Hunk had forgotten his water bottle.

He'd packed his favorite one in preparation for the trip, the extra-large one that could keep the ice frozen all day. He'd filled it up this morning before breakfast, setting it on the counter in his hotel room while he dug around for his card key, then had rushed out the door when he saw the time.

Despite having been up before the sun, he had been running late.

Or, perhaps, it was more because of his lack of sleep.

Normally, he would have slept in later. But today was a day that he'd been anticipating for months now.

The southwest regional FIRST robotics competition.

Hunk's team had been preparing for this for ages, since the theme and the task had been announced at the beginning of the season. A freshman in high school, this would be his first competition, and he was nearly buzzing with excitement.

The competition was in Phoenix, Arizona, and Hunk's team had made the long 7-hour drive out from Southern California the day before, spending the night in a hotel a few blocks away from the local university that would be hosting the competition this year.

He'd been jittery all morning, humming during the ride over, bouncing up and down on his toes as he and the rest of his team loaded everything they needed into the massive college gymnasium where the matches would be held, tapping his fingers incessantly against his leg. The first rounds were just starting when Hunk really started to get antsy. He stood off to the side of his team's encampment, glancing between their rig (still functioning properly, thank god), and his teammates (just standing around? Didn't they realize that their division was starting in only an hour?!), and the other teams (there were so many of them, he wasn't sure how they were supposed to compete against so many other teams), and—

Break. He needed a break. He needed to get away from the action, breathe a bit, drink some water—

Right.

Which is how he ended up in the nearly empty snack store in the student union building, across the quad from the school's gymnasium, a water bottle in hand, staring at the contraption on a counter by the freezer section.

A milkshake machine.

He had seen these before, but never had the chance to actually use one.
A cup of ice cream, taken from the freezer, then one of the three little machines on the table would mix the ice cream into a milkshake.

It was almost like magic.

Hunk steepled his fingers, gazing into the freezer window with a look of intense concentration.

It was stocked full in preparation for the huge amounts of traffic on the campus that day. Rows and rows of ice cream cups sat lined up, in all sorts of different flavors, from strawberry to cookie dough to—

"Dude," a voice said from behind him. "You gonna pick one?"

Hunk whirled around, turning to face the figure who had spoken. It was a girl, nearly two heads shorter than him. She raised an eyebrow at him, standing with one hand on her hip, her caramel-brown hair pulled back into a messy ponytail on the side of her head.

"Oh, sorry!" he said, blushing as he stepped aside. "It's just a very thought-provoking decision. Do I go for the classic cookies-and-cream? Or something a little different, like the mint chocolate chip? Or maybe just a simple chocolate—" At the sound of her light chuckle, he stopped himself, his blush only deepening. "Sorry, I'm rambling."

The girl shook her head, smiling, as she stepped past him to open the freezer door. "Want my suggestion?" she said, reaching in to pull out one of the frosted cups. She closed the glass door, holding up the cup triumphantly. "Peanut butter fudge swirl," she said confidently. "No question about it."

Hunk nodded appreciatively. "A little rich," he commented. "But I'll take it." He reopened the freezer, pulling out another cup identical to hers, then followed her to the milkshake machine.

As they waited for their shakes to mix, Hunk studied his newfound companion. She wore jeans and a bright orange t-shirt, their team name Galactica printed on it in blocky charcoal-colored letters above an image of a space invader sprite.

"You here for the robotics comp?" he asked.

"Yep," she replied, popping the 'p'. "You too?"

"Yeah. I'm Hunk, by the way," he said, holding out a hand.

If she was thrown off by his nickname, she didn't show it, merely reaching out to return the handshake. "Katie."

"Nice to meet you, Katie."

When their shakes were ready, walked back across the quad together. Hunk was feeling considerably better than he had been a half hour ago, the anxious knot in his stomach starting to unravel.

He glanced again at his companion, walking beside him in relaxed silence.

"So where are you guys from?" he asked.

"Not too far, actually," she replied. "Flagstaff."

"Oh wow, you didn't even have to leave the state."

Katie laughed. "Yep." She paused, taking a sip from her milkshake. "What about you?"

"Long Beach," he told her. "California."

"Oh, cool. That's gotta be, what, six hours away?"

"Seven," he corrected.

"Jeez. At least it's not as far as it could have been."

He let out a nervous laugh. "Yeah."

When he started to head back towards where his team was set up, she walked with him. They passed by one of the ongoing matches, pausing to lean on the railings and watch as two bots raced across the floor, systematically stacking rows of foam blocks.

"Has your team gone yet?" Katie asked, still watching the match intently.

"Not yet," he replied. "Still about an hour till our first round."

She hummed. "You nervous?"

"A bit," he confessed. "You?"

She shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. I've had butterflies in my stomach all morning."

He winced sympathetically. "Me too."

"Glad I'm not the only one," she replied, exhaling deeply. She took another long sip from her milkshake, then turned to toss the empty cup towards a nearby trash can.

"So," Hunk started, "not that I'm not enjoying the company, cuz I definitely am, but shouldn't you be hanging out with your own team?"

"I'm avoiding them," she replied simply. "See, they have this tradition of pranking the newest member during the first competition of the year. And this year, that's me." She leaned back against the railing, looking across the room full of people towards a group in orange t-shirts identical to her own. She smirked, then turned back to Hunk and winked. "But I'm always one step ahead."

"That's...I'll be honest, that's not entirely comforting. Um, what exactly do you mean by that?"

Katie snickered. "Chill out, dude, don't worry about it. I have an inside source."

"An inside source?"

"My older brother is the team mentor," she explained, rolling her eyes. "And back when he was a student, they did it to him. He told me years ago, and I doubt their traditions have changed in the past nine years. Especially since my brother's still around."

"Ah. Well, good luck with that?"

She snorted. "Thanks."

"But your brother's the team mentor? That's so cool."

"Yeah, he's a dork. But it's great, since he has so much experience with the team already. And back when he was still a student, our dad was the team mentor. It's kind of a family tradition at this point."

"That's so cool," he said again.

They fell back into companionate silence, watching the match play out before them. It was a couple minutes later when they were interrupted by a yell.

"Hunk!"

Hunk turned in surprise, looking in the direction the voice had come from. There was a boy running over towards them, olive green shirt identical to Hunk's, sandy hair sticking up in a disheveled mess.

"Michael?" Hunk asked, frowning. "What's up?"

Michael stopped as he reached the pair, sparing a quick glance at Katie before focusing on Hunk. "We need your help," he said. "Something's wrong with the bot."

Hunk's eyes widened. "Oh no," he breathed. He turned to face Katie, an apologetic look on his face. "I'm sorry, it's been great talking with you, but I have to check this out."

"Right," she said. "Of course. Um. Mind if I tag along?" she smiled hesitantly.

Michael raised an eyebrow "Who…?"

"Sure," Hunk said in a rush. "Yeah, that'd be great!" He looked back at Michael, nodding decisively. "Show us."

Katie stood with her hands on her hips, her orange shirt in stark contrast with the green of Hunk's teammates. He'd introduced them all to her in a rush, but she'd forgotten most of them already.

"It's moving too slow," a dark-haired girl—Rebecca?—explained as they watched the bot scutter around. "I don't know what happened, it was working fine an hour ago."

"Probably a programming error," Michael muttered. "It's always a programming error."

"Hey," Rebecca snapped. "You guys say that all the time, but it's always something wrong in electronics instead."

"Programming makes no sense! It's so finicky!"

"That...doesn't look like a programming error," Katie commented, frowning.

"They never do," Hunk replied darkly.

"Oh don't you start too!" Rebecca grumbled, crossing her arms. "My coding isn't the issue here."

"Yeah, well it's not a mechanical issue either," Michael said with an eyeroll.

Across the circle, Yumi looked up from her laptop. "Guys," she scolded lightly. She sighed, looking over towards Hunk. "Hunk, can you take a look at this? I don't know what's wrong."

"Sure," he replied. As Michael and Rebecca continued to bicker, he made his way over to where Yumi was sat cross-legged on the floor, taking the laptop from her.

After a second of deliberation, Katie followed him, sitting down so she could watch over his shoulder. She pursed her lips, watching as he typed away at the laptop. "Are you...only single-modulating the gendocam?"

"It's a gendocam. Not a vlexagane, okay? Single-modulation is fine."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, no, give me the laptop." She took it from his hands, pulling it into her lap and looking over the code.

"Hey!" he protested.

"I'm a programmer, Hunk. Believe me, I know a programming error when I see one. And this isn't it." She looked up from the laptop, glancing over at Michael and Rebecca. "Run a drive test."

Michael looked at Hunk questioningly, to which Hunk merely shrugged. Michael sighed. "Okay, here goes."

Rebecca and Yumi set the bot atop a stack of wooden blocks, suspending it in midair so they could watch the wheels turn. Katie positioned herself lying on the floor directly underneath the bot, calling out commands to Michael as he hit at the bot's controller, directing it forwards and backwards and left and right and in circles.

"I think it's a problem with one of the motors," Katie stated. "Check the signal lights on the spark, what are they doing?"

"They're both green," Hunk reported.

"I'm telling you, it's the programming," Michael said again.

Katie frowned, thinking to herself. Come on, Pidge, what else could this be, you live and breath robots, what could be— She froze suddenly, eyes widening as she remembered a few years ago, her brother ranting to her, using her in place of a rubber duck, her at eight-years-old only half understanding his ramblings. "The polarities," she said. "Check the polarities of the wires."

Hunk frowned, picking up the rig and setting it on its side. He grabbed a screwdriver from the toolbox nearby and began to unscrew one of the panels. "Yeah," he mumbled after a minute. "Looks like the polarities got reversed? One of the motors was driving opposite of the other."

"Ha!" Rebecca shouted triumphantly, pointing an accusing finger at Michael. "Told you it wasn't an issue with the coding!"

Michael put up his hands in surrender, rolling his eyes. "Whatever." He glanced over at Katie, giving her a sidelong glance. "How'd you figure that out?"

My brother taught me that," she replied with a smile. "Our rig is actually using a pretty similar set-up."

"Really?" Hunk asked, his eyes lighting up. "That's so cool."

She hummed. "It's my dad's design, really. He used to be the team mentor back when my brother was still a student. So we're recycling an older design, but hey, it works."

Hunk chuckled. "Yeah, I actually got the idea from a book I read," he told her off-handedly.

"Oh?" she looked up, interested. "What book?"

"Ah, Going Beyond Terrestrial Engineering," he replied. "It was written by a Garrison engineer, Doctor Samuel Holt, he's an absolute genius, and his books are really interesting, I highly rec—" He stopped himself abruptly, looking at Katie's face. She was flushed pink, her eyes had widened to the size of saucers, and she had one hand pressed to her mouth, only barely covering a massive grin. Hunk paused, blinking, before hesitantly asking, "Uh…have you…heard of him?"

She snorted, biting back laugher. "Hunk, I—" She broke off, stifling giggles, and ran her hands through her hair. "Hunk, that's my dad."

He froze, his eyes widening, the screwdriver he held clattering to the floor.

And Katie burst into peals of laughter, doubling over and clutching at her stomach. "Oh my god," she gasped. "The look on your face—"

"Wait," he mumbled. "Your—your dad?! Is Doctor Holt?!"

She snickered again, before saluting. "You're looking at future cadet Katherine Holt, daughter of Commander Doctor Samuel Holt," she proclaimed.

"I…." Hunk brought a hand to his head, staring down at the floor. "Wow. Wow."

Katie grinned, standing up. "Come on," she said, taking him by the wrist. "You have got to meet my brother."

"Your brother," Hunk repeated as he got pulled after her. "Wait, I thought you were avoiding them, cuz of the prank."

"That's okay, I'll just use you as a human shield."

"Reassuring, thanks."

She dragged him across the gym, towards a group of people in bright orange shirts identical to her own.

Matt was standing with his back to her, frowning at something on his phone. When they got closer to him, she raised a hand to wave at him. "Matt!"

He turned, eyes widening in relief when he saw her. "There you are! Pidge, where have you been? And…." He paused, taking in the person accompanying her. "Who's this? You make a friend?"

"Matt, this is Hunk," she introduced. "He's read one of dad's books."

"I—I've read all his work," Hunk babbled. "Wow, I…I can't believe this."

Matt's eyes had lit up at Katie's proclamation, and he held out a hand to Hunk. "Really? That's awesome, man!"

Hunk shook his hand in starstruck wonder. "Thanks. It's, uh, nice to meet you."

Matt laughed. "Sucks that Dad couldn't make it," he remarked. "He was planning on coming today, but something got in the way. He'd had loved to meet you," Matt added.

Hunk wasn't breathing quite right. "He…he'd have…oh."

Katie giggled again. "Hope we didn't break you."

"I'm good," he squeaked. "I'm good."

Matt was grinning ear-to-ear. "So what's your guys's set up look like?" he asked.

"Well, I actually got a lot of the ideas from your dad's book," Hunk confessed. "See, when I read his descriptions of the Garrison's advancements in rovers—"

The rest of the competition went by in a blur. Hunk and Katie both had to return to their teams once the matches started rolling. Division after division went by, watching from the sidelines, smiling and waving at each other across the room, saying hi and making faces at each other in passing, making last minute fixes to their bots—

It wasn't until they were packing up for the day that they had a moment to talk again.

Hunk stopped by their team's set-up as they were breaking down camp, loading their folding tables and camping chairs onto dollies and carting them out of the gym. "Hey," he said as he'd came over to stand beside Katie. "We're about to head back to the hotel," he told her. "Just wanted to say goodbye first."

She smiled at him. "Thanks. It was really cool meeting you."

He flushed. "Yeah. You too."

They paused a moment, watching as Matt and two of the other kids carried out a folding table.

"How'd the prank go?" Hunk finally asked.

She threw up her hands in exasperation. "Nothing! All day! I've been waiting for hours but they haven't done a damn thing! I'm starting to think that don't do that anymore? Or maybe they just didn't plan one for me cuz they thought my brother would tell me? Maybe the prank is that there is no prank!" She ran her hands through her hair. "It's driving me nuts."

Hunk laughed.

She glanced at him sidelong, her expression melting into a smile. "I…don't make friends easily," Katie told him, rubbing the back of her neck. "So. Thank you."

He was speechless, looking at her with wide eyes, and she could have sworn they were sparkling. "Of course," he said.

Katie bit her bottom lip. "Ya know what," she mumbled, reaching into her pocket. She pulled out her phone, tapping at the screen to pull up her contacts. "Here," she said, holding it out to Hunk. "Keep in touch?"

A grin broke across his face. "Yeah, of course!" He pulled out his own phone and they swapped, inputting their own contact info.

"Alright," he said, handing her phone back to her. "Here. I—" He paused suddenly, staring at something behind her. "Uh, Katie…."

"What?" She turned, glancing across the room towards what was left of her team's encampment.

The first thing she noticed was the mini egg carton, held by one of her teammates. Next, the bright pink egg that she held, and the matching orange one held by the person standing beside her.

Katie yelped, grabbing Hunk's arm and pulling him down with her as she dropped to the floor. "Duck!"

They ducked, and the brightly-colored eggs went sailing over her head, flying smack into the face of the person who'd been standing on the other side of her, just as he stepped back through the gym door.

"Ack!" Matt sputtered as the eggs cracked, spending bursts of confetti everywhere. "What the—Zoe!"

The girl by the door was flushed bright red, quickly hiding the egg carton behind her back. "It was Alec!"

"What?!" Alec exclaimed, glaring at their companion. "No, we were aiming for Katie—"

Katie laughed. "In your face, Matt! You guys thought you could prank me, but you underestimated my abilities! Woo!" She jumped, throwing her arms up and cheering.

Matt narrowed his eyes at her. "Oh you are paying for that, little sister," he threatened. "This is war."

She shrieked as he ran towards her, scooping her up and tossing her over his shoulder. "No! Matt! Put me down!"

"Never!"

Katie kicked her legs, pounding her fists on her brother's back. "Hunk, I need back up!"

Hunk blinked, watching the proceedings with an increasingly large smile. "Well," he called out to the siblings. "Um, I should probably get going now. But thanks for everything! And, uh. Good luck?"

"Traitor!"

"Bye, Hunk!" Matt called cheerfully. "Keep in touch, alright?"

"I will!"

As he walked across the gym floor back towards his own team, he thought of the phone tucked away in his pocket, of the contact information for the inexplicable girl he'd met today, transforming the day into something even better than he'd anticipated, the child of the man who'd been his hero for years.

Yes, he decided, smiling wide. He'd be keeping in touch.

AN:

Hunk is a fan of Pidge's dad and you can pry this headcanon out of my cold dead hands

Decided to try something a bit different for the first couple days of Platonic VLD week this time around? Instead of 7 unconected oneshots. So the first 3 days are all gonna be for the same multi-chapter fic! (then the other 4 days will be unconnected oneshots, lol)

I had the basic idea for this a couple weeks ago, cuz my dad (who is an actual aerospace engineer like our dear Sam Holt) and my brother (who is 3 years younger rather than 9 years older like Matt is lol) were out of town for the weekend on a trip to Flagstaff for a regional robotics competition. And I was like "Huh, I bet Pidge and Hunk were both on their high school robotics teams, wouldn't it be crazy if they met at one once?" And everything just sorta spiraled on from there.
I've seen quite a few fics that pose the scenario of Pidge and Keith being friends/knowing each other pre-Kerberos, but haven't really seen anything like that involving the Garrison Trio? so. Here's this.
I know nothing about robotics (my dad and my brother were the science/tech nerds, and I've always been the artsy kid) so I got a lot of this information by talking to my friends and family who know more than I do, lol. So shoutouts to Dad, Michael, and Rebecca. None of you read my fics so you won't even see this, but whatever, thanks for all your help! (Srsly tho my brother Michael was such a godsend, being so patient as I texted him question after question, trying to figure out what the fresh a motor controller was, haha) (Also shoutouts to my friends Sodapop and Alec for helping me come up with a prank that I could work in at the last minute when i suddenly realized that I hadn't followed the prompt at all lol)

I'm sorry this is so late; tbh I'm lucky I got it out so soon at all. I started writing this on Tuesday, and my original plan was to finish it over the weekend, but then my laptop decided to just stop working on me out of nowhere, and I'm lucky I even got it to boot up today Computer troubles are an author's worst enemy, even worse than the beast of Writer's Block.

Anyways, hope you enjoy! If all goes according to plan, Part 2 should be up tonight! :D

Please feel free to come say hi to me on my Tumblr (this-book-has-been-loved) or this rad Platonic VLD Discord server I joined (invite code NHYrCz5)

~Brigit