you're gonna go far, kid | ON HOLD

chapter 7

Shortly after she extracted the poison, Momentous had to leave. All of her energy had been used to heal Meticulous so she needed to rest to regain it, and, unfortunately, still had a city to protect and institution to run.

Her explanation on the situation with Galra and Phantom was vague, but she promised to elaborate later. Keith wasn't sure when exactly later would be, but it seemed that Momentous would be trying to push it back as much as possible.

"Voltron is not the only league of prodigies in this city, and the Galra do not have the same objectives as we do," Momentous had said cooly. "The Talismans of Voltron have reappeared now for a reason, my father would not place them here meaninglessly. I have seen it in the visions, Zarkon has unfortunately made it here as well and must be defeated. This being said, I've no doubt that we will need the Cadre of Voltron very soon." This last part she said looking directly at Keith, daring him again to not cooperate with Voltron. He gritted his teeth and didn't look away.

Meticulous was still a bit delirious and trying to process this news, it seemed that Zarkon was a bit of an urban legend in Voltron and was having trouble comprehending he was a real threat despite once telling Keith that their main objective was to destroy him, and didn't seem to notice the staredown happening between Keith and Momentous.

FInally Momentous huffed quietly, turning to the window and only moments later dropped down gracefully and theatrically to the sidewalk below. Despite her white cloak, she faded into the shadows immediately.

Keith was left to bandage up Meticulous, who was now far less drowsy and back to his usual obnoxious self. There was no time for Keith to dwell on Voltron or Zarkon when Meticulous acting like a high maintenance preteen. Well, more than usual. Keith blamed the shock and blood loss. He snickered like a twelve year old who just made a dick joke as Keith carefully pushed back the hem of his top to clean the wound and it took everything not to slap him.

"Aww, how romantic," Meticulous crooned, "If you wanted my shirt off you should've asked sooner. I would've gladly obliged." Keith stared flatly at the hero's teasing smirk and started to dab the with rubbing alcohol. He'd given no warning, which was a bit of a dick move, but watching that obnoxious, smug grin contort into a grimace killed any remorse Keith felt. "Ouch, ouch, oh my holy motherfucking–" Meticulous whimpered loudly, hands moving to push away the cotton ball.

Keith rolled his eyes. "I thought you would be able to endure a little sting but I guess not. Whoops." He paused to pick up the tube of ointment that Momentous had said would also help and turned back to see Meticulous cringing away from the as if Keith were holding a flamethrower at him instead of a tube of petroleum. Keith sighed and scooted closer.

"Is that really necessary?" Meticulous squeaked. "That stuff's really, really gross and weird I just–"

"Look, I'd love to just slap a butterfly bandage over it and push you back out my window so I could get some fucking sleep," Keith cut him off, already squeezing some of it onto a Q-tip, "but Momentous wouldn't like that and you'll be lying here for another five hours without this stuff. Why isn't she or one of your other teammates doing this again? You've got to have someone with more medical experience than a random ass guy with Google."

Meticulous shrugged and tried to cover the wince as much as he could when the light blue paste touched his wound. "My dad's a doctor, but I can't really go up to the hospital in the middle of a heart surgery and go 'hey Papa what's up, by the way I'm kind of part of Voltron and just got stabbed. Can I get something done for this?'" Keith snorted at that and Meticulous seemed to brighten a bit. "And the rest of my team is still out not-babysitting and doing their superheroey stuff individually or by now are sleeping, so yeah, you're the only one who can do this, man. Solid bonding moment though, am I right?"