Halt and Catch Fire

AN: This is set around seasons one and two. It's a slight AU but hews close to canon.

"Are you sure you put everything back the way it was?"

Hunk sighed, really annoyed at this point, as he finished ratcheting the last of the screwnuts in place under the base of the little ship. "Yes, I'm sure."

Carefully, he scanned the innards of the machine to double check that everything was in place, which he would have done anyways. He was careful; he had to be. None of them wanted to be stranded in space yet again.

"You're really sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure." Biting back a sigh, he slid an arm out from under the vehicle and grabbed the bottom panel. Dragging it back under, he manoeuvred the panel between himself and the ship and pushed it up, the panel clicking into place. He just had to solder it shut now.

"You know I can check it over -"

"Pidge!" Hunk stuck his head out and glared at his partner. "I know what I'm doing, okay?"

Pidge jumped back a little, eyes widening slightly and spindly hands gripping a tablet tethered to the ship. "Okay, okay! Geeze, sorry..."

Hunk just grunted, grabbed the welding mask, and rolled back under the ship. The soldering gun was already warmed up from doing some internal work; so he just ejected the cartridge that was already in the gun and slid in the cartridge filled with external solder. He slid the mask down onto his face and started fusing the panel in place, still fuming.

Under normal circumstances, he would have just, well, shrunk back and apologized for snapping at the other paladin, if he was honest. Really, he probably wouldn't have snapped in the first place, but this was his work! It wasn't like he was going to set something on fire! Again.

Yet again.

'Three times now,' a little voice in his head piped up. Hunk felt something twist in his chest.

The first time was very much an accidental oversight and no one had been hurt. The cryotube's wiring has been fused in two places, he'd missed the second, and there'd been a small fire when he'd tested it. That was all. Could have happened to anyone.

The second time, working on Coran's console... was his fault. He wanted to blame Lance and Keith for yelling at each other behind him or even Shiro for running over to break up the ensuing fight and then tripping over him. But it was his responsibility to check his repairs and he should have rechecked them after that. He would have noticed the cord he'd pulled loose with his foot.

Coran was just lucky that he wore gloves; he only ended up with a couple first-degree burns.

The third time was less serious but still his fault, and the ovens now needed some additional parts. He was making due with preparing cold meals (he was really not keen on making a temporary hotplate right now), but Allura wasn't too happy. Apparently, Alteans also preferred warm food when they were sick.

Hunk shut off the soldering gun with a sigh, once again checking the seams. His stomach was now in knots, which wasn't unusual. Didn't mean that he had to like it, though.

"Okay, we – we should be good to go," he said, crawling out from under the ship and turning to the other paladin.

"Eh?" Pidge's glasses had slipped down a bit, causing her to squint at him. "What'd you say?"

Hunk took a breath and forced himself to slow down. "I'm finished. Y-you can test it now."

The other hummed a bit. "You – you moved everything out from under the machine?" Pidge finished with a slight grimace.

Hunk ignored that look. "Yeah," he said, removing the cartridge from the soldering gun again, "everything's out."

Then he remembered something. "Well, now everything's out," he muttered, hooking his foot around the ratchet case and pulling it out from under the ship. His face was burning when he looked back up at Pidge, who was unamused.

"I'll check again." He dropped down on one knee and stuck his head under the ship. 'Just like the Garrison, hey?' the little voice said quietly.

'Shut up.'

'You're backsliding again.'

"Shut up." He huffed out a sigh and stood up.

"I didn't say anything."

Hunk turned, eyes wide when he realized what had happened. "Sorry, I... I was just talking to myself," he muttered, not looking Pidge in the eyes.

The smaller human looked sideways for a minute. "Okay. ...You feeling alright?"

The slight bit of suspicion in the other's voice made Hunk's stomach twist tighter. "Yeah, I'm fine."

'Pidge isn't buying it.'

'...I know.'

The two were silent for a moment. "...Kay." Pidge went back to making adjustments. Hunk moved the remaining tools onto a floating workbench.

Despite it making him a bit sick, he picked up the fire extinguisher from the wall and put it with the tools. 'Better safe than sorry,' he thought, faking cheerfulness.

'You have so little faith in yourself.'

'Why should – shut up!'

"And that should be it. She'll be ready to fly as soon as we run the physical tests," Pidge said, motioning for Hunk to come and sit on the other floating desk.

He nodded, giving the ship a wary look as he walked over. As he sat down beside Pidge, he kept one eye on the ship and the other on the tablet's readings. He didn't dare touch the tablet today, not with how tense Pidge seemed to be.

After a few moments, the little scout ship let out a low whoosh as the engines started. Pidge started rattling off flight checks and engine tests, remotely running the ship through its paces. Slowly, Hunk started to relax.

'Maybe I just needed to slow down a little and focus more,' he thought, smiling a little. 'Just a little more caution and problem solved.'

Then he smelled the smoke.

'Murphy's Law, you idiot.'

"Oh no no no no!"

"Damnit!"

The two worked frantically for the next few seconds, but soon, the fire was out and the engines were off. Hunk put the fire extinguisher on the ground, letting out a long breath. He could smell something like burnt plastic; that was probably the subdrive casing. They had another one in the supply room-

"Seriously, Hunk!?"

He felt like he'd just been kicked in the stomach. Swallowing a bit, he kept his eyes on the ground, not wanting to look at Pidge.

If he'd been anyone else, he'd have countered that, yeah, he'd a few recent accidents, but it still might have been her fault and not his. It wasn't like they even knew exactly where the problem was and what had gone wrong. You can't pin the blame on people without knowing what happened.

But he'd had those other accidents. And the fire had started just behind the cockpit, where he'd been working. And he hadn't been paying attention to the readings and Pidge had and -

"HUNK! The hell is your problem!?"

He jumped at the angry teenager glaring up at him. He opened and shut his mouth a few times before looking away.

'The hell is your problem?'

He heard Pidge sputter a few words before the other shut her mouth with loud 'click'. He turned back to her, hoping that the ship doors would open and suck him out into space. Pidge was bright scarlet and if his skin wasn't so dark, Hunk knew he'd be just as red.

Finally, she let out a long breath. "Okay, then. Let's just figure out what went wrong," she ground out, turning back to the ship. "Now, there was a strong spike eighty-four percent of the way through -"

"I can't."

Hunk's eyes widened at what had just slipped out of his mouth. But even as Pidge turned to look at him with equal surprise, he made up his mind.

"I can't help you... n-not right now," he said, his voice getting quieter. "I just... ask Coran if you need extra hands. Or Keith or Shiro if you just need a spotter. But... I – I can't."

He was shocked that he'd managed to keep it together enough to say that. But he did feel a little better -

Pidge's hands flew in the air. "Oh, so you're just going to bail on me after you screwed up. That's just great, Hunk! That's just great! You know -"

He didn't hear the rest of it because he was focusing all his willpower on quickly walking away rather than running.

The door to his room slid shut. He made sure it was locked before rolling onto his bed and facing the wall.

He pulled his knees up to his chest and shut his eyes, not caring that he was still wearing his boots and that he was dirty from working on the ship. His insides were hurting so badly he couldn't think straight, but he was a little glad for that.

Eventually, though, that particular pain dulled. Not for the better.

'Well, you've done it again. They're not going to be able to trust you after this.'

'Shut up...'

'Why would they? It's frankly surprising that they trusted you in the first place, with all your screwups at the Garrison.'

'Shut up...'

'Look, you know it was only a matter of time before you started messing up little things again, before those little things got bigger and bigger.'

Hunk just stared at the wall.

'You probably just got lucky, with Pidge and Lance being so excited about all this. ...I guess luck has to run out sometime.'

His knees hurt a bit from his blunted nails digging into them.

'You just sliding deeper and deeper into failure.'

'Shut. Up.'

'Well, at least your mother will be happy that you're home.'

He rolled over onto his front, bit down hard on his pillow, and let out a violent scream.

Things had finally settled down in his head to a low, mocking chant, and Hunk was exhausted. His eardrums had stopped throbbing, and his arms ached from being in an uncomfortable position for too long. He hadn't cried much at all, though; his face was mostly just red and sore from screaming.

He had returned to staring at the wall, not wanting to look at the work and scrap parts on his desk. He was almost certain he'd throw up if he did. He... Hunk just let that thought slip away.

He didn't know how long he stared at the wall for, but he figured that he must have dozed off at least once. He hadn't intended to move until his alarm went off in the morning tomorrow... and even then, he didn't know what he was going to do. But he felt something prodding him in the back of his mind. Something...

"I gotta make dinner for everyone!" he yelped, sitting up with a wince.

'Just let Coran-'

His eyes narrowed. "Oh hell no! I am not subjecting them to that just because I feel like crap."

'Well, by this point, Pidge will have mentioned your most recent fire to Shiro and the others. They're probably considering taking you back to Earth right now.'

He stopped, both legs over the side of the bed. He felt like throwing up again.

'Just keep going,' he thought to himself. With a slight groan, he stood up, shaking the kinks out of his arms and legs.

'Pidge will probably still be mad. Lance is going to mock you for-'

"No."

Hunk felt a little resolve growing in his chest. Lance was honestly an insensitive, stupid jackass a lot of the time. Most of the time.

But when Hunk had been falling down in his engineering classes and things had been blowing up in his face, Lance had stopped mocking him about it after the first few days. He didn't make any comment on it for a week... and he had actually tried to be encouraging after that.

When things had gotten to the point where Hunk was screaming into his pillow every other night, Lance didn't complain. Yeah, he bought sound-suppressing earmuffs the next time they got leave, but he didn't complain. Hunk had felt awful about it, but all Lance said was to make sure that they were both up on time.

Hunk hadn't gotten nearly the amount of teasing he knew Lance would normally give after the first two accidents. By the third, the guy had shut up about it entirely.

So, no. That wasn't going to happen. And a snap decision like kicking him off the team wasn't going to happen today either. Maybe they wouldn't let him do repairs anymore, but -

Hunk growled and stomped on that thought before it could go anywhere else. For today, everything was going to be fine.

For today.

Hunk felt a slightly warm glow in his chest as he finished making dinner and putting it in what passed for a fridge. He hadn't run into anyone on his way to the kitchen and no one had come into the kitchen while he was working, which he was taking as a good thing. He'd showered, his clothes were clean, and he'd managed to do something without screwing it up.

'As far as you-'

'Shut it!' he thought, the nice feeling oozing away. He sighed, shutting the door. Some days... he hadn't felt like this in a while, but some days, he wished he could put some of his mood on good days into mason jars for later. ...Just to have a taste of it when he hadn't had any for a while.

He laughed a little, sounding less like himself and more like Lance when he was about to rip into someone. 'Come on; the princess still needs her food.'

Cold waweil soup wasn't something that Allura seemed to really want, and Hunk felt bad about not being able to make her her something warm. But he'd made it thicker and diluted it with hot water, and that helped a bit.

After a long walk that really did not help the temperature of the soup, Hunk reached the princess's rooms. Coran was probably waiting in the sitting room or whatever it was called, since, well, that was where the man had been spending most of his time since the princess got sick. Hunk was about to knock on the door when he saw a little box stuck to it. He looked at it for a moment, said a prayer to whatever spirits might want to help, and touched the box.

Outside of engineering and cooking, he normally wouldn't touch something he couldn't identify, but at this point, Allura and Coran understood enough about humans that, whatever this thing was, it probably wouldn't hurt him. Much.

It did almost make him drop Allura's soup when the thing crackled loudly. "Hello! Hello! Is this thing on? Hm hm hmmm, right! There we go! Ah, no one is to disturb the princess unless she has-"

The door opened and a hand shot out, giving the box a good solid thump to make it stop squawking. After a few muttered curses, the door opened all the way.

"I really should have taken that damn thing off after – oh. Hey, Hunk."

Hunk just stared at Shiro, cursing his bad luck and churning stomach. Of course Coran would have asked Shiro to watch the princess if he had to leave for a while. There wasn't anyone else he could ask... except maybe Keith. ...That would have been worse, honestly.

"Hi," he mumbled awkwardly. "Uh, I just – I – I made dinner and brought this for the princess."

Shiro's eyes widened for a second. "Oh. Okay. ...She's sleeping right now, but... hold on. I can take that."

Hunk handed the other man the bowl. Shiro gave him another look before letting out a short sigh.

"Wait here; I'll be out in a second," he said quietly.

"W-wh-wha... okay." Hunk just stood there as the door closed.

'Better steel yourself for the bad news.'

Hunk just jammed his hands into his pockets and looked at the floor. He really just wanted to die right now.

"Keith!"

Hunk jumped a little at the double echo in his right ear and looked up. Shiro gave him an apologetic look from the open door and tapped his earpeice again.

"What?" Keith droned.

"I have to take care of something for a moment. I need you to watch the princess. Her food's in the front room if she wakes up."

Keith sighed. "Sure. I'm coming."

"Hey, Shiro, did Hunk bring her dinner?"

Hunk blinked in surprise at Lance's voice on the coms. Then he realized that Shiro must have used the secondary line, which would contact anyone available at the time.

Shiro looked at Hunk for a moment. The teenager didn't say anything but shrugged a confused 'fine, tell him'.

Shiro tapped the com again. "Yeah, he dropped off dinner. You need to talk to him?"

"Yea- n- um... I was just wondering if he'd made grub for everyone. Yeah."

Hunk felt a little warmer inside at that.

Shiro looked like he was biting his tongue. "It sounded like he did."

"Awesome!"

"Good that he's up!" Coran piped up. "You can tell the poor boy that he doesn't need to make meals if he's feeling under the weather though. I've got a few recipes that-"

Shiro and Hunk both shut off their secondary channel link before they heard any disturbing details. The older man shut the door and started walking down the hallway, motioning for the teen to follow him.

The two walked in silence for a while, heading off to... well, only Shiro knew where. Every step made Hunk's ears ring louder. That nagging voice kept at him, and it was pretty much all he could do to keep moving forward. It helped that Lance and Coran had actually sounded worried about him, but it didn't help a lot.

At one point, he heard Shiro curse quietly, but other than that, the man was silent.

After several awful minutes, they reached the sick bay. This... had Hunk rather surprised despite his distress.

"Uh, sir? What are we doing here?"

Shiro opened the door and motioned for the other to go inside. Hunk stepped inside and stood awkwardly beside one of the floating tables. "Sir..."

Shiro gave him a look that made Hunk squirm inside. "Sit."

He did so and Shiro sat beside him. The man shut his eyes for a moment, maybe praying, and then looked Hunk directly in the eyes.

"Okay, I don't know what's going on with you, but if this keeps up, either someone is going to get hurt again or we're going to be down a critical system when we need it."

Hunk opened his mouth to protest, but Shiro held up a finger. Hunk swallowed and shut his mouth, barely aware of his stomach hurting again. "I know you're not doing this on purpose. I know you're doing your best. If this is just a fluke string of accidents, that's fine... but I'm starting to think that it isn't.

"You and Pidge know these systems inside and out – well, better than most of us," the man corrected, tilting his head. "Even when you were learning, I can really only remember one major system failure between the both of you. So..."

Hunk waited nervously as the man seemed to collect himself again. "Do you have any idea what's going on?" Shiro finished.

And he gave Hunk that look.

Hunk had very rarely been the sole recipient of that look. Sometimes the team got it, before heading out or when they'd resolved things after a fight. He saw Pidge and Keith get it a lot, and sometimes Allura got it. As for the others, he didn't know, but he had some reasonable guesses.

...He hated that look, though. It made him feel small and homesick.

"Well, I kinda do know what's going on... and I kinda... don't," he began haltingly, very aware of how pathetic he sounded.

"I... back in the Garrison... and before that too... I was kind of a screwup. I mean, you already know that I was a screwup, t-that I am a screwup, but I was also a f... a failure when it came to engineering.

"I did alright for a while, but eventually, the things I worked on... they'd break or catch fire or just not work. No matter how careful I was. No matter what I did. There were always little mistakes, and it just kept happening. Honestly, I was probably a couple of weeks away from being thrown out on my ass before, you know, all this.

"...It's happened before, with other things. My hobbies. My grades before the Garrison. ...I don't...

"I'm not sure why it stopped for a while when we came here. I guess I thought... maybe I just needed to be somewhere else. Maybe I needed a suicidal cause to get my head straight. ...Didn't work, though."

His head had drifted down as he spoke, and by this point, he was looking down at his hands, locked together in his lap. "I'm sorry. ...I can't..."

After a second, he managed to force the words out. "You should send me back home," he finished quietly.

He managed to look back up at Shiro, feeling completely wrung out. He was rather surprised to see that the older man wasn't looking at him but was looking at the opposite wall. Then he spoke.

"Am I right in guessing that something was set on fire today?"

It wasn't a question, not really. "Uh, yeah," Hunk said quietly. "Pidge and I were working on the scout ship and... I screwed up. Again."

"Okay. What happened?"

Hunk was quiet for several moments. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk about what happened. He just... didn't want to hurt Pidge.

He'd really never had friends before the Garrison, at least not anyone who'd bother to contact him while he was there, and the closest he had to friends now were Lance and Pidge. Lance was an utter jackass and Pidge was tactless and often short-tempered. They probably saw him as a terrified doormat. But they'd been thrown together because they were all failing, and then because they were the only humans in billions of light years who weren't POW survivors or, honestly, Keith.

That didn't make them friends. But without them, Hunk was certain he would have tried to gone into cabin fever mode and thrown himself out the airlock. Sure, that was really dramatic, but he knew he couldn't live with just the other four, decent as everyone else might be.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and realized that Shiro had moved closer. The other man looked very serious. "Hunk, I'm not your dad and I'm not Pidge's dad."

'Closest thing she has to one right now,' Hunk thought sadly. The long pause told him that Shiro was thinking the same thing.

"But the five of us are the only humans here. We... we really don't have anyone else. If we fall apart as a team now... regardless of Voltron, we're not going to make it home in one piece."

Hunk's eyes darted to Shiro's prosthetic for a moment. "...Okay."

He squirmed a bit before starting. "So... we were working on the ship, trying to get the subdrive fixed. I was replacing parts. She was running diagnostics on the software, fixing stuff there.

"I... I'd been distracted with... everything that's gone wrong. I'd been trying to ignore it. Pidge was making sure I checked everything... and I snapped at her. I startled her, but that was it.

"We'd finished, we were running tests, and the ship... yeah." He took a deep breath. "After we... put out the fire, she got mad at me for screwing up. I told her I had to leave, and she got... madder. And then... I bailed on her 'cause I screwed up."

He sighed. "And that's – that's what happened."

Again, he was looking at his hands. He heard Shiro drumming his metal fingers on the tabletop, but the man was quiet.

"So you usually run off when you screw up?"

Hunk gave Shiro a very insulted look. "No! Hell no! I -" he paused, losing a lot of steam, "I'm a coward. I'm not irresponsible, though.

"I'd already messed up once. I was... I was gonna do it again." He put his head in his hands.

Shiro stopped drumming on the table. "Hunk, You're not a coward. You're afraid."

'Obviously,' Hunk thought, though he wasn't stupid enough to say that out loud.

"You seem to be afraid of a lot of things. I'm guessing one of those things is failure?" Shiro continued.

"No. Well, not as much. Not for normal things." Fighting in a giant robot against people who want you dead? That was not normal. Any human would be terrified. Except his teammates, obviously. Something like going to a karaoke bar? That was normal and he could go and had gone... reluctantly, anyways.

"Well, you said you were distracted with the other times you'd made a mistake and something had gone wrong, right?"

Hunk nodded, laying his arms on his knees. "Yeah. ...I wasn't scared of something that might happen. I'm scared of something happening because it's happened before. That's not irrational."

"...But that fear was distracting you."

"Yes." He sighed. "What's your point?"

He looked back up at Shiro, who locked eyes with him. "Your fear distracted you. ...Do you think that's happened before this?"

Oh. Hunk swallowed, thinking about it. "...Maybe. I – I think so."

Then he groaned. "I'm never going to -" He shook his head. "The only way I can work... work through my fear is to force myself to work through it. I... I can't do that. I can't do that with this. I - I've tried to just ignore it. It doesn't work. I don't..."

He'd tried and tried. He wasn't going to get anywhere with this. He couldn't get anywhere with this. He was just going to continue to fail and there wasn't anything he could do about it...

He felt a hand clamp onto his shoulder. "Hunk. Breathe. Just breathe."

His training kicked in (which was a surprise; it rarely did outside of combat), and he just followed orders. Slowly, his vision cleared and his thoughts slowed down. "Sorry about that," he said once he could speak.

Shiro smiled at him comfortingly. "It's fine."

They sat there for a while in silence before Shiro spoke up again. "Hunk, you're not incompetent."

Hunk blinked. "What?"

"You are not incompetent. You can technically still do your job well. That hasn't changed," Shiro said, looking at him solemnly.

When he didn't say anything else, Hunk replied, "Yeah. Y-you're right." He sat up a little straighter.

"Your problems are caused by your fear. And you've overcome fear before. So... maybe if what you've done before to help you hasn't worked, this just needs... something different." The man gave him a half-smile.

Despite what some people thought, Hunk had seen a couple psychologists in the past, and he knew that Shiro was grasping at straws here. But he did have a point.

"Okay," he said quietly, standing up. "I'll work on it." He smiled a little. "Thanks. I don't feel so bad now. It's... I'm glad that I'm not an idiot or – or cursed or whatever."

Shiro let out a long sigh. "Okay, good."

Then he looked up at Hunk and sighed again, standing up. "Okay, fine."

Hunk furrowed his eyebrows, confused. "What? What's f-?"

He really couldn't prepare himself for what came next.

Hunk's eyes widened. "Wha-!?"

Then he shut up and hugged Shiro back, murmuring a barely audible 'thank you'.

When the two got back to Allura's rooms, Coran was very happy to see them. "Oh, hullo, you two! Good to see you up and kickin', Hunk!"

Hunk smiled sheepishly. "Uh, yeah, I'm feeling better, thanks."

"I've got something for you to tinker with, actually," the alien continued cheerfully.

Hunk's eyes widened, and his stomach twisted. "Uh..."

"Coran, hold on -" Shiro said, sounding concerned.

Coran laughed. "Don't worry, it's just this old recorder!" He pulled a damaged black box from behind his back. "Something must have fallen on it... somehow. Anyways, we've got more in one of the storage closets; so if you want this for parts, you can have it!"

Hunk let out an inaudible sigh of relief. He wasn't ready try fixing something today. But tomorrow... He imagined catching that little bit of hope in a mason jar.

"Sure, thanks." He pocketed the box, ignoring Shiro muttering about finding that supply closet.

Coran laughed. "No problem! Well, I'm off to have dinner. Shiro, would you mind tagging in for me? I'll bring you back something."

Shiro looked fine until the last part. "Yeah, sure." His face practically screamed 'help me'.

Well, he couldn't just leave the guy in a jam. Hunk piped up. "Uh, hey, Coran. I'll come with! I'm pretty hungry!"

"Alright, then. We're off!" The two walked away, Shiro shooting Hunk a look of gratitude.

Once the two were around the corner, Coran stopped Hunk. "Look, Hunk, are you alright?"

Hunk was surprised, to say the least. "Uh, well, I-I'm doing better now?"

The alien clicked his tongue quietly. "Look... I know what happened earlier. Number five called me up, said she needed a hand."

Hunk felt the blood drain from his face. "Oh. I'm sorry about that."

"Sorry? About what?" Coran asked, raising an eyebrow. "You two having a tiff?"

Hunk shook his head. "No! I mean, I'm sorry about that, too, but I mean that I'm sorry you had to run over and help Pidge because I... screwed up."

Coran scoffed. "Oh, don't apologize, lad! I needed to stretch me legs! Besides, it was probably for the best that one of you left. You can't get anything done when you're upset!"

Hunk nodded reluctantly. Coran did have a point.

"But I wanted to say that, well, I think she's ready to apologize for her part in it, lad," he finished soberly. "She went off to her room not long after I popped in. Dunno if she'd still there."

Hunk nodded, ready to go look for Pidge. Then his stomach growled.

He frowned at it, but Coran just laughed again. "Eh, probably best to eat something first. Never officiate on an empty stomach, right?"

At this point, Hunk just had to nod again.

After managing to get a bowl of soup into Coran's hands to give to Shiro, Hunk left the kitchen for Pidge's room, carrying the last bowl of untouched soup. He'd left her name on it.

He was briefly waylaid by Lance, who basically asked if he was okay and then awkwardly implied that Hunk could wander by and talk for a while if he wanted. He also passed Keith, who didn't really do anything except hum sympathetically at him, which, for Keith, was basically a hug. Then the mice climbed up his pants and shirt and looked him over, and by this point the poor guy was flattered but also wondering if Emperor Zarkon himself was going to walk by and casually ask about his mental health.

But he made it to Pidge's door without seeing anyone else. He knocked quietly. "Pidge? You there?"

He didn't hear anything, but he knew she might be working on something and just ignoring everything. "Pidge," he said, louder, "I brought dinner. Don't worry; I made it."

He heard a quiet sigh. "Thanks. Just leave it by the door; I'll get it." She sounded utterly flat, which was a bit freaky with how deep her voice was.

"Pidge, I wanna talk to you." When she didn't say anything, he kept going. "Look, I'm sorry I just walked away. I... I knew I was going to screw something else up if I stayed and tried to help."

"I'm gonna -" he swallowed a lump in his throat, "- try to figure out what the hell is wrong with me before something else goes up in flames, and I think I know what it is, but... I wasn't trying to be an asshole. I thought leaving was better then staying. And I'm sorry I lied about feeling okay. I should have just said that I -"

"What the HELL, Hunk."

He jumped. He had completely missed her opening the door.

He looked down at the tiny woman. She was still covered in grease and grime, her hair was a mess, and she looked like she'd been either screaming or crying.

She glared at him. "Why the HELL are you apologizing to me? Why?"

Hunk cowered a bit. "Well, it was part-"

"No!" she snapped. "No. No, I - I knew something was wrong with you today and I ignored it. I knew you'd been having issues lately and all I did with it was badger you until you screwed up. And then I had the nerve to scream at you like I didn't just realize that something was wrong. And THEN -" she stomped her foot, "THEN I accused you of being irresponsible right after you TELL ME that you need to take a break for your own mental health. AND THEN I don't even realize that I've done ANYTHING WRONG until Coran comes in and tells me how. Much. I. Fucked. Up."

Both of them were breathing hard. Hunk was nearly backed up against the opposite wall. Pidge was pretty much yelling into his stomach. The bowl was broken beside them, and soup was running down the walls.

Pidge's gaze seemed to clear as she looked up into Hunk's eyes. "So why the hell are you apologizing to me?" Then she turned around and walked back towards her room.

Hunk grabbed her by the arm. She looked back at him like she was going to... Hunk didn't know if she was going to try to hurt him or herself.

He swallowed. "I forgive you, Pidge," he said quietly.

Both of them sat in the hall for a while, side by side. Both of them had cried for a while, Pidge out of emotion and Hunk because he wasn't as drained as he thought he was. Eventually, they'd stopped and just sat in silence.

"I'm so sorry," she said, finally. "I have an awful temper, and I just ignore things that are important."

Hunk shrugged sadly. "I know you don't want to hear this, but I'm sorry, too. I'm a coward and kind of a doormat. My fear gets so... overwhelming sometimes that it puts people in danger and damages things."

Pidge grunted. "Hunk, you've fought aliens in a giant flying lion. You're not a coward."

He sighed. "Well, you don't focus on the people around you... except when they really need you to. And when you're not focused on the people around you who need help, you're focused on your family. And that's pretty important."

After a moment, he felt her nod against him. "I still have an awful temper, though."

Hunk smiled a bit. "Uh, yeah. Y-you scare me sometimes. Not just when you're mad at me... or near me. Sometimes I'm worried you'll pop a blood vessel and pass out."

She was quiet for a moment. "...That actually happened to me once. After the Kerberos mission. Passing out, not... blowing a blood vessel. My school called the hospital." She sniffled. "My mom told me that she thought... she was gonna lose me too."

Hunk swallowed, both bile and the image of his own mother frantically calling the Garrison. "...You're going to find your brother and father, and we'll all get back home."

"Yeah," she said into his shirt. "'Swhat Shiro says."

Again, they didn't say anything for a while.

"Is your back starting to hurt, Pidge? My back's starting to hurt."

She growled slightly, but he thought he heard a laugh under it. "I'm not moving. You're warm and I'm tired." Then she paused. "But I am hungry."

The two walked off to get something to eat and then to find a mop.

"Hello! Hello! Is this thing on?"

Hunk didn't even hear the rest as he cheered, arms flung out above his head. The box was slightly charred, but it was working. It took two days, but he'd got it working.

"Hey, where's the party?" Lance stuck his head in, headphones draped around his neck.

"I got this thing to work!" Hunk nearly shouted, gleefully holding it up for Lance to see.

Lance stepped closer and winced at the noise for a moment, but then a smile split his face. "That is awesome man! You're outta your slump!"

He punched Hunk in the shoulder but Hunk just laughed. "This is so awesome," Lance continued, "because not only are you not mopey anymore, now you can fix the ovens!"

Hunk, still smiling, shook his head. "Sorry, Lance. We still need those parts. That's why they're not fixed yet."

Lance stopped cheering and dropped to his knees. "Oh, come on!" he yelled at the sky. "I am so TIRED of cold soup! WHY!?"

That day, Hunk made sandwiches instead. Lance agreed this was better.

AN: To clear some things up, this story, despite being published now, was actually written at the end of January 2018, and this final draft was finished in July 2018 (that's just when I went back to look at the story again). So, any information from seasons later than four was not added in when I wrote the final draft. In making minor corrections before posting this, I decided to keep the story as is even though, yes, there's now much more information about the paladins (and no, I didn't know about the handbook until a month ago).

Why am I posting this now rather than back in July? Well, honestly, it probably would have never been posted if it weren't for my third beta reader, who encouraged me to finally get this thing out. Thanks for giving me the boot that I needed.