Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Today would be the day

The day that would determine whether or not Team Voltron could actually defeat the universes’ worst enemy. Keith and Lance woke up in each other's arms again, this time it was less startling. Getting out of bed felt like time was moving in slow motion, every movement was achy and draining. Neither of them wanted to do this- but they had to, and they were determined to make the most of it. They would be heroes, their names would be in history books on possibly different planets, schools and textbooks. They could see it now; ‘Lance McClain and Keith Kogane, Saviors of the Universe’. It had quite a nice ring to it. Allura had given them disguises for when they arrived, which they thought was unnecessary but they assumed that she knew best, she is a princess so what she says goes.

Lance was given exact instructions to wear a garment that was a traditional Altean commonwear… whatever that meant. It was what appeared to be some fancy beige slacks, a blue sort of tank top underneath a whimsical shawl and lots of jewelry to cover the rips and tears from ten thousand years ago.

Keith was sporting something similar, shorter slacks that resembled more of a sweatpants type of fit and a large deep purple shaded shirt. And of course jewelry and even a little makeup on the bridge of his nose. No matter how much convincing though, Keith refused to let Allura pierce his ear for a diamond stud. He drew the line at anything too feminine, he was already worried people would think he's a girl based on his hair length and the fact he had nose contour on.

Allura said they looked “decent” which was good enough for them to step into their Lion with their itchy clothes and do their best to find out the deep dark secrets the past centuries have been hiding.

This was the moment they had all waited for, they were on the edge of their seats. Allura bit her nails, Hunk was stress eating the rest of the pastries, Keith closed his eyes, anticipating the ‘okay’ signal, Lance prayed to every god he had ever been exposed to in the past, and Pidge took a long, deep, shuddering breath before twisting a knob to set the time back 10,019 years.

“It's ready.” Pidge’s voice was stern, she blinked slowly, waiting for the wormhole to appear.

When a hot pink sparkling portal formed outside the bridge she sighed in relief, however only one part of the plan had worked so far, she watched as the timer clicked, the jump point would close in exactly a minute.

“Coordinates are set, we are ready to jump.” Keith's voice was far shakier than Pidge’s, which made sense since Pidge wasn't the one who would be jumping into a possible void with barely any mental preparation and a hell lot of trust in their team mates.

“To Altea we go, I guess.” Lance inhaled sharply as they passed through the wormhole, his joints felt like they had snapped in half, his body shook and he felt static overcome him temporarily. After a few seconds he felt normal again, like it had never happened. “You okay up there?” He called to Keith.

“All in one piece so far.” That was just about the best honest answer he was able to give.

After a few seconds of searching both of their jaws dropped, their eyes grew the size of golf balls and they watched a planet become larger in their vision. The planet was a light blue with green islands scattered. A long cloudlike aura surrounded it, resembling Saturn’s rings. The planet was as bright as a lightbulb, radiating light and reflecting its sun beams like the Earth's moon.

“Is that it?” Lance unbuckled and stood out of his seat, his eyes fixated on the planet up ahead.

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure.” Keith felt the same way, he hadn't seen something so beautiful before in his entire life. It was odd to think that it was destroyed, barely a decade after this moment it would have exploded into a destruction zone. It is completely unsafe and…dead. But now? Now it was thriving, it was healthy and vivid and just pure magical. It was inspiring.

“It kind of looks like earth.” Lance wiped a tear out of his eye before it got the chance to escape.

“I miss it.” Keith didn't let himself cry, he wouldn't forgive himself to bruise his massive ego if he cried by just looking at the same random old planet.

“Poor Allura… this is her home. It's completely destroyed now. There is nothing to come back to.” Lance's breathing was shaky, “what if that happens to earth?”

“Lance,” Keith turned around to look at his friend, “you cannot think like that, don't even imagine it. It's not going to happen, earth will be fine and pretty soon we will all go back and it will be peaceful.”

Lance didn't look convinced.

“I promise?” Keith tried to seem more confident like Shiro had advised him to.

“You can't promise that, you're not in control of it.” Lance sniffed

“I promise to give my all, ensure that nothing like that ever happens to us.”

“U-us?” Lance swallowed

“Us… us as in like… humans? Earth?” Keith stammered

“Oh right! Yeah sorry ha.” Lance sat back down in his seat and buckled as they descended closer to land.

They approached Altea fast, they were both eager to explore it. They landed the lion in a remote field with some odd looking cows and some pink lilies, at least they appeared to be lilies.

“Lance.” Keith fidgeted with his costume, picking at the loose threads.

“Yeah?” Lance picked up the camera, hiding it under his shawl.

“Take a lot of pictures for Allura.” Keith swallowed the lump in his throat, he needed to be braver than this.

“Of course,” Lance whispered.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“They made it.” Pidge muttered, almost emulating pure shock. The doubt yesterday had almost overcome her. She turned around to sneak a gLance at Allura, who was already looking at her with pride. Allura was right, she had enough hope for the both of them.

“I knew they would.” Allura didn't break her eyes away from Pidge.

“So what now? Do we just wait until they get back?” Hunk put his feet up, ready to take a nap to help the time go by.

“We prepare, reboot the generator so we can have the most amount of power to get them back.” Pidge stood up and brushed her knees off.

“Might want to resend that chat about how to get back too, I have a feeling they have already forgotten everything.” Coran said, typing in random buttons into the main control.

“What are you working on, Coran?” Allura turned her head in an attempt to get a better look.

“Trying to get a look on how far Zarkon is by now. I can't exactly track him but our allies have sent updates annually. Pidge, can you get a read into our coordinates?” Coran was frantically searching for clues

“I have them in a note somewhere, I write it down each morning.” Pidge pulled out her journal, flipping through the pages. Before she could get a hold on the coordinates something fell out of it, the photo of her and Matt outside the Galaxy Garrison. She hesitated before picking it up and shoving it back into her diary. Hunk pretended to not notice the twitch of her lips downward when it triggered the memory. “Here it is.” Pidge handed the page to Coran who lifted the page with his fingers to type it in the machine.

“Approximentaly eight vargas since he was seen, a few light years away from us.” Coran sighed.

“How much time is that?” Pidge was too exhausted to do the math in her head this time.

“Around five days if he keeps this pace, maybe six if we are lucky.” Coran fluffed up his mustache and returned to the spinning chair Hunk and Pidge had made him a while ago for his birthday. Despite being 10,033 years old he was very easy to shop for.

“That cannot slow us down, I don't want to live like we are in constant danger but i dont want to be sitting ducks when he does arrive. It can't catch us off guard, that's how he gets us and we wormhole away. We mustn't run away next time. We are team Voltron, we must fight back.” Allura crossed her arms and lifted her chin up, blinking away her wet eyes.

Pidge and Hunk ran off to the hanger to grab the rest of the tools and supplies for the generator when Coran approached Allura, putting a hand on her bony shoulder.

“Alfor would be so proud of you.” he sniffed, Allura was practically glowing in her dazzling confidence. She knew it too, she knew her father was smiling down on her.

“Thank you, Coran. I can't help but think he would be proud of you too, stepping up to take on the mature role that he always was for you. You know you are like a second father to me, but you are filling that position for the paladins as well from my perspective. You can tell from the sparkle in their eyes when they speak to you. Thank you.” Allura's voice broke as she wrapped her arms around Coran, who humbly welcomed the embrace.

. . . . . . . . . . .

“Where do we go from here?” Lance asked his partner as they walked into the city center of Altea. It was a small secluded area with many kiosks and pop up shops. The smell of everything was potent but not overwhelming, it stung Keith’s nostrils just enough. The fresh dough, fruits and flowers, a little gathering near the end of a lake had ladies doing the laundry with a faint scent of lavender soap. There was no conflict, or visible conflict from what they could tell, everyone got along perfectly. The sound of laughter flooded their ears, small talk and puppies barking was a positive edition. Some small children looked up at the two of them with big eyes even though they blended in very well. Allura was spot-on with the costumes.

“I guess we look for the king.” Keith shrugged, a young woman turned around at the mention of the king.

“Are you talking about King Alfor?” she asked, her eyes sparkled bright and she clasped her hands together.

“Yes!” Lance nudged past Keith, he knew that he would be better at getting on people's good side than Keith whose specialty was always violence and suspension before peace. “Do you know where he is?”

“Hes with his daughter in the garden over there, I wouldn't interrupt if i was you though, they seem to be very content with just the company of the other.” the lady, who was wearing a light blue dress and a neon yellow pair of earrings pointed to a flower field and the silhouettes of two people, one being much bigger and taller than the other.

“Oh my god.” Keith whispered to himself at the sight.

“Thank you so much, we will keep it in mind to not interrupt them!” Lance shook the woman's hand and guided him and Keith out of the fray and near an alleyway.

“What do we do now, you heard her; we shouldn't interrupt and mess with the past. This could be a big bonding moment for them.” Lance hadn't realised how cramped the alleyway was until he noticed him and Keith's knees touching under the thick slacks.

“What would we even say?” Keith scratched the bridge of his nose, who was going to inform him that makeup is itchy?

“I don't know, we could just… watch?”

“Yeah if the goal was to look like total creeps.” Keith scoffed

“You think of something better then!” Lance groaned

“I'm trying to, now shut up!” Keith crossed his arms and turned his head to the side, giving Lance a level view of his side profile and jawline, an earring would look pretty nice on his ear now that he thought about it.

“We might consider getting a persona, pretending to be royalty.” Keith suggested

“Where would that get us?” Lance wished Keith would look back at him instead of letting his eyes wander over his neck.

“Didnt Allura say something one time about some feast Alfor had to speak about his new inventions? New invention being the Voltron Lions?” Keith explained.

“I think you're right now that I think about that. But we can’t just pull off being fake royalty, anyone could try doing that, we would need to make a plan with everyone else back in the future.” Lance liked the idea, but they didn't have enough time to really go through with it.

“Should we bring everyone with us next time? Or at least Allura?” Keith asked, his voice was vulnerable, like he was asking a personal question instead of a business one.

“Why would we bring Allura?” Lance cocked his head.

Keith turned his face back to Lance, dumbfounded, “Have you not been paying attention? Look.” Keith bobbed his head towards the flower field.

Lance watched the scene, King Alfor and Allura playing and dancing in the gardens, if they were extra quiet they could hear her adolescent laughter.

“We should go back now.” Keith said suddenly, his eyes were dreadful, he hated this. He didn't want to see a flash back of the princess’ life, he was never meant to see it.

“You're right.” Lance said before snapping a photo of the King and Princess.

They had both agreed to leave but neither of them moved, they weren't even looking at Alfor and Allura anymore, just staring into each other's eyes.

“You look strange with the makeup on, by the way.” Lance remarked

“You look strange without anything having to be different.” Keith smirked.

“Shut up, I know that I'm gorgeous.” Lance playfully nudged Keith, which just pushed him into the wall he was barely leaning against, Lance was stunned, his eyes grew wide and he didn't move his arm. Which might have made it worse. He was holding Keith's shoulder, digging him into the cobblestone building.

“What are you doing?” Keith broke the silence

“Im not sure, we should head back to the Red Lion now.”

“Good idea.” All Keith could do was pray that Lance couldn't tell how fast his heart was beating.