Voltron Legendary Defender (Spy AU) - martinis, girls & guns [3] [Sheith + Allurance]

[scriveyner]

Title: martinis, girls & guns [3]
Fandom: Voltron Legendary Defender
AU: Spyfic
Characters/Pairing: Lance, Hunk, Pidge, Keith
Rating: M
Length: 2376
Summary:



'The Garrison' was a term bandied about by agents and operatives, and mostly referred to the old military barracks that had been secretly converted into staging areas for covert military operations after the end of the war. Set out in the desert a civilian had to be quite determined to stumble upon the complex in the first place; and if they did they would be greeted by an old, crumbling and lazily active military base. That was enough for most, but the occasional paranoid conspiracy types would have to be ushered away by bored-looking MPs.

Lance hated it there.

He had been recruited; just like everyone else, but there was just something off about the entire place. He'd never been a fan of the desert; the way the dry heat baked into your skin and hair, the unbroken bleakness of the landscape, the solitude. Once activated he made it a solid point to spend as much time away as possible, only returning for mission debriefings at the behest of the head of operations.

Nobody knew the full scale of the operation here. They knew whose soil the military base was constructed on; they knew the names and faces of the people around them and their contact networks, and that was it. Everything was on a need-to-know basis ... and most people simply didn't need to know. It wasn't important what governments had vested interests and made contributions to the military slush fund that financed the Garrison, the only thing that mattered was the mission you were handed.

Lance leaned back against a low metal table in the converted barracks, arms folded as he watched the bustle around him. He'd been summoned; called away from a cabana on a sandy beach where the sky was blue, the sand was white and the sea turquoise to this desolate bunker in an arid desert and he was not a happy camper. He liked working alone. Preferred it, really.

"Lance!"

Well, most of the time.

The sprawl of tables and electronics made the room akin to a maze. Lance didn't see the speaker until he was almost upon him; although he'd recognized the voice and it had lightened his mood considerably. Lance stood up, unfolding his arms as Hunk came around the last set of obstacles.

It had been half a year and change, and while Hunk was grinning at seeing his old friend there was still a momentary hesitation when he saw Lance. Lance inclined his head, grinning, and that dispelled the awkwardness as Hunk strode boldly too him and threw his arms around Lance. "Where the fuck have you been?" Hunk said, not yelling but not keeping his voice down, either. He actually lifted Lance off his feed with the strength of the embrace, and Lance smacked his one free hand on Hunk's chest in a vain effort to worm free.

"As far away from this place as I could manage," Lance said when Hunk released him. They'd both flushed slightly at the contact, and Hunk's hand lingered just a moment on Lance's shoulder as he helped straighten his shirt. Lance very purposefully ignored that. "How's the arm?"

"Oh," Hunk said, and held up his left arm, flexing it. "Good as new." He was wearing BDUs like most who stayed on base, to help preserve the image of a budget-slashed military base, although the uniform's jacket had been left somewhere so he was left in a black tee shirt and trousers. Hunk smacked his bicep with one hand. "Just a few new scars to add to the collection."

Lance nodded his head and very purposefully ignored the memory of a blood-soaked shirt and screams. "You've gotta come see this place I was staying at," Lance said. "Nothing to think about except the sun and the surf."

There was another hesitation on Hunk's face, something quick that moved across his expression and Lance recognized all too well. He ignored that, too.

"Iverson sent for you too, huh?"

Lance turned around to see Pidge seated, cross-legged on the same metal table he'd been leaning against before Hunk showed up. She was wearing BDUs too, properly, unlike Hunk, hat and all. "Aww, Pidge," Lance said. "You've gotten taller since I saw you last!"

Pidge propped her elbow on one knee and cocked an eyebrow, looking Lance up and down slowly. "So how'd the result of that last STD screening turn out?" she inquired, tapping one finger on the tablet balanced on her other knee. "Shall we take a look?"

"Pidge," Hunk said, and she shrugged loosely. Then she straightened quickly, sliding off the table and disappearing her probably quite-illegal tablet into one of the many large pockets on the uniform. Lance turned around expectantly, as the operations chief came around into the small secluded pocket created by the maze of shelves and tables.

The woman was in her late fifties; hair mostly grey with some strands of color still threaded through and visible even in the tight bun that held her hair away from her face. This clearly wasn't Iverson, and Lance cast a questioning look at Hunk, who inclined his head and nodded just a little. I'll explain later.

"It was easier to call you here than risk a communique into the field," the woman began, setting a thin white folder on the metal table. "We don't have a lot of time, this situation is quite urgent and the less data that is on the wire the less information will leak." She tapped the white folder once, and after a moment the entire length of the metal table shimmered and went translucent, turning into a large screen.

Both of Lance's eyebrows raised. That was an upgrade. "Yeah, excuse me," he said, and set one hand on the table, leaning forward on it so he could stare levelly across the table at the woman. "Who are you, again?"

There was a long moment of silence that was punctuated by a low, annoyed noise that came from Hunk.

"I am your commanding officer," she said in a crisp voice. "Perhaps if you spent a little less time on the beach the sun wouldn't have baked your brain into shit, McClain."

"Special Agent," Lance corrected, and this time Pidge's groan was audible and Hunk said something under his breath in another language.

"McClain, there is nothing special or unique about the skill set that you bring to this Agency. It would take me absolutely less effort to replace you than it would for you to empty the cum-soaked tissues in the trashcan next to your bed. Do we understand each other?"

Lance straightened slowly and folded his arms. He said nothing, and the grey-haired woman nodded her head once. "That's what I thought," she said, and tapped the white folder with two fingers, sliding it into the middle of the table. The soft illumination emanating from the table's surface outlined the folder in thick white, before it scanned the contents and displayed across its entire length.

It was a deconstructed dossier. Entire pages were shown, although there were plenty of strips of redaction, both blacked out and blurred. Pidge moved forward, beside Lance, staring down at the table's display with wide eyes.

"Hey, this is that Agent that disappeared a few years ago," Hunk said. "Didn't they fish his body out of a river?"

Lance was staring at the photograph. Two years ago he had just been graduating the Garrison's equivalent of basic training; but he remembered the uproar. "Was it even his body that they found?" he asked the woman.

She shook her head once. "Two and a half years ago two agents disappeared on a highly classified mission." She tapped the table and the two photographs appeared side by side; one looked strikingly like Pidge. So much so, Hunk and Lance exchanged a look and then glanced over at Pidge, who was staring at the photographs with a strained expression.

"Takashi Shirogane and Matthew Holt vanished into thin air," she said. "Three months after they failed to check in with their liaison, a body that was identified as Shirogane's was pulled out of a river in a major metropolitan area." She ran her fingers along the edge of the table and the pictures shrank to a corner while autopsy photos suddenly appeared. Lance bit the inside of his cheek and forced himself not to look away.

Bodies left in rivers for any length of time didn't come out cleanly, and they were looking at a mostly unidentifiable mess. Pidge looked up at the woman. "This isn't in-house," she said. "This is a local medical examiner, isn't it?" Certain she was correct, Pidge just kept going. "How did they correctly identify the body without access to our database of DNA and dental records?"

Hunk said, quietly, "they didn't question the findings because it's easier to write him off as dead than missing."

"Missing is dead, in this line of work," Lance said. "Agents disappear all the time. What makes these two so special?"

"Because Takashi Shirogane resurfaced three weeks ago," the woman said, and swiped again.

The photographs were not the best quality, the focus was on someone else in frame, a foreign dignitary. Pidge pointed to the far corner, two dark-haired men and a woman with pale hair, blurry and hard to distinguish from the rest of the crowd. "That's them," she said. "Well, Shirogane."

"The mission that Shirogane and Holt were on is still classified to the highest levels," their commanding officer said. "It doesn't matter what mission they were on, what matters is that Shirogane is dealt with."

"Dealt with," Hunk said. "Not brought back?"

"Dealt with," the woman said. "We have reason to believe he has been compromised. There is a kill order out on him, and Holt, were Holt to resurface as well." She lifted her hand and, after a moment, the table's surface went dark. Lance picked up the white folder and opened it; it had no mission details aside from their updated passport information.

"We'll take care of it," Lance said, and closed the folder.

#

Keith hung his head forward and worked his jaw around. His restraints were tied really, really well -- he wasn't going anywhere. Even if he still had it tucked away he wouldn't be able to reach his trusty knife. If the big guy threw it away, he was going to be really pissed.

He had no idea how long he'd been out, or how far away from casino he was. Hopefully, the others had noticed his absence and went into emergency mode; that would put them on the train over the border by lunchtime. He just had to keep these idiots busy until then. After that, well ... it didn't really matter any more, did it?

Keith lifted his head a little and squinted. Since the sun came up he could hear the seabirds. The entire city was infested with them, but the ocean air was crisp and close, so they weren't far from the beach. That gave him little to go on, the city had klicks of coastal property. They could be up the street, or on the other side of the bay.

The small one had mumbled something about putting together a bag of tricks, but instead of disappearing back into the room they had moseyed over to the kitchen area, and put on coffee. He turned his head to watch a bit, realized that the man on the couch was watching him, and then put his attention back on him.

He remembered Lance vaguely. Brown hair, brown skin, always wearing a goofy expression despite having the shit kicked out of him in basic. He figured that recruit would wash like most of the others; so imagine his surprise to see Lance sitting at a bar in the shittiest money sink Shiro could find.

They'd popped up on the Garrison's radar. It was only a matter of time; they all knew that. Somehow, Keith thought there would be more time, but luck wasn't infinite.

Lance had ditched the dressing gown when the sun came up in its full force, returning to a collared shirt and loose trousers. He had resumed his spot on the couch, pistol trained on Keith as if the big guy hadn't tied Keith's restraints so tight that he was starting to lose the blood flow to his hands.

"It got around the place fast that you'd been KIA," Lance said idly, arm hooked over the back of the couch. "Shot by a cartel was the version I heard. Was there ever any truth to it?"

"Depends on who you ask." Keith's voice was raw, his throat was dry. He didn't want to give any Garrison agents intel they didn't already have, but if he didn't appear at least a little cooperative he wouldn't buy enough time for Shiro and the princess to cross the border. "It wasn't my idea."

"Mm." Lance leaned back a little, looking to the kitchen. "Hey, green panties. Wanna check in with the big guy and make sure everything's clear? The lack of contact is unsettling."

"What did you just call me?" Pidge said, stepping out of the kitchenette and looking a fair bit murderous.

"Green," Lance said. "With little grey kittens on them, really, are you fourteen or something?"

Pidge scowled at Lance. "You're a fucking pervert, McClain. Can I start on him yet? I've got the water boiling."

"We'll wait on Hunk," Lance said, giving up on code names entirely with a sigh and looking at Keith imploringly, as if Keith would have any sympathy for the man who had him at the end of a gun.

Pidge rolled her eyes and crossed the room carrying a mug in two hands. "You know where to find me, when you're ready. There's a shit-ton of plastic sheets in the closet in my room, we should put some down before we get to work."

Keith wet his lips and exhaled, curling his hands as best he could with his restraints, and looked past Lance to the small patch of blue sky he could see outside the shutters. He'd buy as much time as he could.