Well heck. Hunk thought. There goes that part of my identity. Maybe this is like, some Mulan type scenario?

He ran through all of the completely crazy, totally improbable, ridiculously complicated things one would need to do in order to pull that off. He almost considered it for a short moment, before the communications cadet across from him coughed, spitting into the trash.

Ew. Hunk grimaced. Unfortunately, the pesky realization that had hit him about five minutes ago refused to dissipate.

Pidge shifted, pausing momentarily to stare at the computer Hunk had never actually seen him without. He took off his overly large glasses, cleaning them with the shirt of his uniform with one hand and rubbing his eyes with the other. He blinked blearily. Hazel eyes shimmered softly, glazed over, but still alive with the lines of code reflecting off of glasses.

Oh crap.

"LANCE!" Hunk rushed into the tiny dorm that he shared with his childhood best friend.

The Cuban boy was lounging on the bed, staring at a piece of paper with a soft frown on his face. He quickly dropped it, shooting up to meet Hunk. Lance pasted on a smile.

"What's up, Hunk?" he greeted. Hunk stopped short.

"Are you okay?" he asked worriedly.

Lance shifted, moving his blanket over the piece of paper.

"Of course, big guy! I am living the life." Lance leaned forward. "So what are we yelling about?"

"Uh…" Hunk suddenly felt significantly less comfortable sharing. Its Lance, you moron. He's gonna be fine with it.

Across from him, Lance was getting a very peculiar look on his face, the kind of look he gets when he's had a realization. A very maniacal, I-just-realized-how-to-ruin-someone's day smile of chaos.

"There's a girl," he whispered conspiratorially. Hunk started, and Lance began to laugh. "Ay, I'm right!" He scooched over on the bed, gesturing for Hunk to sit down. Without thinking, Hunk did. Lance pursed his lips, smirking. "Asere, who is she?"

Hunk couldn't make his mouth form the words. He grabbed at the end of the long orange fabric wrapped around his head and began to pick at the end. After a moment, Lance sat back, eyebrows furrowed.

"Hunk," Lance said quietly. Hunk turned to look at his best friend. "Are you okay?"

They held eye contact for a long moment. Hunk debated coming up with some dumb excuse about how much of a Nifoloa Commander Iverson was, but his mouth decided to vomit the truth.

"Pidge." he blurted. Whoops. That's that, I guess.

One of Lance's slender eyebrows arched in confusion.

"¿Que?"

Hunk swallowed.

"Pidge," he said nervously. Lance's other eyebrow joined the first.

"You mean…." Lance trailed off, questioning. Hunk nodded firmly.

"It's a he." Hunk admitted. "And it's Pidge."

Lance schooled his face back into a neutral expression.

"Dude," he exclaimed. "Are you-?"

"I didn't think so!" Hunk squeaked out. "Apparently?"

There was a beat, and Lance's signature smirk came back. Hunk mentally recited several untranslatable phrases in Samoan.

"Wanna make a game plan?" Lance asked.

"For what?" Hunk asked reluctantly.

"To woo Pidge, of course!"

"ABSOLUTELY NOT" Hunk yelled.

Lance clearly didn't listen, because two days later he came back to Hunk with several sheets of paper listing Pidge's favorite things, as well as ideal date spots near the Garrison.

It took twenty minutes to convince Lance to get off of his back. Once Lance left, Hunk scanned through the lists. After a moment's hesitation, he tucked it into his back pocket

Six months later:

"I can't man up. I'm a girl."

Hunk's eyes widened, staring at the brunette.

He glanced over at Lance, who was equally as gobsmacked as Hunk.

"Huh—Eh—Wha—?! You're a girl!? HOW!?" Lance sputtered.

Hunk swallowed his surprise as Allura spoke.

"Yeah, I figured." He choked out. He could feel Lance's eyes burning into the back of his head.

He kept a straight face while the rest of the team assured her that they knew (How?!) and that it was completely fine (more than true), but booked it out of there at the nearest opportunity.

He held back to talk to Lance.

"Wait, what? Pidge is a girl and the Castle is a ship? How long have I been out?" his best friend shrieked. Hunk chuckled slightly as Lance came up to him.

"You knew?!" Lance hissed. Hunk shrugged.

"Yeah. I'm not gay." he said calmly, slinging an arm around Lance. "Now, c'mon, let's get you something better than food goo."

Hours later, Allura summoned them all to the bridge to discuss the upcoming attack on the Galra bases on the Balmera.

Hunk made his way to the bridge, but was halted by someone behind him yelling.

"Hey!" Pidge yelled. "Hey, Hunk!"

Hunk stopped and waited for the tiny technological expert to catch up. They continued, Hunk making sure to slow down so Pidge wouldn't have to rush.

"Can I ask you a question?" Pidge asked.

"You just did." Hunk joked awkwardly. He had a very uncomfortable feeling about what the question was going to be. And, per usual, he was right.

"How did you know I was a girl?"

A hundred different things flitted through his head to say, from "I saw you use the girl's restroom at the Garrison" to "Every so often you get really irritable and I tried to figure out why then I realized I was tracking your period wayyyyy too late."

In the end, Hunk ended up blurting out the same thing he had told Lance.

"I'm not gay."

Hunk, being Hunk, immediately regretted his choice of words and rushed into the bridge. He completely missed Pidge's look of confusion.

"Okay...Me neither?" she mumbled to the closed door.

Three weeks later, she shot up in bed. The clock on her wall read 3:17 AM.

"HOLY-!"

The next morning, Hunk was really, really glad he had left Lance's list in the back of his favorite pants.