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One time, when Allura was about eight years old, she made a heartfelt comment to a couple about how cute they were when she met them at a Ball in the Castle. She later discovered that they weren’t a couple when she made the comment, but they also told her that they had been avoiding the subject for too long, and it wasn’t until she brought it up that they finally talked about it and started a relationship.
Since then, Allura was convinced she was a natural matchmaker, and that was the main reason she decided the task of getting the green and black paladins together fell, naturally in, her hands.
Allura liked to think she was observant, but truth to be told, it was her mice who told her everything that happened inside the castle before she could even take a notice of it herself. So, when her rodent friends came with the gossip that certain two paladins were dancing around each other with clear signs of mutual pining, she decided she was up for the task.
She realized that she had to be subtle; she couldn’t risk asking Pidge about it directly. She sill remembered how it went when she tried to make her admit she was a girl. This time, she would have to be smarter, stealthier. Ergo, she decided that the best course of action was to use her mice to create subtle scenarios for the paladins to confess their feelings.
Her first try was to send them to get Pidge one time that Shiro was training alone in the simulation room. They were currently navigating near a system that had not one but two suns, and one of them was a white dwarf, which made even the inside of the ship really hot, and that was probably why Shiro was training with a light sleeveless shirt, and even Allura, who wasn’t precisely attracted to humans, find the vision quite appealing. Surely, Pidge would find it even more so.
The Altean princess was following Pidge not far behind when she finally left her room and followed the mice, whom she had sent to fetch her.
“What?” she asked confused while they prompted her to go down the corridor, “What is it, guys?” she took two uneasy steps. After all, even if the mice sometimes kept her company while she worked, they never quite urged her to stand up. “You want me to follow you? That way?” The mice chirped excitedly. “Okay, okay, I’m going, geez. One would think after piloting a giant robot and fighting against evil aliens this couldn’t get any weirder, but I guess following mice through a floating castle can’t be cataloged as weird anymore, I mean…” she kept rambling while she advanced, with a really happy Allura on her tail because her plan was working.
“Oh, no, no,” she complained when they were arriving at their destination. “I’m not going to train, guys. I was in the middle of…” she interrupted herself when the mice tripped her into the room. “Hey, watch it!”
“Pidge?” the black paladin asked, stopping his punching to the dummy.
“Oh, hey, Shiro,” she said, catching her footing. She looked around and noticed that he was alone. “What are you doing?”
“Hey,” he greeted. “I was training a little. What brings you here?” he asked back.
Pidge looked at her feet, but the mice were gone.
“Um… I was… stretching my legs, you know? I was thinking that I’ve been spending a lot of time inactive, yeah…”
“Oh, then perhaps you’d care to join me in my training.”
“Wh-wha? Me? But you’ll crush me in like, three seconds!”
“I’m pretty sure you can hold your ground,” he stated. “You’ve crushed guys twice as big as me.”
“Well, yeah…” ‘But they weren’t you’, she thought.
Outside and hidden from view, Allura was losing her mind. “What are they doing?” she asked the mice in a frustrated whisper. They seemed completely unfazed by their attires, making her confused. Lance once said humans reacted when they found the person they liked wearing something they considered… what was the word he used? Hot? Even Pidge was wearing a tank top and shorter shorts due to the infernal heat, so why? She thought they would totally at least get flustered.
She watched as Pidge finally accepted to train with Shiro and they started to spar. Even with all that touching, nothing happened. But of course, that was what she got for coming with ideas that came from Lance’s ramblings. Neither Shiro nor Pidge were people who would drool over each other just because they were showing a little more skin.
She surrendered the mission as lost for any romantic advances when he showed her a move that involved getting out of a hold from behind in which he hold her close to his chest and neither of them reacted. She sighed, almost annoyed, and went back to her own business. They kept training for a few more hours until it was time to go to sleep.
Sadly, Allura failed to notice that despite the lack of romantic advances, they chose to spend the day together, and romantic or not, it was an advance.
Her second try was inspired on her first. She aimed for something simpler and a little more direct. She waited for one of their meals. Shiro usually took a sit at the end of the table and she waited for Pidge to help Hunk bring the food from the kitchen to start her plan.
She made her mice run between Pidge’s feet to make her stumble. Allura was sure that if they acted just on time, Pidge was going to fall right into Shiro’s arms, or perhaps even on his lap if he wasn’t quick enough. But of course, the universe had other plans.
When her mice ran towards the only female paladin, she was currently carrying some dishes. She fell backwards instead of forward, and since Shiro was distracted talking to Keith, he didn’t saw her loose her footing and couldn’t catch her. The food ended up on Lance’s face and Pidge fell on her own ass.
“What is wrong with you guys recently?” Pidge asked the mice with a painful grimace, but the mice just ran away from the dining room to the kitchen. She was glad she didn’t see them again that day.
After that, Allura was starting to doubt her abilities, but after some pep talk to herself, she was back on track. This time, she was going to target Shiro. After all, if she kept targeting Pidge, it wouldn’t be long before the green paladin would start to put two and two together and catch her.
So, after some well-done planning, she made her mice steal Shiro’s gauntlet, who then preceded to run to hide on Pidge’s lab. Allura, who was watching and waiting from the control room, locked the door closed once he was inside and patted herself mentally on the shoulder. She wasn’t going to let them out until something happened.
The mice left the piece of armor on the lab’s floor and slipped away using one of the small corridors they’ve gnawed around the castle. They joined Allura soon after.
“Oh, hey Shiro,” Pidge greeted. “You need something?”
“Actually, Allura’s mice just came running in here with my gauntlet,” he explained.
“Allura’s mice?” she asked arching a brow, and the princess could hear the gears in Pidge’s head rolling. She started to sweat.
“Yeah, did you see ‘em?”
“Sorry, I was concentrated with this update to my lion, I didn’t see or hear anything, but I’ll help you look.”
“Thanks”
It was a little like a seeking game because Pidge’s lab was an explosion of gears, parts of almost anything, wires, machines and more machines that blended in quite well with the color of their armors.
“You know, I’ve noticed that Allura’s mice have been acting a little weird lately,” she commented.
“They stole your stuff too?” Shiro asked, a little surprised.
“Not exactly, but they’ve been tripping me and trying to grab my attention to get me to follow them,” she explained. “Ha, found it!” she said after spotting the item under her desk.
“Great. Thanks,” he said when she handed it to him.
“Have they done something else besides still your armor?” she asked.
“No, this is the first time they’ve done something out of the ordinary,” he admitted.
Pidge hummed, pensive, and Allura realized her subtleness was perhaps not as subtle as she thought. She saw how Shiro excused himself and walked to the door just to realize it was stuck. Pidge tried to open it too to no avail and the princess comforted herself thinking that this time, for sure, it had to work, so it really didn’t matter if she was starting to get suspicious.
“It should be a malfunction,” Pidge was saying as she went to her desk to grab some tools. “It’s alright, I can open it manually,” she said, carelessness dripping from her voice.
Allura almost screamed. Of course Pidge could open the door easily. She was an idiot for forgetting that tiny, little detail. She sighed, defeated and impotent when Shiro was free to go after less than a minute.
“What are you doing?” a voice asked from behind her, amused. It was Lance. Allura didn’t hear him enter.
Allura startled and turned around.
“Nothing!” she said, a little stiff.
“It didn’t seem like nothing,” Lance said matter-of-factly, scratching his chin with a smug expression. “It seemed like you were playing matchmaker and it didn’t go well.”
“I’ll have you know that I am a very skilled matchmaker!” she exclaimed, pride wounded.
“Ha!” Lance smirked, “So you were playing matchmaker.”
Allura huffed.
“It’s alright, princess,” Lance said with a comforting, mocking tone. “Not to worry. Lance is here to help.”
“I don’t need help,” Allura started to say, but Lance’s unimpressed expression told her he didn’t think so.
“You just got discovered,” he deadpanned.
“I…”
Just when she was about to reply, the door slipped open and Pidge emerged as if from the confines of hell.
“Allura, I have a question for you if you don’t mind”
Lance looked at the princess and smiled very sure of himself.
“Watch and learn” he whispered.
“Yeah, but before that, Pidge, my man… girl. You think you could check my lion?”
That immediately grabbed her attention.
“Check your lion?” she asked with sparkling eyes, attention completely averted.
“Yeah, I think something’s wrong with the pedals,” he lied.
He put an arm around her shoulders and guided her towards his lion hangar. Allura pursed her lips and followed them, skeptical. She watched Lance talk her into getting in the lion and running outside when she started her usual excited rambling about her thoughts on the lion and what could possibly be wrong.
“Make sure she stays there, be right back!” he half whispered half shouted before disappearing through the door. The princess saw him go, confused.
“Shiro! Hey, Shiro!” Lance called their leader as soon as he spotted him, making the other paladin turn towards him when he heard him calling his name. “Oh, hey, so glad I finally found you, man! I need your help! Or, more like Pidge needs your help,” he said stopping in front of him and making his best impression of being distressed.
“What happened?” the black paladin asked, frowning in concern as soon as he heard the words ‘Pidge needs your help’.
“She was helping me with some repairs on my lion and she got stuck inside the cabin, I told her she wasn’t going to fit in the space between the pedals but she didn’t listen to me!”
And just like that, both paladins were running towards the hangar again.
Allura saw them enter, Shiro making a beeline for the blue lion and getting inside of it with a frantic expression.
“Pidge!” he shouted entering the cabin.
Lance stood beside a shocked Allura looking very pleased with himself.
“Don’t let them out until they hook up, sweetie,” he told his lion, patting his paw. He then turned to Allura and flicked his hair. “And that’s,” he smirked, “how is done.”
Allura looked at him with a mixture of offense and admiration plastered on her face. Lance made an exit of the hangar feeling like a king and Allura thought it was better to observe from the cameras someplace else when she saw them talking and solving the misunderstanding. Despite she couldn’t hear them, she ran away.
“Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no!” Pidge grunted with her palm on her forehead and shaking her head. “This is all Allura’s doing, I’m sure.” She stated. “And Lance’s, apparently.”
“You think Allura and Lance wanted to trap us? What for?” Shiro asked.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was her idea. I mean, the mice were one thing, but I didn’t know Lance was a rat,” she spat.
“You lost me”
Pidge sighed.
“The mice had been acting weird, right? Stealing our stuff, making me trip or follow them. When that happened, they guided me to the training arena, that time we ended up sparring,” she started to explain. “They guided me to you, and where did they guide you when they stole your gauntlet?”
“To your lab,” Shiro responded. And then, “Oh.”
She felt her face growing hot.
“Yeah,” she mumbled. “I think Allura’s playing matchmaker and this time I can’t hack the lion to get us out.”
She thought about it for a second.
“Hey, Blue! You think I can bribe you to get us out?” she asked, dubious.
The lion grumbled softly but didn’t open.
“Thought so,” she said.
“It was worth the try,” Shiro said, trying to be optimistic.
“Got any ideas?” she asked leaning against the back of the pilot’s seat and crossing her arms.
“Uh… perhaps he would let us out if he thinks he already completed his mission?” he suggested trying to sound logic, without realizing the implication of his statement.
“Yeah!” she brightened up, “That sounds like it should work!”
But wait, she made a mental pause, if the mission was to get them together, then that meant…
They looked at each other and felt their hearts jump to their throats in panic.
‘I’m going to murder them when we get out of here’, she swore internally.
Five minutes, a shy “What do you suggest we do?”, a “We can… perhaps, k-kiss?” and a shy peck later, they were still trapped. Twenty minutes, a “Do you wanna give it another try?”, an “Okay” and a little longer, firmer kiss later, they were still trapped. An hour, a “You’re too tall, I can’t reach”, a “Hop up” and several kisses later, they were starting to forget to check if they were still trapped.
Two hours later, they were panting, the cabin was beginning to be a little too hot and, wait. Were they trapped? Perhaps they should check. But just give them a minute. Three hours later, she didn’t even notice she had lost her glasses and if he kept tugging gently at her hair, she was probably going to melt into a puddle. An indefinite amount of time later, the fact that they were supposed to check if they were still imprisoned inside of the blue lion had been long forgotten, time perception disabled. He felt her small tongue run across his bottom lip and oh, was he glad his right hand could feel because her skin was so smooth and warm under her sweatshirt.
When they finally got out, Pidge actually considered thanking Lance. But after she murdered him, of course. However, in case you haven’t noticed, Pidge was a very creative person and that was why two weeks later, Shiro discovered her sitting in front of her lion, with a smug grin on her face. When he looked up, he saw Allura and Lance in the pilot’s cabin. Allura looked desperate, Lance was probably trying to convince her to make out to get out. Shiro knew that that wasn’t going to happen, and even if it did, Pidge was a little devil who wouldn’t let them out immediately.
“What are you doing?” he asked arching an amused brow, even if he already knew the answer.
She looked up at him and with a straight face, said just one word with a grim voice.
“Vengeance”
He looked up at the cabin again through the eyes of the lion and had to admit it was a pretty funny scene.
“Are you going to make me let them out?” she asked him, a little hesitant.
“In a minute,” he responded calmly and sat beside her.
She smiled contently, secretly falling a little more in love. She rested her head against his arm, looked up and enjoyed the rest of the show.