If anyone asked: it was all Pidge's fault.

At least… That's the story Lance stuck with.

It started when the youngest Paladin finally found a way to synchronize doboshes, vargas and ticks and make them make sense against earthen time (give or take a small error of margin which was also calculated extensively).

It was something that everyone on the team had been hoping for and dreading at the same time.

"It's… March twenty-fifth." Pidge announced to the room.

The air whooshed out of Lance's lungs in a deranged mix of utter relief and utter despair that left him lightheaded. Almost a whole year passed since they'd left earth. A part of him ached at the thought of losing an entire year with his family… but he was grateful it wasn't more.

The date had no meaning to the two Alteans on board, but they could tell by the suddenly somber atmosphere that this wasn't good news.

"March twenty-fifth," Allura repeated tentatively, "is that a lot in earthling time?"

"Almost a year." Hunk sighed miserably, running a hand through his hair.

"I'm… I'm going to go bake something." The big guy's shoulders slumped as he turned on his heel and headed towards the kitchen.

Keith outwardly appeared the most unaffected by the news, his arms crossed over his chest and his face carefully stoic, but Lance could tell he was uncomfortable at the amount of time that slipped by.

Shiro looked perturbed, for him it was closer to two years being away from earth counting the time he was captured by the Galra.

And Pidge…She screwed her eyes shut for a moment and Lance imagined she was trying to forcibly will the homesickness away. When she reopened them her face was carefully blank, but he knew her better than that.

Something in Lance shifted and he blurted the first thing he could think of:

"It's almost April Fools Day!"

Six heads swivelled towards him and Lance flushed under the confused stares of his teammates. Hunk's foot hovered halfway out of the room, but he didn't go any further.

"A fools day?" Coran stroked his moustache in thought.

"April Fools Day." Lance amended, "April is a month in earth time. 30 days." He tacked on, but judging by the bewildered looks on Allura and Coran's faces he was just making them even more confused. "It's a day where people play pranks on each other."

Coran's eyes lit up.

"Pranks you say? Why my Grandfather, the one who built the Castle of Lions was quite the trickster! Tell me, what level of flames do you use when you're pulling your pranks?"

It was the Paladins' turn to stare at the Alteans.

"Um…not a lot? Most of the time the pranks are supposed to be harmless. Like putting blue dye in your sister's body wash the morning she was supposed to get her college ID photo taken." His heart ached at the mention of his sister (Veronica, who had been so pissed at him for almost a month after).

"That's nothing!" Pidge interjected suddenly, "I put a bag of chocolate powder in the drain so when Matt showered it looked like the sewage backed up. You should have heard him scream." The small twitch of her lips grew into a fond, reminiscent smile.

"One year I post-it noted every inch of my brother Marco's car right before he picked up his date." Lance boasted, his chest swelling with pride at that one.

"One time," Pidge began in a deviously low tone that did something strange to his insides, "I put out a bowl with skittles and M&Ms."

Lance blanched.

"Together?"

She nodded solemnly.

"You're a monster!" He gasped.

"That's what Matt said."

They stared at one another for a serious moment before bursting out laughing.

Keith and Shiro chuckled, along with Allura and Coran (who Hunk suspected were only laughing because everyone else was). It was only Hunk who was unable to shake the feeling of dread from his gut because his gut was never wrong. Something about Pidge and Lance talking about pulling pranks on people… together… trying to outdo each other…

"I'm just gonna go tinker around in the kitchen." Hunk announced his exit, sneaking back towards the doorway with an anxious side eye at the Blue and Green Paladins.

If Coran and Allura didn't quite understand what April Fools Day was, Hunk had a sneaking suspicion they were about to get a crash course.

…

Number Five issued the challenge the very next morning.

Lance opened the door to the kitchen before breakfast, wearing his plush robe and fuzzy lion slippers and was promptly greeted by a bucket of ice-cold water over his head. He gasped as the cold water drenched him through, all the way down to his beloved fluffy blue lion slippers.

For a long, long, long, moment, Lance didn't say anything. The only sound in the kitchen was the loud clang of the bucket hitting the floor.

"Oops. How did that get there?" Pidge smirked, biting into on one of Hunk's weirdly glasslike (but delicious) cookies. She smacked her lips deliberately, just to push his buttons when he didn't say anything.

"DID YOU JUST—"

"Yep." Pidge chirped, popping the 'p'.

Lance took a deep, steadying breath. He looked like a coiled spring, ready to explode.

"Oh it is on!"

"Come at me bro." Pidge smirked again.

Lance huffed, turned on the heel of his sopping wet lion slippers and stormed out of the kitchen. The squelch of his slippers faded down the hall and she grinned.

It was good to see Lance so fired up.

Pidge both regretted finding out how much time had passed in their absence from earth and didn't. It was a relief to know, but she hated the melancholy that seeped into the ship.

Lance, especially, was affected and she hated it.

He, out of all of the Paladins, was the one most susceptible to homesickness and she'd practically waved a big fat sign saying: here's how long it's been since you've seen your family and they think your dead —right in his face. For the last day and a half the smile hadn't reached his eyes and there was a weight on his shoulders.

It made her heart ache.

For someone as good as Lance, Pidge would do almost anything to get him back to his normally rambunctious, goofy self… like rigging a bucket of ice-cold water over a doorway.

…

At breakfast, Shiro asked Lance why he was late (Lance had to run back to his room for a change of dry clothes) and Pidge snickered before she could catch herself. When Shiro gave her a bewildered look, she hastily turned it into a cough that fooled no one.

Lance glared.

…

Pidge: 1 | Lance: 0

…

Lance, Hunk and Allura lounged on the couch in a lazy, post-dinner food goo coma when Pidge burst into the room.

"You." She growled murderously.

Allura and Hunk both jumped, gulping nervously. They raised a hand and pointed confusedly towards themselves.

"Not you." She brushed them aside impatiently, "you."

She came to a very deliberate halt in front of Lance.

It was Lance's turn to act with the same; maddening, nonchalant nature Pidge had oozed the previous morning.

"What can I do for you Pidge?" Lance finally glanced up at her, feigning surprise. Her cheeks were flushed and her chest heaved—she'd probably run all the way from her workspace. His heart stuttered at her expression, but Lance forced himself to focus.

"You—you moved all my stuff!"

He frowned, glancing at Allura and Hunk as though bewildered by her accusation.

"Oh! You mean that." Lance beamed, acting as though he were just remembering something. "Yeah! I helped put some stuff away. Your workbench looked messy so I thought I'd help you out."

Allura and Hunk looked lost at the exchange going on in front of them, but wisely decided to stay out of it.

Pidge scowled, her whiskey gaze burned with the promise of his untimely demise. She opened her mouth and then closed it with a snap.

"This isn't over McClain."

And then she was gone as quickly as she'd come.

"You cleaned Pidge's work bench?" Hunk asked after the coast was clear, looking at Lance quizzically.

Lance nodded.

"Just thought I'd lend a hand. I'm not only Loverboy Lance after all. Call me Good Guy McClain from now on."

Allura scoffed and settled back down onto the couch, but Hunk narrowed his eyes and looked a little more closely at his friend.

"What?" Lance said defensively, settling back down onto the couch, "it's true."

And it was true.

When Pidge was doing some routine maintenance to the lions, Lance snuck in to her workspace and did a little bit of "clean up".

He put all of Pidge's tools away… on the highest shelves where he knew she wouldn't be able to reach.

…

Pidge: 1 | Lance: 1

…

Pidge hacked the comm in Lance's helmet the next day. It blared: "MMM WHATCHA SAY" every time he was shot by a drone in training.

Lance laughed so hard he nearly vomited.

She counted it as a win.

…

Pidge: 2 | Lance: 1

…

Lance stole every alarm clock in the Castle of Lions and hid them in Pidge's room to go off at varying intervals on the only day of the week they were permitted to sleep in.

The entire castle was awoken by her scream of rage when she pummeled the alarm clocks into nothingness.

…

Pidge: 2 | Lance: 2

Lance: (-30HP courtesy of sleep deprived Pidgeon).

…

It didn't take long for the crossfire to bleed over to their teammates.

Coran walked in to a trap meant for Pidge and was accidentally glued to the green lion for three hours before anyone noticed.

Keith emerged from the bathroom with bright pink skin.

Hunk accidentally ate cookies with the Altean equivalent of toothpaste as faux icing and was traumatized at the assault to his taste buds.

It was Allura who finally put her foot down. She reached her wits end with these 'earthling shenanigans' when Lance tried to draft the mice onto his side, but it was Shiro who sat the two of them down for a stern talking to.

"You are Paladins of Voltron. This kind of behavior is unacceptable ." Shiro crossed his arms over his chest, using his best 'I'm disappointed in you' voice.

"But Shiro," Lance whined, "we're tied! It's four-four! We can't stop now. April Fools Day isn't even until tomorrow."

"Yeah! We promise we won't get anyone in the crossfire again." Pidge agreed wholeheartedly.

Shiro frowned deeply, mulling it over. All his senses told him to put a stop to this craziness, but at that moment Lance and Pidge shamelessly turned their huge, hopeful gazes on him.

The eldest Paladin made the fatal mistake of making eye contact.

Dammit he was weak to puppy dog eyes.

He let out a heavy sigh.

"There will be some conditions."

Lance and Pidge nodded enthusiastically and Shiro chose to ignore the not-so-subtle fist-bump the two exchanged when they thought he wasn't looking.

"Number one: no more pranks until April Fools Day."

This was non-negotiable and he moved on, ignoring their objections.

"Number two: you only get to pull one more prank each." Shiro silenced their immediate protests with a stern look. After a moment, Pidge and Lance nodded grudgingly.

"Number three: if you catch anyone else in the crossfire, it means automatic disqualification and you'll have some extra training with me to answer to. Do we have an understanding?" It was said pleasantly enough, but the underlying ice in Shiro's tone was unmistakable.

Pidge and Lance gulped.

"Yes sir."

…

Lance stared at the ceiling of his bedroom in growing frustration, unable to sleep. His thoughts had been flying in a thousand directions lately—but somehow they always seemed to circle back to one particular person.

After rolling over and checking the clock for the fifth time, he let out a groan and whipped the blankets off of him.

Maybe a nighttime walk would help shake the restlessness out of his bones.

The hallway lights were dimmed to the nighttime cycle setting, not even the castle mice stirred at this hour. By now everyone would have gone to bed… or at least, that's what Lance thought until he reached the hallway by Pidge's workroom.

The light glaring from the doorway drew him in like a moth to a flame, his feet moved of their own accord. When Lance reached the doorway, it took him a moment to realize what he was seeing.

Pidge perched precariously on her work chair much like a gargoyle looming on top of a building. She reached for the very top shelf, straining her short limbs as far as she could, but falling just short of her goal.

He watched her make three feeble attempts before she gave up.

"Quiznak." Pidge grumbled, letting out a frustrated whine.

"Need some help?" Lance offered with a sly grin, leaning against the frame of the doorway.

She whirled around, almost tumbling off the chair. Her sharp gaze narrowed when she realized who it was.

"No thanks to you." Pidge grumped, arms crossing over her chest.

Lance chuckled and slipped into the room. He stopped when he was right beside Pidge, who glared at him as though his very being offended her.

"Can't reach them even with the chair, minúsculo?" The taunt leaves his mouth before he can think about what he's saying and to whom.

Pidge's eye twitched.

Lance knows Pidge doesn't speak Spanish.

But Lance knows that it isn't hard to connect the dots when he called her such a similar word to miniscule. She's is a smart cookie after all.

Did he have a death wish?

He could see the speech Allura would give at his funeral now: Lance McClain, Paladin of Voltron, defender of the universe, fought bravely against the Galra Empire only to be taken out by an enraged 4'8" teenage girl.

"I can't reach them with the chair, but I guess I'm lucky this quiznaking beanpole just showed up."

And then she scaled him.

Literally scaled him like a fucking tree.

Pidge made sure to dig her elbow into his gut on her way up, eliciting a satisfying "oof!" from him. She hauled herself up, up and—

"Yes! Got them!" She exclaimed triumphantly, snatching the pliers off the top shelf and holding them over her head like a trophy.

And that's the moment Lance realized:

He likes Pidge.

It's not so much of an earth shattering realization, but more of a "well, how about that?" He always thought his type was the tall, leggy, olive skin, white flowing hair kinda guy…and yet, here was his heart, thumping wildly in his chest for this little gremlin that just climbed him like a tree.

When she finally looked at him her eyes widened. She hadn't realized how close they were, but she didn't move away either. Her lips parted nervously and his gaze dropped at the motion.

Should he kiss her?

It's Pidge that makes the decision. Her eyelashes fluttered and she leaned close, the warmth of her small body pressing in to him makes his breath hitch.

"Call me tiny again and I will end you. Me entiendes?" Pidge murmured, her breath fanning against his ear.

He flushed.

She patted his cheek cheekily and then hopped off of him, leaving a shell-shocked Lance to stumble out of the room in a daze.

It wasn't until he'd flopped back into his nice warm bed that his head exploded.

First: because Pidge apparently knew Spanish?

Like, when did that happen? How had she kept that from him?

He had a lot of questions for the youngest Paladin, but right now Lance was currently freaking out over the second thing:

He liked Pidge.

Lately his thoughts were running in a thousand directions, but they always came back to one person:

Pidge.

Lance had always admired Pidge. She is scarily intelligent and above all, her drive to see her family safe is something that touched his heart. It was never a dull moment with the Green Paladin around. She was funny and smart mouthed and it amazed him how much he liked to be around her. Whether it was getting into trouble with Allura and Shiro, firing off a reprogramed drone into space with him and Hunk, or even just spending a night playing Killbot Phantasm I… Lance loved spending time with Pidge.

With this startling realization, Lance rolled over and muffled a scream into his pillow.

He was so fucked.

…

"Morning Lance." Hunk greeted, waving with spatula in hand the next morning.

"Morning Hunk." Lance fended off a yawn, shuffling towards the counter with a tired stretch.

"Man you look bright eyed and bushy tailed." Hunk flipped one of the pancake-like concoctions that smelled awesome, but looked like a grey piece of rubber. "Didn't get your eight hour beauty rest?"

Lance groaned and plonked his head on the kitchen counter in response.

"That bad huh?" Hunk patted him on the back sympathetically. "The pancakes are almost done. At least you'll get a good breakfast before your April Fools Day madness. Can you help me bring them to the table?"

Lance peeled his cheek off the counter and held the platter of pancakes for Hunk. The Yellow Paladin quickly finished up, flipping the remaining pancakes from the cooktop and onto the plate.

Lance made sure to let Hunk enter the dining room first in the event that Pidge decided to rig the doorway with some kind of trap—but nothing went off. With a quick scan of the room, he quickly determined that Pidge hadn't made it down to breakfast yet. Keith, Allura, Shiro and Coran already sat at the table but the Green Paladin was nowhere to be seen.

Lance relaxed and let out a relieved sigh. He placed the platter of pancakes down on the table before plopping down in his usual chair.

Immediately he realized he made a fatal mistake.

The loudest, most horrific fart noise erupted from underneath of him, echoing into the deafening silence of the dining room.

Shiro, Keith and Hunk stared at Lance in shock.

Allura and Coran dropped their cutlery with a clatter, mouths agape.

"Whoa, Lance!" Hunk wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Gross." Keith muttered, scooching his chair away none too subtly.

Even Shiro tried to discreetly lean away from him.

"It wasn't me!" Lance yelped, his face an unhealthy shade of red. He shot out of his seat and looked desperately around.

"Come on man, just own up and excuse yourself." Hunk rolled his eyes.

"But no—it was—" He finally found what he'd sat on and he trailed off.

It was almost invisible when you first looked at his chair. Only the strange, slight warp of the chair caught his eye and he reached down and grasped the offending item. It shimmered like the Green Lion did when it first came out of cloaking, but when Lance lifted it from the chair, the cloaking shorted and he was left holding…

A whoopee cushion.

A quiznaking whoopee cushion.

It wasn't the classic red color, or exactly the same shape, but the item was unmistakable. He fell for the oldest trick in the book.

The look on Lance's face was priceless. So priceless, that Pidge chose that exact moment to snap a photo with her tablet so she could savor it forever.

"No." He whispered, eyes widening comically.

"YES." Pidge cackled, and soon everyone except Lance was laughing.

"Oh man!" Hunk was crying from laughing too hard, "what a classic! Lance, she got you good ."

"W-where did you come from?! And when did you get a whoopee cushion?" He demanded, waving the offending item wildly.

"I was hiding in the vent." Pidge jerked her thumb towards the side of the dining hall, where sure enough, the panel of the vent was laying on the floor, the screws littering the ground. She must have slithered out of there like the snake she was!

"As for the whoopee cushion, I made it. Synthesized rubber and an embedded cloaking device similar to Green's. Took me all night but it paid off." She said smugly, adjusting her glasses.

"You even helped me finish it without even realizing. Thanks for getting those pliers off the shelf for me." The evil smirk on her face was so downright devious it was sinful.

If he wasn't so incredibly annoyed, Lance might have gotten down on one knee and asked her to marry him. A whoopee cushion? In space? She was a freaking genius!

And he was so, so, so screwed.

Pidge had just taken the lead. If Lance's prank didn't go through later that very day, he'd have to concede defeat to this monster.

For the second time that week, Lance spent his breakfast glaring at Pidge.

…

Pidge: 5 | Lance: 4

…

"Maybe you should give up while you still have your dignity." Pidge mused loudly on the way to the training room.

Lance scoffed and rolled his eyes.

The two had been kicked out of the breakfast hall as soon as they finished eating. Lance wouldn't stop glaring and then Pidge started taunting him and it quickly devolved to trash talking from there.

It was Hunk who picked both of them up by their collars as soon as they finished breakfast and deposited them outside of the dining hall with an exasperated sigh. Shiro's call of: "don't be late to training!" followed them out the door.

And so here they were, walking (or in Pidge's case, swaggering) towards the training deck with Lance getting increasingly frustrated.

"I think you should call me the King of April Fools Day from now on." She said with mock thoughtfulness.

"You haven't won yet." He rolled his eyes so hard they were in danger of rolling right out of his skull.

"But when I do win, I think I'll ask Allura to hold my coronation. She can do that right? She's a princess after all." Pidge gloated.

Lance swatted at her in annoyance and accidentally fumbled his helmet—it tumbled to the floor and rolled right under Pidge's foot. With a yelp, her leg shot out sideways and she flailed wildly. Her hand reached out to grasp at anything to keep her from falling—which happened to be Lance.

With a grunt, they careened sideways. Lance bear hugged Pidge to his chest, correcting their imbalance and managing to keep them both upright—but smooshing her face into his chest at the same time.

"Are you okay Pidge?" He wheezed, looking down.

Lance froze.

For the second time within two days Pidge's face is so close.

Up close he can admire the telltale freckles that are sprinkled across the bridge of her nose—thanks to a recent visit to a planet with two suns. Her eyes are wide, the ghost of a grin on her mouth has faded and something flickers in her gaze. He can't help but drop his gaze once more to her lips and Pidge's breath hitches in anticipation. The noise twists his insides in a deliciously pleasant way.

"What's the matter Lance? Lion got your tongue—"

Lance has matured a lot since first finding the Blue Lion. One of his weakest qualities (and even he knew this) was to act rashly without a plan in place. He'd tried to work a lot on this, and had improved steadily in his place within Team Voltron. Although his first instinct was always to act and react without a plan, Lance prided himself in slowly fixing this habit and learning to think things through before acting.

Unfortunately for him, this was not one of those moments.

"I like you." The confession tumbled from his lips before he could stop it.

It was Pidge's turn to freeze.

"I-I mean—I've always thought you were a stand up guy at the garrison and then from there we became friends and you were cute but you didn't seem to like me much but that's okay."

Oh. My. God. It was like a plug had been pulled and he couldn't stop.

"And then it turns out you were a girl all this time and I thought you were still cute and I really admire how smart and driven you are—and I haven't been able to stop thinking about you lately. I guess I just realized last night when you climbed me like a tree how much I like you. Quiznak. I said it again."

Pidge still hadn't said a word; her mouth slightly agape in surprise. Lance just knew he was digging his own grave even deeper.

Could he ever stop talking?

Time spluttered to a rude stop when the door to the training room whooshed shut.

Pidge and Lance whipped around to see Shiro, Allura, Hunk, Keith and even Coran standing just inside of the training room. Judging by the comically identical deer in the headlights expressions, they'd definitely heard all of the conversation just now.

Lance did the only thing he could think of.

"APRIL FOOLS!" He blurted out desperately, his voice cracking in sheer panic.

He regretted the words as soon as they left his lips.

Pidge inhaled sharply. Lance turned to see the hurt flash across her features, and her eyes flickered through so many emotions it was dizzying to follow: hurt, anger, and worst of all, resignation.

"Pidge wait—"

She didn't wait for whatever lame excuse he could come up with and shouldered past him.

Lance felt like his brain was floating high above his body, disconnected and useless. He turned sluggishly and watched Pidge stop to say something to Shiro. She must have given some kind of excuse, because the Black Paladin nodded and let her slip by.

The silence she left behind was awful and stifling.

Lance didn't need the princess's gaze burning into his skull to know that he just royally fucked up.

Part 1 of 2.