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Sometime after Shiro disappeared, Coran suggested they develop their teamwork anew by using the mind-sharing headsets.
"Nope, not doing that," Lance declined quickly, immediately arousing Pidge's suspicions.
"Why not?" she quipped, smirking at him. "Got anything to hide?"
"Me?" Lance said in that faux nonchalant voice he did too well. He pressed his hand to his chest, eyes wide in indignation. "No, I'm an open book, Pidge. I'm just worried about you."
"...me?" Pidge said. That was not at all the answer she expected, whether or not it was true.
"Yeah," Lance said, nodding. "Remember what you were hiding last time we used the headsets? I wonder what else you could be hiding." Now he was the one that smirked, and continued sagely, "For all we know, you can reveal you're a shape-shifting slug."
"Shape-shifting...slug," Pidge said lamely, stunned by Lance's imagination...or lack thereof.
"Lance," Keith pointed out from his spot down the table, "it took Pidge telling us she was a girl for you to figure that out."
Lance scowled at him, blushing while Pidge snickered. "Maybe I'll be watching out for other secrets this time!" he retorted, pointing his spork at Keith.
Keith raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him, then turned to her. "So, Pidge, are you a shape-shifting slug? It sure would be nice to have another half-human alien on the Castle."
Pidge grinned at him, surprised by the joke; Keith hadn't joked much to begin with, but his humor dried up even more since Shiro's disappearance. "Sorry to disappoint you, Keith, but I am not."
"Too bad," Keith said.
Pidge then glanced sideways at Lance, who still looked troubled, though he hid it well. He laughed at something Hunk said, but he had a faraway expression on his face as he played with his food rather than ate it.
Pidge sighed. If Lance had something to hide, she could easily find out what it was; she just had to do it in the hour or so before they did Coran's suggested exercise.
She decided her best bet would be to seduce Lance.
Pidge nearly choked on her goo as soon as the idea crossed her mind. Hunk helpfully slapped her back when she coughed, but she was too stunned by her own thought process to thank him.
Pidge? Seduce Lance?
She blushed furiously and hid her face in her hands before anyone else noticed.
"Pidge?" said Allura. "Are you all right?"
"Perfect," Pidge gritted out.
"You sure?" Hunk asked. "Your face is really red."
Which meant there was no point in hiding it. She looked up to see the rest of the table's occupants staring at her. "I'm fine," she lied. Then, she decided now or never, pushed her chair back, and stood. "Hey, Lance, can I talk to you outside?"
Lance dropped his spork into his plate, splashing goo onto the table. "What? Why?"
"It's important." He sat on Hunk's other side, so it was simply a matter of grabbing him by the wrist and dragging him out of the dining room.
He came easily enough, though when she looked over her shoulder he was utterly bewildered, his jaw slack with surprise, his eyebrows furrowed with confusion. And when Pidge opened a closet door and shoved him inside, following him a second later, he looked even more confused.
The space was so small, and they were so crowded into it, that Pidge felt his warm breath on her face when he said, "Pidge, I would love to talk to you, but why--"
Pidge grabbed him by the collar and jerked him down to kiss him.
She'd never kissed anyone before, and though deep in her heart of hearts she'd wanted to kiss Lance in particular for months now, she never thought she would get this far.
Oh, God, she thought, shoving him away from her, suddenly nervous and ashamed. "I'm sorry," she said as Lance straightened, rubbing his lip where she accidentally bit him. "I shouldn't have done that."
"No kidding," said Lance, looking down at her. "At least give me a little warning next time, won't you?"
That was not at all what she expected. "What?"
"Look, I know I'm irresistible, Pidge," Lance said, rubbing the back of his neck, "but if you want me that badly, at least tell me."
"I want to slap you," Pidge said, annoyed.
"I'm not really into that," Lance said casually. "But I could be for you."
Pidge blushed lividly. He was joking about her wanting him, and then he had the audacity to tease her like this? She crossed her arms, suddenly hating the crowded space. Why the hell had she thought this was a good idea? She should've known Lance wouldn't be seduced out of his secrets.
She decided to try for a blunter approach.
"What are you hiding, Lance?"
"W-what?" Lance backed away from her as far as he could in the tiny space. "N-nothing!"
"Yes, you are!" Pidge pointed at his face. "And whatever it is, it's bothering you and affecting your well-being, so either 'fess up or I'm going to dig in your head later whether you like it or not."
Lance snorted. "We're not that intimate," he said.
Pidge stood on her toes, holding onto his arm for balance as she tried to put her face as close to his as possible. "Lance, we regularly merge our brains to operate a giant sword-wielding weapon of mass destruction," she reminded him. "That's as intimate as it gets."
Lance stared down at her, eyes wide and frowning. He pinched his eyes shut then and mumbled, "This is a weird way for you to show you care."
"What?" Pidge said. "Of course I care! You're one of my best friends, and I just kissed you!" She hated that she blushed as she said it and was glad it was dark enough he probably wouldn't notice.
"Right," Lance said sarcastically, "because I remember you saying at the Garrison that you weren't there to make friends."
"That was then!" Pidge said, frantic. Had he really misunderstood her that much for this long? "Everything is different now!"
"Oh yeah?" Lance said, skeptical. "Then explain why you keep belittling me."
Pidge, floored, slumped, dropping his arm and stumbling away from him - which wasn't very far - until her back touched the wall. "I don't...I'm..." She rubbed her face; was she really that awful to him?
Yes, a small voice that sounded like a strange combination of Matt's and Shiro's voices chimed in her mind.
Lance wasn't Pidge's first crush, but the way she behaved towards him only proved that she didn't always handle her emotions well. "I'm sorry," she said, quietly. "You're right; I'm an asshole."
"Hey," said Lance, just as softly. He touched her elbow. "I wouldn't go that far. But I do accept the apology. And we are friends, you know; I don't dive for coins in a fountain for anyone."
Pidge looked up to see him smiling at her, and she cautiously returned it.
"And!" Lance said, looking uncomfortable all over again. "I wouldn't say no to kissing you."
Pidge narrowed her eyes at him. He wasn't acting suave (or how he thought suave should act); in fact, he looked...embarrassed, and a touch hopeful. "Why?" she wondered suspiciously.
"Because I like you?" Lance said, shrugging.
"Why?"
"Because you're..." Lance waved his hands, a rare moment of him being lost for words. "You're you, and--"
"No, I mean, since when?" Lance had given no indication that he might feel the same way about her.
"Since..." Lance shrugged. "I honestly have no idea."
Pidge was reluctant to just accept that; she needed a timeline, she needed to know why Lance, who fancied himself a ladykiller, liked her, a girl that he definitely mistook for a boy for the better part of a year.
"Is it...just me?" she asked suspiciously.
"Oh, what do you take me for, Pidge?" Lance demanded, crossing his arms. "I'm not that big of an asshole."
Relieved, Pidge took the two steps separating them. "Okay, just making sure." She wound her arms around his neck and stood up on her toes, leaning her weight against him as she kissed him again, this time gentler and without an ulterior motive.
He made a funny surprised sound, one that made Pidge's face heat up all over again, but he held onto her waist and kissed her back enthusiastically. And as they kissed, Pidge couldn't help but muse that she never once imagined that her first - and second - kiss would be in deep space, stuffed in a three-foot-by-three-foot supply closet, and that it would be with the bane of her existence from the Garrison.
Oddly enough, that made the experience more intimate.
---
"Where are Lance and Pidge?" Allura asked once the rest of them were assembled in the common room for their telepathic linking. She looked at Keith, who frowned and shrugged, then at Hunk.
"The last time we saw them Pidge took Lance aside to talk to him," Hunk remembered. It had scarcely been an hour ago too.
Allura sighed, rubbing her forehead.
"They must've been distracted by something," Hunk defended them loyally.
"Yeah, you know how Pidge is, Princess," said Keith, smiling a bit. "And Lance."
"And it's a lot worse when they're together," Hunk added.
Allura, apparently deciding to take their word for it, frowned. "I suppose you're right," she said, "but they should've been keeping track of time."
"We'll find them," Keith suggested. "Split up?"
"I'll check their rooms," Allura said.
"I'll go down to the Green Lion's hangar," said Keith.
Hunk shrugged. "I'll go back to the kitchen and dining room and check that they didn't go back after we left." When Allura shot him a skeptical look, he said, "Don't worry, I ate enough earlier."
Keith laughed, but then he left for his desintation without another word. Allura followed him out, and then Hunk ventured down the hall to the kitchen.
They weren't there, but Hunk couldn't say he was surprised. And they weren't in the nearby dining room either. "I didn't find them," he admitted, activating the intercom in his helmet.
"I didn't either," Allura said. "Neither of them is in their room."
"Pidge is never there even when she's asleep," Keith pointed out. "Also they're not in the Green Lion's hangar."
Hunk sighed. He was starting to get worried. As he walked back into the hall, Allura mentioned checking the bridge, and his helmet fed her voice directly into his ears, so he almost missed a muffled sound coming from a nearby supply closet.
The mice? he wondered, reaching for the panel to open the door.
Lance tumbled out backwards, landing with a groan with Pidge falling on top of him. Hunk, stunned, watched her slump into him, her face pressed into his shoulder.
"Uh..." Hunk said eloquently, gaping at them.
At the sound of his voice, Pidge shot straight to her feet, face as red as the Red Lion. Lance, whose face was just as red if not redder, stood up slower.
Hunk took in the details: their flushed faces, Pidge's askew glasses, Lance's missing jacket, their hair in disarray... "I knew it!" he said, pointing between the two of them and grinning triumphantly.
"Knew what?" Keith asked at the same time as Allura wondered, "Did you find them?"
Pidge's eyes widened with realization, likely because she heard their voices from his helmet's speakers. "Don't tell them!" she said quickly.
Lance, by contrast, wore a goofy smile and seemed too happy to understand what was going on. "Tell who what?" he said, looking at Pidge.
Hunk might have been more embarrassed at interrupting their makeout if he didn't feel so smug, which was why he told Keith and Allura, "I found them in the supply closet near the dining room."
Pidge groaned, hiding her face in her hands while the situation finally dawned on Lance, a comic look of shock crossing his face. "Oh, no," he said.
Allura, the closest, arrived first and immediately demanded, "Did you forget we had training? Why aren't you wearing your armor? What were you doing in a supply closet?"
Keith appeared before either of them could answer, his eyes widening as he took in Pidge's and Lance's appearance. "Do I want to know?" he asked.
"Probably not," Pidge offered, her blush fading.
"Yes," Hunk said, grinning.
Lance only hid his face in his elbow.