Agent Blue

Nineteen

Lance sat in his bed with the papers collected from Raven's pod spread out before him. He knew Raven's handwriting well, and this looked nothing like it.

Raven's writing was dark lines and sharp edges. It was military writing, so all the letters were capitalized and neat. No letter was bigger than the others, and all the lines were precise and straight.

The writing on the papers, though, we're messy and rushed, as if the person who wrote them knew he had limited time and needed to get his thoughts on paper. Even if that was the case, none of the notes made any sense or were consistent at all.

The deal
He's in on it
They need to be stopped
There's no time
Please save them
Blue

The last note was the one that made him nervous. Raven called him out directly, knew that Lance was going to get his messages eventually, and wrote the notes for him. Raven wanted him to do something, or understand something, but he couldn't make sense of the man's crazed writing. Part of him worried it was too late, that he already failed. Still, he had to worry about Garnet first.

The sun began to rise before Lance realized he spent yet another night with his eyes wide open and his mind set on work. Any more all-nighters and he feared he'd lose his mind. All those hours sitting up and staring at dozens of papers written by a dead man only made Lance feel more lost. He wasn't getting anywhere, both with the death of Raven and with Garnet's dictating rule.

It was around 9 a.m when Keith knocked on Lance's door. Lance welcomed him in while he shuffled the pages into a messy pile and set them off to the side.

"Did you sleep at all?" Keith asked. 

"Not really," Lance admitted lamely, rubbing his eyes with his hands.

"That's not healthy Lance," the red paladin chastised.

"I do a lot of things that aren't healthy, Keith. Did you need something?" Lance asked. Keith shifted in his spot on Lance's bed, clearly debating something within his mind. Lance suspected he knew what this was about, and Lance being busy was making Keith rethink his decision of bothering him now.

"I like you, Keith. I have for a while. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable on Hifosa, I obviously respect your feelings," Lance started, wanting Keith to know that he was ready for the conversation. Keith relaxed slightly, though his face turned bright red.

"I like you too, I just wanted to make sure you weren't messing with me or anything," Keith said quietly.

"I'd never mess with someone like that," Lance furrowed his brow.

"Even on missions?" Asked Keith.

"All the people I flirted with on missions, both with Voltron and the Agency, were people I thought attractive, or people who I knew wasn't interested in me. I would never lead someone on only to leave them later," Lance's face looked serious, but Keith knew better than to believe that. Still, he knew Lance was right.

"And you honestly like me?" He asked.

"Of course," Lance responded immediately.

"Does this mean we're dating?" He was nervous, twisting his hands and bouncing his knee.

"If that's alright with you," Lance smiled.

"Yeah, it's alright with me," Keith seemed to deflate slightly, but out of relief instead of disappointment. He was clearly thinking about this for a long time. Silence wrapped around them before Keith pointed to the stack of papers.

"Did you figure anything out about that?" He asked.

"Someone or a group of people made a deal, I'm guessing with the galra, and a lot of people are in danger. I have no idea what the deal is, who made the deal, and I'm still not 100% certain that the deal involves the galra," Lance explained as he ran a stressed hand through his hair.

"Do you think it involves Garnet?" Keith asked.

"Possibly, but without knowing what the deal is I can't exactly call him out on it."

"So what are you going to do?" Keith asked.

"No idea. I'm going to try and get the communications unit to intercept every message with the word "galra" in it, but that might not lead anywhere."

"Can I help with anything?" Keith asked.

"Be my alibi. I'm going to try and tail Garnet, so if we get caught I'm going to say I was showing you around, or you got lost and I came to find you," Lance said. Keith gave a determined nod.

Tailing Garnet was a painfully boring experience for both of them. There were times that Garnet would say something and Lance would nervously look to Keith, no doubt realizing what Garnet said probably shouldn't have been heard by someone outside of the agency. Still, nothing important or interesting happened. 

Lance realized he wasted a whole day learning nothing. Once Garnet shut the door to his office, that was the end of the line. There were no bugs in the director's office, thus there was no way to continue to watch him. The only thing they learned was that Garnet was a very boring person when he wasn't being an absolute prick. 

"Let's go, there's still one thing I can do," Lance muttered, yanking Keith along. They maneuvered through the halls quickly, dodging other agents and slipping past groups of people. Once they reached the comm unit Lance stopped. 

Pidge was in the far corner, smiling widely at a screen someone let her borrow. Lance ignored that for now though, instead, he turned to the agent closest to him. They were sitting at a desk, headphones covering their ears. Their monitor had a tint over it that blocked anyone else from seeing what was on his screen unless you looked at it head-on. Keith assumed he was either watching camera feeds, or was looking through audio clips. 

"Agent Cobalt, I have an assignment for you," Lance started. Said agent tensed and pulled off his headphones. 

"Agent Blue, what can I do?" He asked, clearly nervous. 

"I need you to forward every message, audio clip, and email that contains the words "Galra", "Raven" and "Deal". Don't tell anyone I asked this of you, and don't get caught. You must inform me of every message containing any of those words, do you understand?" Keith figured he was scaring the poor man more than anything but decided not to say anything. 

"Yes-yes, sir!" The agent stuttered out. Lance nodded and turned away. 

"How do you know he'll find anything? There are dozens of agents in that room," Keith asked once they were far enough away that no one would be able to overhear him. 

"Agent Cobalt gets all messages coming from Garnet. He's the only one that has access to the "director's" interactions, so if anyone will be able to find anything, it'll be him," Lance explained. 

"And he has high enough clearance for seeing stuff like that?" Keith asked. 

"He's a rank 2 level 9. The only rank 2 with that high of a clearance level. He's one of the most trusted agents in the agency, we can't have an untrustworthy agent sitting in the only seat that sees and hears everything," Lance smiled. 

"If that's the case, then why hasn't Garnet fired him yet and placed one of his own people there?" 

"Because he can't. He's only a temporary director, and you have to have a vote in order to remove someone from a position like that. A vast majority of the agents in the agency need to approve of the action before he could even think about firing him. Cobalt has a lot of friends and allies, and some of those agents, no doubt, are keeping a closer eye on him now that Garnet's privacy is being invaded. I wouldn't put it past Garnet to try and assassinate Colbalt, lucky he hasn't succeeded yet," Lance explained. "Cobalt has a lot of allies. I'm sure the agents are keeping an eye out for him, plus, he's no weak link either." 

"What do we do now?" Keith asked. 

"Keep looking. We have to find something. Between Colbalt and us tailing Garnet, something has to come up," Lance ran a hand through his hair. His eyes had dark bags under them and his tan skin looked pale. Keith wanted to help, to do something to take the stress off Lance, but knew there was nothing that could be done now.