Voltron Legendary Defender (Spy AU) - martinis, girls & guns [10] [Sheith + Allurance]

[scriveyner]

Title: martinis, girls & guns [10]
Fandom: Voltron Legendary Avenger
AU: Spyfic
Characters/Pairing: Shiro/Keith, Lance/Allura, Hunk, Pidge
Rating: M
Length: 2589
Summary: "It's open," Allura's voice sang from inside the compartment.

"It's open," Allura's voice sang from inside the compartment. Shiro hesitated a moment despite the open invitation, wondering if the princess had anticipated his arrival, and then dismissed the thought, opening the door confidently. She was seated primly in the chair that sat opposite the bed, close enough that her foot could touch the mattress if she was so inclined. She was dressed in a sleeveless violet gown made of a soft material that shimmered in the overhead light. It had a high neck and a low back, and Allura was putting on her earrings.

"I was expecting Keith," Allura said without glancing at Shiro's straight-backed posture in the door. She fastened her second earring and cocked her head a little, looking Shiro up and down with her eyebrow raised. Then, effortlessly, she rose to her feet and turned a small, abbreviated twirl. "What do you think?"

"I think you're overdressed for dinner," Shiro said, and Allura laughed.

"How are they all getting along?" Allura waited until Shiro offered his arm, and then linked hers with his. "Have we lost any of them, yet?"

"Not yet, although I left Keith alone with your new toy, so we'll see if the dining car is still in one piece when we arrive." They swept into the hall and Allura hesitated, which made Shiro pause as well. He knew that look well, and had learned to trust it over the past weeks. Allura's expression had changed to something far-away, and concentrating. Then she looked down the hall in the opposite direction, sourcing. "Allura?"

"They're here," she said.

"Sendak?" Shiro's stomach dropped. They were ill-equipped at the moment to deal with Sendak. They barely had twenty-four hours under their belts, a clash with someone that well-organized could be disastrous ... and very lethal.

"Not him personally, but his men." Allura said. Her expression returned to normal, and she shook her head, her long, unbound hair barely moving with the motion. "There's trouble, Shiro."

"I'm not surprised," Shiro said. "Toward the back of the train? I'll check it out," he moved to unlink their arms, and then tapped one finger to the rise of his cheek. Allura stared at him a moment then comprehended, running two fingers over her own cheek, disguising the glowing pink mark that had appeared. "You need to tell them," he said softly, and Allura caught his arm with one hand, her expression for a split-second, terrified.

"I lost my team once," she said, and then remembered herself and released his sleeve. Shiro stood a moment and looked at her, then took her left hand with his own and raised it, bowing his head to kiss her hand.

"We won't fail you, princess," Shiro murmured. Then he released her hand and straightened, settling his jacket on his shoulders before heading with purpose toward the end of the passenger car and the end of the train.

"I know you won't," Allura murmured, cupping her left hand to her chest with her right.

#

Hunk knew how to take a hit.

Didn't mean he liked being in the position of getting hit one bit, but he at least had plenty of practice with it. It was something that tended to come up when you ended up with friends like Lance McClain, who dragged you after through hell and back and then didn't even have their shit together enough to call you the next morning. Hunk's shoulder clipped a shipping crate that didn't even move with the impact, and he barely had it together enough to remember to move before the mook with the grin and the missing tooth took his block clean off.

He dented the side of the shipping crate that Hunk had very hastily scrambled away from. He filed that thought, along with the half-dozen others that had occurred to him in the ten-minute span that had started out as a fair fight and had quickly devolved into something else altogether.

These men weren't men at all.

Well no, that wasn't quite right, Hunk reasoned as he tried to gather his scattered thoughts. They were clearly functioning, breathing beings made of carbon -- but they didn't hit like a human, and they certainly weren't bothering to get tired like regular old human Hunk was. He was still facing off against the first one who had a thin trickle of blood coming from his nose, a missing tooth and yellow fucking eyes .

"Stop toyin' with him," the one in the back said. The other two had at first squared off as well, prepared to take Hunk down if their comrade fell. When it quickly became apparent that that wasn't going to happen they relaxed their stances, and one in fact had lit a cigar, standing by the door broken off its track between the second and third freight cars. "We're supposed to bring'im all to the boss, not kill'em."

"Yeah, but you know how wily these stupid fucking humans can be," the second one said conversationally. "Annoying little shits, don't see why we have to keep workin' with them."

"Rules," the third one said.

Whatever the second one was about to say in response to that was interrupted cleanly by Hunk slammed directly into the undamaged door. "Shouldn't've come meddlin'," the first one growled, his voice thick and animalistic. Hunk, dazed and off balance, was halfway to regaining his feet when the door actually slid aside. He toppled with it, falling down on one knee and spitting blood, looking up and expecting to see the fourth member of their gang come to finish the deal.

To his surprise, there stood Shiro; dressed similarly. He had forgone the tie with his suit, and the top few buttons of the white collared shirt undone. The large man who had been making Hunk's life difficult threw a punch at Shiro without even hesitating. Several things happened so fast that Hunk could barely follow it himself.

Shiro stepped in toward the punch, throwing up his left arm and extending it. The tie he must have been wearing earlier looped over the man's wrist and Shiro turned easily, almost as if it were a dance move. The man's follow-through was extended by Shiro yanking him with the tie and it slammed his face off the frame of the open door. The man howled through a smashed face, falling forward. Without looking at the damage done behind him, Shiro stepped forward toward the two other men, left hand sliding under his suit jacket and drawing a small hand gun.

Hunk got to his feet slowly, wiping his bruised fist over his mouth as he watched Shiro shoot the other two men with deadly efficiency. One bullet each took them down, but then Shiro stepped over the bodies and unloaded a few more shots directly into them, the retort ungodly loud in the small space. "I think they're plenty dead," Hunk said, as Shiro popped the cartridge from his gun.

The one who Shiro had knocked senseless into the door was getting to his feet, spitting blood and broken teeth. He also was starting to look very different, face growing thicker and his untrimmed sideburns going a deep, dark violet. "Shiro," Hunk said, and Shiro half turned, already aiming his weapon.

The -- whatever the heck he was, moved faster than Hunk thought possible, slamming forward into Shiro and knocking the gun clear from his hand. Shiro let out an awful, pained sound as they both went over, tumbling back over the bodies of it's slain comrades. Hunk lunged after them, intent on helping Shiro, weapon or no weapon. The creature had Shiro pinned to the floor, one claw-tipped, purple hand over Shiro's throat and face, the other raised to strike.

Hunk put his shoulder down and slammed into its side like a linebacker. It wasn't enough momentum to completely dislodge the thing, but Shiro's right hand flung free and grabbed the thing by the face, and as Hunk clambered to his feet to try again there was a sizzling noise and it screamed in pain, flinging itself off of Shiro and across the car. Hunk was prepared to rush it but it groped along the wall behind it and found a latch, popping the freight car's door. With one hand cupped over its injured face the thing threw the door open and threw itself out into the dark night.

He rushed the door but the train was moving at enough speed that it was gone in a flash. The wind that whipped by was cold but not wet, although the outside of the train was. He held onto the compartment's door for balance, then looked over to Shiro, who had sat up, left hand holding his right wrist and folded over himself a bit, breathing hard. "What the fuck did you do ?" Hunk breathed raggedly through a split lip. "What was that, some sort of fucking werewolf beast man shit, jesus christ- " he slammed his hand against the open compartment door, blood still running from his nose and mouth. "What the fuck, what the fuck- "

Shiro did not respond and Hunk looked at him again, folded over himself and Hunk realized whatever he was cradling was glowing. "Shiro?" Hunk said, and moved toward him. Shiro lifted his head wildly, eyes wide and almost one solid color, reflecting the strange pinkish-purple hue that was emanating from his right arm. "What the fuck," Hunk breathed as Shiro's eyes went back to normal, but the arm did not stop glowing. "What is going on? "

"Long story," Shiro said, his voice strangled. "You might want to, uh, leave." He was still holding his arm close to his chest, and Hunk could see the entire thing was glowing underneath the long sleeve of his jacket. "Before it overloads and explodes."

"Oh, hell no," Hunk said, and grabbed Shiro's arm by the wrist.

"Hunk!" Shiro yelled and tried to yank his arm back. It was hot to the touch, and the heat coming off the palm was scalding. Hunk shoved his sleeve up past his elbow as Shiro tried to yank his arm free again. "You have to uncouple the car, if it goes this time it will take half the train with it-"

"Shiro, shut the fuck up," Hunk said. The arm was clearly a prosthetic now, but it was light years ahead of anything he'd seen in the military. It was the right weight and thickness of a proper arm, and he suspected that it even generated warmth like a real limb. Somehow, Shiro had been able to override the controls that provided the low-level of heat and that was what was causing the overload. "There has to be a seam on here, if I can reroute the power source--"

"Hunk!"

"Shut up and let me work," he said. "Maybe get talking as to what the fuck this thing is, or what they were, because oh boy if you think I have a lot of questions just wait until Pidge gets ahold of you."

That seemed to get through to him, and Shiro let out a long, ragged breath and stopped struggling against Hunk. "It's stupid for both of us to die," he said.

"Then we'd better not," Hunk said, popping the panel at Shiro's wrist and exposing a rat's nest of wires.

#

Hunk had not been in the proper dining car. Pidge had walked the length of it -- the cars weren't so long that you couldn't see from one end to the other easily, but she was nothing if not thorough. Beyond the dining car was staff area and while she had the swagger to march herself right through the door she somehow never managed it with the ease that the others did. Someone always questioned her -- she supposed it didn't help that she looked like a sixteen-year-old boy and not a man.

Going back through the lounge car she stopped at Lance's table, which had been co-opted by Keith. "Hunk's not in the dining car," she reported. "Where did Shiro go?"

"Gone to fuck the princess," Keith said, and that earned a choked noise from Lance, who slammed his drink down on the table and glared at Keith. Pidge rolled her eyes, not interested in the slightest in their macho hatred one-up competition, and said, "I'm going to to check the rest of the train."

"Got it," Lance said. "Don't slip through any cracks along the way."

It was an old game they played, and Pidge's venom was usually real. "I really despise you," she said.

"It's why we work so well together," Lance said, which was, unfortunately, the truth. Pidge flipped him off and continued on down the train's dining car, somewhat amazed at this point that none of the other passengers had complained about Lance and Keith's obvious antagonism.

It wasn't as late as the darkness outside the windows made it feel. She pushed past a cluster of passengers and saw Allura at the end of a passenger car in a gorgeous, shimmery violet dress. She was about to open her mouth to say something when she realized a large man was standing beside her, and he had his arm in tight, elbow locked almost to his side. Gun. On her.

Pidge didn't usually see action, not like Lance or Hunk. That didn't mean she wasn't capable of taking care of herself; all of the Garrison's agents were fully trained with the expectations of field work. She specialized in the more covert ops, though -- deep undercover, intel, infiltration -- and straightforward rushes at men who had a foot of height and a hundred pounds on her was definitely not the norm.

But it was instinctual.

Pidge didn't yell or give any warning; she just rushed the man. They both heard the slam of her feet on the carpet and he was already turning to see what was going on when Pidge put her shoulder directly into his solar plexus. He whuffed out a noise of pain and grabbed for her but she was already spinning on one foot, slamming her heel into his shin just right, trying to fracture something, grabbing Allura at the same time, trying to yank her away. "Pidge!" Allura said -- it wasn't a yell or a scream but her voice was louder than usual, commanding, "no, Pidge, run-"

He grabbed her by the back of her jacket and she tried to jerk away but this man was larger and stronger than she was. Slipping out of the jacket was her next option but then he picked her up with one hand and, as Pidge wrenched her shoulders and tried to go limp in time to slip free, he slammed her into the wall hard enough she saw stars. "Pidge!" Allura yelled for certain this time and she had both her arms around the man's arm that held Pidge. He slammed her into the wall a second time before Allura yanked with her entire weight and that threw the man off balance, startled enough so that he dropped Pidge. She landed hard, delirious but not unconscious, and was in the process of trying to get to her feet when the man pulled something out of his jacket and said in a gravelly, unnatural tone, "I tried to be polite, Princess..."

Pidge heard Allura scream, or she thought she did ... either way, it was the last thing she remembered.