Chapter 1: Don't worry me
Lance didn't know what happened, all he saw was the green lion take a strong blast from a galra flagship and it started floating through space, seemingly lifeless. "Pidge!" everyone yelled in unison.
The paladins had been engaged in a space battle with a big galra fleet for the past few hours and it seemed like there was no end in sight. Normally they would've formed voltron and overwhelmed them already, but the teams synergy had been oddly off for the past few days. What with shiro returning and Keith leaving the team, the team's leadership and makeup were constantly changing, not to mention all the lion switching. They hadn't gotten much of a chance to practice either, not with all the recent galra attacks. They seemed to be getting even more aggressive with each passing day.
None of that mattered right now though, not to lance. He pushed the red lion ahead at full speed to help pidge. Galra ships started surrounding her "Back off!" he screamed. Flames roared from the red lion's maw, engulfing the surrounding foes and destroying their ships. Hunk flew over right after "Is she okay?" he asked worriedly. "The lion says her vital signs are normal, but she's unconscious." lance admitted through gritted teeth. All he could do was stare with pure malice in his heart at the galra "They're gonna pay for this." he stated. He turned the red lion around and rushed head first into the battlefield.
"Lance where are you going?" hunk asked worriedly. "Hunk keep an eye on pidge for me, I'm gonna make sure these guys get whats coming to them!" he shouted. Hunk wanted to say something, but he knew there was no stopping him, not now anyway. He had gotten like this recently, lance's demeanor was starting to change more and more by the day. He was gradually becoming more confrontational and impulsive, opting a lot of times to fight instead of running away. In a lot of ways, he was becoming more like Keith.
The difference between him and Keith however, was that when lance would get hard headed and aggressive it was always for someone else's sake, just like now. The red lion bounded forward at incredible speeds toward the flagship, bombarding the surrounding ships with flames. Lance and his lion roared together and he put his bayard into its slot and turned it, summoning the lion's back mounted cannon. "Let's see how you like it!" he shouted. He thrust his controls forward and the beam fired, tearing through the flagship's hull and tearing the entire ship in half.
Small explosions started happening through the ships two halves until finally they both exploded completely. "Oh yeah! thats why you don't mess with the paladins of voltron baby!" lance yelled triumphantly. The battleships started pulling back and everyone else smiled way to go lance they all thought. The battle ships started grouping up "Don't let your guard down guys, the battle isn't over yet." shiro stated. Shiro and everyone else formed a defensive position around the green lion, but lance stayed put, overlooking the battlefield. "Lance form up." shiro commanded.
Lance didn't know why, but he felt like he could feel something from the red lion, it was speaking to him. When the lions spoke it was never with words, but with feelings, and right now lance could feel something deep inside him awakening, like the lion was peering deep into his soul and showing him a side of himself even he didn't know. "What're you trying to show me buddy?" lance asked. Everyone was confused "Lance who are you talking to?" Allura asked. "The lion... I think it's trying to tell me something." lance said.
Lance started to feel a hard tug inside his chest and he put his hand over it "My... my heart? Is this what you're trying to tell me?" he asked. But what about my heart? He wondered. The lion gave him a vision of what looked like a fire, spreading and burning everything in its path, but then suddenly right before the vision ended he saw pidge's face for a second. "Whoa what the hell was that?" he asked, snapping out of it. The lion tugged on his heart one more time. Lance was trying to think about what the lion could be trying to tell him my heart? What about that fire? Think lance! What do those things have in common? He kept racking his brain trying to figure out this riddle the lion had handed him at the worst moment possible. Maybe it's not even my heart that it was trying to tell me about, maybe something the heart represents? My feelings? But my feelings about what? And what does it have to do with fire? He wondered.
Then out of nowhere it hit him what if the fire represents how raw and uncontrollable emotions can be? What if it's telling me to tap into my feelings and use them as power? But that still doesn't explain that image of pidge I saw, what was that about? He wondered. He didn't have time to think about it, he needed to try to tap into this power the lion was pointing him to. He grabbed the controls and took a deep breath "Alright, lets do this." he said. He closed his eyes and connected to the lion, but suddenly he felt worried, he felt scared and angry, but also protective, just like a few minutes ago when he'd seen pidge get hit.
The red lion started to glow a warm orange color "Lance what's going on in there? Talk to me buddy." Shiro said worriedly. Lance opened his eyes and suddenly the red lion roared, flames engulfing its entire body. Its claws and fangs started to glow red and grow longer and a pair of flaming wings protruded from its back. "Whoa." everyone said in unison. "How did you do that?" hunk asked. "I have no clue, it just tapped into my instincts and here we are I guess." lance admitted. "Well what are you waiting for lance? Get out there and show everyone what you've got!" shiro commanded, smiling.
Lance smiled and nodded "Whatever you say team leader!" lance shouted excitedly. He flew right into the middle of the enemy ship formation, noticing that the lion's speed had nearly tripled. "You've got a lot more get up and go now huh?" he asked the lion. He cut through the ships like butter with the lions new claws and tore a few in half with its bigger teeth. "This is awesome! I feel like I could take on and entire army by myself!" lance admitted.
He had torn through over half the fleet when the remaining ships started to pull back and retreat "Alright team, lets chase down the stragglers. Lance, hurry and take pidge back to the ship, time is of the essence and you're the fastest one here right now." shiro commanded. "Don't have to tell me twice." lance said. He flew over to the green lion and lifted it onto the red lion's back. "Don't worry I'll take her to the med bay, she'll be up and kicking before you get back." lance stated. He took off toward the castle at a break neck pace, trying to be careful handling her.
He flew into the green lion's dock and set red down as softly as possible, letting green stay on its back. Lance got up and ran out of the cockpit as fast as he could, jetpacking up to the green lion. He climbed inside and pulled pidge's seat back "Pidge?" he asked, shaking her lightly. She didn't respond so he took off her helmet and touched her face "Pidge? Come on wake up." he said, tapping her face lightly. Lance sighed, she didn't show any signs of waking up so now he was going to have to carry her all the way to the med bay.
He picked her up bridal style and carried her out of the cockpit, jetpacking slowly down to the ground and starting his long walk to the med bay. As he was walking he would look at her face every few minutes just to see if she was waking up or anything, initially he thought she might be in pain, but every time he looked at her face she seemed to be... smiling? He could feel his face heating up she sure is cute when she's like this he thought. He mentally slapped himself pidge? Cute? Nah, no, nuh uh, nope, no way! get it together lance!
Eventually they made it and he took her inside and set her down on on an examination table. The table ran a diagnostic on her and determined that she was completely fine, she was just sleeping. "Apparently she's just a heavy sleeper." lance said, chuckling to himself a little bit. He didn't really know what to do next, but he didn't want to leave her here. I'll just take her to her room, there's nothing wrong with that right? He thought. He shrugged his shoulders and picked her up once more, this time making his way to her room. When they were about halfway there he started to feel her wiggling around, but instead of waking up she put her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him with a noise of contentment making its way from her throat.
He could feel his face heating up again damnit pidge knock it off! After walking some more he finally made it to her room and opened her door, setting her down on her bed. Just as he was about to leave however, he heard her start to stir and wake up. "Lance?" she asked, rubbing her eyes. "Yeah, it's me pidge." he said. She looked around the room and even though she couldn't see well at the moment, she could make out that she was in her room "How did we get here? Weren't we in the middle of a battle?" she asked. "We were, but you took a pretty bad hit and it knocked you out." lance explained.
"So how did I wind up in here?" pidge asked. "Well I brought you here while the others chased down the remaining battleships and took you to the med bay. After it examined you it said there was nothing wrong and you were just sleeping so I decided to just bring you back here instead of leaving you there." lance explained. She smiled "Thanks lance, I appreciate it." she said. Lance could be really sweet when he wanted to be. "Yeah well don't get used to it, this was only a one time thing." he said confidently. Pidge giggled, she thought it was adorable when he put up his tough guy act.
Pidge realized she was still in her armor and she really wanted to get it off, so she tried standing up, but her legs buckled under her "Whoa!" she cried out. She only felt herself falling for a second before she felt something grab her. "Its alright I got you. You alright Katie?" lance asked. She blushed at the sound of her real name, nobody called her that. "Y-yeah I'm fine, my legs just feel weird for some reason." she admitted. "Look pidge I know I make every woman's knees weak, but this is ridiculous." lance said smoothly. Pidge laughed "Yeah right you big dork, you wish." she said.
She knew she was going to hate herself for this, but she didn't really have any other choice "Look lance, can I ask you to do something and you won't be weird about it?" pidge asked. "As long as you know I'm too young to be tied down by marriage, go ahead." lance said, smirking. Pidge rolled her eyes "Well... can you help me remove my armor?" she asked, blushing. All he could do was look at her remove her armor? He got all kinds of weird thoughts and he was thinking way too hard about it before she spoke up again "I'm not trying to be weird, it's just kinda hard to move right now and I don't want to sit in my armor for the next few hours you know?" pidge explained, blushing.
"Y-yeah no I know, I can help you out." lance said. He walked over to her bed and sat next to her. She removed her belt and her bayard and threw them in the corner, then she started removing the armor on her forearms and her boots. When she made her way to her chest plate and shoulder armor she undid the latches and put her arms in the air and lance slid it off of her and threw it in the corner with the rest. All that was left was her thigh armor and she started undoing one while lance undid the other, soon enough they were off and lance tossed them in the corner.
All that was left now was her black bodysuit that they all wore underneath their armor, it was airtight and water resistant so it was always very tight. Looking at it on her now lance was noticing a lot of curves on her in places he knew he shouldn't be looking. She started unzipping it and kicked her legs out, so lance pulled it off her legs and kept pulling until it slipped all the way off. She was wearing a loose white tank that was cut just above her belly button and some lacy shorts he'd never seen. She usually wore baggy pants and long sleeves so seeing all this skin threw him for a pretty hard loop, he never knew she looked this good. "Oh no my glasses!" pidge said, looking all over for them. "Whoa calm down pidge I got em." he said. He pulled her glasses out of his pants pocket and walked over to her, opening them and putting them on her face "Better?" he asked.
She looked him in the eye and blushed "Better." she admitted. They both stood there for a minute, neither of them very sure of what to say. Lance felt like he should make a swift exit, but a part of him didn't want to for some weird reason. At that same end, pidge wanted to just thank him so he could be on his way, but she also didn't really mind if he stayed either. She suddenly thought of something to do "Hey lance, do you wanna play some videogames?" pidge asked. "When do I not?" he asked with a smile. "Well go to the game room, I'll be down in a minute." she said. "Alright, see you there." he replied.
With that lance took his exit, opting to stop at his room first so he could change. When he stepped inside he put his jacket in the closet by the door and peeled his shirt off, throwing it in his hamper and picking a fresh white tank out of his dresser. He took his pants off too and picked out a fresh pair of blue plaid pajama pants instead, sliding them on and kicking on his blue lion slippers. After making sure his hair was alright in his mirror, he headed out toward the game room.
When he got there the door slid open to reveal pidge in her regular attire, brown cargo pants and a long sleeve t-shirt. He sat down next to her "Aw, going back to the same old thing? You looked kind of cute in what you already had on." he said teasingly. In truth that was an honest opinion, but he'd never let her know it. She blushed and pouted "Shut up lance, I only let you see me like that because it was necessary and you know it." she stated, pushing up her glasses. He smirked "Sure pidge, whatever you say. Even you can't resist the most handsome man in the galaxy." he said, running his hand through his hair.
She scoffed "You aren't nearly as handsome as you think you are buddy." she said, laughing. He felt his ego take a hit, but he wouldn't let her see it "Hey whatever, you aren't as good at videogames as you think you are so there." he said, sticking his tongue out at her. He picked up a controller and sat down next to her, starting the game.
It seemed like they had been there for hours just laughing and playing their videogames. At one point lance took her controller and kept it away from her so he could win the match and pidge was having none of it, so she pushed him over and started tickling him until they started play wrestling. After wrestling around for a bit she finally managed to get on top of him and pin his arms down, even though he let her win. He had to give her credit though, she had a lot more strength than her frame let on. "Alright pidge you got me, you win." he admitted, smiling. She giggled "I'm not stupid lance, I know you gave up there at the end." she said. Lance blushed, was he that obvious?
It was funny, pidge never could have imagined having this much fun with lance of all people. When they first met in the garrison she wanted to have nothing to do with him especially, he was such a cocky, chauvinistic dolt who thought he was the center of the universe. His need to be the center of attention in every situation was only ever overshadowed by his need to flirt with everything that even looked like a woman. Over the course of their time together though, she had to admit there were a lot of good qualities about him she had never gotten to see before.
Pidge found that he was actually quite selfless and honorable when it came to helping others, despite his outward facade of being completely self absorbed. He also cared a lot more about everyone on the team than anyone else realized, always putting their own needs far before his own, but in little ways so no one would notice. It was funny, this pretend persona lance had created for himself completely led you to believe that if he did anything nice for anyone he would throw it in their face for the rest of their natural life, but it was the exact opposite.
More than anything though pidge had to say his most astonishing hidden characteristic would probably be his immense amount of kindness and compassion. Just look at how he had treated her when he thought her life was in danger, he had rushed her to the ship as fast as he possibly could just to make sure she was alright. She never thought she'd admit it, but she admired him quite a bit.
Lance, laying on the floor, could only look up at the girl sitting on top of him and smile. When he met pidge in the garrison she was very standoffish towards him and hunk for reasons they only knew of now, but look at how far they had come. They'd gone from knowing nothing about each other to growing closer and closer by the day, whether they were with the team or not. Looking at her now was so different from when he had first met her. First off, he knew she was a girl now, so there was that, but he could also see qualities in her he never appreciated back at the garrison.
She was incredibly smart and extremely technologically adept, which never ceased to be a valuable asset to the team. She was constantly upgrading their equipment and decrypting galra intelligence, coming up with new algorithms to find their outposts and troop locations. Lance could easily say that without pidge they would be having a way tougher time dealing with the constant threat to the universe.
They were gazing into each others eyes, both of them smiling and breathing heavily from their little wrestling match. It was... fun, as weird as it felt. They weren't the type of people to have little moments like this, but regardless they both had to admit it was pretty nice. That was, until they noticed their positions oh god pidge thought. How long have we been sitting like this? Lance wondered. Lance shifted uncomfortably underneath her, but immediately realized that was a bad move. Pidge felt something graze the inside of her thigh and her blush flared up tenfold oh no that can not be what I think it is! She screamed internally.
Coran came over the ship's loudspeaker "Lance and pidge, please report to the bridge." he said. Pidge didn't need to be told twice, she got up and sprinted out of the room toward the main deck, leaving a confused lance laying on the floor. He put his hand over his face great lance, you had to go and get a boner and make it weird. He sighed how am I going to apologize without being weird? He wondered. All he could do for now was head to the bridge and hope that pidge wouldn't make their awkward little moment obvious to everyone.
When he got there everyone was sitting in their own separate chairs all facing each other. "Alright, now that we're all here we can begin the debriefing." shiro said. Lance took his seat. "After lance cleared out most of the enemy force, the rest of them began a full scale retreat to the next planet over in an attempt to conserve the forces they had left, but unfortunately for them we were in pursuit and took them down before they managed to land." shiro explained. Lance waited for more of an explanation to come, but shiro seemed to be done.
"Is there anything else? That seemed pretty cut and dry to me." lance stated. "Oh it was, except for the part where you almost obliterated the entire enemy force with just your lion, that was very out of the ordinary." shiro said, smirking. Lance could feel everyone in the room staring at him, but he didn't know what to say. "Yeah it was awesome! How did you do it lance?" Hunk asked. Lance nervously scratched the back of his head "Honestly I don't know, the lion just popped into my head and it happened." he said.
He could tell no one was satisfied with his answer, but they all knew what it was like when the lions spoke. No one could explain it or what they were saying, all you could do was listen and go with the flow. "Well whatever it was, it could come in handy in the future, but tomorrow we need to get to work on forming voltron." shiro stated. "Indeed, many are getting frustrated with voltron's sudden disappearance, not to mention we need to be at full fighting strength if we are going to be facing the galra." Allura added.
Everyone nodded in agreement "Well that's about it, good job today team, you're dismissed." shiro said. Everyone got up and walked their separate ways. Lance was willing to bet everyone besides hunk would head to bed, they had to be exhausted. No matter how exhausted he was though, hunk always had to have a snack before bed. Even lance had to admit he was getting pretty tired, the mission had carried over a lot longer than he thought, then he wound up spending a couple hours with pidge in the game room oh yeah he thought. He looked at pidge and he caught her gaze before she snapped her head away and started walking away, whistling awkwardly.
Damnit lance, what're you gonna do? He wondered. It had been in the back of his mind since the entire debriefing started, but the more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed he would find a solution. Maybe I should sleep on it he thought. He walked to his room, still pondering how he could remedy this awkward situation between him and pidge, but by the time he arrived he realized he'd still come up with nothing. He walked in and laid down on his bed, putting his headphones on and staring up at the ceiling.
More than anything he was conflicted as to why he had gotten aroused in the first place. It wasn't like he couldn't see that pidge was pretty cute, even he had to admit that, but they were just wrestling around, it hadn't even gotten remotely sexual in any way. Maybe his body wanted it? No way, this is pidge we're talking about! She's my teammate, like one of my best friends, why would I wanna do that stuff with her? Lance wondered.
He started thinking about the day, about what he saw her wearing earlier, he remembered thinking she looked kinda sexy in it. He remembered every time they were playing their videogames she would smile and laugh and it would feel like the best sound he's ever heard before. And when they were wrestling, all he could think about was how adorable it was that she was putting all her effort into it, but she could still smile at the end even when she knew she'd been given her victory. He realized now she was smiling the entire time because she was having fun with him and I was having so much fun with her too he thought. All of it put a smile on his face and a searing blush on his cheeks don't tell me... he sighed "I'm crushing on her, aren't I?" he asked himself. He closed his eyes and groaned as he rolled over whatever, I'll worry about it tomorrow and with that, the blue paladin drifted off to sleep, thinking about the beautiful green pilot.
Pidge's mind, however, was still going a mile a minute. As soon as she walked away from the bridge she headed down to green's hangar, but she wasn't ready for the sight that awaited her. Green was resting on red's back. "That really must've been some fight." she said. Pidge walked over to her little work space and sat down in her work chair, opening her laptop and finding some new galra code to start decrypting. Whenever she couldn't get her mind off something she loved to distract herself with other things to keep her from obsessing over it. She had learned a long time ago that obsessing was never a good idea with her persistent personality type.
Staring at all the code though, lance still occupied the most space in her mind. She couldn't wrap her head around this weird situation, she had always been good with computers and math and things like that, but people were always something that was especially hard for her. It's not like she thought it was a bad thing necessarily, in fact, she kind of took it as a complement, but it all just happened so fast, she didn't know what to say. Then she ran away without saying anything at all because Coran had given her the perfect excuse. She sighed "What am I going to do about that boy?"
Today had definitely turned out to be a special kind of day, first lance had seen her in a rare outfit that she almost never wore cause it made her feel cute, then preceded to joke about how she looked good in it. Then when they were playing videogames she couldn't stop staring at his face for some weird reason, but then they started wrestling. She'd never been too good at physical activities, but she figured she'd rather go down trying than let him talk trash, so they squared off. Lance was definitely winning and she knew it too, but then at the end he gave up and let her win and for some reason instead of finding it insulting, she found it kind of adorable. He was willing to give up his pride so she could feel good about herself.
It was weird to think about how good of a time she'd had with lance today. All the laughs and the smiles they shared, they were genuine, and for some reason it started to warm her heart. She had even caught herself a few times today thinking that when he smiled lance was actually kind of cute. Then, sitting here staring at galra code, she realized she actually thought that a lot lately. He had even called her by her real name today, no one ever did that, not around here anyway. She was so lost in thought she didn't realize she was just thinking and staring blindly at her laptop.
Ok so maybe I think he's cute, and he obviously thinks I'm cute she blushed, it actually felt kind of good to know someone was attracted to you. But it's not like theres anything going on between us right? I mean we're just friends. She was ultimately torn, emotionally and physically lance was ideal, so she thought it was fair enough to say she liked him, but how could she make this whole situation not weird without letting him know that? "Ugh, why couldn't he just be some code I need to decrypt or a robot I need to hack? Working my way around a cute boy is going to be a challenge." she sighed, she knew for now she was defeated, but at least she could dive into her code and forget about it for a little while.