Shiro and Coran have left to greet a convoy of new recruits, leaving the rest of them to inspect the supplies to be shipped out from Olkarion to the rest of the Voltron Coalition. They've been working most of the afternoon. Hunk is elbows deep in a crate, repacking it neatly while Lance holds the lid up. Keith and Pidge are on labeling duty.
A group of young alien refugees passes by, giggling as they sneak a look at the famous Paladins of Voltron. Lance notices one of the taller girls waving at them, all-too-casually running a hand through his hair. It's obvious what will happen next.
"Lance," Allura warns, without even looking up from the inventory on her datapad. Now that she and Blue are a thing, they like to gang up on him when they feel he's about to make a move. Hunk thinks it's because Blue is overprotective and likes to get Allura to be bossy, but sometimes Pidge isn't so sure.
Lance startles at Allura's voice, his grip on the crate's lid slipping. Hunk catches it just in time to keep the lid from dropping onto his head.
"Hey, just an idea, maybe you could not flirt with every girl you see? I kind of need you to hold this steady," Hunk says, looking up at him pleadingly.
"Okay, okay, jeez," Lance mutters. He looks back up as the tall alien girl laughs.
"Lance doesn't flirt with every girl," says the voice of reason, sending a frisson of unease down Pidge's spine.
They all turn to look at it.
"He's never hit on Pidge," Keith continues, pointing out the obvious, for no good reason but to rub salt in her wound. "And she's a girl."
"Nope, he never has," Pidge says. She intends it to sound casual, joking, like it's Not A Problem, but it just comes across as bitter. And the worst part is, judging by their faces, everyone notices. Even Lance.
She stands up, brushes off her armor.
"I have to–" she says, gesturing vaguely. "I'll be over there."
"Man, you guys are totally throwing me off my game," Lance complains, reluctantly abandoning his target as Pidge stalks off towards the nearest storage facility. "What's with Pidge?"
Lance turns to Hunk for support, but he just shakes his head. "You gotta figure this one out for yourself, buddy. Move your hands." Hunk closes the crate they were working on, lid slamming shut with a resounding thud.
Keith huffs impatiently, drawing their attention again. "Pidge doesn't like when you flirt with other girls," he says. "Probably because she has a crush on you."
Lance stares blankly at him, clearly waiting for the punchline to some sort of lame Keith attempt at a joke, but it never comes.
He looks to the others. Allura is peering at Keith over the top of her datapad, wide-eyed with surprise. Hunk silently mouths something that looks a lot like 'quiznak'.
"Why are you all looking at me like that?" Keith demands, arms thrown wide open.
Keith isn't kidding.
Wordlessly, Lance goes after Pidge. Hunk waits until he's out of hearing range to step forwards, clapping a heavy hand on Keith's shoulder.
"That was not cool, Galra Keith," Hunk says.
Keith glares at him, shrugging his hand off. "Don't call me that."
"Then don't act like such an alien!" Hunk shoots back. His annoyance transitions into mild panic as he realizes how their other alien teammate might take that. "No offense, Allura. But seriously, Keith, did you not realize what you were doing?"
"Uh, pointing out a fact?"
"Okay, but that doesn't mean you should talk about it! Pidge didn't think anyone else knew. The whole crush thing weirds her out."
"Weirds me out, too," Keith says, still frowning. "Look, if it was a secret, she shouldn't have been so obvious about it. Even you knew."
It's a very Keith thing to say. Keith is the King of Secrets.
Hunk groans. "Dude, you gotta learn some tact. Princess, back me up here-"
But Allura looks conflicted. On one hand, she's trying very hard to pretend she's still checking off how many crates they've inspected on her inventory list. On the other hand, she obviously hasn't been doing that since Keith first opened his mouth.
"The mice told me, but Pidge's feelings were rather… obvious," Allura admits.
"See?" Keith points to her, clearly feeling justified. "Allura agrees with me."
Hunk is not convinced. "Yeah, but you're both aliens."
Keith throws his arms up in the air in annoyance. "It's not an alien thing– You know what, I give up. You want to talk about tact? How is letting Pidge be miserable around Lance tactful? His whole casanova act obviously bothers her. It has been for a while. Do you really think that's better?"
Hunk frowns. Keith isn't wrong. He takes a deep breath, exhales. "Look, man, I get your point. I don't like seeing her bummed out any more than you do, but I still think you shouldn't have said anything. It's Pidge's problem to deal with, on her own terms. If she's not talking about it, we probably don't need to either."
Allura clears her throat, politely interrupting. "I think it's clear that Keith intended no harm, but perhaps it would be best to clear the air with Pidge directly?" she suggests.
"Fine. I'll talk to her later," Keith grumbles. "The whole thing is weird, though. I don't get why Pidge would even be interested in someone like Lance. They're nothing alike."
Keith looks pointedly at Hunk, like it's his job to explain it, but he's got nothing.
"How should I know? You've been in Pidge's head literally as much as I have," Hunk says. "But I don't think she does either, so cut her some slack, okay?"
They are shamelessly gossiping about their friends, he realizes with the smallest twinge of regret. Probably it wasn't good for morale, or something.
"Love isn't something so easily explained," Allura murmurs, completely derailing his train of thought.
"Whoa, hold on," Hunk says, raising his hands. "No one said anything about love. That's– that's a little–"
"It's bad for teams," Keith says darkly. He sits down on the crate Hunk had just finished packing and crosses his arms, looking up at them. "Look, I'm serious. Shiro's first crew at the Garrison nearly failed out because his engineer had a thing for him. She even thought his flight commands were some kind of hints about his feelings for her. Shiro ended up having to explain he was only being polite during their practicals, and she cried the entire time. Right in front of the entire senior aviation faculty."
The mental image of a younger Shiro cluelessly leading on innocent cadets by being too nice is enough to make both Hunk and Allura snicker. Allura's heard enough about the Garrison to appreciate most of Keith's story, but Hunk actually knows the staff.
"Oh, Iverson must have loved that," Hunk says, imagining his reaction. "That's probably the greatest Shiro story I've ever heard. Wait, was it Iverson or Hedrick?"
"… Hedrick," Keith says, with a ghost of a smile. "He called Shiro 'heartbreaker' for weeks."
Hunk cackles. "Even better."
"Just don't tell Shiro I told you," Keith says. "The only reason I know about it is–" he cuts himself short. "Never mind."
Allura peers at Keith, analyzing his body language and correctly pegging it as embarrassment. "The same thing happened to you, didn't it?" she says.
Keith's eyes widen. "How did– What?"
"Oh, man, you totally did!" Hunk crows. He nudges Keith with his elbow. "Someone liked you, didn't they? And just like Shiro, you totally missed it. That's why he told you about it. That's really cute."
"History does tend to repeat itself," Allura adds innocently.
"I don't want to talk about it," Keith says through gritted teeth, but his ears are definitely turning red. Keith may be the King of Secrets, but his face is an open book.
Grinning widely, Hunk turns to the princess. "So what about you, Allura? You ever had a crush on anyone?"
To his surprise, Allura actually blushes. "Of course," she admits. "But it was a very long time ago."
"Altean, right?" Hunk says, settling in for the story as Keith pretends to be uninterested. He's not very convincing. Even though they've known her for a while, Allura almost never talks about her past, unless it's about King Alfor or Zarkon.
Allura sits down on another sealed crate, hands folded neatly in her lap. "Galadae was in the Castle Guard, but we'd known each other since childhood," she begins. "He was my sparring partner. We used to sneak out of training to go race our claztoks - that's a sort of small hovership - around the Cloven Mountains. I admired him greatly, but I never dreamed of telling him. We were already at war with the Galra, and I still had much to learn before I could be ready to take my father's place."
"So…. what happened to him?" Keith asks.
Allura shrugs lightly. "There was no need for a Castle Guard once the Castle of Lions was deployed off-planet. Galadae asked to be reassigned to the front lines, not long before Father put me in the sleep pod. He most likely perished when Altea fell."
"Oh," Keith says awkwardly. "Right."
They lapse into silence.
"… y'know, back on Earth, kids our age talk about this stuff all the time," Hunk says eventually. "Stuff like crushes and dating, I mean, not dying in an intergalactic war. But out here, it just feels kind of weird. Is it weird?"
"Very weird," Allura and Keith say fervently, perfectly in sync.
Lance finds Pidge sitting on a locked hovercart behind the storage facility.
"Hey there," Lance says, plopping down beside her. The hovercart rattles. "Are we okay?"
"Why wouldn't we be?" Pidge says, trying her best to look indifferent. She gives up and turns her face to the side so at least she doesn't have to look at Lance's stupid face. It helps that he's trying not to look at her, too.
"…. look, you know I joke around a lot. Are you really that bothered when I talk to other girls?"
"No, dummy. Don't make a big deal out of nothing."
"Because Keith says it bothers you," Lance presses, ignoring the jibe. "And if Keith notices something like that then I'm not sure it's a small thing."
Pidge refuses to look at him. "Fine. Yes. It does bother me. Happy?"
Suddenly, Lance's face is much too close to hers. Startled, she jerks her head away, making one of those awkward wahhhghhsounds she doesn't know how not to make around him. He's squinting at her like she's some kind of technology he doesn't understand.
"Waaaaaait," Lance says suspiciously, drawing out the word. "You want me to hit on you?"
"No!" Pidge protests, feeling her face heat up. She squirms. Does she? "It's just. Sometimes, watching the way you act around other girls, I don't know! It makes me feel inadequate. And that's absurd, because I have you as a friend, which is the key thing, and I think we're a good team so I don't even know why it matters so much–"
Everything Pidge is saying sounds increasingly inane the more she keeps babbling, and she's starting to realize it isn't possible to actually put everything she feels into words. She can see Lance's eyes widening in some unnameable, unplaceable reaction, and suddenly wishes she could suddenly drop into a hole, fly away in the Green Lion, just be anywhere but here.
"Pidge," Lance interrupts, cutting her off. "I don't ever want to make you feel–" he pauses, reaching for the word, "–inadequate. I know how that feels." He laughs hollowly. "It's the worst."
"But you aren't!" Pidge says before she can catch herself, and she knows she's definitely blushing now. This is the worst. "When you're not clowning around, you're amazing, you know that? You're kind, and intuitive, and good with people. You knew how to get through to Keith when none of us could. And you've become an incredible pilot, I mean, you can fly Red! And you-"
Lance holds up his hands as if to slow the barrage of words. "Whoa, whoa. Thanks, but I'm really not fishing for compliments here. I'm trying to say I'm sorry for making you feel bad."
"Oh."
They sit in increasingly awkward silence. Faintly, they can hear the others talking about– something. It sounds like they're arguing, then turns into laughter.
"Sometimes, I just wish you'd see me," Pidge says in a small voice, so small she thinks that maybe he didn't hear it. She takes a deep breath, exhales. "Sorry for babbling. I do that when I'm nervous, and I'm kind of nervous now, because this is really awkward. I mean–"
Pidge realizes that Lance is staring at her, like he's trying to figure something out. Like she's a shot he isn't sure he wants to take.
Lance shakes his head. "Okay. Here's the thing. I'm so used to you being Pidge, it's hard to think of you like any other girl," he says, mouth twisted wryly. "It doesn't make it better, but that's the truth."
Her stomach sinks. He's right. It doesn't make it any better. That's exactly what she didn't want to hear, exactly why she walked away earlier, because it means he'll never see her as anything more than just the team nerd. She'd rather he have just made fun of her.
"Can we just pretend today didn't happen?" Pidge blurts out.
Lance hums thoughtfully, then nods. "Sure, I guess. But I'm kind of glad it did, because there's something you should know."
Pidge buries her face in her hands. It's the only thing she can think of doing so she doesn't have to look at him.
Luckily, he isn't paying attention to her.
"I might be a goofball, but I take Voltron seriously," Lance says, staring up at the sky. "We're at war, right? I knew what I was getting into when I went to the Garrison. If it wasn't this fight, it was gonna be another. This is the priority right now, and some things have to wait until the war is over."
Abruptly, Lance reaches out and pulls her towards him in a side hug. Pidge yelps as she knocks into his side, her glasses pushed askew. His arm wraps around her shoulders and she adjusts her position to fit more comfortably, scowling down at the ground as she leans in. He's warm, and smells faintly of sweat and something like deodorant.
"You know, you kind of stink," she says finally. "Like, you really need to shower–"
"Shut up, Pidge, we're having a moment here," Lance says, dropping his face into her hair for a moment as he pulls her closer. Hesitantly, she reaches around him to complete the hug. Their armor should make it feel uncomfortable, but it doesn't.
"Good talk," she mumbles into his chest.
"Good talk," he agrees.
"So we're all agreed, right?" Hunk says, cautiously taking point. "Everybody's gonna leave Pidge and Lance alone to figure their stuff out?"
"I think that would be the best course of action," Allura says. She looks over her shoulder. "They're coming back now."
"So are they," Keith says flatly, pointing out Shiro and Coran heading toward them.
Hunk's eyes widen. "Okay. Everyone act normal," he hisses, at a just-below-shouting volume of whisper.
None of them know how to act normal. By the time Shiro and Coran reach them, they all just look incredibly suspicious. Keith is sitting on a crate, arms crossed, and Allura has mirrored his pose exactly, right down to his apathetic expression. Hunk, for lack of ideas, ends up copying them. Lance and Pidge are standing as far apart from each other as possible. Coran doesn't seem to notice anything, but Shiro does.
"Everything okay here?" Shiro asks, eyebrows raised.
"The inventory all seems to be in order. We were just going through some team-building exercises as a break," Allura says primly. She winks at Keith and Hunk. After a beat, Lance and Pidge nod in agreement.
Later on, Keith apologizes to her for speaking out of turn. He even offers to shake hands. They do so, solemnly, and the vibes he's giving off make the whole thing feel like a ceremonial apology, or a funeral for their friendship, which he has ruined for all time. He looks so excessively emo that Pidge just doesn't have it in her to stay mad at him.
"Tell you what," Pidge says, thinking fast. "Why don't you make it up to me? Up for a round of Killbot Phantasm?"
Keith's face briefly lights up at the invitation, then falls flat, returning to gloom. "I'm sorry, Pidge. I'm supposed to meet up with Kolivan soon. Maybe another time?"
Pidge extracts an IOU from him before he leaves. She even makes Keith pinky promise not to renege on it, just because he finds pinky swearing to be particularly embarrassing. She figures that makes them even.
Hunk manages to evade Pidge and her inevitable questions for most of the day, until she manages to corner him in the kitchen while he's prepping for dinner. She's got a glint in her eye that means nothing good can come of this.
He takes a step away from his cutting board.
"Oh, no. Stay back, you," he warns her, pointing the knife in her direction. "I'm armed and dangerous and sworn to secrecy."
"We're all armed," Pidge says gleefully. She waves her arms. "Get it?"
"I will not be defeated by your puns!" Hunk insists, but he's starting to cave. He puts the knife down. "Although that was pretty good, actually. Ha."
Pidge takes her chance and darts in, grabbing his vest and forcing him to look at her.
"Tell me!" she says. "Did Lance talk to you about what happened out there? Is everything going to be secretly awkward now? You have to tell me. I know you know."
Hunk gives in.
"He totally panicked," he tells her, grinning. "He panicked so hard. It was hilarious. He was all, 'How did I not notice?' and 'What do I do now?' and 'Do you think Allura minds?' and seriously, it was the greatest."
"Was it worse than I was?"
"Nope," Hunk says. "About equal. Maybe a little more. I really hope you guys don't both keep talking to me about stuff like this, though, because I'm not going to be able to keep both your secrets."
"Lance doesn't hate me now, does he?" Pidge demands, letting go of his vest and taking a step back.
"I think he's confused," Hunk says cautiously. "But no. I think we're all gonna make it."
Pidge lets out a sigh of relief and beams at him with a wide, crooked smile.
Hunk feels something melting in his heart at the sight of it, like the chocolate at the heart of a freshly baked pain au chocolat, and promptly decides to ignore the feeling.
It happens while Coran and Shiro are going over their missions for the next movement.
Pidge looks out at her team and suddenly sees something that looks impossibly like roots, reaching out and connecting them all to each other. The roots grow into thin vines, wrapping around their legs and reaching up towards their arms, illuminated by something– something magical. Maybe it's their quintessence. She files that thought away for later.
She can feel all of them. When they form Voltron, it feels like she's part of something other, like she's one tree in a forest as big as the galaxy. This feeling is different. It's more like standing in a garden, like she's just one step away from being home.
She watches as the vines connecting each of them to Shiro trail weakly around his ankles, fragile like honeysuckle in the autumn. Others are starting to produce new blooms. She can see them start to blossom along the vines connecting her to Lance, between Lance and–
"Number Five, do you follow?" Coran presses gently.
The Green Lion's perspective abruptly vanishes. Pidge snaps back into the conversation, looks up at the map on the display. "Patrolling the sector. Got it."
Grow, the Lion reminds her.
