Hey, everyone! This is something I've been working on that's a bit out of my comfort zone, I guess you could say. I traditionally write longer shipping stories for Pokémon, but a good friend got me into Voltron this summer, and I've been messing around with this story for a couple of weeks now. It started off as just a few random ficlets, but I decided to try and connect them all together and make a kind of one-shot story with it all. If you guys enjoy it, maybe I'll write more Voltron stuff in the future. Who knows? Regardless, I hope you all enjoy this one!

"Hunk? What are you doing?" the small pilot of the Green Lion asked her partner, who was seated opposite her in the hangar housing her gigantic green ship. They both had holoscreens pulled up in front of them, and had been working on fine-tuning various systems for both the castle and the Green Lion all afternoon. "Why are you single-modulating the gendocam?"

"Settle down, Pidge. It's a gendocam, not a vlexagane, mmkay?" the much larger Yellow Paladin answered matter-of-factly. "Single-modulation is fine."

"You should double-modulate everything."

"Are you crazy? That's a waste of a button-press."

"Sorry to interrupt..." Sam interjected, approaching the pair and eyeing the opposing monitors they were working on curiously. Before he could get out another word, however, his daughter cut him off with her own question.

"Hey, Dad, real quick. How do you reconfigure a gendocam?"

"Oh, great question," her father answered, not stopping to question the somewhat random nature of her question. "Well, you start off by double-modulating - "

"Aha! I told you!" Pidge declared triumphantly, pumping her fist in the air in jubilation as Hunk was forced to stare on with a frown.

"Ah...modulating arguments. That's how your mother and I met," Sam remarked, smiling playfully at the two of them. Pidge merely frowned at him and sighed.

"Hunk and I aren't like that, Dad," she grunted dejectedly. Hunk smiled awkwardly and scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah, no way," he said almost at once. "Uh, not that I don't like her or something, it's just that I'm kinda involved with a Balmeran right now. I think."

He looked away uncertainly as he finished, and Pidge noticed an uncharacteristic twinge of sadness in his voice. Sam didn't seem to pick up on it, however, as he merely chuckled at their banter and proceeded to ask what seemed to have been his original question, which was simply if they had seen Shiro around the ship or not. When they told him they hadn't, he frowned and showed himself out of the bay, leaving the two of them alone with each other once again.

"When was the last time you saw Shay, anyway?" Pidge asked, once she was sure that her father was gone. Hunk furrowed his eyebrows together and put a hand to his chin.

"Huh...you know, now that you mention it...I can't even remember," he admitted, though this time he sounded more surprised than sad. "We've been so busy dealing with Lotor, Zarkon, the coalition, and everything else, I guess we haven't really had time to go and stop by."

Pidge's gaze fell; that was the answer she had been afraid of. She knew that her teammates were all giving of themselves to participate in this war, but it wasn't often that she was reminded of just how much the others were sacrificing. It was something that was all too easy for her to forget, especially now that she had finally reconnected with her own family members.

"...I'm sorry."

Hunk look over at her in surprise. She wasn't sure what made her say it; it's not like the war with the Galra was her fault. But still...she didn't feel right being the only one who was able to spend time with at least some of the people she loved.

The pilot of the Yellow Lion didn't seem to have picked up on what she was thinking, though, merely grinned at her reassuringly. "Hey, don't worry about it too much. It's not like it's your fault we have to be Paladins and protect the universe and stuff."

He patted her on the shoulder before turning back to his monitor and resuming his work, and, for some reason, Pidge felt a tingling sensation at the point of contact that persisted long after he had removed his hand.

Pidge's oddly conflicted feelings concerning Hunk didn't disappear after that day. In fact, they only seemed to get worse as time wore on, until she eventually decided to go and seek out the last person on the ship she ever thought she'd need to ask for advice from. While everyone else was separated at different points around the castle, and Hunk was most certainly preoccupied with cooking up something for all of them, she set out for her target, knowing precisely where he was after previously watching him steal away to a private room by himself earlier in the day.

"Hey," Pidge uttered softly as she walked into the room, only to freeze as soon as she saw the Red Lion's pilot sitting with his head buried in his hands at a desk, with the four Altean mice dancing and squeaking around him happily in some vain attempt to cheer him up. "...What are you doing?"

"Oh, hey, Pidge," Lance grumbled, picking his head up slightly and tilting it around so that he could see her. "I'm just...nothing. I'm not doing anything. Why, what's up?"

"Nothing," she answered honestly, drawing herself up beside him. "I just...wanted to talk to you about something."

Lance cocked an eyebrow, and he rose up to his full stature, staring at her suspiciously. "You want to talk to me about something? Wow, this might be a first."

The mice had stopped their antics at this point, and were watching the exchange with a growing degree of interest. "Well...the thing is, I'm not very good with stuff like this. I've never really had to deal with anything like this before, and you seem to be an expert on it, so...I thought..."

Lance stared at her for a moment longer before a smile began to creep up on his face. "Wait, wait, wait, wait. Pidge, do you...actually...like someone? Someone who isn't a robot, I mean."

"Hey, shut up!" she burst out without thinking, a bit louder than she had intended. Lance's smiled widened.

"Oh my gosh! Our little tech genius has finally developed feelings!" Lance exclaimed happily, clasping his hands together as a tender expression washed over his face. "And you came to me for help! That only makes sense, of course, seeing as I've got the most experience in the matter - "

"Lance!" Pidge interrupted harshly, bringing the Red Paladin's mind crashing back down to reality.

"Oh, yeah, sorry. Who is it, though? I mean, it's gotta be someone in the coalition, right? Is it someone on the ship?!"

Pidge's gaze faltered when he mentioned the castle, despite her plan of keeping it a secret, and Lance was able to pick up on it immediately.

"It is?! Well, it definitely isn't me, or you wouldn't be here talking to me right now. It probably isn't Keith, because, I mean, come on, really? That leaves..."

Lance's eyes lit up as he trailed off, and Pidge found it impossible to meet his eyes. This wasn't how she had been expecting their conversation to go, but now that he was on a roll like this, she couldn't stop him from continuing.

"Oh my gosh, Pidge - are you in love with Shiro?!"

The air was still between them for a moment, and the green paladin sighed hopelessly. "You know what? Maybe this was a bad idea. I'm just gonna head back down to - "

"Hey, come on, don't be like that!" Lance insisted, rising from his seat and moving to put a hand on her shoulder. "There's nothing wrong with you liking Shiro! He's a great guy! I just think, you know, there might be some issues there with your age and everything, but, if you talk to him about it, I'm sure that you two can - "

"LANCE!" Pidge shouted despite herself, no longer able to take the stress of hiding it from him any longer given their situation. "...It isn't Shiro."

Lance blinked, and he flashed her another smile as he maintained his grip on her shoulder. "Oh, no? Maybe it is Keith, after all. The only other one of us left is Hunk, and, I mean, you two are such great friends that there's no way - "

She turned to look up at him sadly as he spoke, and when he caught her gaze, he stopped dead in his tracks, her expression seeming to provide all the answers he needed. "Oh..."

"...Yeah..." she murmured, letting another few moments of silence pass between them before edging out of his grip. "I'm...gonna go. I'll be in the Green Lion's bay if you need me - "

"Wait," Lance said firmly, reaching out to grab her by the arm this time. "How long...?"

"...I don't know," Pidge admitted, allowing herself to be stopped by him. "I don't even know what I'm feeling exactly. But...well...the other day, he was talking about how long it's been since he's seen Shay. He looked so sad. When I tried to think of what to say to him, it felt like...I don't know. I felt like I wanted to see him smile again. And when I realized I couldn't...it hurt."

She heard Lance take a breath from behind her, and she could hear the tonal shift in his voice as he spoke his next words.

"Listen, I'm gonna tell you a secret, all right? You gotta promise not to tell any of the others! ...I'm not really an expert on love at all. I don't think I've ever really been in love before in the first place. But...when I think about Allura, and how she's spending all of this time together with Lotor...it hurts me inside, too."

Pidge spun around to face Lance slowly. "Are you saying...you're actually in love with Allura?

"Are you saying you're in love with Hunk?"

They held each other's gaze for a moment, neither one giving in to the other, before Pidge finally sighed and looked away. "...I guess I am."

Lance looked at her seriously. "Look, Pidge, it's like I said: I'm no expert on love. I don't know what you should do; I don't even know what I should do. I just want you to be aware of your feelings, all right? It's the only way to be fair to both you and Hunk."

Pidge took a moment to let his words sink in before uttering a quiet, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Lance smiled genuinely at her for a moment before a bit of his usual swagger finally found its way back to him. "What's that? Did you just say that I was right about something? Man, today is just full of firsts for you, isn't it?"

Pidge chuckled at his words and turned to leave. Before she stepped through the automatic doors, however, she looked back over her shoulder one last time.

"Hey, and, uh, Lance...? Thanks."

Despite her conversation with Lance, Pidge still couldn't quite bring herself to admit her feelings to Hunk, especially not with everything they had going on. She did notice that Lance's feelings for Allura did, in fact, seem to have matured a bit, and, when Lotor revealed the nature of his deception to them a few weeks later, she could tell that seeing the Altean princess in so much pain was difficult for him.

Following the Castle of Lions' destruction in that same battle, they collectively decided to head for Earth in the Lions themselves, a trip that they all knew would take a sizable amount of time without a wormhole. But they didn't have much of a choice, either, and so Pidge, alongside their ever-growing party of companions, set off for their home world.

After a couple of weeks, they found that they had all fallen into a fairly regular routine, mundane as it may have been. Other than Keith constantly trying to get them to practice their formations, the trip had so far proven to be almost entirely uneventful, excluding the times when the Green Lion wound up playing host to Cosmo, Coran, and Romelle, not to mention the Altean mice.

On one such uneventful day, the group had stopped off on an uninhabited planet close to their route to...relieve themselves. The girls went first after they all had landed, as was routine, and Pidge found herself staring up at the world's odd chartreuse-colored sky that looked like pea soup after she had finished up.

"Something on your mind?" Hunk's voice rang through the air, and she turned in surprise to find him standing only a few feet away, watching her curiously.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him suspiciously. Not that it was strange for him to find her like this - she wasn't too far away from the Lions, after all. But all of the other guys were still off in the woods somewhere, as far as she knew. "Don't you have to...?"

"Nah," Hunk explained, patting his stomach proudly as he spoke. "I'm pretty used to holding stuff in by now. I don't have to go as much as you guys probably do. So what'cha doin'? Lookin' at the stars?"

Pidge looked away from him and allowed her gaze to drift back toward the sky. "Yeah. I guess...I miss Earth," she admitted, feeling Hunk's eyes on her as she spoke. "I know it probably sounds crazy, since I've got Matt and my dad, but..."

"Wait, back up a minute here. Weren't you the one who wanted to run away on your own, back when all this started?" Hunk jabbed playfully. "Feels kinda weird to hear you be the one gettin' homesick on us all of a sudden."

"...I guess I never really thought about how it would feel to be away from Mom for this long. I've never really stopped to think about it until now."

"Yeah, I can understand that. I miss my parents like crazy, too. And my nieces and nephews. I hope they haven't been too worried about me all this time..."

Pidge raised her eyes and looked over at Hunk, and she was surprised to find his own gaze stuck to the ground. Now that she thought about it, she had never really learned too much about Hunk's life before the Garrison. "So, you're an uncle, huh? Somehow, I can't really see that."

"Hey, I'll have you know that I'm a great uncle."

The two of them shared a laugh at that before she realized that she was finding it difficult to stop smiling. Looking straight at him, she took a deep breath, and uttered, "Yeah...you know, I do think you're pretty great."

The words that, alone, shouldn't have meant all that much carried so many of her feelings in them, and Hunk seemed to pick up on that fact as he looked back into her eyes and his own grew wider. "Wa - wait. Pidge? Are you okay...? 'Cause it almost sounds like - "

"I just don't want to come between you and Shay," she interrupted, not wanting to hear his assuredly negative response to her confession. "I know it's not my place to say anything like this, but I just couldn't deal with hiding it any more."

The uncomfortable silence that followed her words was almost suffocating. She could feel Hunk's eyes burning holes in the side of her head, but she couldn't bring herself to look back at him. "Anyway, now you know. So let's just get back to -"

She was cut off mid-sentence by Hunk suddenly throwing his arms around her, capturing her in an embrace that left her positively speechless. The butterflies in her stomach kept her arms locked at her sides, and she was forced to simply sit there, stunned in his arms, until he finally pulled back and looked her straight in the eyes.

"I didn't know - I mean, I had no idea," he admitted at once, and she could see the genuine surprise in his eyes. "If I did, I would've told you this a long time ago: I like you, too, Pidge."

The Green Paladin blinked once, then twice, not quite believing what she had just heard. "You - what? But - I thought that you and Shay - ?"

"Oh, yeah, she's great, don't get me wrong. But we don't really have much of a relationship...I mean, we hardly ever even get to see each other, and we don't really stay in touch all that much. Something might have happened in the future, but right now it's just casual. Low-key. You know, kind of like this has been."

He looked her dead in the eye again when he said this, and she knew at once that he was talking about his feelings for her. "B-but...you never said...I mean, I always thought...why me? What's so special about me?!"

"Are you kiddin'?" Hunk answered with a laugh. "I've always thought you were incredible. Ever since we became Paladins, at least. But, I never thought you'd wanna go for someone like me."

"Someone like you?" Pidge repeated in disbelief. "You mean, someone who's extremely smart, kind, and who would never let his friends down? Why wouldn't I be interested in someone like that?"

"Hey, come on. I know you're not talkin' about me right now."

They both blinked at each other in unison, and Pidge began to realize that maybe, just maybe...their feelings for each other were actually mutual. She entertained that thought for a moment longer, trying to decide what she should do next, before opening her mouth in an attempt to question Hunk further. "S-so, you really - ?"

However, the Yellow Paladin had other plans. He cut her off at once by moving forward and pressing his lips onto hers, and a bit roughly, at that. Not that Pidge minded. In fact, she found it difficult to even process what had just happened, a feeling that persisted until he pulled back a few moments later, wearing a warm smile on his face as he did so.

"Wh...what was that?!" Pidge demanded, feeling her cheeks heat up as she realized that Hunk had just kissed her. Her, the scrawny, weird little sister of the Paladins of Voltron. Hunk only laughed at her response.

"I just thought you wouldn't believe me unless I showed you."

She watched him grin at her amidst the pink blush that was now decorating his own face, as well, and found that she couldn't quite maintain her apprehension any longer. "Y-yeah. I guess I wouldn't have."

Her voice only came out as a murmur, but Hunk nodded happily anyway in response. "There you go. See? I do know what I'm talkin' about sometimes. So, um, about that kiss..."

Pidge looked up at him nervously, not sure what he would want to ask about regarding...that, unless he would actually think of asking her if it was okay to do it again.

"How was it?"

She frowned at his almost absurdly innocent question. "How was it...?" She found herself thinking back on the sensation she'd felt only a few moments before, and, to her surprise, found that she couldn't glean much from it other than a pleasant blur.

"Yeah, I mean, I've never really done it with anyone before," he admitted to her. "I mean, I used to think about trying it with Shay, but, she's kind of like...a rock, you know? I could never really figure out how that would all work out. With you, it seems like it'd be a lot simpler."

As Pidge listened to his story, she found that she began to loosen up a bit, and the anxiety she'd been feeling ever since bringing her feelings for him to light started to evaporate. In fact, she almost had to stop herself from laughing at how much he had overthought the prospect of kissing a Balmeran. And, in that moment, she realized that she was grateful for the comfort that his presence brought her.

"It was good," she told him honestly, as her own smile returned to her face after a prolonged absence. "We'll have to try it again sometime and really get our technique down."

"Technique?" Hunk repeated, scratching his head and staring at her for a moment before he seemed to catch her meaning. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"What if I am?"

He stared back at her as she walked past him and patted him on the shoulder, and he seemed genuinely unable to formulate a reply for the first time that night. "Come on, we'd better go and get the others. We really can't spend too much time on this planet."

"R-right...yeah. Yeah, I'm coming." He turned to follow after her a moment later, after snapping out of his daze, and he soon fell into step comfortably at her side. She liked the sense of security that it brought her to simply have him at her side, and, as she contemplated that fact, a thought suddenly entered her head, and she turned to face him one last time before they would have to return to their Lions.

"Hey, Hunk?"

"Yeah?"

"...Call me Katie from now on."