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Swap moons, as it turned out, were an actual thing. Not outdated figments of Coran’s memories that had been turned into space malls, but actual, bona-fide, crime-filled, shady-as-fuck swap moons. Which, when the space malls failed, were a pretty good place to pick up repair parts for their ancient Castle spaceship.
Shiro still wasn’t over the fact that this was his life now.
Dissociation aside, the part they were searching for today was proving extra difficult to find. The moon was in Galra occupied territory, so to be safe they’d only sent two Paladins down to look: Pidge, who was the only one of the humans who could pronounce the overly long name of the Altean part, and Shiro, who would deter any would-be robbers or pickpockets with his intimidating demeanor.
Hopefully.
But because there were only two of them, crawling through all the stands was taking a long, long, long time. They’d been here for five hours already; sweat had stuck dust to Shiro’s skin and flattened his bangs to his forehead, and his feet were aching, but he bore it without a word of complaint. Pidge, on the other hand, wasn’t so resilient.
“It’s official,” she said, kicking at the dusty ground while they waited for another shifty shopkeeper to notice them, “I hate this place more than the space mall.”
Shiro crossed his arms and shifted his weight to his less achey foot, taking a glance around that he hoped would look casual. “I didn’t know you hated the space mall.”
She grunted in annoyance. “Lights give me headaches. And last time we went there it was way too crowded.”
Shiro hummed a bit and nodded. Keith felt the same way. “We’ll look for a little bit longer, then call it a day and head back to the shuttle. This place is too big to search in one day.”
“If the Lions didn’t have to charge,” Pidge said with a sigh, “I’d suggest to Allura that we get a less obvious, less old ship.” She paused, then snorted to herself and shook her head, sending a bit of dust floating in the air. “How ridiculous is that? The psychic, magical space Lions have to charge like a freaking cell phone.”
Shiro allowed himself a small chuckle. It was ridiculous, but even after five hours he wasn’t letting his guard down. They found out the hard way that real swap moons were just as dangerous as Coran said they were, and then there was the threat of Galra to worry about on top of it.
Speaking of which, a glint of magenta caught his eye right at that moment. By the time Shiro turned his head, there was no glowing armor or purple skin in sight, and if he’d been alone, he might’ve dismissed it as his paranoia acting up as he got tired. But he wasn’t alone.
Moving as carefully and casually as he could to allay suspicion, Shiro straightened up and laid a light hand on Pidge’s shoulder.
“I think it’s time we head back,” he said, and saw how Pidge perked up in response to his tone.
“Getting tired already?” she asked. Her expression was teasing when she turned to him, but there was a solemn glint in her eye. She got the hint.
Shiro forced a bit of a chagrined smile, the most he could muster up as cold adrenaline began to seep into him. “Yeah, you know me. All this gray hair.”
Pidge faked a small laugh as Shiro steered her away from the shop they’d been hovering in and back towards their shuttle. Even as they walked away he kept one hand on her shoulder. He was very aware of the fact that neither of them were in their armor, and Pidge didn’t have her bayard. All to keep their cover, of course, but it also left them with only Shiro’s arm as a defense. He really hoped that would be enough.
Shiro kept a sharp eye out as they wove their way through the labyrinth of stalls and stands. He hadn’t seen any indication of a Galra presence in several minutes, but he was still on edge, all of the hair on the back of his neck standing straight up. They were wearing trackers so that the others could find them if they got grabbed, but Shiro knew better than most what the Galra could do to prisoners in only a few hours.
The thought made him pick up the pace, pushing Pidge in front of him by the shoulder. She kept up, but after a few moments murmured, “Shiro, ease up on the grip, you’re gonna leave bruises.”
Just for a second, shame replaced fear. Shiro consciously made his metal fingers loosen, then decided against it and switched hands entirely so that he was hanging on to her hoodie with his human hand instead. Pidge murmured her thanks, but Shiro didn’t hear.
That moment of distraction was all the Galra needed to strike. Shiro caught a flash of that magenta all the lower level Galra wore on their armor right before something came flying through the air in their direction. He barely took the time to register its grenade-like shape before shoving, or more accurately, throwing Pidge to the side and diving for cover.
The entire world jarred when the explosive went off. The shockwave made his skin thrum like an electrical current while his ears rang with the echo-- but he didn’t have time to be dazed. Something he’d learned in the arena: if you let yourself be surprised by the pain, you’ve already lost.
So a second after the dust cleared Shiro stood and vaulted over the stall he’d hidden behind. A quick glance saw Pidge tottering to her feet from behind her own cover, and that was all Shiro needed to know before locking on to his intended targets and powering up his arm.
Explosions aside, the situation didn’t look that bad. There were only two Galra soldiers, standing their ground on the other end of the row, blasters at hip level. They probably had more grenades, but Shiro could outrun them. It’s always harder to hit a moving target.
Before he could take so much as a step, Pidge’s voice pierced through the keening in his ears. “Shiro! Behind you!”
He whirled, but it was too late. Between the shockwave, the dust, and the hearing loss, he hadn’t been able to detect the third soldier coming up behind him. He’d barely completed his turn when the butt of the laser rifle slammed into his temple.
His vision, and his awareness, went out like a light.
Everything was fuzzy when he came to. His head ached, his temple throbbing with every loud beat of his heart, and he barely saw anything besides violet metal walls. Turns out, that was all he needed to see to get the panic going.
It was impressive how quickly he could go from unconscious to hyperventilating.
“Shiro!” Even in his panic, he instinctively turned towards the person saying his name. The Galra didn’t call him by his name, they called him a number, and the other aliens called him Champion. No one still said his name except for Sam and--
“Matt?” he dared to mumble. He wasn’t sure how audible he was, but he heard when the person’s breath caught for a moment in response.
“N-no. It’s-- it’s Pidge.”
Pidge. Wait… shit.
All at once he bolted upright. The cell spun around him like a top and he would’ve fallen over again if it weren’t for his hands, bound behind his back and to the wall in all too familiar chains. Pidge was still talking, trying to get him to calm down, words which he barely heard as he blinked his eyes clear again.
It was as he’d feared. They were in a Galra prison cell. He’d been captured, again, and of all people who wound up trapped with him it had to be Pidge. The smartest and most cunning of them all, but also the smallest. The youngest. The one he’d sworn, for Matt’s sake, that he’d never let anything happen to.
Fuck.
“Shiro? Hey, can you hear me? Come on, I need you here, you’re really freaking me out.” With great effort Shiro managed to lift his head. Pidge was chained similarly to him on the other side of the cell. Her capture hadn’t been any gentler than Shiro’s if the bruises were anything to go by, and despite her words she seemed mostly composed. More composed than he was, as low as that bar was.
She managed a small smile when Shiro met her gaze. “It’s gonna be ok. I had the trackers programmed to start going off if we left the area without me putting in a code-- it won’t be long before the others show up.”
God, this was so messed up. Here she was, fourteen years old and just as kidnapped as Shiro, and she was the one comforting him.
With that thought steeling his resolve, Shiro gathered his legs more securely beneath him and tentatively cleared his throat.
“Yeah,” he rasped after a few seconds of trying. “Yeah. It’ll be fine. S-sorry.”
Pidge opened her mouth to respond, but before so much as a sound escaped there was a clang right outside their cell, making both of them nearly jump out of their skin. Then the door slid open, and Shiro’s stomach plummeted into his feet as two Galra soldiers stalked inside. He couldn’t tell if they were the same ones who’d captured them, but it didn’t really matter.
“Well, well, well,” said one of them as the door hissed shut, apparently unaware of what an absolute cliche he was being. “Look at this. The famous Champion, all trussed up and at our mercy.”
Shiro screwed his jaw shut tight and leveled a glare at the man. He might’ve been freaking out a few minutes ago, but now he was settled. Strong. He’d turned off the part of his brain that feared more pain, and he could take anything.
The other soldier glanced over his shoulder and gave a fanged smirk. “Look, the Champion’s got a friend.”
Cold swept over him, but Shiro fought it back. He couldn’t freak out right now. He needed to stay calm and centered, or Pidge was going to get hurt.
Despite his determination to ignore it, that little scared voice in the back of his head whispered they’ll hurt her anyway.
The first soldier followed his partner’s gaze, a grin splitting his cheeks a moment later. “This must be one of the Paladins we’ve heard so much about,” he said, and turning away from Shiro completely, knelt down to Pidge’s eye level. “Which color are you, then?”
“Chartreuse,” Pidge snarled back, and Shiro’s stomach did a little flip as he tried to figure out if he was proud or terrified. Probably both.
The soldier made an amused sound and set his blaster on the floor beside him. “Very funny. But it doesn’t really matter which one, does it? You’re a Paladin, and that’s enough to please the Emperor.”
“Speaking of which,” said the one still standing, also setting his gun to the side. “You remember the new protocol, don’t you?”
“Of course,” he answered as Shiro’s heart began to beat faster. He’d been through this enough times to know that the ‘playing with their food’ stage was coming to an end. If the others didn’t show up soon, someone was going to get hurt.
Please, God, Shiro prayed fervently, never taking his eyes off of the soldier’s back. Don’t let it be Pidge.
“What new protocol?” Pidge asked warily, just as much a slave to her curiosity as Shiro was to his fear and Keith was to his instincts. “Let me guess, you’re now required to annoy new prisoners for at least fifteen minutes a day?”
The Galra didn’t pause at the strange terms. The standing one was too busy digging through one of the pouches on his belt, and though Shiro couldn’t see the other’s face, he heard the sneer in his voice when he answered.
“You Paladins are all so difficult to look for,” he began, clearly taking sadistic joy in each word. “Your species is almost unknown in the universe. The Champion is easy to pick out thanks to the Druids--” Shiro ground his teeth, his metal fingers twitching behind his back, “-- but the rest of you hide so easily. Even when we catch you, you always find a way to get away, don’t you?”
“Get to the point,” said Pidge with the utmost vitriol. “I’m not getting any younger here.”
The standing Galra huffed, like he was offended, but the other merely shook his head and held up his hand. His partner set something in it, something made of black metal, roughly the size of a flashlight, and he lowered his hand again, both the object and the appendage disappearing from Shiro’s sight.
Frustration flared, but he clenched his fists and tried to focus on what the Galra were saying. This was important information, and Pidge shouldn’t be the only one who had to remember it.
“So, when we happen to catch a wayward Paladin, we need to leave an identifying mark.” There was a clicking sound, made no less ominous by the gasp Pidge gave right after. “This should do nicely, don’t you think?”
The other Galra, after casting a curious glance at Shiro, tapped his partner on the shoulder and said, “We’re leaving someone out.”
The first smirked again. “You’re right. The Champion should get to see the show-- as a reward for his victories.”
The Galra shifted, moving back and angling himself to the side so that Shiro got a full view of both Pidge and the device he was holding in his hand. The sight made him suck in a breath that burned down his throat and ached in his lungs.
The end of the metal box had been flipped back, like an oversized Zippo. But where the flame would’ve rested on a lighter was instead a metal plate carved into the symbol of Zarkon’s empire. The carving was such that the symbol protruded slightly above its platform, and as Shiro watched the metal began to change color.
It took him a second, but when he realized it was being heated, the world fell out from beneath him like gravity had been switched off.
“No!” he burst out, making Pidge jump and the Galra give cruel chuckles. “Don’t you dare touch her!”
The soldier holding the brand rose an eyebrow at the demand. “Oh really? And what exactly do you plan to do about it?”
Baring his teeth, Shiro lunged forward, throwing all of his weight against the manacles binding him. They held against the assault, and even at full stretch the cell was just wide enough for the Galra sitting in front of Pidge to be out of his reach. That didn’t stop him from trying a few more times, but with every attempt and every mocking laugh, Shiro felt despair beginning to worm its way into him.
“Here, Leziq,” said the soldier with a wave of the brand. “Give me something to work with.”
The other galra, Leziq, gave a sharp smile. Pulling a small blade from his belt, he too knelt and reached a hand in Pidge’s direction.
She jerked away from the Galra’s touch. The Green Paladin was pale, cold sweat dotting her brow, but her expression revealed no hint of fear. She looked grim and determined, like the night she’d confronted Sendak, armed with just a bayard, a hologram, and the hope that Keith and Allura would show up in time.
“Stay away from me, you quiznaking sons of bitches!” she spat, but the Galra just looked bored. With his free left hand he easily grabbed Pidge by the high collar of her hoodie and held her still as the other approached with his knife. She turned her head to the side and met Shiro’s eyes, just for a split second revealing her panic, before he began to cut off the right sleeve.
“Leave her alone!” Shiro cried, still pulling against his bonds with all the strength he had. “Don’t hurt her! Hurt me instead, I won’t fight you!”
The Galra ignored him. With a few well placed slices and a tug, the right sleeve of Pidge’s hoodie tore free and slid down to bunch around her elbow, revealing a pale, skinny shoulder. Pidge let out a feral screech and thrashed against their hold, but all the kicking and squirming in the universe wasn’t going to get her out of their grip.
In sheer desperation Shiro let his arm light up. Its glow bathed the room in light, casting stark shadows against the walls, but it did nothing against the manacles holding him back. No matter what he did, all Shiro could do was watch as the brand was pressed to Pidge’s skin.
The sound was horrible. For a moment he could’ve sworn he heard it sizzle before Pidge threw her head back and started screaming. It rang off the walls and echoed in Shiro’s ears, drowning out everything: the Galra’s voices as they cheered, the blood rushing in his head, the groan of metal as he strained at the chains. He couldn’t pull himself free. He wasn’t strong enough.
Something in him shifted. There was a half second when everything went into slow motion, and Shiro saw how the light behind him rose from merely bright to blinding, searing white.
Then he felt the give when his arm melted through its cuff, and everything became a blur.
Shiro’s brain discarded most of that fight into the pit with the rest of his lost memories, but he registered a few things. He remembered the light. He remembered the frighteningly small amount of resistance he felt as he plunged his metal fist through the chest plate of one of the guards. He remembered Pidge’s screams tapering off into quiet, choking sobs. He remembered the hiss of the cell door opening, and charging into someone, knocking their weight back against the wall. He remembered someone saying his name.
“Shiro!” They were still saying his name, even as he held his opponent against the wall. “Shiro, hey, it’s me, it’s Keith.” Someone laid a hand on his arm and Shiro jolted, bracing for a strike, but they didn’t. They just let it rest there, applying no pressure. “It’s ok, Shiro. It’s ok.”
It took a minute, but eventually reality started to piece itself back together. His chest, heaving with heavy breath. His heart, pounding like a war drum. His arm, powered down but still smoking. His other arm, pinning someone against a purple wall. Someone in white armor with accents of red.
The fight went out of him all at once. Keith had to tighten his grip and grab his other arm-- carefully, above the hot metal-- to keep him upright.
“Hey, hey, you awake?”
With great effort he managed to nod. “Pidge. Pidge is hurt.”
“Ok, here.” Keith turned both of them so that Shiro could lean his weight against the wall. “I’ll be right back.”
Shiro watched him cross the hall and go back into the cell. He must’ve clipped the door on the way out, as it was jammed open with a dent in the upper half, wire protruding and snapping sparks. So he saw Pidge, somehow still upright despite the tears of pain streaking down her face.
“Brace yourself,” said Keith as he summoned his bayard. Pidge obligingly leaned forward to give him a better angle, and with one strike the chains snapped under his blade. The manacles still remained, but she wasn’t bound anymore, and with Keith’s help was able to stand. In one hand she held tight to the torn sleeve of her hoodie with white knuckles.
“They tore my fucking hoodie,” she said in a thick voice.
“Those motherfuckers,” Keith agreed, gently ushering her towards the door. “Hunk can probably fix it. Didn’t he say he knew how to sew?”
Pidge sniffled. “No, Lance does.”
“Right, right. I must’ve blocked that out along with everything else Lance says.”
She managed a stuttering laugh as they stepped out into the hall. Shiro cautiously pushed himself off the wall, and when he didn’t immediately topple over, allowed himself to join them.
“Katie,” he murmured, his voice shamefully raspy. “I’m--”
“No time for apologies,” Keith interrupted, “we’ve gotta move, Red’s waiting in the hangar.”
Pidge held his gaze, just for a moment, before turning away.
For the life of him, Shiro couldn’t figure out what that look meant.
It had been more than eighteen hours, and Shiro still couldn’t get to sleep.
He wanted to. He hadn’t felt this tired in months; flashbacks really take it out of you, but this time his body wasn’t going to let him rest. Not until Pidge got out of her pod.
Normally the healing process wouldn’t take this long. But Coran had decided to leave her in for a while, just to see if they could get the burn scar to heal over, so that Pidge wouldn’t have to deal with the mark reminding her of the trauma everytime she bared her skin. They weren’t sure it would work, but it was worth a try.
So Shiro sat, waiting, dreading when Pidge would wake up but unable to tear himself away.
Footsteps echoed behind him, and a moment later Keith sat down beside him. Normally Keith walked more quietly than that, but he probably made himself loud on purpose so that he wouldn’t set Shiro off.
He appreciated it, but hated the necessity all the same.
Keith didn’t waste any time. “It’s not your fault.”
“I know that,” Shiro answered with a huff.
“But your PTSD doesn’t, does it?”
Shiro rested his chin on his arms, propped atop his drawn up knees, and said nothing.
Keith didn’t say anything, either. He just leaned his head on Shiro’s shoulder, a silent, comforting presence.
It wasn’t much, but for now, it was enough.