#aksj;fkj;fsdf i tried i dunno how i did

[sp4c3-0ddity]

Oh!! If youre still doing the au thing, neighbors plance au? Everything is still canon compliant but pidge and lance have known each other since they were in diapers (imagine The Angst when pidge disappears after Kerberos and reappears at the garrison and lance has to lie to hunk about “pidge gunderson”)

possibly not quite what you wanted and a bit more than five headcanons (a fic of nearly 3000 words…) but i hope you like it!! sorry it’s a bit of a mess

(also i made up some stuff about the Garrison and the timeline may be a little off)

“Whothe heck is Pidge Gunderson?”

Predictably Hunk shrugs, as baffled asLance is…thoughlikely not as disappointed. He hopedhis comm specialist would be any of the last five girls he had a crush on, andyet—

“Righthere.”

The familiar voice squeezes his chest andmakes it difficult to breathe for a second, but when he recovers - no way, it can’t be her- he spins on his heel to face his and Hunk’s new teammate.

But the round face and petite frame areunmistakable despite the uneven haircut and glasses. Lance doesn’tknow who Pidge Gunderson is, but it’s not the girlstanding before him.

Katie Holt.

***

Lance lay on his side glaring at theGarrison recruitment poster tacked to his wall, well-aware that he was sulkingbut unwilling to do anything about it. He deservedto sulk after Commander Iverson released their class ranking andclassification. Dreams shattered, hopes dashed, his future as a hero andprodigious heartthrob flushed down the toilet and piped all the way to thebottom of the Marianas Trench for the moray eels to make snacks of…

Score: 82.15Ranking: #11Pilot Class: Cargo

The kicker was that his score was a fraction of a point lower than thelowest ranked fighter pilot.

“Thinkof it this way!” Veronica had saidin that peppy voice she took on when he sulked.“You’re top of the cargoclass!”

“Bigwhoop,” Lance had grumbled. “Cargo pilots don’t go on explorationmissions like to Kerberos…”

No, missions like that would be reserved for Keith and James and all the rest at thetop of his year, while he’d be stuck at the bottom of a barreldelivering instant meals to colonies on the moon.

A sharp knock sounded from the door.

“Whatdo you want?” Lance called without turning around. “I’m doing homework!”

The door’s hinges creaked. “That’s a lie.”

He bolted upright, his heart, heavy withdisappointment, lightening when Katie peeked around the door. “Katie!What’re you doing here?” Lance wondered.

She walked in, shutting the door behind her(which his mother wouldn’t be too happy about for some reason…itwas just Katie, their neighborand his friend since forever) and perching on his desk chair. “Iheard from Veronica that you didn’t make fighter class,” she said, scuffing herbare feet against the carpet. “I’m sorry; I know how much you wanted it.”

Lance sat up and waved a hand. “It’snot a big deal,” he said without meeting her eyes. “I mean, at least I made something, right? And if someone in fighter classwashes out I’llbe the first one in line to replace them!”

Katie raised an eyebrow at him, theslightest smirk perking up her lips. “You know that almost never happens, right?”

He slumped, heart weighed down all overagain, and admitted, “Right, well, a guy can hope! Oryou can make it, shoot through the ranks, and change the rules so that the top eleven make fighter class?”He winked at her, oddly pleased when a hint of pink colored her cheeks.

But she rolled his eyes and retorted, “Itdoesn’t really work that way, Lance, and by then it’ll be too late for you.”

“Iknow, I know.” Lance leaned back against his headboard, hands behind his headand ankles folded in front of him. “You couldjust keep some other sorry rank eleven pilot cadet from suffering this samegrave injustice.”

Katie snorted. “You’reso dramatic, Lance.” The bed sank underneath him as she sat beside him andpulled her feet up. “I can tell you’re upset though.”

“Who?Me? Upset that I didn’t get the thing I wanted most in the whole dang universe?Obviously not!”

Katie shot him a flat, unimpressed frown. “Atleast you still get to fly,” she pointed out. “You did reasonably well inflight school, so it’s not like you’ll lack for missions later, even if they’renot glamourous.”

“Easyfor you to say,” Lance mumbled. He covered his face with his arm. “Your dad andbrother are on the mission of a century.”

“Neitherof them is a pilot,” Katie pointed out.

“I’mnot a multi-talented genius like you,” he said, peeking at her from under hisarm. “You can easily get in as a comm specialist or an engineer withoutfinishing school. You can probably get in as a pilot too if you did flightschool first!”

Katie shifted in place, looking suddenlyuncomfortable judging by how she glanced away, and Lance decided to drop thetopic.

“Whatabout you? Going to join me at the Garrison soon?” He grinned, quirking ateasing eyebrow. “Sure, you have to get through at least two years of highschool first, but that’s exciting too, right?”

Katie stuck her tongue out and said, “Please,if I have to suffer more than two years of incompetent teachers and meanclassmates I’ll steal a rocket from the Garrison and launch myself to Kerberoswithout a helmet.”

Lance laughed, but when Katie didn’tjoin in his eyes widened. “That bad?”

She shrugged but rested her chin on herknees, staring at the same spot on his wall that preoccupied him before shearrived. “It’snot a big deal,” she said. “I know there’s an end to it, so I can live with itfor now.”

“Don’tworry,” Lance said. He sat up and slid forward, feet touching the floor, torest a hand on her shoulder. “The Garrison’s better.”

“Easyfor you to say,” Katie said. “You make friends easily and aren’t super smart—”

“Iresent that!” he squawked, hand springing to his chest in offense.

“—soyou fit in.” She smiled apologetically and added, “Sorry, I meant that as anobservation, not an insult.”

“Iknow.” A grin pushed at his lips, and he flicked a strand of her long hair thatfell into her face, unsecured by her ponytail. “But lots of people are supersmart at the Garrison, so you’ll fit right in!”

Probably better than me, he thought with a twinge in his gut.Everyone at the Garrison was just so spectacular…

“Speakingof super smart people,” Lance said, “you heard anything from your dad andbrother lately?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and added, “I know youtalk to them behind the Garrison’s back…”

Katie’s eyes widened in surprise. She grabbedthe front of his shirt, shocking himinto yelping and his heart - did her face have to be so close? - into racing, and said, “No one’s supposed to know about that!”

Lance raised his hands and stuttered, “Sorry!You’re just not careful around me!”

Katie frowned but let him go. “Don’ttell anyone,” she said.

“Hey,your secret is safe with me,” Lance promised. He straightened his shirt andsighed in relief. “So…is that a yes?”

Katie beamed, the expression radiant andwarming him. “Actually,they’re only a few days away from Kerberos…”

***

“Pidge”avoids Lance just like Katie did after the mission failure, but unlike thattime, when her red-eyed mother answered the door with an apology or the pebbleshe lobbed at her bedroom window went unacknowledged, the truth of it stares himin the face.

So he chooses to confront her.

When she opens the door to her dorm, hesticks his foot in the gap before she can slam it back in his face.

“Ow,”he hisses, the shock of it shooting through his foot and forcing a wince fromhim.

“Whatdo you want?” Katie - Pidge? Isn’t that the nickname her brother gave her? -demands. “I’m busy.”

He refuses to budge, despite his stomachdoing somersaults and his heart pounding an uneven rhythm against his ribs. “Ineed to talk to you.”

“Ihave nothing to say to you outside of class,” she retorts tartly.

His chest tightens, but he scowls andinsists, “You’veavoided me for the last few months, Pidge,so I think I at least deserve an explanation.”

Her eyes widen - no longer hidden behindthose big lenses - while a flicker of shame crosses her face before she sighsand opens the door. “Fine,” she says, waving him in. “Let’s make this quick; I havework to do.”

“Work?”Lance snorts, accepting her reluctant invitation. “It’s the second day of thesemester!”

“Ihave more important stuff to do than classwork, Lance,” she grumbles.

Before he can ask what she means, she slamsthe door shut with enough force to rattle the window.

Clothes and books and manuals litter herfloor, a sharp contrast from her relatively tidy childhood bedroom, but despitethe fact that she seems to have made herself quite at home, nothing gives awayanything…personal. No stuffed animals propped against apillow on the bed, no photos of her family pinned to the wall or sitting inframes on her cluttered desk, no stickers or posters or comic books lining thelittle free space on the shelves….

The sight of it makes his chest ache withsomething like regret.

She - really, what should Lance call her? - stands in the middle of the almost hiddenfloor with her arms crossed and her glower fixed at some point past him. “Sowhat do you want?”

“Totalk,” he says, the adrenaline that sustained him up to this point fading as hurt took over. “Why did you ghostme, Katie?”

“Don’tcall me that here,” she snaps, a hint of fear crossing her face so quickly hemight’ve imagined it.

So that answers one question…

“Allright, Pidge,” Lance says through gritted teeth, “whyhaven’t I seen you in months?”

“I’vebeen busy.”

“Busygetting into the Garrison under a fake name?” He mirrors her pose, adding aneyebrow raised in skepticism. “You’d get accepted here as yourself with youreyes closed.”

“I’mnot here for academicreasons,”Pidge says. “I’m here for—look, it doesn’t matter toyou! I’ll be out of your hair soon enough anyway.”

And as much as it pained Lance when sheignored him every time he tried - and failed- to visit her after her father and brother were declared dead, as much as it hurt for her to attempt to blow him offnow, he really didn’tlike the sound of that.

A frown pulls at his lips. “Whatdo you mean?” he wonders.

“I’m…tryingto switch to a different team,” she admits. And she even has the audacity tolook abashed, her eyebrows drawn together and herfingers wringing the hem of her uniform jacket.

But her admission doesn’thurt like it should, not when his chest burns with anger and he snaps, “I don’tknow what you’re up to - and I sure hope you’ll tell me! - but I would never expose you when you’reobviously in disguise.” He rolls his eyes, scowling at the floor, and mutters, “Icovered for you with Hunk already. He sensedsomething odd when I ‘met’ you.”

Of course he had, when the sight of Pidgeand her big brown eyes made his breath catch and his tongue stick to the roofof his mouth and left him speechless.

Really, all his primary school teachersthat bemoaned how talkative he was inclass should’veemployed Pidge disguised as a boy if they wanted him to keep quiet.

“Hedid?” Pidge’s jaw drops. “A-and it’s not that I think you’ll report me,” shecontinues after clearing her throat. “It’s that…I can’t risk being exposed fromsomething so trivial as I’m too friendlytowards someone I just met. Your sister would catch on in a—”

“I’msorry,” Lance interrupts, rolling his eyes, “but that’s the dumbest thing I’veever heard. And look, I knowyou’renot used to making friends”—he doesn’t miss her grimace at the reminder—”but lots of people are really friendly with peoplethey just met, so don’t give me that excuse.”

“I—”Pidge sighs, gaze drifting down to the floor between them. “I just…I don’tknow.”

Lance, suddenly exhausted with all thisincluding the months of her avoiding him, drops onto her bed. “Whyare you going to all this trouble anyway? Your dad works - I mean, worked - here, so can’tyou just…waltz in if you wanted?”

Pidge shakes her head and confesses, “Igot banned from the premises.”

His head snaps up in shock. “Wait,what?”

She sits heavily beside him. “IfI tell you…”

“You’llhave to kill me?” Lance suggests when she trails off, staring into space.

She smiles fleetingly, but he counts it avictory anyway. “No,but you can’t tell anyone else.”

He draws an X over his chest and says, “Crossmy heart. As long as I don’t have to die for this secret…”

“Youcan’t even tell Hunk,” Pidge insists with a glare.

He raises his hands. “I’malready way ahead of you in that…but it’ll get harder,” he says, rubbing theback of his neck sheepishly.

Her eyes flit from his face to the floorand back again. “Itwasn’t pilot error,” she almost whispers.

He leans closer, unsure he heard her right.“What?”

A familiar ferocity enters her eyes,sending a shiver up his spine, as she says, “The pilot didn’t crash and my father andbrother aren’t dead. Something tookthem.”

Lance gapes at her. “Areyou…really? How do you know?”

“ClassifiedGarrison footage I wasn’t supposed to find,” she tells him shortly. “They’relying about what happened.”

“W-whatcould’ve taken them?” he wonders while dread ties his stomach into knots. Buthe forces a laugh and feebly jokes, “N-not aliens, right?” When Pidge doesn’treply, his jaw drops. “Pidge, what did you see?”

“Isaw enough to know there’s more to what the Garrison said publicly,” shepronounces, “but I’m here to find out as much as I can.”

“Anddo what?” Lance asks. “Expose the Garrison’s lie?”

“Maybe,”she says, frowning. “It…depends on what I find.”

“But,Pidge—”

And before he can wonder what she plans todo next, she cuts in, “I’msorry, Lance.”

At this rate, he’llhave a premature heart attack thanks to all the shocksshe’sdealt him.

“What?”

“Ishouldn’t have shut you out like that.” She pulls her feet onto the bed andhugs her knees. “I just didn’t know what to do after the mission failure, so Ithrew myself into investigating that rather than wasting time on other things.”

“Aw,thanks, Pidge,” he says, rolling his eyes despite the disappointment weighinghis heart down anew. “I’m glad that’s what I am to you.”

Her cheeks darken, and she waves her handfrantically to backtrack, “N-no, I didn’t mean it like that!”

“Oh,really?” He raises a skeptical eyebrow. “You mean I wasn’t trying to waste your time?”

“Th-that’snot it at all, Lance,” she says. She rests her forehead against her knees so hecan’t see her face. “It’s just…it was too tempting to use your connection and I didn’twant you to get caught up in this mess after you applied for the spot thatopened up in fighter class so I kept it to myself.”

Lance frowns, convinced that, for all thetruth in the statement, she hides something else, but he can’thelp quipping, “How thoughtful of you, Pidge.”

But then—

“Wait,how did you know about the spot that opened up?” he wonders, instantlysuspicious. “That happened a while after you started avoiding me.”

Pidge’s shoulders stiffen. “I don’t remember,”she says. “I might’ve come across it while I was hacking into the Garrison’ssystems and assumed you’d try for it.”

Lance doesn’t call her out on her obvious lie, notwhen relief fills him that her silenceis finally at an end and…well, maybe they can’t resume theirfriendship as it was before the mission failure, but they won’t have to startfrom scratch.

“Howcan I help?”

Pidge’s head whips around, her eyes bulging inbefuddlement. “What?”

He shrugs, feigning nonchalance despite hisheart pounding and the voice in his head that reminds him he’salready on thin ice in the Garrison’s eyes, and waves a hand. “You know, withyour…investigation.”

“Um…”She blinks once, twice, three times before saying, “Pretend like we didn’t knoweach other before.”

His heart plummets anew at that. “Why?”

“Ialready explained,” she says. She jumps to her feet and faces him, arms thrownout and eyes fixed on the ceiling. “It’s bad enough yourecognized me, so what if someone else does too?”

“But—”he tries to protest, but Pidge plows right through him.

“There’s…nothingyou can help with, Lance,” she says with a heavy exhale.

“ButI’m your friend!” He stands, flailing his arms and gesturing around her messyroom. “I can at least watch your back while you do your sneaky spy stuff!”

“I…maybe,”she concedes grudgingly, “but right now the best lead I’ve got requires I be asinconspicuous as possible.”

“D-doesthis mean you’re still switching teams?” His breath sticks in his throatpainfully at the thought that they can repair their friendship only for it tofracture moments later.

He grew up with Pidge; she’sas dear to him as…well, not a sister, exactly, but the last few months withouther - undoubtedly while she hurtand stewed over her father’s and brother’s not-deaths alone exceptfor her mother - left him almost listless with how much he missed her.

Pidge’s brown eyes bore into his as she says, “No,I guess that’s not necessary.” A slight smile finds its way onto her face,reassuring and warmingLance as much as her words. “Knowing one of my teammates is reason enoughto stay.”

#plance #pidgance #lidge #flirtyrobot #aksj;fkj;fsdf i tried i dunno how i did #i wonder if i've lost my touch BUT oh well #how come i post two fics in one day?? #WELL this is the only one i wrote today SO #voltron #reem writes fic #Anonymous #also don't want to post anything day of/right before season eight #because i know people will be preoccupied with that #qna