Chapter Text
Ok. So. Here's the deal.
Lance is an older brother, he has three younger sisters. He's an uncle, he has a nephew and niece. He's a younger brother as well, with two older sisters (one who has fraternal twins) and one older brother. He's a firm middle child, the connection of two generations, and his mama has always relied on him to help keep the peace (don't think about what she's doing without you, don't). He's good at it, he knows people in a general sense, and makes it a point to learn his friends as much as he's learned his family.
Keeping everyone happy is no easy task, but Lance has it down to a science. A laugh here, a distraction here. A smile a day keeps the pain away. And on the very real chance that he can't them to smile (making someone laugh and annoying them go hand and hand after all), or the off chance that a smile is not what they need (because he knows people, and knows that smiling isn't a fix for everyone), then he's got that covered too.
A shoulder to cry on? Lance is your guy. Someone who listens even if he doesn't understand? Lance can do that surprisingly well. That one guy who won't stop trying to compete with you but that's ok because you secretly have fun winning against him any way? Takes a bit more effort than he's used to, but Lance can do it. A silent presence subtly watching over you just to remind you that-hey, you're not alone here? This one has a tendency to break Lance's heart a bit, but he's got it covered.
Being on the castle ship with only six other people and trying to save the universe is stressful though, so Lance often finds himself having to do the thing he's most good at, but also happens to sting from time to time.
He lets them take out the frustrations on him. Encourages it really, because people need an outlet for their anger, and Lance has always been the best at making people angry at him.
(And if his heart twinges a little every time he has to let someone be particularly mean to him, then he just has to remember that this is what he's good at. What he's good for.)
But Lance is an older brother, and an uncle, and a younger brother. He learned sometimes keeping people means sacrificing his own feelings for a bit. He's been taught that he can't always let his feelings take a back seat though. After all, what happens if the rock falls apart?
So, while Lance is always prepared to be the enemy on any given day, there are certain days and certain things that he will not let fly.
Today is one of those days.
….
“Geez Lance,” Pidge groans, “will you stop being such an idiot and go away already!? You don't know anything, you don't listen to anything, you have nothing productive to contribute at all, so just take a hike already!”
Her tone sounds harsh to even her own ears, and she has the brief thought that maybe this reaction was unwarranted. But Lance is just being so...Lance, running up and asking dozens of ridiculous questions and trying to get her to go to sleep. She's been working on this algorithm for going on six hours now and she'd finally had a breakthrough and here he comes and-
“Excuse me?”
Pidge pauses. Something in Lance's tone sounds much more...hostile than she's used to.
She turns slowly and fixes her gaze upon her stupidly tall teammate, and is honestly a little unnerved to find him staring blankly down at her, looking distinctly unamused.
It looks too much like how Shiro looks at her when she refuses to stop swearing. It's weird, so naturally her hackles raise.
“I said,” Pidge asserts (and tries to ignore the twitch in Lance's eye), “to stop being such an idiot and go away. And stop looking at me like that!”
Lance stares. Pidge stares back. There's a tense silence in which she realizes that she's probably overstepped some type of boundary. Oh no, Lance better not start crying like a-
The absence of her laptop draws her attention, mainly because Lance proceeds to snatch it from her and close it shut.
“Hey!” Pidge growls, ready to tear into Lance, feelings be damned.
“Be quiet Pidge.”
The noise she makes is a straight up squawk, Pidge is a ashamed to admit. Just who the he'll does Lance think he is!?
“I'm sorry Lance,” she growls, “but who died and made you leader? You have no control over me, now give me back my fucking laptop or else I’ll grab my bayard and-”
“Listen to me,” Lance snarls back, lip curling and eyes hard.
Pidge’s mouth snaps shut without her permission, because holy hell- who is this guy and what has done with Lance?
No teasing grin, no smug countenance, no stupidly goofy but still-somehow-kind-of-charming smile. Just a visibly angry Cuban boy who looks like he's holding himself back from smacking her.
Pidge swallows.
“All I came here to do was to get you to take a break,” Lance says sternly, no hint of humor in his eyes. “You haven’t eaten in six hours, haven't slept in god knows how longer, and I just watched you type out the same line of code and delete it three times in a row.”
Feeling chastised and somewhat embarrassed, Pidge looks away. She always forgets that Lance does in fact have a basic knowledge of both coding and engineering, things he made an active effort to learn in order to relate to herself and Hunk respectively. She knows that it sometimes hurts his feelings when she writes him off as dumb just because he can't follow the more complex aspects.
“I'm just trying to help you,” his voice raises slightly, and Pidge flinches. “Everyday I try and find some way to help you,” Lance snaps, “and not that it's required, but it would be nice to get a damn ‘thanks for listening Lance’ or ‘thanks for bringing me food’ from time to time. But no, I get snarked at and insulted!”
It's been awhile since Pidge had felt like this, like she's totally fucked up. It reminds her of when Matt used to snap from time to time when she was being particularly obnoxious.
“And that's fine!” Lance is full on giving her the third degree now. Pidge feels like the universe has turned upside down or something. “Because what else do people do around here if not snarking at me and insulting me! I expect that, but I also expect some common decency. You know, because we're all people up here, right?”
Pidge hunches her shoulders.
“...right!?”
“Right,” Pidge will never admit to squeaking, but she knows she can't hide how big her eyes are when she looks and sees how red and angry Lance's face looks. She doesn't know how to deal with this.
“So what you're not going to do,” Lance's voice lowers, eyes as icy as Blue's laser. “Is treat me like this. I've not once tried to make you feel bad or hurt you since we've been up here. I've respected you as a person, as my teammate, and as my friend. You need to me show at least some of the same respect, which means you need to stop speaking to me like that.”
Her eyes feel hot. Ain't that a bitch? The Green Paladin of Voltron reduced to guilty tears because she got told about herself by her always-joking-but-apparently-not teammate. Pidge feels as though this had been a long time coming.
“I…” she gulps. “I’m sorry Lance,” she insists meekly. Pidge isn't good with emotions, and is less good with emotional people, so this isn't the first time she's crossed a line with the blue paladin. It is however, the first time he's snapped back. She should have known that Lance losing his temper would be this unnerving, it's always the goofy ones.
But one thing Lance is not, and has never been, is cruel. So when he notices she's on the verge of tears, he softens visibly, but still has a stern look on his face as he hold her laptop closer to his torso.
“I'll give this back to you after you've at least eaten something,” he says softly.
Pidge wants to protest. Actually opens her mouth to do so, but Lance's expression hardens tremendously the moment he sees this and Pidge quickly comes to the conclusion that she needs to do what he says.
“Ok,” she mutters.
And as Lance gives her a kind smile, that look parents get when they feel bad for shouting at their kids but recognize that it was necessary on his face, something is put into real perspective for Pidge.
Lance really is a big brother.
Probably one of the best anyone could ask for, really.