Everything That's Mine, I Carry With Me, or The Story of How Lance Became Part of the Inventory System by Garden_Secret
Voltron Sketch | Klance | AU
TW: Written for comedic purposes, please do not take it too seriously. Fully available for anyone's interpretation on Tumblr or Ao3 (Please share the link later!)
For the universe, it was just another day. The Galra Empire was still at war with Voltron. Voltron was still very successfully winning. Another planet swore it wasn't mass-producing hero merchandise or joining the galactic sales race. Somewhere amidst all this, Allura received a message from Kolivan, requesting to borrow the Red or more precisely Black Paladin for a week for a short mission. The only instruction for Keith was:
“Bring whatever you need.”
Keith sat, thought, his brows furrowing in their usual serious expression, and began to compile a list of what he would need to bring. The list turned out to be surprisingly short, and not because he had nothing to take — it was just that the Blade usually provided almost everything necessary anyway. So, after saying his goodbyes after dinner, the team went to sleep, and Keith set off for the Blade of Marmora headquarters.
It was only the next morning that Voltron realized they were missing their Blue Paladin. Or, more precisely, the Red Paladin. And what they really need to decide on is the paladin color titles.
Allura would deny that the team truly panicked, but in her defense, she herself couldn't detect the beacon embedded in each paladin's bracelet. So yes. Maybe they panicked. A little.
“I'm telling you, we need to get Keith back here so he can help too!” Hunk threw both arms up, and the nearby holomonitors wobbled, scrambling to avoid his reach.
“I checked the cameras. He shows up at dinner. Then he just…vanishes!” Pidge snapped her laptop shut and rubbed at her eyes in irritation. Her brain refused to process how any of this was possible. Right at that moment, a cheerful whistling echoed through the command deck, and Coran strolled in like nothing was wrong. Naturally, all heads turned toward him.
“Coran, please tell me you found Lance and that’s why you’re so calm,” Shiro sighed, ending yet another fruitless call to a nearby allied station. Every single one had said the same thing: “Haven’t seen him, sorry.”
“Actually, I was reviewing inventory form from number four!” Coran twirled a wisp of his mustache around his finger and placed a tablet on the main table. “Take a look yourselves. Isn't it romantic?” What could possibly be romantic about Keith's list of things, no one understood, and perhaps that's why everyone decided to examine the list.
Date of Registration: xx.xx.xxxx
Protocol: B23-kmm
Contents: Red-Black Paladin Inventory.
Jacket: 1 pc.
Gloves: 1 pc.
Individual Communication Devices: 2 pcs.
Blue-Red Paladin: 1 pc.
For a moment, even the Castle seemed to go quiet, as if it, too, was processing the fact that it now officially stored this in its archives. One heartbeat. Another. And then, Pidge burst out laughing.
“I can't believe it!” she doubled over, gasping, “Keith actually…!” Her words were drowned out by another fit of laughter. Tears gathered in her eyes.
“He listed him as inventory!” Hunk exclaimed with clear indignation in his voice, pulling the tablet closer. “And not even as the first item! He's literally last here! And why didn't he take anything for Lance!? Wait, did Lance travel in the cargo hold?” Pidge had just stopped laughing, but as soon as Hunk finished speaking, she started to gasp with laughter again, thumping on the table. Shiro, trying to look as displeased, was barely holding back his own amusement, but seeing Allura's face darken, he finally decided to intervene.
“Let's contact Kolivan and clarify with them. Maybe it's just… a mistake?” But before they could take a step, all the screens flickered, and the Blade of Marmora logo appeared on the main screen. Allura calmly approached the podium and accepted the call.
The room lit up with the Blade’s signature interface — wall-to-wall holo projection. A large hangar filled the background, ships parked at random intervals. Toward the back, an impressive mountain of metal crates loomed... but of course, front and center was Kolivan himself. He looked like he’d aged ten years since they last saw him.
Which was yesterday.
“Paladins of Voltron. Princess,” Kolivan nodded to them, and somewhere behind him, an agent hurriedly ran off towards the crates. “We…received your inventory list,” something crashed behind him, but Kolivan just sighed deeply and continued, “Would you care to explain?”
Allura glanced sideways at the others. Shiro shrugged. Hunk raised his hands helplessly. Coran hummed some vaguely familiar tune, staring intensely into the corner of the camera feed. The princess turned back, trying to find the right words — only to pause, frowning.
Either the camera panned back, or Kolivan had stepped further away, but now she could see the pile of crates in its entirety. And amidst them, practically at the very top, was the small, but unmistakably recognizable figure of Lance. Allura needed a couple more seconds to fully process what she was seeing.
Lance was dangling somewhere on the upper level of the headquarters' storage facility, diligently rummaging through the ventilation system as if it held the Holy Grail, access to secret archives, and perhaps, cookies. Given how he'd been whining to everyone about wanting some for the past couple of days, that last one seemed most likely. Below him, Blade agents scurried like ants, one of whom had already seriously begun to organize a rescue cushion.
Kolivan, who had been standing stoically in the center of the frame this whole time, tried to maintain some semblance of dignity. He kept blinking, as if refusing to believe his own eyes, but held his composure.
“We would like to clarify,” he said, forming the words with difficulty. “What is the purpose of entering a... 'accompanied object' into Paladin's list? And was this sanctioned by command?”
Behind him, something crashed again. An agent had knocked over a ladder. Lance, with a triumphant squeal, leaped onto an adjacent stack of crates and seemed to shout something about a "secret floor hatch." Kolivan flinched his entire body, but still did not lose his self-control.
“Overall, he... is not interfering,” he forced out. “However—”
He didn't get to finish. The Voltron team, who had been watching the scene unfold in stunned silence, was suddenly distracted: one of the external monitors, connected to the Blade's base, displayed a feed from the outer hangar. And there, standing calmly by one of the shuttles, in his familiar jacket and with a tablet in hand, was Keith. He wasn't moving. He wasn't turning around. He wasn't reacting to any of the crashes or shouts. He just scrolled a finger across the screen, as if completely oblivious to the fact that his +1 was literally breaking into the storage area.
Then another crash. In the frame behind Kolivan, something collapsed, and agents screamed. Kolivan spun around and finally looked up.
“Who let the child in here?!”
He sharply stepped aside, as if to press something — and the communication screen flickered slightly. But instead of disconnecting, the camera simply shifted a bit sideways, revealing the full scope of the unfolding chaos.
The entire hangar was now visible in the frame. An agent was trying to pull Lance back down by the leg, Lance was yelling something about "an excellent vantage point for strategic purposes," and behind them, someone was dragging into the storage area... a battlesuit with antennae. Why? No one knew.
“Should…should we do something?” Hunk asked uncertainly, backing away from the monitor.
And as if in response, Keith entered the frame, as if on cue. He finally looked up from his tablet, surveyed the chaos, and without changing his expression, looked directly into the camera.
“See you in a week,” he said, waved a hand, and indeed, ended the call. Everything went dark. A tense silence hung over the Castle's bridge. The screen flickered. Turned off. Allura slowly exhaled, as if she had just completed three missions back-to-back and hadn't had a single drop of water.
“This week,” she stated, turning and walking away from the bridge, “this is no longer my problem.”
“But you'll bring them back, right?” Coran asked, calling out to the Princess's retreating back.
“Maybe,” she tossed back, without looking around.
