Pidge burst into Lance's room early, very early, the morning after saving the Taujeerians.
"Pidge? Wha-"
"You owe me a game of extreme hide-and-go-seek."
Lance rubbed his eye's and yawned. "Pidge what time is it?"
"I don't know, and I don't care. We've been fighting Galra left and right, so we are playing extreme hide-and-go-seek. Now."
"Bu-"
"Now!"
Lance groaned, rolled out of bed, and slipped on his blue lion slippers. It was then that he noticed that Pidge was still in her pajamas (a green tank top and purple pajama capris). He pointed at her outfit. "Does that mean that I can stay in my pajama's?"
Pidge rolled her eye's and grabbed his hand. "Yes Lance. Now come on! I still need to explain the rules to you."
Lance sighed as he allowed himself to be pulled out into the hall.
"Okay," Pidge spoke softly as they walked. "Here's the deal. The only thing hide-and-go-seek and extreme hide-and-go-seek have in common is the fact that you have to find the other person. That's when things get a bit more challenging."
Lance raised his eyebrow's. "What do you mean?"
"Matt and I would get bored when we played hide-and-go-seek. Yet at the same time, we really liked it. Extreme hide-and-go-seek is like a mix of games. What you do is count to a hundred then try to find the other person. Once you find them you have to try to catch them and get them to the base."
"Catch them? Base?"
"Yeah. So, once you catch them, you have to hold them by the wrist. Now, the person who was hiding, and was then caught, can try to escape and go back into hiding. All they have to do is get the seeker to let go of their wrist."
"That sounds-"
"Without physically getting them to let go."
"Never mind."
Pidge let go of Lance's hand as they entered one of the common rooms.
"But the hider can win by getting back to the base room, which is here." She turned to him, her eye's sparkling with excitement. In turn Lance also became excited.
"So, who's seeking first?"
Pidge held out her hand. "Rock paper scissors?"
The two went through the cycle. Pidge came out with Scissors, and Lance had paper so...
"One, two, three..." Lance continued to count out loud, while thinking of all the places Pidge could hide. The Castle was huge! Not to mention that she was very tricky.
It was a challenge he was looking forward too.
Pidge quickly, and quietly, ran through the castle, trying to think of a hiding spot. She almost screamed in frustration. Even though the Castle was huge, all the hiding spots seemed obvious. She needed something that Lance wouldn't think about. Something he wouldn't see coming.
"Of course!" She whisper-shouted as she ran towards the hangers. What better place to hide, then under his own nose.
Lance crept down hall, keeping his eye's open. He was attempting to think like Pidge.
He was failing.
First he checked the kitchen. Then the library. After that the training room.
It was when he checked Green's hanger that an idea hit him.
Lance hurriedly walked into Blue's hanger, humming to himself. "Hey girl! Any idea where Pidge is?"
He scanned the room with his eye's, trying to make sure that he wasn't too obvious.
Although he wasn't expecting Blue to open up.
Lance's eye's widened "You let her in?" He asked, as he walked up the ramp.
He didn't have many things in Blue, just the necessities, so there was only one place he could think of where she would hide. In plain sight.
"Hellooo." Lance greeted, as he reached around and grabbed... His own wrist?
Lance stared in shock at... himself. Or at least, something Pidge created to look like him. Out of, trash? A trash him?! A good trash him, but still!
Lance groaned while sprinting out of Blue. Hopefully he could still catch up to Pidge.
Pidge held back laughed as Lance ran right past her. She managed to hide in a small box that he had in the lion. There were advantages to being tiny. Hiding in small things was one of them.
She waited a few minutes before climbing out. "Thanks girl." She whispered as she walked out of Blue.
"Gotcha!" A cry rang out, as something clamped onto her wrist. "Lance?!"
Lance smirked as he guided her out of Blue's hanger. "I noticed the box on my way out. It made sense that you would curl up in it to hide."
Pidge bit her lip. The way he phrased that made it sound like she was a cat, but she couldn't think of that. She had a bigger issue to solve. She had to figure out how to escape.
Lance talked about how he would have to teach his niece and nephew how to play the game once they got back to Earth, but Pidge was only half listening. It was harder for her to think up ways to distract Lance.
When she and Matt would play, she could distract him by talking tech stuff and getting him to have a minor disagreement, or by mentioning a girl he had a crush on. With Lance? There was no way she was mentioning any girls! She didn't know why his flirting bugged her so much but it did.
That left her with two options. Get him to talk about something he loves, and hope that he let go of her wrist, or kiss him.
Pidge stopped in her tracks, making Lance stop to look at her. She had no idea where that second idea came from, and it scared her.
"Hey Pidge, you okay?"
Pidge blinked once. Twice. Before his words set in. "What?! Oh y-yeah."
Lance looked at her oddly, but he started to lead her to the base once more.
Okay, so she wasn't going to kiss him. Once again, she had NO IDEA where that came from. But it did give her another idea. Maybe she could get him to talk about Cuba. There was a chance he would use his hands while talking. A very big chance.
"Hey Lance, what was it like growing up by the ocean?"
Lance got this dreamlike look on his face, and Pidge could already feel his hand relax. "It was wonderful. The ocean breeze, the smell, the sight. Sure, the storms could get bad, but even they were nice."
His grip on her wrist loosened more, and Pidge felt a bit guilty at using his memories as a way to get away.
"There were times when my sister, Veronica, and I would sneak out and go surfing. Other times the entire family would have beach days. We would build sandcastle, have a picnic, surf, swim... We just enjoyed being with each other."
Lance let go of her wrist, but Pidge barely noticed. Her mind was no longer on the game, now she just wanted to listen to Lance talk.
"And sometimes my brother Marco and I would camp out. We'd take our guitars and-" Lance had started to talk with his hands, and he knew it, he looked to see if Pidge had escaped, but to his surprise she was still there.
"And..." Pidge prodded, looking genuinely interested.
"Why didn't you?"
Pidge cleared her throat, "I uh, got caught up in listening. But hey, if you want me too..." Pidge suddenly sprinted down the hall, disappearing into one of the rooms.
Lance laughed, a little sadly, to be truthful. He missed his family dearly. It was hard, being so far out in space. Sure, he hadn't been gone from Earth for very long. But he had no way to contact them.
He closed his eye's, willing himself to think at the task at hand, before going after Pidge.
Pidge, on the other hand, wasn't hiding. She still felt guilty for using Lance's memories against him. Instead she sat on a couch in the library.
Hearing Lance talk about the ocean, made her think about her past. Made her think of Matt.
She was also trying to figure out why she had stayed and listened to Lance talk, when she could have escaped.
"Wow, that is a terrible hiding spot."
Pidge looked up to see Lance, and shrugged her shoulders. "I... I guess that, considering how big the castle is, extreme-hide-and-go-seek isn't that fun with only two people." She lied, looking down.
She heard Lance's footsteps and felt him grab her hand. "You're probably right. But we should still finish it."
Pidge allowed herself to be pulled out of the room. "So, I told you some memories, now it's your turn."
"What?!"
"You heard me."
Pidge bit the inside of her cheek. A lot of her childhood memories involved techy stuff. Or shenanigans with Matt.
She didn't know what to tell him. There were things she still wasn't ready for the team to know, like the fact that she was constantly teased.
Although she did have a couple. She didn't know how exciting they were, but they were still there.
"Every summer for my entire life, has been spent in Italy. Along with every spring break."
Lance stopped dead in his tracks. "What?!"
Pidge shrugged her shoulders. "Both my mom and dad's families are from Trento. Nonnuccio and Nonna, my mom's parents, own a vineyard. While Nonnetto and Nonnina, my dad's parents, live in the city."
"Why haven't you ever mentioned this?! Is you're Nonnuccio and Nonna's vineyard big? Do you have many cousins? What did you guy's do for fun? How was the food?"
Pidge laughed as they kept on walking. "I have around fifteen cousins on my mom's side, and six on my dad's. We played many different games. One was-"
"There you two are." Lance and Pidge turned to see Shiro walking towards them. The Black Paladin glanced down, noticing the fact that Lance was holding onto Pidge's wrist.
"Extreme-hide-and-go-seek." Pidge explained, making Shiro nod his head in understanding.
"Matt told me stories of the times you and he would play it. He also mentioned that you once played it with you're cousins, but it got a bit out of control."
Pidge shrugged her shoulders. "A few bruises here or there, maybe a sprain or a broken bone, who cares? Our family was very competitive."
Lance's eye's were bulging. "Bruises? Sprains? Broken bones?!"
"Take it easy Lance, after that game Matt and I altered the rules to make it safer."
"You mean that you're parents forced you to alter the rules."
"You heard that story?"
"Yep."
Lance shook his head. "Well, anyways, want to join us?"
Shiro crossed his arms. "No. You two need to change and head out to the bridge. Team meeting."
Lance and Pidge glanced at each other as they walked to their rooms. "We'll need to play again." Lance said.
"With the rest of the team." Pidge added.
Lance smiled. "I would like to hear more about you're times in Italy."
Pidge blushed a little, though Lance didn't really notice. "And I would like to hear more about you're childhood in Cuba."
Both Paladins went to their rooms. Feeling an incredibly similar emotion.
They were both feeling confused.
The only difference? Pidge knew why. Lance didn't.
And it terrified the Green Paladin more than anything.
I really wanted to add Pidge's heritage into this, so I decided to give her a little backstory!
I'll probably do another fic with her talking about Italy, but I need to do some more info first. Just finding the words for grandma and grandpa was harder than expected.
(And for anyone who's interested, there's a chance I'll do a fic with all the Paladins playing Extreme-hide-and-go-seek, so keep a look out!)
