pidge. “Any progress on the response time issue?”

“I did a little bit. Then Hunk distracted me with cookies.”

“That’s a good reason to be distracted, and I think I should be distracted, too,” Matt said, and stole a cookie from the box, “Now, let’s see what we can do about these crutches...”

~ ~ ~

Keith was bored. Actually, that was an understatement. Keith was so bored that he had passed beyond boredom and come out the other side, to the point where he was able to find specks of interest in staring at the wrinkles on his bedsheets and looking for patterns in them. If he moved his left foot just so, he could make a wrinkle that looked like the emblem on his Paladin armor.

He had been conscious for three weeks now, and he still wasn’t allowed to leave the hospital. Apparently the doctors didn’t believe he’d take care of himself if left unsupervised.

He was contemplating a jailbreak, but a few things prevented him. One, Krolia would easily catch him and return him to his hospital bed if she thought he should still be in it. Two, the physical therapy had left him with such serious muscle cramps in his legs he could barely stagger to the bathroom unassisted. And three (the biggest one), if he did leave the hospital before the doctors let him, then Shiro would worry.

Keith knew his boyfriend already had more than enough to worry about, so he would suck it up and be a good patient.

At least he had Shiro’s daily visit to look forward to. Shiro spent at least an hour with him every day, usually while Keith was getting his PT workout. Shiro’s gentle encouragement was probably the only thing that had prevented him from punching Dr. Richards, his therapist, in a fit of pique. (Also that she was just doing her job and he knew cooperating would get him out of the hospital faster.)

Shiro was late today, and Keith was at the end of the session when Shiro came in, looking tired and more than a little harried.

“Keith, I’m so sorry I’m late!” he said, “You would not believe the argument I was just in with the joint chiefs and the representatives from Olkarion. I seriously thought I was going to have to break up a fist fight for a minute there.”

Keith smiled reassuringly at him, “It’s okay.”

He was exhausted and sweaty from the PT, and felt like nothing but a sentient muscle cramp, but just having Shiro here instantly made Keith feel better. Shiro had so much on his plate, but he hadn’t missed a single day’s visit. Just knowing that he was such a high priority for Shiro always warmed Keith’s heart.

It gave him the energy to get through the last few minutes of his session, and when Dr. Richards was finally done torturing him for the day, he collapsed back onto the hospital bed with a groan.

“You’ve improved a lot,” Dr. Richards said, “At this rate you should be good to be discharged in another two or three days.”

“Thank fuck,” Keith replied, and Shiro laughed a little bit. He was standing next to the hospital bed, so Keith reached up and took his hand.

Shiro blushed a little bit, like he always did, but he didn’t let go and he squeezed Keith’s fingers reassuringly. He looked down at Keith with so much love and tenderness that it made Keith’s chest ache.

“The dizziness is pretty much all gone,” Keith said, “The docs say I can get out of here once I’m no longer a fall risk.”

“That’s great, Keith,” Shiro said, squeezing Keith’s hand tighter, “What a relief, right?”

“Yeah, definitely. Although I do have to figure out where I’m going to stay...” Keith let it trail off. His quarters had been in the part of the Garrison compound that was now collapsed, so going back there wasn’t an option. His shack back out in the desert was too far away. And while he liked the idea of moving in with Shiro, it was kind of a big step and Keith valued his privacy. So did Shiro, he knew.

“You’ve got quarters on the Atlas,” Shiro said promptly.

“I do?”

“It was built to house the Lions, so all of the Paladins do. I checked them out, they’re a little bigger than our rooms back in the castle. You can take the room next to mine, since no one else has claimed it yet.”

That sounded like an ideal compromise between staying close to Shiro and letting them still have some space to themselves. Keith smiled gratefully at him, “Sounds perfect.”

He moved his leg and winced, “Ow, fuck.”

“You okay?” Shiro asked, looking more concerned than was probably warranted.

“My muscles are seizing up,” Keith replied, “I don’t know what the fuck that woman is doing to me, but it hurts worse than going six rounds in the training room.”

“Aren’t you supposed to tell Dr. Richards about that, so you can get some muscle relaxers?”

Shiro looked at the call button for the nurses, and his metal hand began to float toward it. Keith grabbed his wrist to stop him.

“Please don’t,” Keith grimaced, “I hate them. They make me feel like my head is stuffed with cotton and it’s awful.”

“Oh…” Shiro said, “But if you’re in pain...”

“I’d rather that than take the damn muscle relaxers,” Keith insisted, “The benefits aren’t worth the side effects for this one.”

“Alright, if you’re sure you don’t want them. Do you think a massage would help?” Shiro asked, his cheeks a little pink.

Keith smiled, once again charmed by how adorably bashful Shiro could be, “That sounds way better than pills.”

“Uh… okay,” Shiro said, going pinker still, “Scoot over a little bit.”

Keith moved out of the way as Shiro climbed onto the bed and sat cross-legged on the foot of it. He took hold of Keith’s right ankle with his flesh hand and gently moved him until Keith’s calf was across his lap.

“Is this okay?” he asked.

For a brief moment, Keith thought about making a comment along the lines of how having Shiro between his legs was definitely okay, but he didn’t think he could be quite that forward yet.

“This is fine,” Keith said. He grunted when Shiro pressed his thumbs into the tight muscle, and sighed when they began to move in small circles.

“I haven’t given anyone a massage in a really long time, so tell me if anything hurts, okay?” Shiro said.

“You’re good,” Keith reassured him. He couldn’t even remember the last time someone had given him a massage, and besides, Shiro touching him was always a good thing.

He closed his eyes and sighed in contentment, and let Shiro’s strong hands ease the tension out of his muscles. So, so, so much better than the medication.

“Keith?” Shiro asked, after about five minutes of silence, “Are you falling asleep on me?”

“No,” Keith replied without opening his eyes, “If I fell asleep, I wouldn’t get to properly appreciate this.”

“Is it helping?”

Keith opened his eyes and looked at Shiro, “Let me put it this way: If you weren't already my favorite person in the universe, this would get you to the top of my list easy.”

Shiro laughed, “Favorite person, huh? How long is that going to last?”

“Your position is 100% secure as long as you keep giving me a massage,” Keith teased.

Honestly, Keith couldn’t even conceive of something that could make Shiro stop being his favorite. Everything they’d been through together, everything Shiro had done for him… Keith knew he could never love someone else the way he loved Shiro.

“Maybe someday if I retire from captaining Atlas, I can take up a career in massage therapy,” Shiro said.

“I’d be your only customer.”

Shiro laughed, “Oh would you?”

“Yep. I’d scare off any other potential customers,” Keith said, smiling at him. Like he’d accept letting Shiro put his hands all over anyone else…

“You’d ruin my business?” Shiro responded dryly, “I thought you loved me, Keith! Don’t you want me to be able to support myself?”

“You’re a universally-admired hero, I don’t think you’re ever going to have to worry about money. But if you’re concerned about it, fine. I’ll buy all your time slots, so you’ll have to give me a massage whenever I want one.” Shiro’s face had gone red again, and Keith couldn’t help but laugh at him a little.

“Turn over so I can get your other leg,” Shiro said, sounding flustered again.

Keith did as he was told, and Shiro began working on the knots. Keith wondered if maybe he had died after all, and he was receiving his reward for having lived a… reasonably virtuous life. He grunted as Shiro dug his metal thumb into a particularly tight knot.

“This okay?” Shiro asked again, “I’m not hurting you, am I?”

“It’s fine, Shiro,” Keith replied, a little exasperated, “If it were hurting me, I’d tell you. I promise. Just keep doing what you’re doing, it feels good.”

“Okay, okay,” Shiro said with a chuckle, “But you can’t blame me for worrying a little.”

“It’s your most endearing and most annoying trait,” Keith said with a smile. He reached down and put his hand on Shiro’s knee, giving it a slight squeeze, “I love you.”

Shiro went red again, and sounded a little choked up as he replied softly, “I love you too.”

Chapter Text

Shiro was getting a little fed up with bureaucracy. Now that Galra warships weren’t literally hanging over their heads, Garrison operations were returning to something like normal, and that came with a lot of red tape. More than Shiro remembered, that was for certain.

But at least he almost had a full crew complement for the Atlas, and he’d managed to make sure everyone who’d helped get them through the battle for earth was keeping their wartime promotion. Atlas had become very attached to the bridge crew, and Shiro wasn’t above emphasizing that to the admiralty. As far as he was concerned, everyone who wanted to stay aboard the Atlas should be able to.

“Captain!” A short woman – barely taller than Pidge – snapped a salute.

“At ease, Tennison,” Shiro said with a smile, “What is it?”

Only a small percentage of the people serving on the ship were people that Shiro knew well. Most of Shiro’s friends from his days at the Garrison had also been pilots, and so they were gone. Warrant Officer Lizbet Tennison was one of the few exceptions. She had been in the same class as him as a cadet for a while, but had transferred to the medical track, and would now be serving as one of Atlas’s doctors.

Shiro had always gotten along well with Tennison. Most people did, she was very friendly as well as possibly the funniest person Shiro had ever met.

“I’m here to give you an invitation,” she said, smiling.

“Oh?”

“Now, since stationary stores aren’t exactly high priority for the rebuilding crew, please imagine that this is printed on fancy card stock, tied with a ribbon. Maybe a sprig of lavender. Very fancy-looking font that’s probably super overused.” She cleared her throat with great ceremony and said, “Your presence is humbly requested at the wedding of Lizbet Amelia Tennison and Catherine Evelyn Hinzpeter on Friday, the eighteenth of September.”

“You’re getting married?!” Shiro exclaimed, “I had no idea you were seeing someone!”

“I am,” she smiled again, “And it’s okay. It’s not exactly like we’ve had time to catch up since you got back to earth. The whole alien occupation thing makes it hard to just go to a bar and shoot the shit together.”

That was true, but he hadn’t exactly made an attempt to reconnect with anyone from before, either. At least Tennison wasn’t holding it against him, inviting him to her wedding.

“Hinzpeter, Hinzpeter...” Shiro repeated. The name was kind of familiar. “Do I know Hinzpeter?”

“You met her once, like three weeks before you left for Kerberos,” Tennison said, “At your going-away party, but there were so many people there, I would be surprised if you remembered her.”

Shiro smiled at her, “Well, if you like her enough to marry her, then I can only assume that means she’s a great person. Congratulations to the both of you.”

Tennison beamed at him, “So can I take that as an RSVP?”

“I don’t know,” Shiro admitted with a grimace, “I’ve been so busy and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to slow down any time soon...”

He felt a pang of guilt as he said it. Tennison was his oldest (still living) friend, and she’d come to invite him personally, but… he didn’t know if he’d be able to stand going to a wedding, seeing a happy couple promise to be together for the rest of their lives, when the only person Shiro wanted didn’t want him back. It could only be worse if it were Keith getting married.

Tennison didn’t seemed phased by that, though. Her smile got impossibly wider and she said, “Well then it’s good that this is sort of a combination wedding and victory celebration, isn’t it? Who could possibly expect the Hero of Earth to miss it?”

“Hero of Earth?” Shiro echoed, baffled.

“Oh, you hadn’t heard that one yet? They’ve been giving you so many superlatives!” she counted them out on her fingers and said, “Let’s see, I’ve heard ‘the Hero of Earth,’ ‘Voltron’s Guardian Angel,’ there’s a gossip rag calling you the ‘Sexy Cyborg Captain’, and I heard ‘the Starlight Man’ from one of those four-armed aliens – Unulo?”

“- Unilu,” Shiro corrected automatically, “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack,” she said, “But really, you should come. Bring all your space friends with you. There’s going to be dancing, food, and a case of wine that we salvaged from an abandoned vineyard. It might be good, it might be terrible. We can all play Russian roulette with our taste buds!”

Shiro laughed, “How can I resist the temptation of mystery alcohol?”

“Hey, it got you to sneak out of the dorms for parties more than once,” she said, “Remember the green vodka that turned out to be watermelon-flavored?”

“No, I’ve successfully managed to block that from my memory,” Shiro replied, “I promise I’ll try to come. If I can.”

He owed Tennison that much, after all. And avoiding anything that made him think of his hopeless feelings for Keith wasn’t healthy, he knew that much.

Tennison nodded at him, and her smile softened to something calmer, more genuine, a hint of sadness behind it, “Shiro… I get it, I really do.”

Shiro looked at her questioningly.

“You must miss Adam a lot,” she said softly, “Is going to a wedding hard for you, because the man you were going to marry is gone?”

"No," Shiro shook his head, “It’s not that. I miss the way things used to be, back when it was still good between us. And of course I wish he hadn’t died. But if I’d gotten back to Earth and he was still here, it’s not like I would have wanted to get back together with him. My romantic feelings for him… they’ve been gone for a long time.”

“I see.”

Shiro smiled at her, “I’ll come to your wedding, Liz. And if you leave the mic open at the reception, I’m going to tell everyone the Ash Wednesday story.”

“Oh, screw you, Shirogane!” Tennison laughed.

An alarm on Shiro’s pad went off with a beep. 11:00. He smiled, and got to his feet.

“We should catch up more later,” he said, “But I gotta run now. Keith is finally getting discharged from the hospital today, and I’m going to go pick him up and move him to Atlas.”

“By all means, don’t let me stand in the way of you taking care of your boy, Captain,” she said with a smile.

Shiro wasn’t sure how to interpret her tone of voice, or the look she gave him, so he pretended not to notice it. He gave Tennison a smile, grabbed the already-packed bag for Keith, and headed out.

Krolia was there when Shiro arrived, to his surprise. She’d spent more time at Keith’s bedside than Shiro had, but over the last week or so she always seemed to be absent when Shiro came to visit. He wondered if he’d done something to offend her. Krolia didn’t strike him as the kind of person to be passive-aggressive about it if something was bothering her, but he had to admit he didn’t know her all that well.

She gave him a warm smile as he entered the room, so Shiro didn’t think she was upset with him. Keith was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, radiating an air of impatience, but he smiled at Shiro. It was crazy how much they really looked alike…

“You made it,” he said.

“Of course I did,” Shiro replied. He held out the bag for Keith, “I brought you some civilian clothes. They should fit you, but your uniform is in there too if you’d prefer it.”

“Civvies sound like way less of a hassle right now. Thanks, Shiro,” he took the bag with a grateful smile and opened it, pulling out a pair of jeans and a shirt. He reached back into the bag and paused. Then, very slowly, he pulled out the jacket.

Keith obviously recognized it. It was Shiro’s old leather bomber jacket, after all, and Shiro knew that Keith had always liked it.

“Shiro...” he said softly, “Are these your old clothes?”

Shiro tried very, very hard not to blush, “Uh, yeah. I thought you might like to keep the jacket at least. I mean, I can’t wear it anymore unless I want to cut the sleeve off -” he shrugged the shoulder port of his prosthetic arm.

“- And this is way too nice of a jacket to do that to,” Keith finished for him, with a smile, “Thanks, Shiro, this is great. I love it.”

Keith was blushing, and Shiro was certain that his face was as red as a tomato. He looked away quickly, pretending to be interested in the view out the window.

“Besides, you’ve grown so much that none of your old civilian clothes still fit, and you should have more options than just a choice of three uniforms to wear, and a lot of my old clothes don’t really fit me anymore, either,” Shiro explained, “And we’re thin enough on resources still that it doesn’t make any sense to have perfectly good clothes just sitting in a closet gathering dust when you could wear them, so...”

He trailed off, aware that he was babbling.

Keith laughed, “You don’t have to have that much justification for giving me a gift, y’know.” He got to his feet and gave Shiro a quick hug. “You’re the best, Shiro. Thank you. I’m going to get dressed.”

He headed for the small bathroom and shut the door behind him, leaving Shiro alone in the room with Krolia. He looked at her a little nervously. Keith didn’t seem to think there was anything odd about Shiro’s behavior, but had Krolia noticed?

“He’s happy,” Krolia said.

“Yeah?” Shiro said, not sure if he meant it as an agreement or a question.

Krolia gave him a slightly sad smile, “Keith has forgiven me for leaving him behind on Earth. But I… I haven’t entirely forgiven myself for missing so much of his life. For leaving him alone after his father died.”

Shiro stayed silent, not sure how to respond.

“He believes you’re the best thing that ever happened to him, you know.”

Shiro felt his face grow hot again, “I’m sure there have been better things. I’ve kind of been a mixed blessing for Keith overall.”

“Humans and their tendency to brush off compliments… Keith’s father was the same way,” Krolia said, sounding a little wistful, “When I see Keith with you, looking so happy and at ease with himself, I know he’s right. You’re good for him.”

“I… thank you,” Shiro said softly.

Krolia put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze, “What I mean to say is… I’m happy to consider you as family.”

Family. He did think of Keith as family, of course, even if he wanted more than that, so he smiled at her and said, “Thank you. I’m… I’m glad you think of me as part of your family.”

The bathroom door opened, and Keith stepped out, fully dressed. Shiro’s leather jacket was a little loose on him, the hem hanging down a bit past his waist and the sleeves bunched up a bit around his wrists, but Keith made the look work. And just knowing that Keith was wearing his jacket made Shiro’s mouth go dry.

“It looks good on you,” Shiro said, trying to keep his voice steady and not at all succeeding.

“Thanks!” Keith beamed at him, “I hope you know you’re never getting this jacket back, even if someday you change to a prosthetic that could fit in it again.”

Shiro laughed, “That’s fine, Keith. It’s a gift, after all.”

They left the hospital amid a flurry of well-wishes from the nurses, and headed up to the Atlas where Krolia attracted more than a few suspicious looks from the crew. Any time someone looked like they were going to open their mouth to say something to her, though, Shiro would give them a glare and they would go about their business.

He felt a tiny bit bad about intimidating the crew like that – he didn’t want to be a leader that relied on intimidation – but he wasn’t about to let anyone treat Keith’s mother badly. The whole crew should know by now that the Blade of Marmora were their allies, anyway. There had been a Garrison-wide briefing about it, and anyone with the slightest bit of reason should be able to tell that a Galra woman in a Marmora uniform walking with the Captain of the Atlas and the Black Paladin was allowed to be there.

After the forth crew member was sent scurrying with a glare, Krolia laughed softly.

Shiro looked at her curiously, “What?”

“A few dirty looks aren’t going to do me any harm,” she said, “I would tell you that you don’t have to be so defensive of me, but it’s kind of sweet.”

Keith grinned, “It’s ‘cause you told him he’s family. Shiro’s protective of his people.”

He gave Shiro’s side a playful bump with his shoulder, “But maybe don’t make the ensigns crap their pants before they’ve done anything wrong?”

“I just don’t want anyone to be rude to your mom,” Shiro said, slightly embarrassed, “Our quarters are right up here.”

He turned the corner onto the hall containing the officers’ quarters, and stopped at the door to the room that would be Keith’s. He took Keith’s hand and placed it on the scanner before he even paused to think that maybe that was a weird thing to do. Shouldn’t he have just asked Keith to put his hand there or something? Keith didn’t seem to notice or care, though.

“Let me just put you in the system,” Shiro said, pulling up his pad.

Shiro felt Atlas’s curious thoughts brush against his mind, and so he said out loud, “Keith is going to be staying here.”

The scanner turned green and the door slid open, and Shiro groaned, “Atlas, you’re supposed to wait until someone’s given you the right codes, even if you think you know that that’s what they’re about to do.”

They’d been having a little trouble with that over the past week or so. Atlas was starting to anticipate the actions of the crew members she knew well, and do things like unlock terminals or open doors for them. While it was convenient, it was also a major breach in security, and Atlas couldn’t seem to understand that. She knew who was allowed to walk around freely on which floors.

Keith laughed, “I like her already.”

“She’s pretty great,” Shiro agreed, because he loved Atlas a great deal already, “But it’s a little bit like having a mile-long toddler. She’s learning so fast, but she’s stubborn.”

“Hey, Atlas,” Keith said, “You can let Shiro or Krolia have access to my room whenever they want, okay?”

The scanner beeped an agreement, and Shiro sighed, “I’m going to lose this argument, aren’t I?”

Atlas’s thoughts felt downright smug, and Shiro shook his head, “Fine. Then for the record, Keith can have full access to my room, too, okay?”

He felt the acknowledgment in his head, then Atlas retreated, giving Shiro his space. He looked over at Keith, and Keith gave him a smile before stepping into his room. Shiro and Krolia followed him inside.

“Not bad,” he said, setting the bag down on the chair and taking a look around, “Not bad at all.”

The officers’ quarters on Atlas were modeled like fairly standard one-bedroom apartments on Earth, with a living room and kitchenette, a small bathroom, and a bedroom. For an Earth spaceship, it was an enormous amount of room. On his flight to Kerberos, Shiro’s ‘quarters’ had been roughly the size of a large closet that contained a tiny bed and nothing else.

“Yeah, it’ll be pretty comfortable while we’re in space,” Shiro agreed.

“And you’re next door?” Keith asked.

Shiro gestured toward the wall on the left, “Right there. So, y’know, if you need anything, you can just come over.”

“Perfect,” Keith said with a pleased smile, “I guess that I should actually head back to the shack and get some of my things to put in here.”

His face fell.

“What’s wrong?” Shiro asked, concerned.

Keith sighed, “I don’t even know if it’s still there. Or… or dad’s grave. And there’s a part of me that’s scared to go check.”

“Oh,” Shiro said softly. He reached out to put his hand on Keith’s shoulder, and Keith stepped closer, his arms open for a hug, which Shiro gave without hesitation. Krolia came over and put her hand on Keith’s back in reassurance, but Shiro could see the pain in her eyes.

He understood. Having to leave her lover behind on Earth, only to come back after he was dead, and maybe not even have a grave to visit…

“If it’s gone, then we can make a shrine for him,” Shiro said. He was sure if he looked hard enough, he could find a picture of Keith’s dad somewhere.

Krolia raised an eyebrow, “A shrine?”

“It’s a tradition where I’m from,” Shiro explained, “We have shrines to honor our ancestors who have died. You usually put up a picture of them, and leave offerings of things they liked in life.”

Krolia nodded, “Like the wall you have honoring your people who died fighting Sendak?”

“More or less.” Shiro didn’t feel like explaining all of the ins and outs of Earth religions right now (especially since he’d never exactly been very religious anyway), and Krolia seemed to understand the basic idea well enough.

Keith sighed, and pulled away from the hug, “I don’t know why the idea of dad’s grave being gone upsets me so much. I haven’t even visited it since I was ten.”

“You don’t have to see something every day to know and appreciate that it’s there,” Krolia said.

“That’s true,” Keith agreed, with a meaningful look at Shiro.

Shiro only had about ten minutes to help Keith settle in – not that Keith had much to settle, he had very few personal items – before someone came to find him with another problem that he probably wasn’t necessary for solving.

“Sorry, Keith,” Shiro said with a smile that he was sure came out as more of a grimace, “Duty calls.”

Keith sighed, “Alright, do what you have to. But I’m going to find you later and make you take a break. You’ve definitely earned some shore leave by this point.”

“Sure, Keith, if you insist,” Shiro said indulgently.

Keith didn’t respond, but his eyes took on the gleam they got when Keith was facing a challenge that he thought would be fun, and Shiro resisted the urge to sigh. Keith was going to literally drag him away from work later, he just knew it. And he’d be lying if he said that there wasn’t a part of him kind of looking forward to it.

~ ~ ~

Three hours later, when he was in his office looking over the plans for the next generation of MFEs, Keith arrived. He didn’t even notice that Keith had entered the room until spoke next to his ear.

“Still hard at work, Captain?” Keith asked, right next to his ear.

Shiro startled so badly that he banged the back of his head against the side of Keith’s face.

“Ow!” Keith yelled, taking a step back.

“Keith!” Shiro cried, realizing what had happened and getting to his feet quickly to look at Keith, “Oh my god, you startled me! Are you okay?”

“You must be tired, to be that out of it,” Keith replied. He had his hand over his cheek and was still wincing, but he laughed, “You gonna kiss it better for me?”

That surprised a laugh out of Shiro, too, and he rolled his eyes, “Aren’t you a little old for that sort of thing?”

“Not from you.”

Shiro blushed. An excuse to kiss Keith wasn’t something he’d get every day, but it was probably creepy of him to take advantage of it when Keith meant it entirely innocently. Then again, Keith was looking at him with an expectant smile, and if Shiro refused, Keith might ask why… He leaned forward and gently pressed his lips against Keith’s cheek.

“Better?” he asked.

“Much,” Keith smiled at him, “Will you come down to Black’s hangar with me? I’ve got something I want to show you.”

“I really need to do this...” Shiro protested, but it was only a token protest and both he and Keith knew it.

“No you don’t,” Keith replied, utterly confident, “I already asked what you were up to, and right now you are literally doing Veronica’s job for her. She is one hundred percent capable of working out the personnel shifts on her own.”

“I still have to approve them -”

“Signing off on that should take like ten seconds at the most. Unless you have have no confidence in her abilities? Because if that’s the case, I’m sure Lance would like to know why you don’t trust his big sister who he adores to do the simplest parts of her job -”

“Okay, okay, I give!” Shiro said, putting his hands up, “You win, I’ll take a break!”

“I thought so,” Keith said with a grin.

“I know that she can handle doing this,” Shiro protested weakly, “I just want to know what’s happening. Be a hands-on leader, y’know? There are 630 crew members onboard the Atlas, so there’s just a lot to keep track of.”

“There’s a difference between being a hands-on leader and micromanaging people. And with that many people, literally no one is expecting you to know what every one of them is up to at every minute. No one was expecting that from you back on the Castle, and that was when you only had to look after six people.”

Shiro resisted the urge to pout. Keith was right, of course, and while Shiro could certainly use the distraction of throwing himself into his work, it wouldn’t exactly help matters if he made his crew aggravated at him.

Keith smiled, took the tablet out of Shiro’s hand, and put it down on the desk. He took hold of Shiro’s mechanical hand – the feedback was amazing, Shiro could feel the warmth of Keith’s fingers – and pulled it with him as he headed for the door.

Shiro laughed as he got to his feet, “You know, dragging me out of the room would probably work better if you grabbed the hand that’s actually attached.”

“You’re following me, so obviously this works fine.”

Keith didn’t let go of Shiro’s hand for the entire walk down to the Black Lion’s hangar, which got them a few odd looks, but no one commented and Shiro wasn’t inclined to let go himself. Little moments of closeness like this were all he would ever get, so he’d enjoy them.

It wasn’t until Black lowered her head to let them in that Shiro finally asked what it was Keith wanted to show him.

“Well, I was thinking about being back on Earth, and then I thought about all the places and things that I wanted to see but never had a chance to before we all went to space,” Keith explained, “And then it hit me that, at least for right now… there’s nothing at all stopping me from taking Black and going to see some of those things.”

Shiro nodded in understanding. That was very true. Black could go anywhere on the planet in only a few minutes.

“So what are we going to see?”

“You’ll love it,” Keith replied with a smile, and Shiro guessed that was all he was going to get out of him for now.

They went into the Black Lion and Keith took his seat in the pilot’s chair. It was odd to see him there in civilian clothes instead of his Paladin armor, and it made him look… well, really good, to put it mildly. It was clear how much he’d grown, and he seemed relaxed and confident as he put his hands on the controls. He’d always been a good pilot, ever since that first day Shiro had met him, but the ease with which he piloted Black now was something to see.

He took Black out of the hangar and headed up, towards the edge of the atmosphere, an easy smile on his face as they rose. Shiro couldn’t tear his gaze away. He’d never seen anyone more beautiful than Keith looked right now.

Keith noticed Shiro looking at him, and turned to him with a questioning expression, “What?”

“I was just thinking about how much you’ve grown,” Shiro answered honestly, “When we first met – well, I knew back then you were going to be something special, but I wouldn’t have ever imagined this.”

“If you had imagined all of this, I would have suggested you become an author.”

“Maybe someday I’ll publish my memoirs,” Shiro joked.

“I’ll be sure to get a copy. Would you sign it for me?”

They fell into an easy back and forth as the Lion broke atmo and Keith took them northward. Shiro wondered again where they were going, but Keith seemed sure of himself as they headed toward the night side of the planet. There were far fewer lights than Shiro was used to seeing, the familiar glow of the cities shining and giving shape to the land below. Earth was recovering, but Sendak’s forces had focused their destruction on the cities.

When they reentered the atmosphere and touched down, they were on a relatively flat and empty expanse of snow. Shiro found that a little bit odd. Keith had said he would like it, but there didn’t seem to be anything here. But there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the moon hadn’t risen yet, so the view of the stars was spectacular.

“Where are we?” Shiro asked.

“Somewhere in northern Greenland,” Keith replied. At Shiro’s confused expression, he grinned and explained, “There’s a lot of solar activity going on recently, so we should be seeing the Northern Lights tonight.”

Shiro actually gasped. He’d never seen the aurora, and he’d always wanted to. Had he ever told Keith about that before? He may have mentioned it in passing, but if he had it had been a long time ago. Though if anyone were going to remember such a small detail, it would be Keith.

“Told you that you’d love it,” Keith said, looking proud of himself, “Come on, let’s go look properly.”

“If you’d told me where we were going, I would have worn a coat,” Shiro said, a little wary of what the temperature would be like outside.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got us covered,” Keith replied, taking Shiro’s hand and pulling him along again.

Keith had planned ahead. The air outside was bitterly cold, enough that Shiro started shivering almost immediately, but Keith had a few Altean blankets which generated their own heat and gave Shiro one to wrap around himself. He spread one out on the ground and prompted Shiro to sit down on it, then sat next to him with a blanket of his own.

Impulsively, Shiro unwrapped his blanket and gestured for Keith to come closer. Keith looked at him with a smile, and cuddled up, a line of warmth along Shiro’s side.

“See? Nice and cozy,” Keith said, leaning his head on Shiro’s shoulder, “The show should start soon.”

Shiro felt like his heart must have been beating loud enough for Keith to hear it, but Keith didn’t seem to notice, leaning against Shiro and looking up at the sky with an expression of complete contentment. Shiro looked up as well. He’d never seen the stars so clearly from the surface of earth before, and he occupied himself by seeing how many of the constellations he could spot.

It was quiet, no sound to be heard but the wind and their own breathing. They sat in comfortable silence for about ten minutes (well, Keith seemed comfortable, Shiro felt like a mess of nerves), then Keith sat up straight and pointed to the sky.

“Look!”

Shiro looked where Keith was pointing and saw it. A shimmering, pale green curtain of light in the sky, slowly growing brighter as he watched. In some places he could make out hints of blues and reds as the aurora waved slowly across the sky. He’d seen pictures before, even videos, but they didn’t come close to doing this sight justice.

“Amazing,” Shiro breathed.

“We’ve seen so many amazing things since we left Earth,” Keith said softly, and Shiro looked at him, “But it’s nice to remember there are beautiful things on Earth, too.”

“Yeah,” Shiro agreed, his gaze on the green lights playing over Keith’s face and sparkling in his eyes rather than the sky, “There definitely are.”

Keith glanced his way, and Shiro hurriedly looked back up at the sky. This situation felt romantic, like the kind of thing someone would plan to do celebrate an anniversary, or something else particularly momentous. It would be a perfect moment to tell Keith how he felt…

But no, he couldn’t. He valued Keith’s friendship and what they had far too much to risk messing it up by confessing his romantic feelings.

Even if Keith were flattered and not upset by it, things would change between them, and moments like this certainly wouldn’t be on the table anymore.

So Shiro bit his tongue, and watched the lights dance across the sky, and it almost soothed the ache in his chest.

Chapter Text

It took a week before Keith took advantage of the fact Shiro had given him full access to his quarters. Not that he hadn’t spent time there, but it was the first time he had just invited himself in rather than entering with Shiro. He felt ever so slightly awkward about it as the door opened before he’d even managed to put his hand fully on the scanner. Atlas had anticipated him, and while he couldn’t feel her presence in his mind like he could with the Lions, she was obviously quite used to him.

“Thanks, Atlas,” he murmured as he stepped inside, “Shiro? You here?”

“Keith!” Shiro said, coming out from the bedroom and looking a little surprised, but happy to see him, “Hey, I thought you were out with Krolia and the new Blades recruits today!”

“I just got back,” Keith said, managing a smile despite his melancholy feeling, “Mom and I, uh… we went to visit dad’s grave, and I just...”

He felt raw, like anything could make him shed the tears he’d been holding back all afternoon. Krolia had cried, and it had been so strange to see her breaking down.

“Are you okay?” Shiro asked, seeming concerned, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Keith spread his arms, “I could really do with a hug right now.”

“Of course,” Shiro said, his expression as tender as Keith had ever seen it.

He stepped forward and embraced him tightly. Keith let out a shuddering sigh and felt the tension leave him. A hug from Shiro always made him feel like life was more manageable. He turned his head to rest it on Shiro’s shoulder and took a deep breath, catching the smell of soap and clean fabric and Shiro’s natural scent – a soothing combination.

“I was wondering… would you mind if I stayed here tonight?” Keith asked, “I just – I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts.”

Keith couldn’t see his face, but he could hear how Shiro’s heartbeat had sped up, and he was certain that the other man was blushing. Keith felt himself blush, too. Did Shiro think this was a request for sex?

“You don’t have to -” Keith said quickly, trying to explain. They’d been taking things slow, and Keith didn’t even think he wanted sex tonight, even if Shiro were okay with him asking for it. “I mean, if you’re not comfortable with -”

“It’s fine, Keith,” Shiro said, his voice sounding just a little bit too composed for Keith to believe he was really calm, “You can stay here tonight if that’s what you need.”

Right. Like he really would have expected Shiro to say anything else. Keith smiled at him, “Thanks.”

A few minutes later, the two of them were climbing into Shiro’s bed. Keith cuddled up against his side, his arm slung loosely over Shiro’s stomach. After a moment, Shiro’s floating arm settled on his waist. Keith sighed contentedly, feeling himself relax.

“Visiting his grave was hard on you, huh?” Shiro asked softly.

“Yeah. I still miss him a lot,” Keith replied, “I’m used to it by now, but sometimes it just hits me all at once.”

Shiro gave him a sympathetic squeeze, “I understand. You never stop missing the people you loved, it just stops being surprising.”

Keith wondered who Shiro was thinking of when he said that. His family? He knew that Shiro had lost his parents fairly young. It was probably the reason why Shiro’s sympathy about his dad had never felt patronizing.

“I wonder if he’d be proud of me,” Keith murmured.

“How could he not be?” Shiro asked, “You’re amazing, Keith. You’re brave, loyal and a hero… I know I’m proud of you. And so is your mom, and Kolivan, and everyone else.”

“Thanks,” Keith smiled, “You know what? Overall, I think I’m pretty lucky. I lost my dad, but somehow I’ve stumbled into a pretty big family. And despite the number of times I’ve almost lost you, I keep finding a way to get you back.”

“I’ll always come back to you,” Shiro promised, his voice full of emotion.

Keith smiled and laid his head down on Shiro's chest, listening to the reassuring, steady beating of his heart. Shiro was alive and here. “You’ve already proved that. Just don’t go dying on me again anytime soon, got it?”

Shiro chuckled, the noise a pleasant rumble under Keith’s ear, “I know you probably doubt me on this, but I swear that dying has never actually been what I planned to do.”

“You’re gonna live to a ripe old age if I have anything to say about it,” Keith swore, “We’re going to have grandkids by then. Maybe great-grandkids.”

“Grandkids, huh?” Shiro asked with a slightly wistful smile, “Do you think you want to be a dad someday, then?”

Keith realized what he’d implied and blushed, glad that the only light in the room was the glow of Shiro’s arm port, “I... uh... haven’t really thought about it seriously? Definitely not while we’ve still got a war to fight. But... maybe someday when things are peaceful. I don’t know.”

“You’d be a good dad,” Shiro said.

“So would you,” Keith replied.

Shiro blushed at that, and Keith smiled. It was cute how easily he got flustered by compliments ever since they’d started dating. He didn't know if they’d ever choose to adopt, but it was nice to think that he and Shiro were definitely going to spend the rest of their lives together.

“Is that something you want? Being a father?” Keith asked.

“You know, I honestly haven’t thought about it,” Shiro replied, rolling onto his back and looking up at the ceiling, “When I was a kid, I thought I’d grow up and have kids of my own someday, but I think that was mostly because I thought that was what everyone does, right?”

Keith hummed an agreement.

“Then when I got the diagnosis… Knowing I wasn’t likely to even make it to forty-five… How could I have kids when I knew I’d die before they grew up? So I figured it would never happen,” he raised his floating arm above his face and contemplated it, “Now, though… well, I don’t have a disease that will kill me young anymore, and I do like kids. I guess I’m in the same boat as you. Maybe when things are peaceful, adopting a kid or two could be an option.”

“I guess it’s a question to revisit in a few years,” Keith murmured, “For now, I’m pretty content with the way things are.”

“Yeah,” Shiro agreed, and lowered his arm to settle across Keith’s shoulders, “I don’t think I could ask for more right now.”

Keith closed his eyes, and snuggled closer to Shiro. It was way too early in their relationship to think about stuff like having kids or getting married, even if Keith knew that he’d say yes in a heartbeat if (when?) Shiro proposed. For now, dozing off to sleep with his head on his boyfriend’s chest, lulled by the steady beat of his heart… Shiro was right. Keith couldn’t ask for more.

And in the morning, when he awoke to find Shiro already gone for the day, his flash of disappointment disappeared entirely when he saw that Shiro had left him a note on the tablet next to the bed.

‘There’s breakfast in the kitchen for when you wake up. I thought you needed the sleep.’

Keith got up, stretched, and headed into the kitchen to find a cup of coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs. Both were cold by now – Shiro must have left a while ago – but he didn’t care because Shiro had made breakfast for him, and Keith couldn’t even remember the last time someone had made breakfast just for him.

“I am definitely going to marry that man,” he murmured to the world at large as he put the plate in the microwave.

~ ~ ~

The rebuilding was going well, and more and more quickly now that global communication was back up and they could get more organized about it. There was still a lot of work to be done, of course, but people seemed eager to do it when they knew it gave them a chance of seeing a Voltron Lion in person. Having the Lions to help with the heavy lifting was useful, but Shiro thought it was probably more due to how much it boosted morale to have them so visible. Every day, the Lions were zipping off to some remote part of the globe to help with some part of the reconstruction, and the various news outlets that were back up and running had an endless stream of clips.

It kept them all busy and exhausted, to the point that when the day of Tennison’s wedding arrived, even Shiro was eager for the time off. It was outdoors, and a beautiful day for a wedding, without a cloud in the sky. He just had to focus on being happy for his friend instead of thinking of his own hopeless romance.

That was easier said than done, because when he took his seat on the bench, Keith sat next to him and gave him a small, affectionate smile that made Shiro’s stomach turn flips. Shiro smiled back, and hoped that it came across as friendly instead of lovesick.

“I know she said you could bring the whole team, but it’s a little weird for me to be at the wedding of two people I don’t know,” Hunk said, from Shiro’s other side.

“That seems very normal to me,” Allura said, turning around to join the conversation. She, Coran, and Lance were sitting in the row in front of them. “Weddings on Altea were public affairs.”

“Indeed!” Coran agreed, smiling brightly, “On Altea, instead of invitations to weddings, we would send out a few specific dis-invitations to people we didn’t want attending! Otherwise, weddings were for everyone to enjoy, whether or not they knew the couple personally. When I was a boy, sometimes my friends and I would just go ‘round looking for a wedding to attend if we had nothing to do!”

“On the Balmera, we do not do anything like this,” Shay said softly. She was sitting on the other side of Hunk, and the two of them were holding hands, “When two Balmerans wish to begin a family together, they simply move into the same home and tell the Balmera. But I like the way humans celebrate so many things. Your planet must have been much fun before the Galra invaded.”

“We humans like to make a big deal about pretty much any events in our lives,” Lance said with a grin, “Birthdays, starting school, graduating from school, getting married, having children… we’ll take any excuse for a party!”

Shiro risked a glance sideways at Keith, who was watching the conversation with interest. He saw Shiro looking at him and smiled, and Shiro had to fight his blush again. He was doing that constantly these days. Maybe he should just go out and get super-sunburnt so that no one would notice his face being red.

Fortunately for him, the music started at that moment, and everything quieted down as the ceremony began. Tennison had found a dress to wear that wasn’t exactly a traditional wedding gown, but looked very nice on her, and Hinzpeter was wearing her dress uniform. They were both wearing matching expressions of giddiness as they looked at each other, and Shiro couldn’t help but smile as he saw them.

The whole planet had been through hell, and everyone who had survived deserved as much happiness as they could get. He was happy for them.

It was a short ceremony, overall; neither of the brides’ vows were particularly long, but they were heartfelt, and Shiro heard a few sniffles from the people attending. When the officiant pronounced them married, Hinzpeter wrapped her arm around Tennison’s waist and dipped her as they kissed, and the audience cheered. Several people took pictures.

The brides headed back down the aisle hand-in-hand, followed by the rest of the wedding party, and the crowd began to move from the benches to the reception area.

“That was really nice,” Keith said, “I’ve gotta admit I never really got the appeal of weddings, but… that was, well, nice.”

“Didn’t get the appeal?” Lance asked curiously, “Of marriage? What’s not to understand?”

Keith shook his head, “Not marriage, weddings. I understand why you would want to be with someone forever.” - was it just Shiro’s imagination, or had Keith glanced at him - “But I didn’t get why someone would want to stand up in front of a big audience in fancy clothes to say it.”

Shiro laughed, “You’re not big on being the center of attention.”

“Which is weird, considering how many attention-grabbing things Keith does on a regular basis,” Lance said with a grin, “But I guess you like getting attention from Shiro, right?”

He waggled his eyebrows as he said it, and Shiro realized with a sense of dread that Lance was trying to play wingman for him.

"Of course I do," Keith snorted, “Why are you saying that like you think it’s supposed to embarrass me?”

“I’m going to go congratulate Liz,” Shiro said quickly, needing to be away from the conversation before it could get more awkward.

“Sure,” Keith acknowledged with a smile, “Just don’t run off from the party too soon, okay? You deserve a break.”

Tennison was in the center of a crowd of well-wishers, holding on to Hinzpeter’s arm and beaming. As Shiro walked up to them, though, the crowd parted to let him through. A couple of people were looking at him with a kind of star-struck admiration, which Shiro hadn’t expected. In hindsight, though, he should have. He was one of the most public faces of the rebuilding effort, and was reaching something like celebrity status because of it. He wasn’t at all sure he liked it.

But for the moment, it was convenient, because he was able to reach Tennison easily. She grinned widely at him, and gave him a hug.

“I’m so glad you came!” she cried brightly.

“It was a lovely wedding,” Shiro replied, “Congratulations, Tennison.”

“No need to be so formal, Captain Shirogane,” she said in a teasing tone, “I know you’re just here because of the mystery wine.”

Shiro laughed, “I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t risk the mystery wine at all. You have a poor track record when it comes to giving me alcohol.”

“Excuse you, I have a great track record when it comes to giving you alcohol and making you loosen up a little, Mr. Golden Boy.”

“Should it be Mr. Silver Boy now?” Hinzpeter asked with a smile, “Y’know, because of the hair? Or maybe ‘Silver Fox,’ with the way the media keeps trying to make you into a heartthrob.”

Shiro laughed good-naturedly at her and held out his hand, “By the way, congratulations to you, too, Hinzpeter. I don’t think we’ve ever really been introduced, but if Tennison likes you, you’re okay in my book.”

“I’m sure I’ll have a chance to get to know you,” she said, taking his hand and shaking it firmly, “I’m going to be onboard the Atlas, once the transfer paperwork goes through.”

“I look forward to working with you, then,” Shiro said with a smile.

“Likewise, Captain. Also, don’t believe Lizzie when she says ‘mystery’ wine. We’re not that crazy. All the bottles still have labels. The white wine is peach wine, and the red is blackberry wine, and they’re both delicious.”

“Spoiling my fun on our wedding day?” Tennison said, in mock horror, “Cee, you’re terrible!”

“You knew that before you married me. Too late to back out now,” Hinzpeter kissed her wife on the cheek, and Tennison giggled.

They were an adorable couple, and watching them made Shiro’s gut twist with envy, but he smiled and said, “I’ll go try a glass, then.”

He went over to the table where a number of drinks and food had been laid out, buffet-style, and got himself a cup of the blackberry wine. It was pretty good, although sweeter than Shiro tended to like his drinks.

He didn’t exactly mingle with the other guests. He wasn’t sure why he no longer felt like he was any good at small talk or social situations, when he used to really enjoy parties. He didn't know most of the people here, and he had been through so much it was hard to think of things to talk about that wouldn't immediately destroy the mood of the entire celebration.

He did get a bit of enjoyment out of walking around and listening to the conversations happening, especially when he heard Veronica telling Lance to go over and ask Allura for a dance.

“If you don’t ask the princess for a dance, I will,” she threatened with a grin, “I’ll steal your girlfriend before you can even make her your girlfriend.”

“Argh!” Lance groaned, “Would you just give it a rest?”

“Go on and ask her,” Veronica said, smiling encouragingly, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

“Abject humiliation?” Lance replied.

“Yeah, that’s not Allura’s style,” Shiro cut in.

“I know, I know!” Lance said, “She’s too nice for that, she’d be really gracious about turning me down...”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Veronica groaned. She scanned the crowd, caught sight of Allura, then cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “Hey, princess! Come over here! My brother wants to dance with you!”

Lance flushed bright red, but Allura came over with a smile. She was also blushing a little bit, Shiro thought, though it was hard to tell on her dark skin.

“You do, Lance?” she asked, “That would be nice, I’d like to learn some Earth dances...”

Shiro gave Lance a quick thumbs up (he had no idea if Lance had even noticed, he was staring at Allura) and walked away, Veronica in tow.

“I can’t tell if that was nice or mean for you to do,” Shiro said.

“Call it tough love,” Veronica replied with a laugh, “Sometimes just being direct is the best way to deal with things.”

Being direct. Well, okay, she probably wasn't wrong about that. Shiro looked around and caught sight of Keith, standing near Hunk and Shay and someone else that he didn't know. Keith looked beautiful, as he always did, attractive in his new uniform and with his hair already beginning to escape from the neat ponytail he had put it in.

Shiro finished his cup of wine and walked over to Keith, who saw his coming and looked at him with a bright smile.

"Hey, Shiro," he greeted him, and Shiro couldn't help but smile back, his heart melting at the way Keith looked at him.

"In case you were wondering, the mystery wine is actually pretty good," Shiro said, and tried not to read too much into the way Keith stepped closer to him, almost pressing up against his side.

"I haven't tried it," Hunk said, "But did you get a slice of the cake? It's really good. I need to get a recipe."

"Are you just looking for more cakes to get Shay drunk on?" Keith asked with a teasing grin.

"This doesn't have the same ingredient that's intoxicating to Balmerans," Hunk said, "That's just the chocolate, apparently."

"I did not mind the way the chocolate made me feel," Shay cut in, smiling, "It was... pleasant. I just wish to not be surprised the next time I eat something like it."

"Don't worry, I'll be careful," Hunk said, "I mean, with the number of species that we've met, it was silly of me to not think about how ingredients might affect you. But this is a spice cake. Come on, let's get you a slice."

Hunk took her hand and led her toward the buffet table, and Shiro felt his heart clench at the sight of another happy couple.

"I remember hearing an old saying about how going to a wedding usually leads to another," Keith said with a smile, watching them go. He looked toward the dance floor, saw Lance and Allura swaying together, and laughed, "I wonder who in our little group is going to be the first couple to get married."

Shiro wasn't sure what it was that made him move. Maybe it was Keith's laugh, the sparkle in his eyes, or maybe it was the alcohol giving him courage, or Veronica's words echoing in his head, but he moved. He bent down and pressed his lips to Keith's.

It was only for a moment, but it was enough for Shiro to notice the softness of Keith’s lips, the smell of something sweet on his breath, and the way Keith froze in surprise against him. That was what snapped Shiro back to reality and he pulled back quickly.

“I’m sorry!” he gasped, “That was inappropriate, I’m so sorry!”

He didn’t dare look Keith in the eye. What on Earth had possessed him to do that? Keith had made it very clear what sort of relationship he wanted with Shiro, and Shiro had just completely ignored his boundaries. He couldn’t just blame it on the alcohol, he’d had one cup of it and he was no lightweight, but -

Keith laughed, cheerfully, “Calm down, Shiro, it’s fine. It’s not like the whole Garrison doesn’t know we’re dating by now anyway.”

- what?

“We’re dating?” Shiro asked quietly, wondering if it was possible that he’d misheard.

Keith raised an eyebrow, “How much have you had to drink? This shouldn’t be a surprise.”

“I… what?” Shiro stammered, unable to pull his thoughts together.

Keith’s expression changed from sardonically amused to confused and concerned. “Shiro… did you… not think we were dating?” he asked softly.

“You thought we were?” Shiro said, his voice only coming out as an urgent whisper instead of a yell because there were still dozens of people around and he had the presence of mind to realize that he probably shouldn’t shout.

“I – we need to talk,” Keith said. He grabbed Shiro’s hand and tugged him toward the door, “Come on.”

Chapter Text

Keith pulled Shiro along, stopping as soon as they reached an empty hallway. It wasn’t quite as private a spot as he would have liked for this discussion, but the anxiety curling in his gut wouldn’t let him keep looking any longer. He looked up at Shiro, and felt oddly reassured to see that the older man looked just as anxious as Keith felt.

“I -” Keith started, hesitated, and stopped.

His heart was pounding in his throat. Shiro had kissed him, and even as Keith had been thinking ‘oh, finally,’ Shiro had freaked out about it, and now Keith was freaking out a bit, too. Shiro didn’t think they were dating? Then what the hell did he think they were?

He tried to speak again, but could only get out a very weak and concerned, “Explain?”

“I thought you didn’t – I thought you only saw me as your brother,” Shiro said, “What did you mean when you said we were dating?”

“What did I mean?!” Keith echoed incredulously, “I’m the alien, Shiro, how are you the one confused by the word ‘dating’?”

Shiro had been there for him every day Keith had spent at the hospital, and the very day Keith had gotten out, they’d gone on a date. They spent most of their free time together, they cuddled on the couch to watch movies… What other ways were there to interpret that?

“You said ‘you’re my brother’!” Shiro cried, looking somewhere between panicked and exasperated, “Why would I think that meant you want to date me?”

“I said I love you!” Keith replied in the same tone, “I asked you if you felt the same way and you said you did, and – and the way you acted after that, I thought we were...”

He trailed off as another thought occurred to him, “If you didn’t think we were dating, why have you been acting like the best boyfriend ever?”

“I was…?” Shiro had a similar expression to the one he’d worn the last time Keith had seen him take a head injury.

It was almost funny, and Keith found himself on the verge of hysterical laughter as he said, “What about the way we’ve been acting all this time struck you as brotherly? We’ve cuddled on the couch and I took you on a date to the arctic circle and – and I spent the night in your bed and you made me breakfast. That’s… you didn’t think all of that was romantic?”

Shiro looked at the floor, his cheeks furiously red, and he mumbled, “I thought I was just getting my hopes up.”

Getting his hopes up? As if it could be possible, in any universe, for Keith not to love and want Shiro more than anyone or anything. Shiro, the amazing man who had seen the best in Keith even when Keith had been at his lowest. He had reached out to Keith and offered him help when Keith had already long since given up on his dreams. He hadn’t let Keith sabotage himself, either. Keith couldn’t understand how Shiro had been confused.

“I just – I don’t understand how you could have not realized. Shiro… what – exactly – did you think I said when I told you I love you?” Keith asked softly.

“You asked me if I remembered what you said during our fight, before you – before you cut off the Galra arm.” Shiro didn’t call it ‘his arm’ or ‘the clone’s arm’, Keith noticed vaguely. “And I do. You said ‘You’re my brother. I love you.’ I thought that – that a brother was all you wanted me to be. So I told myself that would be enough.”

Well, yes, he had said the words ‘you’re my brother.’ For the longest time, that had been the only role where Keith had thought there had been space for him in Shiro’s life. But he knew it wasn’t right. Wasn’t the truth. ‘I love you’ had been the truth.

And by not letting that wall down until the last possible moment, Keith had created all this confusion. He might have banged his head against the wall if Shiro hadn’t looked so genuinely dejected. He sighed, and took a step forward to catch Shiro in a tight hug. Shiro made a noise of surprise, then wrapped his arms around Keith.

“Okay. Just so we’re on the same page here: Do you love me?” Keith asked.

“Yes,” Shiro answered promptly.

“In a romantic sense?” Keith clarified.

“Yes,” Shiro’s response was a little quieter that time, sounding a bit embarrassed.

“Good,” Keith said firmly, “Because I love you, too, and yes, I also mean that in a romantic sense.”

Shiro turned his face against Keith’s neck and made a noise that might have been a laugh or a sob or both, “Thank god.”

“You oblivious dolt,” Keith teased. Now that he had gotten past his initial panic over the misunderstanding, he had to admit it was a little bit funny.

“How did you never realize I was confused?” Shiro retorted, “If you thought we were dating this whole time then why didn’t you ever realize I’d never tried to kiss you, or anything else like that?”

It was Keith’s turn to blush, because he had noticed, but…

“I thought… that we were taking it slow.”

Shiro pulled back from the hug and gave Keith an amused look, “Six weeks and not even having a first kiss isn’t taking it slow, Keith, that’s roughly the speed of continental drift. How the hell were you that patient with me, if you thought I was your boyfriend?”

“I’ve never dated anyone before!” Keith protested, “I was fine letting you take the lead. You kept doing all these sweet things and yeah, I noticed you seemed a little hesitant about being physical, but I didn’t want to push! I figured you knew what you were doing better than I did.”

It had all been new and exhilarating. Keith had wanted to be more physical, but hadn’t felt like he could be that forward… and maybe he’d also been a little bit of a romantic and wanted to wait for the perfect moment to kiss Shiro.

“So it was the blind leading the blind.” Shiro let out a rueful laugh, and brought his metal hand up to touch Keith’s face, his fingertips lightly brushing his jaw in a way that sent pleasant shivers down Keith’s spine, “I can’t believe that there were six weeks when I could have kissed you any time I wanted, and I wasted them.”

Keith wanted to reply, but the words caught in his throat as Shiro leaned toward him, lips slightly parted. He tilted his head up to meet Shiro’s lips with his own, and let out a little sigh of pleasure as Shiro finally kissed him.

Keith threw his arms around Shiro’s shoulders and pulled him closer, and Shiro’s hand settled on Keith’s waist. It was a little clumsy, and Keith didn’t know if that was from nervousness or pure inexperience on his part, but he didn’t mind and Shiro didn’t seem to mind, either.

When Shiro pulled back, he smiled at Keith. It wasn’t the smile he had been giving Keith for the past few weeks, it was confident and happy. Keith was beginning to realize that what he had thought was flustered shyness on Shiro’s part was actually longing, because for some reason this wonderful idiot had thought Keith didn’t love him back.  And had thought he was hiding it.

Keith snorted with laughter, and said, “And for the record, since apparently we need to work on being clear with each other: I am your boyfriend and I want you to kiss me like that whenever the hell you want to.”

“Yes, sir,” Shiro laughed, his cheeks going a little pink, “You’re going to tease me about this a lot, aren’t you?”

“I’m never letting you live it down,” Keith said, “I will be telling this story at our fiftieth anniversary.”

Shiro’s smile went soft, “You’re planning to keep me that long?”

“Longer, if I can,” Keith promised, “And our track record so far says I probably can.”

“Yeah,” Shiro agreed, “You do seem to keep beating the odds.”

He pushed the bit of hair that had escaped from Keith’s ponytail out of his face and said, “And now I know that saying things like this isn’t going to be creepy… I want you to know that you have the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Holy shit. Keith had never thought he’d react to flowery compliments like that, but the way Shiro said it made his heart flutter. He ducked his head to hide his face against Shiro’s shoulder.

“Don’t you have any mirrors in your quarters?” Keith asked, too embarrassed to think of a compliment as good as Shiro’s.

“You’re the pretty one in this relationship,” Shiro said with a smile, “I’m just the lucky one, because you picked me.”

He raised Keith’s face up with gentle fingers under his chin, and kissed Keith again, soft and sweet. Keith sighed into it. And he’d thought Shiro had been an amazing boyfriend already. He was probably about to get ten times better, now that he actually knew he was Keith’s boyfriend.

“Will you spend the night with me tonight?” Shiro asked, “We don’t have to do anything more than we did last time if you don’t want to, but I think I’d like to actually have some restful sleep this time.”

“Yes,” Keith agreed quickly. A sudden thought occurred to him, and he grinned at Shiro, “Of course I want my big brother to sleep well.”

“Oh my god, Keith!” Shiro cried, instantly going red. He hid his face in his hands.

Keith laughed, “I told you, I’m never going to let you live it down.”

“Well, if that’s the price I pay… I guess I’ll just have to live with it. I’m glad you’re willing to date an oblivious idiot,” Shiro said.

“Don’t call my boyfriend an idiot!” Keith rose onto his toes and kissed Shiro’s cheek, “I’ll give you oblivious, though.”

Shiro laughed, “I love you, baby.”

Baby. Keith had always thought that sounded ridiculous as a pet name, but the way Shiro said it… he found he liked it a whole lot. He smiled, and gently bumped his head against Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro ran his fingers through Keith’s hair, and Keith thought he fell a little more in love just from that.

“I love you too.”

~ ~ ~

The second morning that Shiro woke with Keith next to him was much better than the first time it had happened. Keith had his head on Shiro’s shoulder, his long legs were tangled around Shiro’s, and this time they were bare.

Even better, instead of trying to slip out of bed without waking Keith so that he could take a cold shower, this time Shiro could run his hand down Keith’s back and kiss him awake. He did so with pleasure, and the soft, sleepy noise Keith made, turning into a pleased one as he woke up enough to return the kiss, was now officially one of Shiro’s favorite sounds. (Along with pretty much every sound Keith had made last night.)

“Morning, baby,” he said.

The way Keith smiled as he opened his eyes made Shiro’s heart turn flips, and he discreetly pinched himself to be sure he wasn’t dreaming. It stung, so either he was awake or having a very real, very lucid dream.

“Hey,” Keith said, his voice a little rough from sleep.

“I need to get up, but you’ve kind of got me pinned,” Shiro said.

Keith shut his eyes again, “Good. You should stay here and have a lazy morning with me. I can’t remember the last time I just slept in, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do it.”

“I’d love to, but we both have things to do today,” Shiro replied. Was any of it really important, though? It wasn’t as if the world would stop if he just spent a morning in bed with the love of his life…

Keith pouted for moment, then he smiled and adjusted his grip on Shiro. He was clinging like an affectionate octopus.

“I tell you what,” Keith said, “If you’ll give me another ten minutes of using you as a pillow, I’ll cook breakfast for you while you’re in the shower.”

“I kind of thought we could shower together,” Shiro offered. After all, his shower was big enough for two people to share, and sharing it with Keith was a very appealing idea. Sharing everything with Keith was an appealing idea right now.

“Oh,” Keith said, his face going an adorable shade of pink, “Okay. I would like that.”

“Worth getting out of bed for?”

Keith smiled, and sat up to give Shiro a kiss, and Shiro decided to take that as a yes. He wondered if he could get away with picking Keith up and carrying him to the shower, but while he was debating whether or not to try, Keith got out of bed. Shiro wasn’t too disappointed, though. There would be other mornings.

The shower went over well enough, although Shiro did accidentally hit Keith in the head with his elbow while washing his hair. Keith laughed it off, asking Shiro to ‘kiss it better’ again, the way he had just before their first date. (They argued a little over whether or not it counted, since only Keith had known it was a date. Shiro thought it counted, Keith wanted a do-over.)

“Should we go ahead and tell people that we’re dating now?” Shiro asked as he stepped out of the shower and passed a towel to Keith.

“Do you want to?” Keith asked.

“Hmm...” Shiro made a show of considering it, “Do I want to make everyone jealous by telling them that the most amazing man in the universe is dating me? What a hard decision!”

Keith smacked Shiro with his towel, laughing, “If I’d known you were going to be this embarrassing -”

Shiro caught Keith’s arm as he moved to smack Shiro with his towel again and pulled him close. “The way I see it, if you get embarrassed by me telling you the absolute truth...” he kissed Keith’s nose, “Then I need to do it a lot more often.”

Keith laughed, “You’re such a dork. I can’t believe I ever thought you were cool.”

“I am a multi-faceted individual.”

Keith laughed again, gave Shiro a quick kiss, then stepped back to wrap the towel around his waist. Shiro followed him out of the bathroom to the kitchenette, where Keith made pancakes and Shiro took care of the coffee. It was new, but they’d slipped easily into the kind of comfort and familiarity that it had taken Shiro weeks if not months to develop before. Keith fit into his life like he’d always been there.

“I love you,” Shiro said.

“I love you, too.”

Shiro smiled, “Hearing you say that is never going to get dull.”

“Good,” Keith replied, “Want some pancakes?”

“Trade you,” Shiro replied, and slid a mug of coffee across the counter to Keith.

Keith smiled, and handed Shiro a plate of pancakes. They sat at the small table together, and talked easily all the way through breakfast. It had been weeks, if not longer, since Shiro had felt so comfortable while talking to Keith. Now that he knew that Keith loved him back, he didn’t feel like he had to watch everything he said and did to avoid giving himself away. (Not that he’d done a good job at that, apparently, since Keith had interpreted pretty much everything Shiro did as romantic.)

“I can’t believe this is the first time we’ve done this,” Shiro said.

“Well the last time I spent the night, you ran off before I woke up,” Keith replied.

“I know, but that’s not what I meant. I mean that this feels… it feels like we’ve been doing this for years.” He smiled at Keith, sure his expression was as sappy as it had ever been. “Even though this is brand new, it feels routine. In a really good way, you know?”

Keith nodded, “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

Shiro reached across the table and took Keith’s hand as he said, “Keith… this may be a little too early to ask, since we’ve only been dating for -”

“Six weeks or eighteen hours, depending on how we count it?” Keith teased.

Shiro blushed, “Yeah, I know. But… would you move in with me?”

“Yes.”

The answer was prompt and said in an almost matter-of-fact tone. Even though Shiro had expected Keith to agree, he was almost taken aback by how quick and simple the answer was.

“Really?”

“Of course,” Keith said, “Hey, maybe next time you transform Atlas, maybe you can get her to take the wall between our quarters out? It’d be nice to have the extra space. We could make one of the bedrooms into an office or something.”

Shiro laughed. He didn’t know if he could get Atlas to do something quite that specific – although with how quickly she was learning, it might be possible.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, “You’re obviously making plans, after all.”

“My plan is for the two of us to get married,” Keith said, blushing, but not looking away from Shiro as he said it, “So, y’know, if we’re going to talk about things that it might be a little too soon to talk about… but if we’re going to work on that whole ‘clear communication’ thing, you should know that that’s what I want.”

Holy fucking shit. As soon as the words were out of Keith’s mouth, Shiro knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wanted that, too. He wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything in his life.

“That’s what I want, too,” Shiro said, collecting his thoughts, “I don’t know if we’re ready to set a date and mail out invitations just yet, but I don’t think it’s too soon to talk about it. Since that’s the direction we’re going.”

“Tell you what,” Keith said with a smile, “I promise not to marry you for a year.”

Shiro chuckled, “We’ve got to make sure that neither of us is going to drive the other one insane with a bad habit, right?”

“If you eat your steak well-done with ketchup, that’ll be the end of it,” Keith teased.

“Who does that?”

“People with no moral compass, that’s who.”

Shiro laughed, and raised Keith’s hand to his mouth to give it a kiss, “I love you so much. I can’t believe how lucky I am.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth.”

~ ~ ~

It was the first time in a long time that all of Team Voltron had been able to sit down and eat a meal together, and Lance suspected that something was going on. Shiro and Keith had both been strangely insistent that everyone should be there that evening, but they hadn’t said why. He wouldn’t normally think about it much, but when he arrived in at Shiro’s quarters (being Captain obviously had its perks, Shiro’s quarters were twice the size of the other Paladins’), their fearless leader seemed… shifty. Nervous and excited.

Keith was acting normal, though. Maybe a little more cuddly with Shiro than before – maybe Shiro was getting over being shy about public displays of affection with Keith. They’d definitely been more open at the wedding, once Shiro had gotten a few drinks in him. He didn’t want to speculate on what he and Keith had done when they disappeared from the reception for a half hour and come back looking disheveled.

Everyone else seemed to notice the weird atmosphere, too, but Lance was determined that, for once, he wasn’t going to be the one to put his foot in his mouth. Someone else could be the one to bring it up. One of them would snap soon, he could tell.

It was Hunk who finally brought it up, halfway through the main meal.

“Okay, guys, what’s going on?” he asked, looking at Keith and Shiro.

“What do you mean?” Keith asked, with an innocent tone that Lance didn’t buy for an instant.

“Oh, come on!” Pidge said, “You invited all of us over, you made a big deal about it being important to you that the whole team was here...”

“And Shiro has been acting twitchier than a Tinvaakla in an Eldormerean meat market!” Coran cut in.

“None of us have any idea what that means,” Lance said.

“I do,” Allura replied.

“Well, except for Allura, obviously, ‘cause she knows all about all kinds of places and things in the universe!” Lance said quickly, babbling like he could never seem to stop doing around Allura lately.

Shiro cleared his throat, and said, “You’re right, though. We wanted you all to be here ‘cause we have something to tell you.”

Keith looked at Shiro with the most gentle, loving expression Lance had ever seen on his face. It was weird to see Keith looking like that, but he acted weird in a lot of ways about Shiro.

Shiro glanced at Keith and smiled, before looking back at them, “Keith and I are engaged.”

There was a chorus of surprised noises around the table. Allura squealed with delight, Hunk yelled, Pidge snapped her fingers and said that she owed Matt money now, and Coran just nodded knowingly.

“What?!” Lance squawked.

Pidge kicked him in the ankle, “You’re supposed to congratulate people when they announce an engagement, dummy!”

“I mean, congratulations and all, but… what?” Lance asked, “I wasn’t expecting it yet! Didn’t you guys only start dating like two months ago?”

“Well…” Keith looked at Shiro with a grin, and Shiro went bright pink, covering his face with his mechanical hand, “There’s a funny story about that, actually...”