"I'm gonna drop Physics, I swear to god." Lance yawns lazily as the trio walk out of the science lab, books under arms and sleep weighing down already heavy eyelids.

"You drop Physics, and Shiro will drop you out of Voltron," Pidge yawns, equally as tired. Pidge honestly was still really pissed that mom still made her go to this stupid boarding high school, that she still had to attend school at all. So what if she'd won a scholarship, just let her drop out and live life the way she wanted to.

She didn't want to spend years in a classroom, next to kids drooling on their uniforms and doodling dicks on the expensive desks. She didn't want to waste her time trying to squint at a Science textbook and learn stuff that she already, for the most part, knew. The schooling system was shit anyway. Stare at a textbook, get full marks. That was the marker of intelligence to the general school population.

"Like I'm going to let that keep me from preserving my patience and life," Lance responds. "Sure, I like robotics, but do I like like robotics? Do I like like robotics as much as I like like Allura?"

"You don't like like Allura, you have the hots for her because she's pretty and gorgeous," Pidge points out.

"Did I miss a space travel mission back in time to middle school? Cuz' that's where we seem to be," Hunk says, rolling his eyes. Hunk looks curiously between the two.

"She's soooo much more than that under the surface-!"

"You haven't even held a conversation with her that didn't involve a shitty pickup line that she immediately rebuffs," Pidge points out. "Plus, she's probably got the hots for Shiro like every other person around him-"

"What, you like Shiro now?" Lance grins right up in Pidge's face. She flushes red, and a little alarm in Lance's head is set off.

"Oh wow, you actually do!"

Pidge makes a face of disgust, miming vomiting.

The corridor suddenly fills with people, the rest of the classes released. The bell rings, students running to the classrooms to reach there on time. The trio gave up on being on time a long time ago.

"Nah, no muscly seniors for me, please." Pidge salutes Lance and Hunk as casually as she could, the embarrassment from earlier completely gone, heading off to Computer Science while a bemused Lance waves goodbye.

"No muscly seniors? Doesn't every girl like muscly seniors?" Lance says to Hunk as he squints into the microscope, one handing holding and the other scribbling. Hunk shrugs passively, eyes flitting around to make sure Iverson wasn't coming in for surprise inspections. God, Iverson was probably the worst thing about Altea, especially to their year (probably because of Lance, but he'd never admit it).

"It's Pidge," is all that Hunk answers, cutting up plant segments. "Need I say anything more?"

"Yeah, sure..." Lance answers. So if the typical buff guy wasn't her type, what was? The opposite of buff, sweet as honey and good with the ladies? What the hell?

Lance shakes his head, snapping himself out of it. He focuses on the aloe sample in front of him, the structures fascinating him. It reminded him a little bit of the shape of coral or the scales of fish. It reminded of him of the sea, what he'd find on the sandy beach, and that was where he wanted to be rather than this stuffy lab. That being said, Biology was one of the better classes.

"Why do you keep bringing up Pidge's statement like every," Hunk pauses, checking his watch for the time, "every five minutes on average?"

"Only you-and maybe Pidge-would actually count averages on sayings," Lance groans. He doodles the pattern of the aloe with his pencil, turning out a delightful pencil sketch.

"And you bring up Pidge more than usual nowadays," Hunk points out. He takes the paper from Lance, noting the little scribbles that looked suspiciously like round, framed glasses.

"Yeah, she's my friend. Your point?" Lance snatches the paper back, scowling.

"Well-"

"Mr. McClain and Garret? All good?" Their Bio teacher gives them a glare, ignoring the snickers of the students around them.

"Yes, ma'am." Their voices chorus in unison. She sits back down, focus going back to her novella.

"Wait, what was I saying again?" Hunk shakes his head, trying to recall from his memory. A little voice in Lance's head says 'phew'.

"What were you saying? Hmm, I don't really know." If it were someone else saying that, maybe Shiro or Keith, Hunk would have believed it. The cheeky grin that was starting to grow on Lance's face immediately alerted Hunk.

"Lies, Lance. Total lies."

The bell rings, and the scratching of wooden stools on floor tiles sounds, a chorus of "Thank you, Miss," and Lance and Hunk speed out of the classroom with everything they have.

Lance spots Pidge in the corridor.

"Hey, Pidgeon!"

"LANCE MCCLAIN, FOR GOD'S SAKE."

"Ohmigod, Pidge, stop swearing-"

"FUC-"

"Pidgeon!"

Shiro lays out plans, blueprints, drawings that he and Lance spent the weekend drawing. Pidge admires the clean lines, elements of the robot design, all obviously hand-drawn by Lance. So yeah, it was Shiro's ideas and intellect, and Hunk's design ideas, but it was only made visible by Lance.

Since when did Lance actually try hard for Voltron? This blueprint looked like it had a lot of work put in.

"So, this looks like our first draft idea for what we are going to name Voltron," Shiro starts off, prosthetic fingers absentmindedly tracing the lines of the design in front of him.

Pidge's always admired Shiro for how he was able to bounce back from an accident that mercilessly stole his arm from him and still continue his passion for robotics. Amazing. Lance's voice floats in her head, annoying her about her blush, and she quickly knocks Lance's voice in the balls.

"Yeah, drawn by the amazing Lance right here!" Lance proudly points his finger towards his chest, puffed out. Keith rolls his eyes.

"Mmhmm," Keith mumbles.

"What's that? The sound of complete jealousy over my art skills?" Lance cups his hand around his ear, leaning towards Keith, arms folded. "Yeah, yeah, I think it is!"

Keith scowls.

"Continuing on," Shiro shoots Lance a glare, "we need to review what's going on during the competition."

"Ugh, can we do that later?" Lance groans. "Let's just focus on my amazing drawing first, can we?"

"We can get started when Lance decides to shut up," Pidge raises an eyebrow.

"Eh-uh-hey!" Lance stutters. Then, he reclines, folding his arms like Keith.

"Okay-" Pidge pushes her glasses up as they had slipping down her nose, eyes glinting slightly.

"Ermagherd, Pidge's doing the anime glasses thing," Lance says. Pidge jolts her head to pout at Lance, who smiles widely at the sight.

"So, first we navigate the robot through a series of obstacles, starting on land, going through water-"

Lance smirks, almost opening his big mouth to brag about his amazing skill with manoeuvring robots through water. Pidge slaps her hand on his mouth, going on with verve.

"-and finishing on land."

"Okay, go on," Shiro urges.

"The second challenge is autonomous; the robot must be able to help people in need and do what they ask. Basically, this challenge is me downing red bull and programming all night."

Pidge shrugs. No biggie, right? Lance raises an eyebrow.

"The third is probably the best," Pidge smirks, pushing her glasses up again.

"PIDGE IS DOING THE-"

"Knockout round bot fighting."

"HELL YEAH!" Lance screams. Keith looks up, significantly more interested than earlier. Shiro tries to hide it, but a big smile starts shyly creeping up on his face.

"If I'm being honest, that's probably where the Galra will beat us to the ground. They play dirty, but they can never prove it, and that makes it impossible to win." Pidge pauses, totally not for dramatic effect. "Not impossible if we make a robot so freaking awesome that we dominate all three categories and smash Zarkon into the ground!"

Keith high-fives her.

"Hear hear for Pidgey Gunderson!" Lance whoops loudly, grinning like an idiot. Pidge would climb on him and MMA-style tackle him to the ground (yes, she totally could, despite the height difference), but today something was stopping her. Worse, she wasn't sure what was.

She stares at him, eyes slowly widening as he smiles and laughs, cheering her name. Something about it makes her smile small, not in the cheeky way she so often does, but something more...soft.

"Pidge? You alright?" Hunk asks. She blinks, nodding her head in short and quick nods.

"Ye-yeah, I'm all good."

"So anyway," Shiro glances sideways at Pidge, expression nearly unreadable, "we need to start improving on our current idea."

Pidge peers closer to the blueprint, adjusting her glasses ever so slightly. The table is really small, as is the blueprint ("Dammit, Lance, draw bigger next time."), so Lance leans over Pidge with ease.

"Do you really have to do that?" Pidge whisper-shouts, turning her head to look at Lance. Much to her surprise, his face is a lot lower and closer to her than she realised, so she quickly whips her gaze back to the (admittedly) intricate drawing.

"Yes, yes I do."

Lance says it too quietly for Pidge to hear.

It's a lucky thing that Pidge can't see his expression as he leans over her, the commanding voice of Shiro just something in the background.

A shadow...

A smile.

They turn, facing Pidge...

Why is Lance there?

Pidge looks up, her eyes meeting his.

But-

Pidge jolts up, breathing heavily, stunned. Startled by the dream, she quickly switches on the lights and slips her glasses back on. There. Clarity.

"What the hell..."

What were with these dreams?

Pidge, unnerved, looks at the clock. Oh. Only 4 am. She turns on her laptop, scrolling through her contact list on Skype to see who was still up. Talking to someone always helped Pidge after something disturbing.

Hmm...only one person?

A few clicks later, and Pidge finds herself looking at Lance McClain on her screen. Funny, considering he wasn't very far away.

"What's up, Pidgeon?"

"Seriously, Lance, why do you like warping my name like that?" Pidge sighs, mockingly flipping back to show him how completely done she was with him.

"Fine, I'll stop, Katie." Lance rolls his eyes, the two breaking out into laughter quickly after.

"Why did you call me so late?"

"Why are you even up so late?" Pidge asks. Lance looks tired too, like he'd also only suddenly woken up. From what she could infer, his nightlight was on, but not the room's light. Hunk seemed to be snoring on the top bunk.

Pidge wondered briefly what it would be like to have a roommate. Hers had secretly moved into another dorm after declaring Pidge to be 'bitchy, too tomboyish and weird." Well, it had worked out both ways. Pidge got double the amount of space and had turned the top bunk into a tech-galore.

Lance yawns, messing up his already tousled and messed up hair.

Damn, Pidge seriously wanted to fix if flat again.

"Combating a question with a question, I see." Lance tilts his head to the side, corner of his mouth twitching up. Pidge grabs a pillow, stuffing her face in it.

"Combating my question with a statement, I see," Pidge replies.

"Yanno, despite you being able to hide yourself as a boy in the Voltron ranks, you've got a really shitty poker face, Pidge."

Pidge scowl, lips perking out in a pout. Lance raises his eyebrows.

"Like you're any better. You've always sucked at Texas Hold 'Em," Pidge retaliates, allowing the pillow to slip down and reveal her grin. Lance makes a sound of frustration.

"That's because I trusted Texan boy Keith to be my teacher. He's messed me up permanently," Lance weakly defends, scowling.

Lance frowns, suddenly stopping.

"Goddamn, you got me there for a moment."

"True."

"Seriously, Katie, what's wrong?"

Pidge pauses, liking hearing the name 'Katie' roll off Lance's tongue. It'd been a while since she'd heard it, after all.

"I just had a strange dream. Just a little messed up. But I just called cuz I wanted someone to talk to," Pidge explains. She prays that Lance doesn't ask about the dream, because yeah, she is a shit liar in front of him.

"Want me to sneak over? I've got peanut butter cookies," Lance holds up a paper bag, taking one out and teasingly biting into it. Pidge eyes the cookie, shutting her eyes tight and shaking her head.

As tempting as that sounded, Pidge had to decline. Having Lance around after that dream would feel strange. Having Lance in her room wasn't out of the norm, it was just...today.

"Do you really think you should be sneaking out again? I hear Iverson's putting more guards on duty nowadays," Pidge questions. Lance rolls his eyes, stuffing another cookie in his mouth.

"If you don't want me to come over, you can just say so," Lance scowls. Now it's Pidge's turn to roll her eyes. Lance looks a little...disappointed, somehow. Probably not, Pidge thinks.

"Nah. It's just that I'm probably going to sleep soon, and I wouldn't want you around while I'm sleeping."

Wow, Pidge's excuse giving skills were skyrocketing through the roof. Lance shrugs.

"Okay then." Lance looks at her suspiciously. "But if you hear a noise a night..."

"Oh my god, Lance!" Pidge laughs, and Lance is dumbstruck for a moment. Laughing at a joke he made? Since when?

It's...kinda cute.

Both Pidge and Lance become so absorbed that they're not sure what time it is when they say goodbye, shut off the computer, turn off the nightlight.

"Well hello there, Allura," Lance grins, probably trying to give her his best smile. Allura, holding a coffee pot, already begins to grimace. "I seem to have lost my number. Could I have yours?"

Allura smiles, not skipping a beat when she replies. "Sorry, Lance, but my phone's out of service."

Pidge high-fives her, the two grinning wickedly as a dejected and disgruntled. Lance pouts and goes back to sipping his latte.

Something about that sight makes Pidge burn a little inside, a little crease form between her eyebrows. Yeah, it's probably that she doesn't want to see her friend sad. To cheer him up, Pidge employs her best technique; she kicks Lance's leg from under the table, and he spits out his latte, eyes blown wide. He turns to glare at her.

"What was that for?!"

"You've got to stop doing that to Allura. She's had to put up with your pickup lines for how long now? Give the poor gal a break."

Pidge doesn't even want to bother calculating the amount of lunch breaks they've had since semester started, considering that's probably the same amount of times Lance hit on Allura.

God, that was a lot!

Thank goodness she didn't have to put up with flirtatious fools like Lance. Pidge's combination of an unruly and messy ponytail, baggy tomboyish clothes and sharp tongue successfully wards away fools and idiots.

"Geez, okay," Lance puts his hands up in self distance, small smirk on his face. "What, would you prefer I flirt with you?"

Pidge flares red, burning her cheeks. She jolts her head to the side, not wanting to let Lance have the satisfaction of her embarrassment.

"Did it hurt?"

Pidge groans, not answering. She looks up, arms folded, to see an expectant looking Lance.

"Did what hurt?"

Can't hurt to go along with it.

Lance smiles triumphantly.

"Did it hurt when you fell from heaven? 'Cause you're an angel to me."

Pidge reddens, even more strongly than before, but she returns his confident face, replying, "Yeah, it hurt, because I turned into a fucking demon. That happens when you flat from heaven, Lance!"

Lance blinks, taken aback.

Pidge smiles, pushing up her glasses, fallen in her many attempts to hide her face.

"Pidgeon is an anime character, Pidgeon is an anime character-"

"My boobs aren't big enough to be a part of the anime you watch," Pidge answers, nonchalantly sipping her coffee right after. Lance sputters, flaring red in the face. That boy should really stop choking, Pidge thinks.

"I-uh-n-"

"Mmhmm," Pidge gives him her best deadpan.

"Well, Pidgeon, I guess I'll just have to see how long it'll be before you crack under my charms," Lance flashes her a smile of blinding teeth, inching closer to her. Pidge matches him, moving in, nose centimeters apart and lips curled in a devious smirk.

"You're on."