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icypantherwrites · 6 years

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Hey for the whump bingo how's uhh hidden scar with pidge as the main and mayhaps lance as a second?

Read *most* of my snippet/drabble fics from @badthingshappenbingo over on Battlefield on AO3 as part of my kiriban event.

Please leave a comment if you enjoyed ♥ And if you were the prompt requester, doubly so would that be appreciated. Gracias!

Battle Scar

Summary: Scars can cut deep and not just physically into the skin. Pidge finds herself forced to confront a memory when Lance catches sight of a scar she had previously kept hidden. But maybe… maybe this is for the best.

“Whoa, Pidgeon, what is that?”

Pidge let out a sound between a shriek and a bellow, whirling around and hands grasping at her towel.

“Don’t you fucking knock?” she screeched, backpedaling across the expanse of the bathroom, face flaming. “Jesus Christ, Lance!”

He held up his hands. “Hey, you’re the one who forgot to flip the sign. But, uh,” his head was angled away now and even though Pidge had put several yards between them she could make out the blush highlighting his cheeks. “Um, I, um…”

“I forgot the sign?” Pidge repeated, clarifying.

Lance let out a tiny squeak, eyes still averted towards the ceiling.

She sighed. They’d put the sign that flipped between a figure that she and Lance had doodled to sort of look like her and then on the opposite side the guys’ as she had turned down Allura’s offer to move to a separate hallway and thus have her own bathroom. She was supposed to turn the sign to her side when she was in the bathroom but she’d been in such a hurry that morning, head spinning with a new idea to modulate the flux capacitors, that she had apparently forgotten.

Again.

Normally though the worst was someone walking in while she was at the sink brushing her teeth or washing her face.

Not freshly out of the shower and wrapped in a towel.

Her cheeks, which had been returning to normal in the face of Lance’s own blush, heated up again.

Damn it.

“You don’t have to apologize,” she put out. “It’s my fault. Sorry.”

He squeaked again, eyes still pointed up.

Pidge’s lips quirked despite herself. “What? You stare first and now you can’t even look at me?”

“I wasn’t staring,” Lance protested, voice still high. “Well, not at… at,” his hands wiggled over his chest and down his torso in some horrible caricature of curves.

Pidge snorted and crossed the bathroom towards the sinks and Lance.

Now that the surprise had worn off it was no different really than walking about the house with Matt around and the towel was more than secure and dropped almost to her knee, minus a small panel that revealed a bit of her upper leg when she walked.

Besides, she felt her cheeks trying to darken again, the best way to deal with embarrassment was to face it head on. If she refused to be self-conscious about the whole thing then it would blow over much quicker than tiptoeing around Lance for the next week, although she knew for all his flirtations he really was quite the gentleman. Still, she was embarrassed and she wanted to nip that in the bud.

After a few moments of quiet he tentatively joined her at the counter, toothbrush in hand.

She met his gaze in the mirror, raising an eyebrow, and to her surprise he met it with a more serious look than she expected considering his cheeks were still dusted pink.

“What?” she asked, it coming out a bit sharper than she intended.

Lance dropped his gaze. “Nothing.”

They were both quiet then, the only sounds those of brushing and the Altean toothpaste foaming in their mouths more than any Earth equivalent was capable of.

They both spat at the same time.

Lance caught Pidge’s eye, foam all over his chin and Pidge grinned back, a dash on her upper lip.

They burst into laughter and just like that Pidge felt the awkwardness fade away, reaching out and flicking a burst of water at Lance.

He yelped but did not retaliate.

Pidge smirked. He chose his battles wisely. Well, this one at least.

“So?” she asked as he rinsed the sink out.

“...so?”

“What were you looking at?”

She had to know. Because generally one didn’t screech “what is that?” without some sort of trigger and if made a comment about her hair, which when wet hung long and she felt a pang of loss at her longer locks, she would slug him.

“Oh, um…”

“Spit it out.”

“Scar,” Lance blurted, face coloring a moment later. “Your, um, scar,” he said softer. “On your leg.”

Pidge glanced down, catching the barest glimpse of the dark line that cut along the whole length of her outer right thigh. Lance must have seen it when she had been walking and the towel had shifted.

“Oh,” she said softly. “That.”

She knew exactly what he was talking about.

“I’m sorry, that was super rude of me,” Lance babbled. “I didn’t mean to look, I promise. I just saw it and I didn’t know you had a scar and it looked painful and it probably was painful and it’s none of my business but I was worried and that’s silly because it’s a scar and it shouldn’t hurt anymore unless it does hurt but then—”

Pidge reached out and clapped a hand over Lance’s mouth, hot breath tingling on her palm. “Breathe,” she ordered, because Lance was starting to actually turn a little blue from lack of oxygen in his whirlwind.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she said, removing her hand and wiping it with an exaggerated grimace on the side of her towel. She rolled her shoulders, averting her gaze. “I don’t actually know how I got it.”

That wasn’t entirely truthful. She knew when she got it.

She’d never forget.

The omission hung in the air and she could feel Lance’s confusion and concern but he didn’t ask again. Pidge appreciated that about him. For as hands-on and obnoxious as Lance could be he did always know when to take a step back, unlike a certain engineer of whose middle name Pidge was sure was ‘Nosy.’

Her hand brushed against her thigh, hidden beneath the towel. Even then she could almost feel the slight pucker of skin that had not healed properly.

She didn’t mean just physically.

There was an ache that had never fully faded even once the wound had scabbed and then scarred.

She’d lied.

It did still hurt.

Even thinking about what happened hurt.

She must have made some expression because the next moment Lance was murmuring, voice low, “Oh, Pidge, c’mere.” He opened his arms wide and she stepped into his gentle hug, his hands very carefully wrapping about her back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I was stupid, okay?”

Her hands rose up to clutch at his jacket and she shook her head. “You’re not stupid,” she whispered. “I just…” she swallowed. “No one else knows about it. I…”

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Lance said gently. “I’m sorry for bringing it up. It’s obviously something that—”

“I got it when Sendak invaded the castle,” she interrupted, words spilling from her lips.

Lance’s hands, which had been gently tracing soft circles on her towel-clad back stilled.

She swallowed. Cat was out of the bag now.

“I don’t know how,” she said, “really. Maybe when I was in the vents, maybe when I attacked Sendak, maybe when Hax—” she cut off on the name, closing her eyes. It hadn’t been her, not really, who had killed the Galran soldier, but she still felt responsible.

She hadn’t talked much about that either.

Lance’s arms tightened about her.

“I didn’t realize I was hurt till later,” she continued quietly. “And… and you were so… so…”

She would never forget the image of Lance lying so still, both immediately following the explosion and then when she’d run into the control room to try and free him and Shiro.

Lance should never be that still.

Even when he’d regained consciousness enough to shoot Sendak, to briefly talk to them, he’d lost it again soon after when he’d tried to stand with Keith’s help and his eyes had rolled back in his head and he’d collapsed without a sound to the ground.

Pidge had been so scared.

They’d loaded Lance into a suit, into a cryo-pod of whose technology was completely foreign to her, and he’d been floating in the tube for the better part of day, so still even then although at least his face had been smooth and free of pain.

She honestly hadn’t realized she’d been hurt until after Lance was in the pod and she’d gone to her room to change, finding the bloody gash. She hadn’t wanted to bother Coran as he cared for Lance and had no desire to seek out any medical attention from the others, and so had gingerly washed it and then wrapped a bandage about it.

She hadn’t give it much attention other than to change the bandage and dot an antiseptic cream she snatched from the infirmary later to prevent an infection.

She honestly wasn’t surprised it had scarred given her lack of care to it. It felt right in a way, to have a reminder of what had happened. Of what had happened to… to Haxus. And Rover. Even now she felt a pang at the loss of her robot who had been her early confidant up in space.

She kept it covered, hidden, trying to forget it and the memories it represented.

She would never forget those yellow eyes widening with horrified panic as he fell.

“I’m sorry,” Lance apologized softly, “for worrying you. And I’m… I’m sorry about what you had to do to protect us.” His hands lifted from her back and Pidge found them settling on her shoulder, pushing her slightly back and then one tipping up her chin.

Dark ocean eyes peered into her own, a compassion and softness she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen from Lance before. “Thank you. For saving all of us. For saving me.”

She sniffled.

“And that scar?” Lance continued, holding her gaze. “It’s a battle scar telling the universe how absolutely brave and amazing you are. Okay?”

“But,” she licked her lips. “But Hax—… that Galran, he…”

“You did what you had to,” Lance told her, thumbs rubbing circles now on her shoulders. “And Rover did too. He wanted to protect you, Pidge and he did, just like you did for all of us.”

Pidge’s lips parted in surprise.

She hadn’t ever thought of it quite like that.

Rover had protected her. Not just from Haxus’ attacks but from her having to… to more permanently stop him herself.

He’d done that for her.

So that she could then pull herself together to protect everyone else.

She bowed her head, pressing the crown against Lance’s chest. “Thank you,” she whispered, not sure it conveyed enough but Lance gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze in understanding.

Pidge smiled.

She had nothing to hide anymore.

Author’s Notes: I’m adoring all of these platonic Plance prompts ♥ These two are just so precious. Enjoy the fic? Reblog and spread the love and/or leave a comment below or on the fic and give some love to the author!

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