Chapter 1: Assembly
"Assembly code is converted into executable machine code by a utility program referred to as an assembler. The conversion process is referred to as assembly, or assembling the source code."
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Two years.
How were they to know it would take two full years?
After Lotor was annihilated in the quintessence field, all of the paladins had agreed on a trip back to Earth. It was necessary, after all, in order to rebuild the Castle of Lions. So, they had all packed up and headed back home.
As it turned out, building a new Castle of Lions was no joke. The instructions that Samuel Holt had had a terribly long list of required materials. Coran's grandfather had spared no expensive in order to create the perfect defense castle.
After long, lengthy discussions, the team had decided on what elements were absolutely necessary and which were unnecessary. Not everyone agreed on every decision: Keith was upset that there would be no invisible wall training maze, Hunk was highly disappointed that the kitchen was going to only be receiving four ovens rather than the previous ten ovens, and Allura was not convinced that Earth toilets would be near as good as the Altean ones.
Regardless, even after many frugal decisions, the paladins were still left with a lot of things that they would have to gather.
This is where they, as a team, made a difficult, yet sensible decision. They agreed to split up.
It didn't make sense for all five lions to travel together to all corners of the universe. Usually, just one paladin was enough, considering the Galra threat was significantly less. So, one cold October, while a cold rain pattered on the windows of the Holt house, the paladins said a quick goodbye to each other.
They didn't realize how long it would take to gather everything.
Coran was the only one who stayed behind on Earth. He, with help from Samuel Holt in navigating through Earthly purchasing customs, bought a big farmhouse about an hour north of the Holt house. He also had an obnoxiously large storage-type barns build on the property behind the house, for keeping lions, supplies, and the future Castle of Lions.
The neighbors were annoyed at the size of the barn. However, if the neighbors had known how deep and deep the barn actually went, they would perhaps been even more annoyed. Or, impressed. Or, both.
This farmhouse base was where the paladins came back too regularly, over the next two years. The thing was though, their visits back rarely overlapped with each other. Occasionally, there would be a collection mission just too difficult to handle on one's own and two paladins would pair up. Lance and Pidge. Allura and Hunk. Shiro and Lance. But other than that, the two years passed without any big reunions.
That's not to say that the paladins didn't communicate. Pidge whipped up a group messenger system that could work from any corner of the known universe. At first, the six paladins practically spammed each other with the system. The messenger system carried everything from updates on missions to random memes across the universe.
Over time, however, the paladins became more and more focused. The easier materials were gradually picked off the list, leaving only the strange and difficult still needing to be gathered. Going undercover, into wormholes, time warps, and into giant space worms became increasingly common for the six paladins. Sometimes, days would go past before one of them would send a message to their group chat.
That's not to say that the paladins were lonely. Pidge was traveling with her brother, Matt. Allura was traveling with her mice. Keith had Blades of Marmora members with him half the time (one of which was usually his mother). Meanwhile, Hunk, Shiro, and Lance would regularly go visit their families whenever they returned back to Earth with a load.
But still, two years.
Two years was a long time for a team that had only spent a year or so bonding together. Sure, they had saved the universe - and other universes, for that matter - but it had all happened in an intense whirlwind.
That's why it felt so unreal to Pidge when she and her brother returned to Earth with their last load. They parked their lion in the barn as always and began to unload the lengths of metallic wire that they had fetched from a far-away, warn-torn world. Most of the basement of this barn was already packed with supplies, so they just unceremoniously dropped the wires into a corner of the barn. Coran would most likely move it later, once he inspected their acquisition.
Coran was more than pleased to see them.
"Ah! Number seven! Number two!" He cheerfully greeted the two of them as they stepped into the farmhouse, and Pidge grimaced. Ever since Coran had began counting Matt and Allura in the height-numbering thing, Pidge's sobriquet had changed by plus two.
Still, that didn't stop her from giving Coran a big hug. "It's good to be back!" She told him honestly; Matt echoed her sentiment.
"Allura returned a few days ago!" Coran informed them after the two siblings had a chance to go change out of their flight clothes. "I believe she's upstairs at the moment, doing some research."
"What about the other paladins?" Matt asked.
"They should all be returning over the next month, if their missions go smoothly." It was an optimistic statement and they all knew it. Hiccups haunted the paladin crew. Each and every one of them had a tendency to stumble onto situations at just the right time to be the hero. Which was good, yes, but also very time consuming.
Oh well. There wasn't anything they could do about that. For Pidge, it was time to relax enjoy being back on Earth. One thing that meant was home cooked meals, instead of dehydrated food packs.
While Coran was no Hunk, he could still whip up a pretty good dinner. Pidge and Matt stayed in the kitchen and chatted with the older man as he whipped up a mean chicken alfredo dish. Before long, the kitchen was full with the smell of pasta. It wasn't long before Allura came padding down the stairs, surely drawn by the smell.
"My my, what are making today?" Allura's voice rang into the kitchen before she walked in herself.
"It's another one of those Earthling recipes that I found on the internets!" Responded Coran cheerfully.
Allura stepped into the kitchen. Two years hadn't changed her face or hair much, but she looked rather casual wearing a pale blue romper and a pair of bunny slippers.
"She's still so beautiful." Muttered Matt softly from beside Pidge, who laughed softly. From the moment her brother had laid eyes on Allura, he'd been obsessed with her. Then again, Matt was also kind of like Lance in that he often was besotted by pretty girls. Over the last two years, Pidge had lost count of how many female aliens that Matt had fallen for. Too many, that was for certain.
Allura was paused in the doorway of the kitchen, staring with wide eyes at the pair of them. "Pidge!" She exclaimed, "You look… feminine!"
Pidge immediately started laughing, embarrassed but amused. "Um, thanks?" She jumped out of her seat and ran over to the other girl, wrapping her arms around her. "Have you grown taller?" The princess of Altea had her own chance to laugh as she shook her head.
"What about me? Do you think I've changed?" Matt chimed in, batting his eyes at Allura.
"Hmm," the Altean responded, stepping closer the pair and peering carefully at Pidge's brother. A rosy tint build up on his face as Allura leaned closer, her eyes sparkling with humor. "I think you're pretty much the same."
With a small, pretend yelp, Matt clapped a hand over his heart. "Your words wound me!"
The conversation after that was light and happy. It was surprising how easy it was to fall back into the same rhythm they had once had years ago. It was like they were one big family, once again.
Pidge wouldn't have had it any other way.
That night, against all odds, both Shiro and Lance sent messages saying they had completed their missions and would be back soon.
Fast forward a week.
Pidge had made herself comfortable in her new room in the farmhouse. In between helping Coran and Allura with coding for the Castle of Lions, she decorated her new room with pictures of both her biological family and her Voltron family, nerdy posters about Stephen Hawking, Marie Curie, and Werner Heisenberg, and her carefully organized collection of video games. Every day, Pidge felt more and more at home.
Although, the farmhouse wouldn't be her home forever. Every day, they get closer to getting the new Castle of Lions put together. Coran guessed that he might be able to have finished in a year. It also helped that he had Allura and two tech-savvy Earthlings helping him now.
Progress proceeded steadily as the days passed.
Lance got back first, one week after his message. However, he dropped his load and pretty much immediately launched off. He explained to Allura - who was the only one around when he got back - that he wanted to visit his family again before he settled in. No one could blame him for this, as his last mission had kept him away for months from Earth.
Shiro returned right almost two weeks after his message. His black lion seemed to appear out of nowhere, streaks of blue erupting behind a black speck. One moment, Pidge was organizing the pens in her desk by color, and the next she was fixated on the sky outside of her bedroom's window. Before she could even see the yellow details of his lion, Pidge was jumping out of her seat and darting out the door.
She wasn't the only one. The rest of the household swarmed on Shiro and hugs were exchanged. Pidge playfully told him his arms were now thicker than this head, and he retorted that she finally looked unquestionably like a girl with her long, wavy hair. As Pidge howled with laughter, Shiro reached forward and ruffled her hair, as if she was a small child. However, she made him regret that by quickly licking his good hand before he could draw it back.
Later that day, they all gathered in the kitchen and Coran whipped up a hefty meal. Just like that, their family grew by another member.
Two days later, Lance finally returned, looking tanner than ever. The first thing he did was embrace Allura. The second thing he did was stick his tongue out at Matt over Allura's shoulder. Same old, same old, thought Pidge with amusement.
It started to become tradition that, every evening, Coran would cook a huge meal. On the first night that Lance returned, he insisted on some Cuban food in celebration. However, after Coran managed to burn sandwiches, Lance didn't make that request again. That didn't stop Coran from trying every dish under the sun, though. While Coran would whip up mystery meals, complete with exotic vegetables and meats (the paladins learned quickly not to ask what they were eating), they would all sit in the kitchen and talk.
Allura would discuss the latest developments in the construction of the Castle of Lions. Lance would tell everyone about all the heroic things he'd done during his adventures. Shiro would try to rope the group into discussions into war history, both Earthly and otherwise. Matt would bring up different styles of encoding (although Pidge was the only one who really joined in these conversations). Coran would rave about how great parsnips were.
Keith showed up out of nowhere. He was always bad about using the messenger, so it wasn't all that surprising to the group. Being Keith, he wasn't all that enthusiastic about the welcoming committee and seemed to find all the hugs and attention awkward. That didn't stop Pidge from going in for a big hug, much to Keith's discomfort.
"You grew your hair out." He commented, once she finally relinquished him from her bear hug.
"So did you!" Pidge chirped in reply, reaching up to touch the black hair that eked past his shoulders. Keith batted her hand away with an amused huff.
Lance appeared from behind Keith and dug his hands into Keith's black hair. "Why does long hair look good on you but it makes me look homeless?" Much to Pidge's surprise, a dark red color spread out on Keith's face. A very brief expression crossed Keith's face, but it was quickly replaced with a deep scowl. Without even turning to face Lance, Keith stormed away from the two of them.
Huffing, Lance shouted after him, "Yea, nice to see you too!" Shrugging, he pouted, "I can't believe he's still a jerk."
Despite Keith's initial coldness to some of the group, dinner managed to melt his barriers. By the third night he was back, Keith was sitting between Shiro and Lance, arguing about battle tactics.
Sitting there, listening to Shiro try to convince Lance to read War and Peace ("That thing is like ten million pages, dude! No way!"), Pidge found herself thinking of the Grinch. Well, not the whole stealing-Christmas thing. It was late July time and the ninety degree (Fahrenheit) temperature outside did not lend itself to any wintery wonderful feelings. No, rather, it was the part of the story about how the Grinch's heart grew so many sizes. With every paladin that came back, she kind of felt like her heart was growing in size. It was like her family was going back to being whole.
It was over a week later, but finally Hunk sent them a message, telling them he'd be back in a few days.
Pidge was threw the roof with excitement. To say that she and Hunk had been close would be an understatement. During their time on the old Castle of Lions, they had often been inseparable. Not only had they worked together, coding, building, exploring, but she'd also been his main test subject for his new food dishes (sometimes to her detriment, but oh well).
The next few days seemed to crawl by. Pidge flew around the house, jumping from task to task. Nothing seemed to keep her concentration for long. When she got too aggravated at her code to concentrate, she switched to impatient cleaning, which Allura was thrilled about.
As Pidge wandered around the farmhouse with a bottle of Pledge tucked under an arm, wiping at any and every surface, Allura followed her around with plenty of compliments, "Alteans believe cleanliness is very important! I'm so proud that you have dedicated yourself to this task. I can't say I see the same sort of dedication in most Earthlings… have you seen Lance's room recently? Not pleasant..."
Even cleaning lost its interest. On the third day, Pidge stuck to her room, sprawled on her bed, playing pointless games on a game tablet she'd picked up from a space mall.
A knock on the door caught her attention. For half a second, her heart raced and she glanced up with a big grin.
"Oh, hey Matt." She tried to hide her disappointment by keeping her smile.
Her brother plopped down on the foot of her bed. "Whatcha doing?" He asked, his tone nonchalant despite an amused twinkle in his eyes.
Pidge eyed him suspiciously. "Playing a game where you collect cats and send them on missions." Matt gave her a blank stare, "What? It's cute." He quirked an eyebrow up at her. She let out an annoyed huff, clicked the tablet closed, and sat up. "I can't concentrate today. It's whatever."
Matt grinned deviously. "You're excited about Hunk."
Pidge knew exactly where Matt was going with this conversation. Before they had had their big fight with Lotor, he had pulled her aside to talk to her about Hunk. Since they were so tight knit, Matt had made some assumptions. Pidge had been quick to tell him, oh no we're just friends. For some reason, Matt didn't believe her. Not even when she told him about Shay. Look, Matt had told her, I've been around Hunk for several weeks now. I've never heard him mention her, but he can't stop talking about you.
Well, duh, she had responded to him, we work together. And we're busy saving the world together. There's a lot to talk about. Pidge had insisted that they drop the conversation. Unfortunately for her, that didn't stop Matt from dropping hints on the regular, even after they'd all split up to gather supplies for the new Castle of Lions.
"He was, like, my best friend." Pidge stated, smiling back evenly at her brother. Honestly, it didn't bug her that much that he couldn't understand. Matt was too much of a sucker for romance, after all. Every single day he fell in love with Allura when he saw her in the morning. Then whenever they went into town, he'd fall in love with the cashier girls at every store they'd visit.
Matt was fickle. Pidge wasn't.
Over the last two years, Pidge had strove to be more like her programs. Calculated, determined, rational, like a good algorithm. She knew that she had a tendency to make irrational choices when her emotions became overwhelming. So, she'd been working on resisting that temptation. She focused on being level-headed, driven by logic rather than feelings.
Not to say that she was resistance to feelings. The buzz of energy that she felt through her entire body at the moment was evidence of that.
"Sure…. Which is why you're here, playing games instead of programming the training deck like you promised Allura."
Rolling her eyes, Pidge hopped off her bed. "Me and him are friends." She emphasized the world, before flicking her brother squarely in the forehead. "But okay, you made your point! I'll go be useful." He shrugged before picking up her tablet and turning on.
"Okay, you do that and I'll play this cat game."
"What, that's not fair!" Pidge squawked indignantly and the two siblings began squabbling over the tablet. Both cuss words and punches were thrown, although none seriously.
Eventually, Pidge relented and left her brother to play the cat game while she went to go help Allura.
The rest of the day passed easily. That evening, Coran cooked some sausages and pan fried an unholy amount of parsnips. Pidge found herself forgetting about everything but the people around her as they laughed, joked, and discussed anything and everything.
That night, she took a quick shower, and then stood afterwards in the steam staring at herself in the mirror. She was eighteen and some change now, but it was hard to pinpoint exactly what had changed over the last two years. Obviously her hair was longer and had gone back to being curly instead of just puffy (although it hung limply when damp). Her jawbone was also more… there? Defined? She wasn't sure how to explain it.
There was also the normal changes to her figure. As any girl going through her teenage years, she'd put on some weight in certain areas in her body. At fifteen, she could pass for a boy any time that she really needed to. Now… it would be a lot harder to do. Not impossible though; Pidge wasn't by any means gifted.
She blew a raspberry at the mirror, toweled her hair dry, and pranced back into her room. She switched into her coziest pajamas shorts and a thin cotton tank top, and crawled into bed.
Maybe tomorrow, Hunk will be back, Pidge thought softly, then everyone will be back.
Her Voltron family would be whole again. Hell, they could even form Voltron once again if they wanted to. The thought made Pidge smile, her toes curling pleasure. Exploring the universe with Matt had been fun, but there had always been a hole in her heart, something missing.
Memories of their year fighting Zarkon, Lotor, and their armies swirled around in her mind as she fell asleep.
When she next awoke, someone was in her room. She peeled her eyes open slowly, thinking that she must be hearing someone walking by in the hallway. Only, there was unmistakably a shadowy figure partially blocking her moonlit window. This person moved slowly, stealthily inching closer to her bed.
Funnily enough, this didn't frighten Pidge at all. First of all, both the barn and farmhouse had massive security systems rigged up, so strangers couldn't get in without setting out an obnoxiously loud alarm and several laser guns. Secondly, she and her brother had a prank war that had been going on for the last fifteen years. It wasn't all that unusual for either he and her to slip into each other's room and set up a booby trap. Thirdly, Lance had gotten into the habit of borrowing her video games, sometimes in the dead of night right after he finished whatever game he had been playing.
She didn't know whether it was her brother or Lance, but she was ready to pounce. Pidge observed the figure as subtly as she could, keeping her eyes half-closed.
The figure drew close and reached out towards her bed stand.
A hand silently placed a shiny four-legged object at her bed stand. Prank, Pidge decided, it's gotta be Matt. She wasn't sure what that object was, but it wouldn't surprise her if it was supposed to explode or maybe start screeching obnoxiously in the wee hours of the morning. Matt was crafty and unpredictable with his pranks, as any good Holt is.
So Pidge did the only reasonable thing. She grabbed her pillow, flipped onto her knees, and swung hard at the person in her room. They yelped and she managed two good whacks before the person fell back and out of her pillow's reach.
"Serves you right, Matt!" She exclaimed through giggles.
"Ah, I'm not Matt." The other person replied. Sure enough, that voice was not Matt. Whoops. That voice…
Pidge's mind froze. "Hunk?"
"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." Although she already knew he was due to arrive any time soon, Pidge could hardly believe it.
"Farmhouse, lights on." She commanded the computer system that she had been tweaking over the last few weeks. The lights to her room, like she commanded, winked on.
Sure enough, Hunk was sitting in the center of her room, wearing a pair of cargo pants and a black shirt. Only… it also wasn't Hunk. Or, it wasn't the Hunk that Pidge remembered. She remembered the round-faced, sixteen year old boy that puked any time the ship rolled too hard. This boy - man? - sprawled on her floor was at least fifty pounds lighter, with muscular shoulders, arms, and legs. His face had changed too, losing a lot of its roundness.
Pidge forgot how to breath. Hunk was… a hunk. What had happened to her pudgy best friend who was constantly trying to bake cookies with new and better ingredients? This Hunk had even abandoned the orange bandana in exchange for a more styled, shorter-on-the-sides style hair cut.
A heavy silence fell over both of them, as they stared at each other. Pidge fought for words, so caught up with her own surprise that she didn't even notice that Hunk was struggling with something familiar.
Then, after a few moments, the surprise passed. Pidge was surrounded by hot guys on a daily basis, so this wasn't something she couldn't deal with. A simple emotion flooded into her - happiness. Her best friend was back.
"Holy shit." She giggled like a school girl, covering her mouth with both her hands. "You're back."
Before Hunk could even reply, Pidge had launched herself at him. She flew off the bed and plastered herself to his (whoa, muscular) chest. It took him a moment, but he wrapped his arms around her too and laughed. "It's good to see you too, Pidge." He spoke softly in her ear, probably trying not to wake up the rest of the house. "Seriously, I didn't mean to wake you. It's like three AM."
Pidge sat back relaxed backwards, her legs tucked sloppily underneath her, and shrugged. "Who cares? I'm kind of upset you didn't want to wake me to say hi." She glared at him, but it was playful glare.
"But I brought you a present." This statement came with a big set of puppy eyes. It had been way too long since Pidge had been subjected to Hunk's puppy eyes, and she definitely couldn't resist them. Or presents. Presents were great too.
Biting her lip in excitement, Pidge leaned in a little and told Hunk softly, "Yes, that does make it better."
The shiny object. Curiosity nearly erupting out of her, Pidge jumped to feet and took two little steps over to the night stand. With the lights on, she could see that this object was actually a tiny replica of a lion. Only, it was missing all of the color and some of the detail. It was, in all honestly, a rather sloppy replicate. Not that that made it any less adorable.
Scooping up the silver lion, she hopped back to where she'd been and dropped back down in front of Hunk. He hadn't moved from where he'd fallen initially, so his legs were stretched out on either side of her.
Turning the lion over in her hands, she asked him, "So what is it?"
His eyes twinkled with amusement, "Ask it. Its name is the Silver Lion."
Pidge glanced up at Hunk, highly fascinated. "Okay." Turning her gaze back down to the lion, she asked politely, "Silver Lion, what are you?"
The eyes of the little lion lit up and it responded in a little growly voice, "I am a personal assistant."
"You can ask it other questions too." Hunk added softly, clearly very excited to be showing Pidge the little lion.
She paused to think for a moment, her fingers carefully tracing the joints of the lion's legs. "Silver Lion, who made you?"
"I was made by Hunk." Only, the lion really said hoonk, rather than Hunk. It was hard to not giggle at that. Hunk shrugged.
"There's more than a few quirks I've got to work out."
"I think it's great." Pidge told him honestly, but couldn't help but giggle as she asked, "But is this the Alexa programming?"
Hunk pouted at that, "Not entirely! I uh… made some changes. Like changing its name to Silver Lion." His hand came forward to tentatively touch the little lion. "It's silly but, I dunno, I thought it was kind of cute."
Pidge beamed at him and hugged the little lion against her chest. "It is. It's adorable."
"I'm glad you think so." Hunk huffed softly and smiled before running a hand through his hair. "I was kind of worried you'd think it was lame."
Rolling her eyes, Pidge reached forward and gave Hunk's chest a good, playful nudge.
Was his face looking a little red? No, she was imaging that. Silly Katie, she thought to herself.
"Ah… well, it's three AM and you should sleep." Hunk stated as he reached forward and poked her right between her eyebrows. "Not to mention I'd like to get some sleep too. I've been awake for, like, the last twenty hours because my cargo was sensitive to solar radiation and I had to get it into the barn quickly.
Pidge understood and resisted the urge to argue. "Fine." She huffed, before poking Hunk's chest back. "But tomorrow, I'm going to show you what I've done so far on the new Castle."
"Deal." The tan Samoan replied with a laugh.
Pidge hopped to her feet and offered Hunk a hand. Then, she gave him one last big hug before she relented to letting him leave.
The door clicked close and Pidge dropped back onto her bed. She wasn't exactly sure how she was going to fall asleep now. She was much too excited. Everyone was back… team Voltron was whole again. A picture hanging on the wall near her bed drew her attention. It was one that they had took soon after they'd all gotten to Earth, of all of the paladins and Coran and Matt standing in front of the Holt house. In the picture, she was sitting on Hunk's shoulders. He'd scooped her up unceremoniously after she kept complaining that she was too short to be seen.
When sleep finally caught up to her, Pidge found herself swallowed by dreams of Hunk, War and Peace, and parsnips.
- x - x - x-
A/N: Getting back into writing for the first time in four years... feels nice. :)