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Lance always insisted on asking Pidge to join him and Hunk - who never looked like he wanted to be there - in sneaking away from the Garrison campus and into the nearby town. Always, at least a few times a week, he knocked on her door, and asked - no, demanded Pidge join them for 'team bonding'.
And Pidge always refused, no matter the methods Lance used when trying to convince her.
(Somehow, he found out her love for peanut butter cookies; she still shudders when she remembers how hard it was to resist the bag he waved under her nose.)
Lance was stubborn, but Pidge being at the Garrison at all proved she could out-last him. Not that she would ever tell him that.
At some point though, she became...tempted. Because Lance gave up.
It was over a week since Lance and Hunk barged through her door, with Lance peeking over her shoulder while she rapidly slammed the screen shut. "What's the matter, Pidge?" Lance had asked, smirking. "Don't trust me?"
"Not at all," she said, staring him right in the eye so he knew she wasn't lying.
Lance's smirk vanished. "I see," he said. Then he smiled, though there was something hurt about the cast of his eyes. He waved his hand towards the doorway and said, "Let's go, Hunk. Pidge is as boring as ever."
Hunk followed, though not without glancing over his shoulder at Pidge. "You okay?" he wondered.
Pidge nodded, and Hunk didn't press.
There was that strange guilt churning in her stomach, guilt she never felt breaking into government facilities and stealing confidential files. But she felt guilty...about not trusting Lance?
No, she realized, rubbing the side of her face. She just felt bad about dismissing him like that; it wasn't her distrust that she felt bad for, it was her delivery when she admitted it.
She would have to apologize for it, she decided.
Pidge didn't have an opportunity to speak to Lance again until their shared lunch period the following day. Since Hunk had a different lunch period, he sat with a few other classmates she didn't recognize. He wasn't engaged in conversation with them though and only looked half-interested in the story being told by one of the others, idly picking at the congealed macaroni-and-cheese piled on his tray.
"Lance," she said, sliding into the space next to him.
He glanced sideways at her, then looked away. No greeting, no smile. "What do you want, Pidge?"
"I just...wanted to apologize," she said, the words sounding stilted to her ears. She wasn't used to expressing remorse. "I shouldn't have said what I did."
"But you meant it?" Lance asked.
Pidge stared at her hands, clenched into fists in her lap. "Yes," she admitted quietly.
"Why not?" He didn't sound angry so much as confused.
"I barely know you," she told him. She finally glanced up at his face, only to meet his eyes.
Lance flashed her a smile. "Pidge, that's your fault."
"What? How?" she demanded.
"Every time Hunk and I wanna hang out, we invite you," he pointed out. "And you always refuse." He climbed off the bench, bidding goodbye to his other friends, right as the bell rang for their next class period. "Let me know if you change your mind, okay?"
"Okay," she said hollowly, stunned as she watched him walk away.
She hated that he was right.
---
And so began the temptation.
It was true, then, that one didn't know what they had until it was gone. And with Lance withholding his friendship from Pidge - who never wanted it in the first place - she realized how much she missed it.
Lance was making it clear that he didn't want any kind of relationship with Pidge unless she put in some effort too. And she could respect that.
It didn't mean she liked it.
Their scores in the flight simulator, already failing, got worse. Lance was terse with Pidge, and Pidge, in return, was short with him. And Hunk, who treated them both as warmly as he ever did, looked between the two of them entirely at a loss of what to do.
When Iverson accused Pidge of being an uncommunicative communications officer, she took it without protest, her face stony with acceptance.
It wasn't until a week after her botched apology passed that Pidge finally bit the bullet and knocked on the door to Lance's and Hunk's shared room.
"Hey Pidge," Hunk greeted her with a smile.
"Hi Hunk," she said, returning his smile. It eased some of her nerves, though she still wiped the sweat from the palms of her hands on her shorts. "Are you and Lance going into town tonight?"
Hunk glanced into the room over his shoulder; he was so broad, almost filling out the doorway, that Pidge saw nothing past him. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "Lance hasn't wanted to go all week."
"Oh," said Pidge, blinking at him in surprise. She turned around. "I guess I'll just--"
"Wait!" Lance called from inside. And before Pidge could take a step, he shoved his way past Hunk and grabbed Pidge by the wrist. "Oh, we're going out tonight."
Pidge shook him off of her, and when he let go she asked, "What did you have in mind?"
---
It turned out that Lance was something of an escape artist, which really shouldn't have been a surprise considering how often he engineered his and Hunk's post-curfew escapades without them getting caught.
(Though there were times that they had, but their success rate was still high.)
Somehow, he managed to integrate Pidge into his scheme, finding corners and shadows for all three of them to hide in, ducking into empty classrooms and closets - a tight, uncomfortable fit, with her head tucked under Lance's chin and Hunk's elbow digging into her ribs - and dodging officers on patrol after hours.
Until finally, they escaped Garrison premises and were well on their way walking into town.
"So where do you go on these outings?" Pidge wondered, glancing at an arcade as they passed by - hopefully not too longingly. She thought she spotted a fellow Garrison classmate crouched over a pinball machine, another one standing nearby cheering her on.
"Anywhere really," said Lance. "We like to get out to stretch our legs."
"Like we can't do that at the Garrison," Hunk added, rolling his eyes.
"And we can't," Lance insisted. He finally stopped outside a gas station, looking inside. "Anyone want a Slurpee?" He pulled a squashed wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. "It's on me."
Hunk, who never declined any sort of nourishment (regardless of actual nutritional value), quickly agreed, while Pidge hesitantly tagged along. Even for something as harmless as a cheap drink, she didn't like the idea of owing Lance. But for the sake of whatever tenuous friendship they had, she accepted.
Soon enough, they were back on their way to the arcade. "Sometimes," Lance explained right outside the entrance, "we try to sneak into the eighteen-and-over club down the road." He nodded in that direction while sipping at his Coke slushie. "But with you..." Lance looked Pidge up and down. "Even if you had a fake ID, there's no way you're convincing."
Pidge, who doctored a copy of her brother's driver's license even before he left, smirked. "That's what you think," she said. She slurped loudly on her drink, which she'd drained enough that she mostly sucked air in through the straw.
"Really?" Lance said, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "I know you're seventeen, but you barely look fourteen, dude."
Pidge snorted. Another lie. "And what do you and Hunk do at a club?" she wondered, looking between the two of them.
Hunk had no drink since he'd finished his quickly (and probably gave himself a headache in the process), and he said, "Well, you know Lance..."
"Let me guess," said Pidge, crossing her arms. "You hit on girls that don't know to stay away from you."
"Hey!" said Lance, frowning. "I happen to be quite charming."
"It works sometimes," Hunk conceded.
Pidge, who had seen Lance in action and never saw his charm, snorted again. "I don't believe it," she said.
"Then I'll prove it," said Lance, holding out his hand. "How about a wager?"
"A...wager?" Pidge wondered, staring at the hand. For some reason, the sight of it brought to mind the cliche don't bite the hand that feeds you.
"Yeah," said Lance. "First one of us to get a phone number tonight wins."
Pidge tossed her empty Slurpee cup into a nearby trash can, then returned her attention to her teammates. She stared from Lance's hand to his face, then at Hunk, who shrugged; she would get no advice there.
"Fine," she said, resigned. "What happens if I lose?"
"If I win, I have a date, obviously," Lance said, winking at her.
Against all reason, Pidge felt heat claw up her neck. She scowled at him. "What if you get a fake number? Who wins then?"
Lance's face fell; apparently he hadn't considered that. But he bounced back quickly, his smile lighting up with a new idea. "Then that's how you win, Pidge."
Pidge thought...and thought. And decided. "If I win, you stop asking me to come out with you," she said.
He frowned at that. "Really?" he said. "You're still on that?"
Pidge shrugged. "If I'm interested, I'll do like tonight and ask to tag along," she said. "It has to be on my terms."
Lance stared at her. Something shifted in his face, and for the first time Pidge thought he might not be as easy to read as she initially thought. Then, he rolled his eyes and waved his hand. "We shake on it then?"
Pidge shook his hand, ignoring the stickiness from the syrup in his drink and how his hand was almost large enough to completely engulf hers.
(She hated how small she was sometimes.)
After the deal was made, Lance said, "So let's meet back here after we get our numbers, shall we?" He smirked at her.
Pidge sighed. "Fine," she said, not pointing out that the whole purpose for her accompanying him and Hunk was to spend time with her teammates, something she couldn't do if they went off to different ends of town.
Lance snidely wished her luck and left in the direction of the club he mentioned, Hunk right behind him. Pidge, meanwhile, decided to take her chances in the arcade since she was more likely to come across someone age-appropriate inside.
However, Pidge knew she had a major problem in this endeavor: she hadn't a clue how to flirt, and though there was something to be said about learning by imitation, she knew Lance was the last person she wanted to emulate.
Which meant she was definitely a shoe-in to lose the wager.
Pidge bit her lip, wondering if maybe she could ask some girl to take pity on her. She thought a girl would probably be more sympathetic to her plight...at least until she remembered that she looked enough like a boy to fool the Garrison, and enough like a boy that a girl would be wary of giving out her phone number.
So much for sympathy.
Pidge didn't want to default on the wager though, despite her poor odds. No, the stakes were too high; she needed Lance - and Hunk, but mostly Lance - to stop bothering her in the evenings, and she needed to do it guilt-free.
While thinking of a possible solution, Pidge exchanged a five-dollar bill for quarters. She cycled through a number of games, playing Space Invaders and Pac-man and pinball almost mindlessly. Then, when Inky and Clyde together overwhelmed poor Pac-man for the last time in Level Seven, Pidge raised her eyes from the screen to a label on the machine.
A label including a local phone number to call for repairs if the machine broke down.
Pidge smirked to herself and grabbed a pen from her jacket pocket.
---
Lance loosely held her wrist as he inspected the number scrawled on her right hand. "Wow, I can't believe you beat me to it," he said, dropping her hand.
Pidge couldn't help the sly smile stretching across her face, even as she hid her hand behind her back. "You should've had more faith in me, Lance," she quipped.
Hunk also looked impressed, and even said to Lance, "Maybe you can learn from him, buddy."
Pidge made a face. "Eh, better not."
"So..." Now it was Lance's turn to smirk, his eyebrows waggling suggestively. "You gonna call her?"
Pidge laughed. "Are you kidding?" she said. "I can't call her."
"Why not?" asked Hunk.
"Is it a him?" Lance said, tone curious.
"Neither," Pidge admitted with a grin. "I got this number off of a Pac-man machine."
"Ah, Pidge," Lance said, a look of vindication crossing his face. "That's not how--"
"Nope," Pidge interrupted. "You stipulated a phone number. You never said how - or whose - I had to get it."
Lance frowned and glanced at Hunk, who shrugged and said, "He's right."
Then Lance laughed. "Okay, fine, you got me," he said. "A deal's a deal, so you...never have to see my face after dinner hour again."
Pidge, gratified, pretended not to notice the strain in his smile after that.
---
"So what do you do all evening that you'd rather do than go out with us?" Lance wondered, wandering to her open doorway a few nights later.
"Homework," Pidge lied, hoping she managed to make it sound convincing.
"Homework?" Lance said, leaning against her open door frame. "I don't believe you."
"Well, believe it," said Pidge, pointing at her open physics textbook and her nearby store-bought laptop - the heavy-duty computer she built for more practical purposes than schoolwork already stuffed into her backpack, ready for her to sneak up to the roof.
"Well, all right then," Lance finally said, shrugging and - blessedly - leaving.
Pidge, relieved, sighed, but she doubted he believed her, and not just because he'd said as much. Which was fine. She didn't need him to buy her lies, only to not call her out on them. Again.
Ever since she'd gone out with him and Hunk, and ever since she won their wager through a technicality, Lance was...well, she couldn't say it was as bad as it was before she snuck into town with them, but she wasn't sure their relationship had actually improved.
No, Lance was downright polite to her now, their friendship bordering on formality. Professional, she might say, if Lance was capable of being professional.
At least their flight simulation scores had improved, though they were still within the margin of failure.
She had to hand it to Lance though; thanks to their single shared escapade off of Garrison premises, Pidge was much more confident in her ability to sneak up onto the roof without being detected.
---
Pidge took advantage of her next physics class - which focused on aerodynamics - to drill their teacher on the materials and design of the shuttle used in the Kerberos mission.
Professor Montgomery narrowed her eyes at Pidge. "Most of that information is classified, Cadet," she said carefully, "and also off-topic. We're discussing air resistance and terminal velocity, something more basic than materials or shuttle design." She turned her back to the class and continued deriving equations.
Pidge gritted her teeth. If she'd used her real high school grades rather than false ones, she would be in the same upper level physics course as Hunk; as it was, this was one of the classes she shared with Lance.
He sat two rows back and a few seats over from her, and she thought she felt his eyes on the back of her head, sharp and observant.
This wasn't the first time Pidge had steered a class discussion towards the Kerberos mission, but it was the first time she was conscious of Lance watching her so closely.
"So...the Kerberos mission, huh?" Lance asked her after class. It was the last of the day, so he seemed to make it a point to walk back towards their dormitory with her. It was also the first time he'd sought her out since...well, since their outing.
"What about it?" Pidge gritted out, clutching her physics textbook close to her chest.
"It's not the first time you've mentioned it in class," Lance observed. "Also, smart kid like you? You're probably not doing it just because you're curious."
Pidge blushed, remembering the time she'd asked her programming teacher for details 'out of curiosity'. But Lance wasn't in that class, so how did he know about that? Unless...
"You and Hunk talk about me when I'm not there?" she demanded, halting in her tracks.
"Yes, yes we do," Lance admitted shamelessly, stopping along with her. "And you know what? The way you're freezing us out is getting old."
"I'm not freezing you--"
"You are," Lance interrupted, prodding her shoulder. "You only went out with us the other night to appease me, Pidge. I'm not an idiot."
No, he was not that, Pidge was starting to realize, though he acted like one sometimes. "And why does it matter to you?" she asked, stiffening her shoulders and glaring at him.
"Maybe because we're a team?" he said. "Maybe because you're not acting like a teammate should?"
Pidge scowled. "I talk to you, don't I? I'm walking with you now."
"The bare minimum," Lance retorted, crossing his own arms.
Fellow cadets gawked at them as they passed, but they might as well have been invisible for all the attention Pidge cared to pay them.
"So what is going on, Pidge?" Lance said.
"It has nothing to do with you," Pidge hissed, leaning towards him.
"Are you sure?" Lance demanded, glaring. "How can we be a team if you don't trust us? What if you need help?"
Pidge refused to back down. "I don't need help from you," she retorted, "and I can trust you without telling you everything about me, Lance."
"Oh really?" he said, sounding snide in that way she hated. "Explain how."
Pidge knew, from both his words and Hunk's, that Lance had a large family, and she knew in that vague, abstract way that it was difficult to keep secrets in a large family. Not that she thought she and Lance were family, but he and Hunk practically were. Which was how she deduced he couldn't understand her need to keep some things guarded close to her chest, away from anyone else's prying eyes. And it wasn't just that she wasn't actually a seventeen-year-old boy named Pidge Gunderson. It was that she didn't like sharing all the pieces of herself, even with her closest friends.
Then again, she didn't even have any close friends, no, not aloof Pidge Gunderson.
"I can trust you with my life," she said carefully, tasting every word before saying it, "without trusting you with my secrets."
Lance stared at her, his expression frozen into a glare, but he seemed to be contemplating her words. Then he shrugged, sighing. "Fine," he said. "If that's how you want to do it, then I guess that's good enough. See you in the simulator, Pidge." He turned around and walked across the courtyard to the dormitory. When he stood at the entrance, he paused, his head twitching as if he wanted to look back but instead stopped himself.
Once she was inside her room, Pidge slammed her door shut. She slumped into her desk chair, the echo of his last words to her - her own words from when she first met him and Hunk - still playing in her head.
"I'm not here to make friends," Pidge reminded herself. "And I can't trust anyone with this." As she gathered her newly built computer and scanning equipment into her backpack, she pushed Lance from her mind.
It would be fine. She didn't need to trust her teammates so closely.
She only wished she could believe it.