Pidge closes her eyes, the round glasses that perennially perch on her nose closed and grasped in her fist. And her brain begins to stir.
Fog.
Colours.
The shadow of someone holding her hand.
She has Voltron, standing before her, fully formed and ready. The lions are tall, proud, as brightly coloured as their names. Controllers, screams, people.
She sees the Galra Robotics Club dismantled and taken apart, the ruins of their mini-Zarkon on the ground at her feet, irreversible damage. Probably done by her.
She sees five, no, six people before her.
Shiro, looking as regal and leader-like as ever, ever the dad friend,
Hunk, his best smile on his face, arms outstretched and beckoning,
Keith, wearing that stupid cropped jacket and hint of a smile on his stupid face,
Coran, mustache perfect as usual, smiling and holding a cup of coffee,
Allura, gorgeous, eyes showing off the intelligence that many didn't see on the surface,
and...
Lance.
Pidge quickly opens her eyes, letting the world back in, slipping on her glasses and running off into the distance.
The cafe that Voltron Robotics currently occupies would be very nice and peaceful, bolstered by the chirps of birds in early morning, cool winds and smell of fresh coffee brewed by Allura and Coran, but-
"You told your mum what?!" Shiro screams, completely and utterly surprised.
"Since when did Pidge have a boyfriend?!" Lance and Hunk exclaim in perfect unison.
"I don't!" Pidge butts in, silencing a eager Shiro. "My mum just assumes I do, considering most of the people I hang out with are male. To her, that means like fifty potential suitors."
Pidge collapses in her chair, her tiny body perfectly occupying the area. Apparently, hanging out with the opposite gender meant sexual attraction. Assuming meant making an 'ass out of you and me', so Pidge never felt more frustrated when her mother would think a friend was her boyfriend. At least she wasn't normally 'traditionally feminine' enough to be mistaken for one of the boys' girlfriends by anyone else. Not that being feminine was a bad thing.
"Does she even know you were pretending to be a boy to join our club?" Hunk questions. The five attend Altea High together, Shiro being the oldest and Pidge the (prodigious) youngest. But there was a rather stagnant robotics club, handed down by traitorous member Zarkon. It seemed like it was going to only be Shiro, Keith, Lance and Hunk, but it turned out that Katie Holt, now Pidge Gunderson, wanted to join without anyone else knowing who she was outside of the club.
"Nope." Pidge, satisfied, reclines in her chair. "Hey, c'mon, I'm more clever than you think."
The four raise their eyebrows at Pidge.
"Since when have we ever even underestimated you, smol bean?" Lance jokes, fluffing her already fluffy hair. Pidge smacks his hand away, shooting him a glare.
"There's an obvious underestimation."
"Stop it, Lance. Pidge, why the hell did you let your mom think you're dating someone?" Keith interrupts, shooting Lance a equally strong glare. Lance makes a face back.
"Do you think I wanted to bring home a boyfriend?" Pidge Gunderson complains, pushing up her large round glasses with one hand. "As if I'd even want to date. I'm perfectly happy with just my computer and cryptids, thank you very much."
Keith gives her a high-five.
"I'm just going to tell my mum that I'm never going to have a boyfriend. Then dad won't expect someone to play catch with and I'll be left alone."
"Pidge, dear," Allura sets down Pidge's favourite peanut butter and chocolate muffin, special of Castle Cafe. "I pity the boys that will never get a chance to date you."
What boys, Pidge thinks. If she were like Allura, with her silky white hair, perfect curvy figure, and a face that shone brighter than the sun itself, yeah, there would probably be boys throwing themselves at her. Look at Lance, and more secretively, Shiro. But she was Pidge. She wasn't in search of attention for looks. She wanted recognition for the robotics she knew she could do. And that's the only reason she was in Voltron. Yep.
"Yeah, who would pass up this cutie~" Lance fluffs Pidge's hair again, much to her annoyance, but she can't stop that little pink tint that colours her small cheeks. Allura smiles, throwing a wink at Shiro, handing out the rest of the food and leaving.
Pidge looks at Shiro's napkin and almost laughs.
"Well, no more talk about faux dating. We need to think of the robotics contest!" Pidge quickly changes the subject, much to Lance's amusement.
"C'mon, Pidgeotto, it's a Saturday. Let's go to a beach or something, not work!"
Lance's suggestion irks Pidge for a moment, because all he wanted to do was probably ogle tall, voluptuous girls in bikinis rather than actually hang with the Voltron gang. But sure.
"I'll pack the picnic!"
The beach is as warm and sunny as Pidge expected with June rapidly approaching. The minute they reach, Pidge sees so many of Lance's would-be targets. Lance had even put on his lucky swin trunks, blue with little duckies on them. Pidge had changed into a swimsuit, the only purpose to not ruin her clothes.
"You changed into an actual, real, made-for-purpose swimsuit?" Hunk notices. "You never do that."
"Well," Pidge replies, "I think it's a little smarter than sacrificing perfectly good clothes."
Shiro looks like he's about to burn, his pale skin starting to redden rapidly with barely five minutes of sun exposure. Now that Pidge looked properly, Keith looked like he was going to be set on fire, tongue out and panting.
Pidge carries her laptop and headphones in a canvas bag, also having a beach blanket and small umbrella. She'd changed intYes, she had grown used to random beach excursions and therefore kept a beach bag nearby, no, she did not like the beach. She only went along for the friends. At least today there was some decent winds that somewhat combated the UV rays just tearing away at her patience.
Why would anyone want to bake in hot sun, get sand everywhere, get perfectly good electronics wet from the sea? Nah, you could probably tell Pidge preferred the sanctity of her room at home, geeking it out with her family.
Hunk hands her a large jar of peanut butter, other hand offering a large spoon and a big smile on his face.
"Hunk, you are my freaking saviour."
Pidge digs out a huge scoop and sticks it in her mouth. Hunk sits down next to her on her green rug.
They stare at Lance, eagerly running from woman to woman, throwing numerous pick-up lines and sleazy smiles their way.
"Does he know how stupid he looks when he does that?" Pidge asks Hunk, who looks like he's about to throw up his hearty lunch.
"Either he doesn't know, or he seriously doesn't care."
If anything, Lance probably thinks his 'stupid' behaviour was attractive, and it most certainly was not. At Altea High, Hunk, Pidge (over there referred to as 'Katie') and Lance were in the same grade, while Keith and Shiro were in the grade above. So yeah, Pidge wasn't sure whether Lance was really a friend. She preferred to stay distant from most of her classmates, Lance and Hunk occasionally being the exceptions. Voltron made them grow a bit closer, she'd admit.
"Girl, you've already activated my-"
Pidge spits out her peanut butter.
"LANCE!"
Shiro tugs Lance by the ear, apologising profusely to the poor Nyma that walks away, confused.
"Did you see the face on that one?!" Pidge cracks up, laughing so hard that she doubles back onto Hunk, equally riled up.
"Hmph." A disgruntled Lance sniffs at the sight, rather miffed. "She was so all over me, until SHIRO DECIDED TO BREAK US APART."
"You know she's been with Rolo for a year right?" Keith points out, gesturing to a muscly guy that had an arm wrapped around Nyma.
"STILL-"
"Face it Lance, there isn't a girl out there who's actually susceptible to your charms."
Lance's eyes glint, and suddenly Pidge felt like she'd gotten herself in a big pile of Kaltenecker poop.
"Well, Pidge, Pidgey, Pidgeon, Pidgeotto-"
"Pokemon Go is over, face it , McClain." Pidge cuts in. Shiro sits by, eyes glinting too. Keith too. Hunk too. Wait, what the hell was going on?!
"Since you seem so adamant to the fact that I will never have a girlfriend-"
Pidge looks up at the substantially taller Lance, eyes focusing on his and not wanting to go any lower down for her own self-respect.
"At least you admit it's a fact that you will never have a girlfriend," she smirks. Keith high-fives her again.
"Hey!" Lance exclaims, pouting. Hunk laughs loud, giving a Lance a big bear hug.
"Aww, did someone hurt your non-existent heart, Lance?" Pidge jokes. Lance pretends to be shot, falling on the sand.
"You've wounded me so, fair maiden, now help me out!" Lance's arms flop uselessly to his sides. Pidge jabs him with her elbow, hard, smirk plastered on her face, making him jolt skyward with eyes blown wide.
"Pidge!"
Lance never did end up finishing that sentence, whatever it was supposed to be, even on the car drive back in Shiro's minivan("You're such a dad, Shiro!"). But Pidge could definitely feel something had changed. She wasn't really sure what, but Lance seemed to be behaving slightly...differently.
As per usual, Pidge sat on someone's lap (or even sometimes, lay down on multiple ones) because of the cramped nature of the car's backseat. ("It's a freakin minivan, Shiro, can't you be a good suburban mom and choose one with actual space!") And of course, as the smallest person, she'd been chosen to stick it out in random places in the car.
Some days she would be on Hunk, probably her best friend after Matt. But most days she would sitting on Lance, because she knew he would think nothing of it. And the height difference made it less uncomfortable slash awkward. Today, she sat on Lance. (Inconveniently,
Normally all would be fine. In the van, they would chat, discuss the next robot project, make jokes about each other ("Look, Keith's back in the 1980's with that hairstyle") and everything was so casual with each other. No problem at all.
But now, Lance just looked different, and it frustrated the analytical Pidge. He looked like he was...actually thinking for once. Like there was something actually going around inside his head. Weird.
"What's up with you, Lance?" Pidge whispers, her voice indistinguishable behind the banter going on with Shiro, Keith and Hunk. Something about Hunk's new girlfriend, that also happened to be Shiro and Keith's classmate in the higher grade.
"Ooohh, Hunk's dating an older woman!"
"No-nothing's up with me, Pidge. Nothing."
Lance's eyes shift and flit everywhere, so fast that Pidge can't really comprehend where they're going. From up, down, but Pidge wonders why. After all, she's blocking most of his line of sight, so where are his eyes even going? Her head rests next to his, as she adjusts herself to be more comfortable.
"You sure?"
"What makes you so worried, Pidgeon? You don't usually ask."
Lance smiles, actually, smirks. Pidge returns the smirk, the two breaking out into laughter.
"I think it's just nothing then." Lance lets out a breath that he didn't know he was holding, Pidge feeling it through her slender back. He seems nervous, tense, something.
Pidge doesn't know what it is.
"We've got some news."
Shiro stands at the front of their small borrowed workshop, bulky arms folded and eyes stern. Pidge isn't really listening, preferring to fiddle with the little robot she'd finishied after spending some time on the design. Rover, she finally decided to call it. Rover. Lance had said the name was cute, just like her.
Why was it suddenly so uncomfortably hot in here?
"Zarkon has decided to join the Galra Robotics Club as their new president."
Well, shit.
"They're planning to join the Inter-School National Robotics Tournament. Just like we were."
Well, good to know that one of the most brilliant, charming and intimidating students was electing to join a college where everything was invested into their robotics and the like. Zarkon was someone that from their, lowly, five people club perspective, seemed invincible.
"Can't we just kick their asses at the next competition?" Lance drawls, confidence dripping from his words, sitting back in his chair, feet propped up. "I mean..." He gets up, dramatically shoving the chair behind him.
"First up, we have Takashi Shirogane, our unspoken but obvious leader with much experience in unarmed bot fighting and piloting." Lance's lanky arms shoot out to point out at Shiro, who uncomfortably rubs the back of his neck.
"Second, we have dreamboat Hunky Garret, a wonder with engineering and cooking the best beef tacos you'll ever find."
Hunk grins, returning Lance's fist bump as he flits over to Keith.
"Here, we have My Chemical Keith Kogane. I don't know what we use him for, he's pretty useless now that I think about it-"
Keith coughs, shooting Lance a glare.
"Do you mean our robot weapons expert, management and controlling expert?" Hunk asks. Lance shoots him a look.
"Thank you, Hunk. And he is absolutely right." Keith responds, grinning with snark at a ticked-off Lance McClain.
"Over here, a little downwards-"
"Hey!"
"-we have Pidge Gunderson, AKA Katie Holt, AKA multitalented robotics student. Like, how does anyone engineer, control, program, and study all in one! Especially the studying part!" Pidge has to fight the urge to slam her face into the table, messing up her auburn ponytail. Instead, she settles for gently placing her face on the table, hiding the blush that tints her cheeks pink.
Wait, what?!
"And of course, I've saved the best for laaaast!" Lance cheers, dragging out syllables. "Introducing Lance McClain, expert controller and logician for all kinds of robot competitions!"
And in comes the jazz hands, the dramatic karate kicks, the large grins and smirks free of charge from Lance himself.
"Since when have you even had a little drop of logic?" Keith questions, stood in the corner. He looks unamused, bored, and done with Lance's shit. "Like, you say we should just kick the asses of one the best funded, supported, and famously powerful robotics clubs in the nation? Such logic," Keith scoffs at Lance, who starts screeching back at Keith indignantly.
"Well, excuse me for wanting to put some positivity back into this team, ," Lance fires back. "At least I'm trying to bring our spirits up into the new plans rather than dragging them down like a certain someone-"
"Stop it, Lance." Pidge scolds, punching him lightly on the arm.
"But he started it!-"
"Pidge's right, we've got to focus on creating the robot for the next championship." Shiro steps in, shooting both Lance and Keith a look.
"Sorry," they both mumble. Pidge punches him harder.
"Oww! What do you do, karate?" Lance groans.
"Wanna test that theory?!" Lance's eyes shoot downwards, seeing that Pidge's knee was aimed uncomfortably close to his dick, eyes glinting.
"Okay, now, Pidge, cool it-"
Lance's face flushes red.
"Okay, okay, that's enough banter for now," Shiro tuts, successfully pulling Pidge up and off the floor by her jacket, plopping her down right next to him.
A moment of silence.
Pidge looks up at Shiro, and in that moment, Shiro knew he was completely and utterly fucked.
"SHIIRRROOOO!"
"Pidge is so light that Shiro can legit just pick her up with one hand-oh my lord!" Hunk actually screams, falling on the floor as they watch Pidge actually climb on Shiro and hang on his shoulders. And even better, even while hanging, Pidge's toes still wouldn't touch the floor.
"Holy shit-"
"Shut up."
"HOLY SHIT!"
"I swear to god, Lance-"
Yeah, they didn't get anything done that day.