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Lance stood in the center of the training room, staring blankly at the doorway Pidge just stormed out of. The gears turning in his head had malfunctioned. Pidge has been mad at him before, like when he “borrows” her headphones without permission, but this was different. Lance replayed her words over and over in his head, and with each play he felt more and more guilty.
“You’re a pig, you know that Lance?”
Her tone communicated her feelings perfectly. She sounded frustrated, annoyed, exhausted, and hurt all at the same time. But why? That was the question that Lance couldn’t quite grasp. He had no idea what he said or did to set her off. Unable to come to a conclusion himself, he scratched the back of his head and walked out of the room. If Lance was going to make sense of any of this, he’d need a second opinion.
Lance found himself in front of Hunk’s door. Out of everyone in the Castle, he figured Hunk would be the easiest to talk to. On top of that, out of everyone on the ship Hunk probably knew Pidge best besides himself and maybe Shiro. He considered going to Shiro briefly, but decided against it out of fear of one of Shiro’s lectures. Lance gave Hunk’s door a quick knock.
“Who is it?”
“it’s me Hunk.”
“Oh! Let me get the- awwwww maaaannnnn.“
Lance heard a loud plop come from behind the door. It then opened to reveal a dejected looking Hunk in its frame.
“I uh, split the bowl of food goop I was eating when I got up to get the door.”
Lance looked past Hunk to see an upside down bowl with green sludge seeping out from under it.
“Sorry Hunk, you need help cleaning that up?”
Hunk put his hand to his chin, thinking for a moment.
“Nope! I actually have just the thing.”
Hunk reached under his bed and pulled out a small cylindrical robot. He picked up the bowl revealing a mound of food goop underneath, and turned the robot on. Eye-like lights lit up and it quickly moved to devour the goop.
“Isn’t this thing cool? Pidge made it for me after she saw how messy my room was. It’s spotless thanks to this lil’ guy.”
“Yeah, cool.”
Lance deflated a bit after hearing Pidge’s name, she was the reason he was there, after all.
“What’s wrong bud? I can tell there’s something on your mind.”
“There is, it’s about Pidge actually. I think I got her mad, like, really mad.”
“Jeez, you steal her headphones again?”
“No! Wait, yes, I did. Oh crow if she founds out those are missing on top of what I said I might be done for.”
Lance leaned back against the wall and sunk downwards to the floor. Hunk sat down next to him and placed his hand on his shoulder.
“Ok this sounds pretty serious, what did you do?”
“Alright, it started when I was doing some target practice in the training room…”
Lance told his story start to finish, filling Hunk in on every detail. Hunk nodded along as the story progressed. After Lance was done, he thought for a moment before snapping his fingers.
“That explains why you're decked out in full Paladin gear, also, I think I know where you messed up."
“Where?”
“So, remember when we were all sitting in that Galra control room? I was messing with you about your crush on Allura and when you didn’t get it, Pidge slapped you with the Galra bot.”
“That wasn’t cool Hunk, you seriously got my hopes up.”
“It was kinda funny.”
Lance made a face at Hunk while he laughed a bit at the memory.
“It’s the same idea though. I don’t think Pidge likes it when you talk about flirting with girls.”
“I guess that makes sense, but why doesn’t she like it? It’s not like it affects the team or whatever.”
“Well, that’s not entirely true, remember when you got captured by that one girl ‘cause you were trying to impress her?”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.”
Lance grabbed at his arm and looked away from Hunk. Bringing up his failed advances on girls only made him think of the other times he struck out talking to girls. Before he knew it he was spiraling into a web of memories, the kind that keep you up night thinking about how terrible you used to be.
“You okay over there buddy?”
Hunk’s voice brought him back around, Lance hadn’t even realized he was running his hands through his hair.
“I’m fine, just fine. So why are you bringing all of this up?”
“That brings me to my next point, whenever we liberate a planet you’re always talking to the natives afterwards.”
“Of course I am Hunk, gotta inspire hope in the good people of the universe.”
“By natives, I mean the girls you think are cute.”
“Oh, uh, yeah…”
“So I think Pidge takes offense to it, maybe she wants you to be more professional as a Paladin of Voltron. Combine that with your flirting getting you into trouble, and that she was trying to compliment you… Boom! Angry Pidge.”
After a loud exhale and a brief period of silence Lance speaks up.
“I hate to admit it, but that makes sense, guess all that’s left to do is apologize to Pidge.”
Lance got up from the floor, and started to walk towards the door.
“Then there’s my other idea, it makes way less sense though.”
“I’ll allow it.”
“Pidge sees you flirting with all these other girls, and gets jealous.”
“Pffffft, yeah okay Hunk, that’d mean she likes me. Pidge would build herself a boyfriend before that happens.”
“I know I know, I was just putting it out there since you asked, good luck apologizing to Pidge. Go grab her headphones too, two birds with one stone.”
“Good idea, I’ll let you know it goes, okay?”
“Sure thing bud, and if you don’t make it, we’ll give you a proper Space Viking funeral by shooting you out into space.”
“Thanks, I appreciate the thought.”
Lance stepped out of Hunk’s room and the door closed behind him. Hunk’s theory made sense, but a different thought was lingering in the back of his mind. He brushed it off when Hunk brought it up but what if Pidge really did get jealous? What if she did like him like that? It was probably a fraction of a tiny chance of that being true, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“How long has she liked me if she did? How do I feel about Pidge?”
Lance caught himself muttering and stopped in the middle of the hallway. It just occurred to him that, even though she’s a girl, that he’s never thought of Pidge in that way. Lance was halfway to Pidge’s room at this point, and decided to stop this train of thought.
“Right now, Pidge is angry at me, and I gotta figure out how to word my apology. I’ll worry about this stuff later. Quiznak I forgot the headphones.”
Lance spun around, remembering he left them on one of the chairs on the bridge.