#abcleverart

Hunk is Ter, Lance is Rio, Pidge is Fern, Keith is Flame, and Shiro is Taz.

This is some amalgam between an actual Baby Driver au and an original crime au bc Hunk is Baby, Shay is Deborah, Sendak is Bats, Shiro is kind of like Doc, Lance is kind of like Buddy & Darling and Keith is kind of like Buddy, Darling, and Bats, and then the similarities end.

This is basically a universe where the Galra Empire and Voltron don’t exist, but Earth is a part of this intergalactic cohabitant thing, so there are aliens on Earth and everyone’s cool with it. Altea’s fine, but Allura isn’t a princess and Alfor isn’t a king.

Shiro accidentally got mixed up in a bad crowd when he was 20 and he can’t leave or else they’ll kill him and Keith. They gave him the name Taz because it just vaguely sounded like Takashi (Tak). He’s in Doc’s position, but he’s nothing like Doc.

Keith was abandoned by his parents when he was young, so Shiro took him in. He was originally unaffiliated with the group until he snuck into Shiro’s car trunk when he was 12 to join in one of his missions (coughtoprotecthimcough). Once he got involved, he wasn't allowed to leave the group. They nicknamed him Flame because he was young and full of rage. A baby fire.

I’m a Langst slut so naturally Lance’s story is the most tragic—a rival gang of Keith and Shiro’s broke into Lance’s house during December. They killed literally his entire family, and he in turn killed them all with his father’s rifle. Not Rambo style—he was crying and may or may not have pissed himself.

Shiro was already tracking the rival gang, but never expected to see a kid holding a literal smoking gun to be the only one standing when he got there. Shiro tried to take him to the police, but Lance stuck to Shiro like glue, considering him to be some sort of hero. The gang didn’t want to let such a talented kid go, so he was forced to join too. Shiro asked him what he wanted to be called, and he said Rio, because it sounded like reir and his mom said he loved his laugh. Keith and Shiro essentially became Lance’s new family.

Hunk’s story follows Baby’s pretty closely; his parents die in a car accident when he’s 14, and the same year he steals and crashes a car that belonged to Shiro’s gang; he’s working to pay off his debt. He has a foster family, so he’s not as close to Shiro, Lance, and Keith as they are to each other. Ter was an alien name given to him by the group.

After Hunk joins, they’re cemented as a steady team, rather than a group that can be tossed around to work with anyone. They’re dubbed “The Lions” because it sounds innocuous. “I’m rooting for the Lions” is a common way for them to be told they have a job to do.

Pidge joins last, when she’s 15. Pidge and her family are incredibly intelligent, so the gang kidnaps Pidge, Sam and Matt Holt. They’re all apart in unknown locations from each other, and they’re all being told that if they don’t work for them, the other members of their family will die. Shiro, Matt, and Sam were all friends on the legally-clean side of things, so Shiro’s secretly helping Pidge track down her family. They called her Fern because she was a small green thing (her jacket). She lives on her own, despite being too young to legally do so.

Allura’s a doctor/surgeon who’s neutral to most illicit groups. Coran is a corrupt lawyer (Saul style) and forges documents. After Alfor’s murderer was let loose on a faulty trial, Allura and Coran began engaging on the other side of the law to pursue vigilante justice.

When Lance first joined, Shiro really wanted him and Keith to be friends—because they essentially had no one else their age. Their relationship was awkward at first, but they tried to get along. After a while tensions and short temper got to them and they fought—and I mean really fought—but Shiro was able to mediate them, and they eventually improved their relationship again.

At the time, their relationship was so terrible that you could feel the tension and anger whenever they were in the same room; it was to the point where Shiro actually feared for their safety. He simply couldn’t allow Lance and Keith to be alone together. So, imagine his surprise when, a few months after they made up, they fell in love.

Keith and Lance became best friends. Inseparable. Shiro was terrified that they would end up as one of those breakup-makeup couples and their violent tendencies would return; but while their initial infatuation for each other calmed down a bit, they stayed together for years, just as close. They supported each other in every way, not just as a couple but as a team. The group holding them began referring to them as Buddy (Lance) and Clyde (Keith).

When Lance turned 18, four years after they started dating, he asked Shiro if he could marry Keith.

Shiro was ecstatic.

Lance confessed that he had this dream of going legit and living in a beach house; he said he knew it was probably too much to ask for, but “shoot for the moon” and all that. Shiro assured him that it wasn’t a stupid dream, and he would do everything in his power to make sure that they got the life they wanted.

When Hunk was 18, he finally payed off his debt. He did what he thought was his last job, but was soon after confronted by Shiro.

Shiro had always considered the Lions as a sort of family; a machine that couldn’t work without all its parts. Ter and Rio were support, Fern and Flame were hands-on, and Taz kept them all together. They needed to support each other while in this situation, and they should all go legit together.

Hunk cared about them all, sure, but he wasn’t sure he could do this anymore. He just wanted out.

Things went from bad to horrible when Sendak was sent to join them.

He ruined the dynamic that was already crumbling because of Hunk. It mostly runs parallel to Baby Driver from the scene where they all meet Deborah (Shay) and the scene portrayed above. Hunk kills Sendak, the police catch up to them, and Keith dies.