Disclaimer: I do not own Voltron or any of its characters. If I did I would probably have it go the Teen Titans route.

The (Not-So-)Necessary Rescue

Shiro was as tense as a live wire. He didn't know if it was from the stress of the situation or anger at their enemies.

Lance had been taken by the Galra.

They had been fighting on the ground on the most recent planet that had been targeted. Lance had been bringing up the rear to provide cover as they evacuated civilians. The Galra had taken the opportunity to cut around and close Lance off from the rest of them. Before any of them had realized it, he was surrounded.

Lance had fought his hardest given the sheer amount of downed sentries, but all the Paladins had found when they broke through the Galra's ranks to get to him was his fallen bayard and helmet.

While the planet's inhabitants had wanted to celebrate their victory at driving the Galra away, they had quickly made their excuses, left them with a communicator in case the Galra returned, and left to find Lance.

Luckily, that hadn't been as difficult as they had originally thought.

The Galra cruiser that had been at the planet had been damaged as the Paladins had descended in their Lions, so it wasn't able to make the jump away from the battle. It wasn't all that hard between Pidge, Hunk, and Coran's efforts to lock onto the trail the cruiser left behind to track it down.

Still, Shiro knew that it had been a little over a day since Lance had been taken.

A lot can happen in a day, especially when the Galra were involved.

Still, considering the Blue Lion hadn't gone ballistic yet, they still had hope that Lance was relatively alright. She hadn't made any signs of responding even as Shiro had had to pick her up with Black to return her to the castle.

"Okay, so everyone knows the plan?" Shiro asked once more from his spot behind Pidge in the Green Lion.

"Got it." Keith responded curtly.

"Yes." Hunk replied, and Shiro could just tell from his tone that he was fiddling with Yellow's controls.

Everyone was just a bit tenser than usual, and it had everything to do with the lack of Lance, Shiro knew. Not only were they worried for his safety, but without him here to help break the tension, they were all on edge.

Shiro had never thought that he would miss Lance's jokes while in the Lions.

"Then, let's get Lance back." Shiro tried to say confidently, keeping his worry for Lance's fate out of his voice.

"Right!" The other Paladins responded as they began their plan.

Keith and Hunk along with the Castleship would engage the Galra on the outside, trying to draw as many out as they could to further lessen the numbers within. This ship already had lost a lot of its crew on the planet, but they wanted to get rid of whoever they could.

While they did that, Pidge and Shiro would sneak aboard using the Green Lion and its cloaking. Pidge had located a hangar that she thought she could remotely hack into opening with a drone from the planet, so they'd be able to at least get into the ship easily.

It would be finding Lance and getting out that would be the problem.

Luckily, unlike most of their plans, this seemed to go off without a hitch. With the others acting as decoys, Shiro and Pidge managed to open the hangar and carefully landed Green inside. It almost made Shiro more tense at how well things were going, because with them, things were never this easy.

"Okay," Pidge began muttering as she made her way down the ramp, "so we should get to a computer or control hub. I can take over any cameras to hide our presence from there as well as use them to locate…" As she stepped out, Pidge looked up and her voice trailed off.

"What is it?" Shiro asked, worried at how she stopped talking. His eyes scanned the room, looking for any sort of danger as he readied himself for a fight. It certainly seemed to be all clear, no sentries or Galra in sight, not even a drone. So what could have –

"Pidge? Shiro?"

Shiro's eyes immediately snapped to where the voice came from and then he froze, just like Pidge had. He could only stare at the sight before him, hardly even believing it. And yet –

"Lance?" Pidge asked, incredulous, her voice cracking from untold emotion.

Because right before them, one foot in one of the hangar's many pods, was Lance. He appeared to be mostly alright, with all limbs attached, though there were a few visible bruises on his face and the hair on the side of his head was matted with dried blood. At the very least, he looked a lot better than Shiro had been expecting.

"Yep. The one and only!" Lance grinned, before raising a – Was that a granola bar in his hand? Why was it purple? – salute at them. He then lowered it to take a bite of the purple bar looking from the pod he was about to enter to Green and then back to them. "Y'know, I was going to steal this pod, but could I just catch a ride with you instead?"

"We came to rescue you!" Shiro blurt out and a second later, he wished he could have held that back. Or face palm himself. He was supposed to be the stoic leader, not letting out whatever thought came into his head. Especially something as lame as that considering Lance seemed to be handling things all on his own.

A flicker of surprise seemed to pass over Lance's face before it turned into a very familiar grin. "Well, then, that works out nicely!" He bent over and picked up what looked like a duffel bag as well as a Galra blaster. Lance then turned back to them and bounced over. "Let's go!"

"I – you – " Pidge seemed at a loss for words, and Shiro couldn't blame her. He was feeling the exact same way. However, she managed to brush it aside it seemed as she launched herself forward and pulled Lance in for a quick hug. "You made me worry, jerk." She mumbled before detaching herself and whirling around to retreat into Green.

Shiro glanced to over to see a gentle smile on Lance's face and something instantly relaxed inside Shiro. Things were going to be okay. "After you." He said, gesturing up the ramp.

Lance obliged, walking in without any more delay, and Shiro followed. It was as they were getting settled behind Pidge's seat while she started up her Lion and began hacking to get the door back open that Shiro noticed Lance take another bite of that food bar. He couldn't help but ask, "So what is that? And what's in the bag?"

Lance blinked at him in surprise, swallowing the food before answering. "Hey, I figured that if they kidnapped me, I am perfectly within my rights to raid their kitchen."

Even Pidge had to turn in her seat to stare at Lance at his words.

"What?"

"You raided their kitchen?" Shiro asked, incredulous.

"Yeah, after I escaped from my cell. I was really looking for the hangar, but it all worked out just fine." Lance nonchalantly commented as he finished off the bar. "Man, Hunk is gonna love these things."

"I – how - ?" Shiro didn't know how to respond to that. Pidge didn't seem to either as she managed to open the door just as the alarms began to ring, so she turned her attention back to getting them out. He shut his mouth and tried to think this through.

Shiro knew he should ask exactly how Lance escaped. Because really, as he looked at him and noticed some smaller visible scrapes and bruises he hadn't seen before, this was too good to be true. Lance escaping without anyone noticing and getting away pretty much unharmed? It went against everything Shiro had learned to expect from time with the Galra.

This wasn't to say that he doubted Lance's abilities. Lance was a brilliant sharpshooter, he noticed things that others didn't with his keen eyes, and he could be quite stealthy as all of them had experienced him walking up behind them and getting startled multiple times. Lance was also a good strategist when he put his mind to it, and as Shiro had thought earlier, Lance was probably the only one keeping them sane at times by managing to calm them down one way or another.

He wasn't blind to Lance's faults either. Lance could be clumsy and loud for all of his stealthy abilities. He was okay with computers but he wasn't able to hack them like Pidge, which would have been necessary to get through doors. He either was incredibly insightful or blissfully oblivious. Plus, neither his social skills nor his kneejerk reaction to be a smart-aleck would really be helpful in the face of the Galra.

Shiro wasn't sure how Lance would be able to escape, even if he was able to get his hands on a gun. Especially without raising the alarm.

What if this was a trick?

Shiro finally knew what he had to say. "Lance," he waited for him to look up at him, "how did – "

That was right as the Green Lion made it out of the hangar and into the fray outside. With a small burst of static, the comms came back to life as they reconnected with Red and Yellow.

"What the - ?!" Keith's voice rang through the speakers. "How are you guys back already?!"

"That should've taken longer. That's not enough time for – " Hunk's voice cut out in horror. "Oh my god, you did find Lance, right? He was there? Or was he – he couldn't have – "

Shiro could tell that Hunk was gearing up into a panic attack and opened his mouth to reassure him, but Lance leaned forward to the cockpit's mic. "Don't worry, buddy; I'm right here." Lance smiled gently, as if he knew Hunk would be able to tell.

Two small gasps sounded in response. "Lance!" Hunk cheered, while Keith just huffed in relief. "But wait," Shiro could practically see Hunk's confused expression, "that still should have taken longer…"

"Well, we didn't have to go all the way to the cells – " Shiro began to explain when a shot came a little too close to the invisible Lion.

"How about we talk about it when we're not getting shot at?" Pidge suggested as she threw herself into the fight, dropping stealth mode.

Allura's voice cut into the line. "Pidge, do you have Lance? You're back much too quickly!"

"I'm here, Princess!" Lance replied even as Pidge groaned.

"Well done, Paladins!" Coran congratulated them. "There's no need to defeat all of the fighters. Just make your way back to the Castle and we can wormhole away."

"Yeah, we should probably do that since they were waiting for a druid to show up and everything." Lance said, and he blinked as Pidge and Shiro stared at him in horror. "What? It's not like they're here yet."

"There's a druid on the way?!" Keith shrieked for all of them as the Red Lion melted a majority of the fighters in one blow.

"How'd you know there's a druid on the way?" Shiro frowned.

"Oh, apparently, that's when the 'real pain' would start?" Lance made air quotes and rolled his eyes, and something in Shiro's stomach twisted at how nonplussed Lance seemed to be about this whole situation. "I mean, there's a reason that I wanted to skedaddle out of there." He defended at Pidge and Shiro's looks.

Pidge recovered first and pushed Green faster, taking out fighters as she returned to the Castle. Shiro, on the other hand, did not have flying a giant lion to distract him so he found himself continuing to stare at Lance as he settled himself on the floor, leaning against the duffle bag he had brought.

As much as this seemed way too easy, something told Shiro that everything was okay. But he still wasn't going to take his eyes off Lance until the entire team was safely in the Castle, because it felt like he could slip away as easily as water through his fingers.

Luckily, with the combined efforts of Pidge, Keith, and Hunk, they managed to break through the fighters without too much trouble. As soon as they were within range, Allura opened the wormhole and they warped far away from the Galra. Only then did they all let out a sigh of relief and return to the Castle.

Coran and Allura met them in the hangar as soon as the Lions landed. Before Lance could do anything more than offer up some token protests, Coran had whisked him away to get checked out in the medbay. Shiro sighed and picked up Lance's fallen bag, knowing that Lance probably was going to have to spend some time in a pod so he wasn't going to get any answers soon.

"Here." He handed the bag to Hunk, who was nervously glancing after his friend and wringing his hands. "Lance said he stole them from the kitchen and he wanted to show them to you."

Hunk's eyebrow quirked and he opened the bag. "Uh…" The first thing he pulled out was a sentry's arm.

"Well, he had to have something to open the doors." Pidge pointed out, taking the arm off his hands. She twisted it this way and that. "You know, I've been wondering if there's a way I could modify this to open doors without Shiro. Maybe with your help, we could – "

Hunk's gasp at the rest of the bag's contents cut her off. "What are these?" He held up about half a dozen wrapped granola-ish bars that Shiro was sure would match what Lance had been eating.

"I don't know but Lance was eating one, so it's probably safe."

That was apparently enough reassurance for Hunk as he dropped all but one of the bars he was holding, removed the wrapper, and took a tentative bite.

Shiro's brow furrowed as Hunk immediately started crying. "Hunk – "

"It actually tastes decent." Hunk said through his tears, taking another, bigger bite. "In what universe is it fair that we usually have to eat goo and the Galra get this?"

Shiro let out a sigh and as one, they all turned to head towards the medbay. Pidge snitched a bit of the bar, and she and Hunk immediately began discussing ways to modify the goo machine. The two wandered ahead of Shiro as they debated different methods.

Shiro felt a smile twitching at his lips. Already things were getting back to normal, and once again, it was due to Lance's actions. Who would have thought that something as inconsequential as stealing food bars and giving them to Hunk would lighten the atmosphere so much?

"It wasn't quite inconsequential, don't you think?"

Shiro started at the question, turning to see that Keith had hung back with him. Huh. He must have said that out loud. "Uh, what did you mean?"

Keith just gave him a look. "You didn't get into it because of everything going on, but from the sounds of it, Lance was in the middle of escaping?" At Shiro's nod, he continued, "well, if he didn't have any way to contact us, he had no way of knowing how long he'd be on his own. And he'd need to eat at some point."

Oh. Shiro blinked as the pieces fell into place. Though it seems that Lance stumbling into the food was mere happenstance, but it was probably fortunate that he had. Keith had a very good point here. Lance would need food if he was escaping and didn't know they were coming.

Wait. Lance…

Lance didn't know we were coming.

That was a depressing thought. Understandable, but still depressing. After all, Shiro hadn't expected to be rescued when he was in the Galra's clutches, but this was different. Lance knew that there were people who knew about the situation and would come for him. Wasn't it obvious that they'd get him back?

At the same time, Shiro knew that they had gotten extremely lucky this time with being able to track the ship down. If it hadn't been so damaged, then it could have easily slipped through their fingers with Lance aboard. And if it was Shiro, the moment he heard a druid was coming he'd try hightailing it out of there as well.

So really, Shiro should be glad that Lance escaped by himself and even managed to get the supplies he needed together. It still caused a pang in his heart that it'd been necessary.

Shiro was saved from having to try to answer Keith by their arrival to the medbay.

Lance was already in one of the pods, wearing the typical suit. A glance at Coran and Allura proved that Shiro didn't have much to worry about in this regard though.

Coran grinned as he looked up from the console. "No worries, everyone! At most, Number 3 has some severe bruising and a slight concussion. He'll be out within 5 shakes of a Kladorian's tentacle!"

Shiro knew he wasn't the only one who looked at Allura for clarification.

She sighed. "Lance will be out within a couple vargas."

At that, Hunk let out a huge sigh of relief, and smiles on Pidge and Keith's faces showed their own feelings. They all left to change their clothes into something more comfortable to wait for Lance to get out. Shiro stayed behind and stepped up beside Allura as Coran left to check that they were in a secure area.

Allura's expression was grave as she gazed at the readings coming from Lance's pod. "I'm surprised he's not hurt worse." She whispered, eyes flicking up to meet his and swirling with an emotion that Shiro knew was reflected in his own eyes.

"Apparently, they were waiting for a druid to get serious." Shiro admitted quietly, his gaze falling upon the boy in the pod. He shuddered just thinking about what could have happened to Lance if he'd fallen into the druids' hands.

His metal hand clenched.

"We got lucky this time." Allura said. "We can't let this happen again." Her voice hardened.

"We can't always predict the flow of battle." Shiro winced as he pointed that out. All the plans and preventive measures they took could become meaningless with the unpredictable nature of war.

"We can at least try though." She pushed, and he turned to meet her glare head on, a fire burning in her eyes.

He nodded with a weak smile. Yes, we can at least try.

It wasn't long before the others all returned, Hunk having also taken the food bars to the kitchen while Pidge swiped the Altean playing cards. They had no clue how the cards worked, but it was the closest to the Earth equivalent they could find. They quickly dragged Keith into a sort of game of Go Fish and all three of them attempted to teach Coran the game. Shiro and Allura shared smiles at their antics while keeping a careful watch on Lance's pod time.

As the end of the sequence drew close, Allura called the others back over. "Paladins, Lance should be done momentarily."

That cued a scramble as they gathered outside of the pod.

With a beep, a burst of cool air released Lance right into Hunk's arms. Lance let out a small groan as he looked up, blue eyes blinking blurrily. "Hey, guys, miss me?"

"LANCE!" Hunk sobbed as he scooped his friend up into a tight hug. Lance let out a small grunt but patted him on the back. He didn't look all that surprised until Pidge came over to join the hug, latching onto Lance's other side.

And although Lance probably couldn't see it from the angle he was at, Shiro noticed that Keith looked like he was itching to join the hug too, his fingers twitching before he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Jeez, guys, I'm okay." Lance reassured them, offering a smile. "Seriously, it wasn't that bad."

"Oh, yes, it could have been much worse," Coran said over at the monitor. He said it in a way that was probably meant to be comforting, but for Shiro at least, it really wasn't. "Lance came off quite lucky."

"So what was the final damage, doc?" Lance asked, leaning over the console curiously once Hunk had set him down. His eyes trailed over the screens as he read them before Coran could give his assessment. "Eh, doesn't look too bad. Pretty sure I got beat up worse back in middle school."

"What?" Keith said. "Why were you getting beat up in middle school?" He tilted his head so he could look at the results himself.

"Because it's really hard to tell who's a homophobic jerk until after you've already complimented them." Lance said flatly. "That's why I stopped hitting on guys. I don't need any punches to ruin this beautiful face. And at least ladies seem to appreciate a nice compliment."

As Keith blinked in disbelief and Hunk hugged Lance again in comfort, Coran finally got his say. "Yes, I can guess where most of your injuries came from." He squinted, his face drawing closer to the screen. "But I can't guess how you hurt your hands."

"Oh, I had to dislocate my thumbs to get out of my cuffs." Lance said matter-of-factly. Shiro looked at him in horror and he knew he wasn't alone. "Hey, it's not too hard. Being double-jointed helps a bit and I corrected them as soon as they were off." Lance held up his hands as if to wave off their concerns, but he wobbled slightly which didn't help.

Luckily, Allura took the lead. "Pod rules, Lance." She said as she straightened him. "Clothes and food." She handed him off to Hunk, who started to take him to his room.

"And then hopefully an explanation." Shiro muttered to himself. Allura nodded and together they left the medbay.

It was as Lance was seated at the dining room table that Shiro brought himself to ask.

"So, Lance," he paused as Lance glanced up from his food, "how did you escape?"

Lance paused with the spoon halfway up to his mouth. "Oh, that." He took a bite before continuing. "It wasn't as hard as it'd normally be, I think. They didn't have as many sentries or regular personnel on board due to the battle. So, they just handcuffed me and tossed me in a cell. That's where I woke up.

"The Galra commanders dropped by, beat me up, gave the usual 'And I would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids' speech mixed in with 'Long live Zarkon' blah, blah, blah," Lance rolled his eyes while mimicking the commander talking with his free hand as he took another bite. "Seriously, do you think they're ever going to get new material?"

Shiro exchanged a glance with Allura, and they couldn't help but smile. It was nice to see Lance acting so… Lance. He did have a point that the Galra tended to get repetitive when they thought they were winning.

"Is – is that really the thing to be worried about in that situation?" Keith asked, face scrunched in confusion as he stared at Lance.

"Eh." Lance shrugged, before he continued, "Anyway, so they ended up leaving me alone after a while, once they made sure that I knew that a druid was going to be there in a day or so. That's pretty much when I decided to get out of there.

"They used the cuffs that stay the same once you click them on, not like the ones we have that continue to adjust to account for shapeshifters. And they even had them cuffed in the front, so all I had to do was dislocate my thumbs to slip out of them. Like I said," he waved his hand at their horrified looks, "I put them back right after."

"How did you even know how to dislocate them?" Pidge asked as she pushed her glasses up.

Lance blinked in surprise. "Your brother never handcuffed you and left you to figure out how to get out?" At Pidge's blank look, he made a surprised noise. "Huh. Weird."

"I'm weird?" Pidge raised an eyebrow.

"Anywho," Lance scooped up some more goo, "so, once I'd slipped out, then I just had to figure out the sentry's schedule. I had overheard that they only had the one checking on me now and then due to the decreased numbers. I remembered how you talked about memorizing their schedule," he pointed his spork at Shiro, "so I used a few rounds to learn their schedule and come up with a way to get out.

"The sentry would usually just do a quick scan to check that I was there, so I huddled in the corner as far from the door. When the sentry came by again, they were forced to come in to get a proper scan and Wham-o!" He swished his spork through the air. "Lights out for the robot!

"Then I stole its arm and blaster, so everything after that was pretty easy. I snuck around, found the kitchen, and then made my way to the hangar!" Lance finished with a grin and turned his full attention to his food. The mice had finally approached, deeming that he'd eaten the bare minimum, and Lance indulged them as he started to feed them right from his plate.

Shiro frowned. That seemed a bit vague. "The sneaking around was the easy part?" He couldn't help but ask. Even with fewer people on board, he knew from experience that evading the Galra on their home turf was not easy.

"Well, yeah. Oh, Pidge," Lance turned to her, "there weren't any other prisoners on board. I checked."

Pidge looked surprised before her expression softened. "That's okay."

"Lance, stop trying to change the subject." Allura stepped up. "How were you able to sneak around the ship? The Galra have some top notch security."

Lance blinked up at her, shared a look with Hunk, and then finally answered. "Uh, I've been sneaking around military bases since I entered the Garrison. It's not that hard if you know what you're doing." He said.

Shiro furrowed his brow. "You what?"

"What did you think we were doing the night all this started?" Lance tilted his head curiously as he squinted up at him.

Shiro had completely forgotten about that. It had never really occurred to him to ask what three Garrison students had been doing outside of their dorms at night.

"Yeah, Lance would sneak out all the time." Hunk sighed dramatically. "Luckily, he rarely got caught."

"Actually, every time I got caught, you were right there with me." Lance pointed out.

"Yay, me." Hunk deadpanned.

"And even before that, my sibs and I would sneak out of the house to go to the beach at night, and that was way harder." A haunted look seemed to pass over his face. "My mom hears everything."

Hunk's expression became grave. "Ah, I forgot about that."

"Yeah…"

Shiro decided he didn't want to know.

He wasn't exactly sure how to proceed from here. Everything seemed to check out and it looked like a combination of luck and skill had managed to get Lance out of the worse situation.

"So…" Lance glanced around, studying everyone's faces. "We good? Anymore questions?"

Shiro chuckled. "No. Good job escaping, Lance."

Lance positively lit up at the praise, but he tried to hide his goofy grin by turning back to feeding the mice. At that sign, Hunk and Pidge picked up a conversation Galra food bars with him as Keith settled down in the seat next to him. In mere moments, everything was back to normal, all the worry and apprehension from the past day faded away like it had never existed.

Shiro watched the scene before him as Coran announced having some work to do and left, only pausing a moment to ruffle Lance's hair. He let a smile creep onto his face as Allura sighed in relief next to him.

"Well, I suppose everything worked out for the best." She too smiled at the other Paladins. "With Lance's skills, perhaps we should send him on more covert operations."

"Yeah." Shiro agreed, but he decided to put the war to the side for the moment.

He had severely underestimated Lance's abilities. He had no clue he was capable of such things. If anything, it showed him how little he knew the other Paladins beside Keith. Shiro decided to make a better effort to get to know the "Garrison Trio."

At the very least, he wasn't going to underestimate Lance anymore. Because while he knew that there had been many factors in Lance's favor this time…

Well, he could be grateful at least that Lance had made their rescue the easiest one ever. And that was a teammate Shiro knew he could rely on.

AN: This idea sprouted when I saw someone on Tumblr mention that it'd be hilarious if Lance or someone were to get captured but when the others show up to rescue him, he's got one foot out the door already. Also, I've seen a lot of capture/rescue fics that are so angsty and sad, so I decided to go a more humorous route while showing how BA Lance is. Because, seriously, he knows how to sneak around military bases, he was going like a pro in episode one. I thought about doing this from Lance's perspective but given that Shiro seems to underestimate Lance 90% of the time, I decided to impress him and realize his mistake instead. Shiro is hard to write.

Also, the time that Hunk came home with Lance, Lance's mom caught them snacking in the middle of the night, scaring the bejeebus out of them, though Lance did warn him of the possibility. And the handcuff thing is something my sibs and I would do with each other though we used plastic, kid handcuffs. Usually a parent got involved in getting them off in my case. We thought it was funny.