Chapter Text
Shay goes to Hunk, because he's her best friend, and she doesn't know what to do anymore.
"I do not know what to do anymore," she complains as the door to Hunks room slides open.
Hunk is lounging on the bed reading on a tablet, a boyfriend on either side, but he looks up when she enters and gives her a sympathetic look. "Is this about your crush on Allura?" he asks.
Shay visibly wilts. "Am I that obvious about it?"
Hunk says "No" just as Lance chimes in with, "Yes." He is immediately silenced with a glare.
Shay sits down on the floor. The bed is taken and she's found that she's too big to sit comfortably in most chairs.
She wrings her hands awkwardly when Hunk asks what happened.
"Nothing really happened. I was on the observatory, just looking at the stars. The princess came to find me, after a while, and we spent an hour just admiring the view and talking. I guess I just looked at her, the way she was illuminated by the stars, and thought that she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
The boys nod in agreement. Then Lance turns, gives Hunk a flirty wink and adds: "Besides you, of course."
Hunk groans in embarrassment, but even his dark skin can't hide that he's blushing fiercely. Lance smirks in triumph and kisses him on the cheek.
Shay smiles at their antics. "I wanted to ask you for advice because, well, you three seem so happy. Do you think you could help me?", she asks hopefully.
She's greeted by thoughtful silence. Then Lance speaks up: "Shay, you're a great person, or uh, rock. Anyone would be lucky to have you. But don't you think that, well, Allura might be out of your league?"
"You're right," Shay says sadly, "I should be glad I even get to be friends with her." She gives an embarrassed huff and gets up. "Sorry for wasting your time," she adds as she's leaving.
The teenagers watch as she exits the room with slumped shoulders.
Keith, who up to this point had been cuddling against Hunk and seemingly asleep, sits up and punches Lance.
"You," he says with a scowl, "are fixing this."
Dinner is quiet, which is practically a miracle considering the Team is made up of rambunctious teenagers.
Shiro looks around at the group with a concerned frown. Pidge is too busy tinkering with Rover to socialise, which isn't unusual, but Lance is uncharacteristically silent as he stirs around in his space goop. Keith and Hunk seem to be taking turns glaring at him, the latter also sending worried looks at a subdued Shay. Allura is watching all of this closely, and when Shiro catches her eye, he gives her a tiny nod. He'll deal with whatever has the team off before it can become an issue when forming Voltron.
The only one chattering as normal is Corran, although Shiro can tell he isn't entirely unaffected. To combat the tense mood, he's being even more ridiculous than usual, trying to cheer the Paladins up. It doesn't seem to be working.
With a sigh, Shiro braces himself for getting involved in his friend's messy, overly complicated and angst-filled teenage love lives. After dinner.
He corners the trio just down the hall from the dining room and crosses his arms, waiting. It only takes a raised eyebrow for Keith to burst out with a sulky: "It's Lance's fault."
Shiro sighs and somehow manages not to say "Isn't it always?" because that wouldn't be very mature. And pretty unfair. He's almost 90% sure Lance doesn't mean to mess up half as much as he does.
"I was only trying to help!" Lance yelps, which is all the confirmation he needs.
Keith crosses his arms and glares at him. "And you say I'm the emotionally constipated one."
"You are," Lance shoots back. "Which is why it's downright weird that I'm getting a lecture about tact from you."
"Guys," Shiro interrupts, sensing that they're gearing up for a fight. How Hunk stands the two of them, he'll never know. "What happened?"
Hunk tells him. "Shay's very sensitive," he finishes. "Especially about her looks and being, and I quote, 'a rock'." The last part is said with a glare at Lance.
"Alright," Shiro says, sighing again. He's pretty sure if his hair wasn't already grey, being team leader would make it that way in no time. "Lance, you figure out a way to apologise to Shay. She's sweet, so she'll probably forgive you anyway, but she deserves to hear it. Meanwhile, we try to figure out if Allura likes her back."
"We're playing matchmaker?", Hunk aks, sounding surprised.
"I'm not a big fan of sticking my nose where it doesn't belong," Shiro says honestly. "But this is affecting the team. Or rather, Shay and Allura are team. So we'll get this sorted out. Besides, I think this will be a good team bonding experience."
"But how are we going to figure out whether Allura likes Shay?"
"We send in an agent," Shiro says grimly, already puzzling over how he's going to convince Pidge to agree to this.