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Shiro had accepted his role as leader of Voltron, and he knew that position had many responsibilities, he just didn’t expect one of them to become Pidge’s stand-in dad.
The whole ordeal had started out innocent enough. He was walking around the Castle late at night, unable to sleep and had decided to just walk around absently. When he found his way into the commons space, he was a bit shocked to find both Lance and Pidge asleep on the couch.
Lance was sitting up, slouched low into the couch with his head lolled back and his mouth hanging open. Pidge, on the other hand, was curled up in a tight ball, pressing herself into Lance’s side, using his shoulder as a pillow. Shiro felt a protective urge sweep over him until he saw how peaceful the girl looked, this might have been the comfiest rest she had gotten in the recent days. He decided to let them sleep, friends could sleep on a couch together without it being weird at all, and so could teammates.
The next time Shiro felt that protective urge was when he caught Pidge and Lance hanging back in the training deck, curious, he snuck back onto the deck to spy on the two.
“... it’s only fair to them.” Lance seemed to be trying to convince Pidge to do something, but she just kept shaking her head.
“I know that, but what if they don’t take it well?”
“Well the longer we keep this secret, the more upset they’ll be!” Lance argued, causing Pidge to groan as he crossed his arms with a satisfied look.
“Stop hanging around Hunk and Coran, you’re getting to smart.” She grumbled, lightly punching his shoulder.
“I’m always smart.” And with that, the to gave each other a long hug that made Shiro think they were more than friends.
His suspicions were proven correct when later that night, the two told the crew they had started dating. The rest of the crew was excited for them, but Shiro felt the urge to punch Lance in the gut. But why only Lance?
Shiro excused himself as elegantly as he could, then rushed off to the training deck, he needed to punch something.
“Shiro! Shiro wait up!” Pidge raced after him, following him all the way to the training deck.
“Shiro, are you okay? You know we won’t let this get in the way of Voltron!”
Shiro groaned as he sank to the floor, looking up at the girl with a confused look, “I know that, but I just feel like punching something?”
Pidge blinked before sitting next to the man, leaning into his shoulder as she asked him, “anything specific?”
Shiro thought for a moment before nodding, “Lance, I want to punch Lance.”
Shiro was expecting a million reactions, but out of all of the reactions, he didn’t expect Pidge to laugh at the statement.
“What’s so funny? I want to punch your boyfriend, Pidge.”
“No, no it’s not that, it’s, oh my God!” Pidge was having trouble breathing, she was laughing so hard that if she hadn’t sat down, she probably would have fallen by this point. Shiro was a little concerned for the girl, trying to help her calm down a bit by patting her back awkwardly.
After a few moments, she wiped a tear from her eyes and took a breath, trying to explain, “Shiro, you’ve gone full on ‘Dad’ on us. Oh, this is wonderful.”
Shio looked at the girl, she had lost it.
“Pidge, going ‘Dad’ is not a thing.”
“No, I don’t mean literally, I mean that you feel the need to protect me from a boy, because let’s face it, right now you sort of are my dad. Oh this is perfect, oh goodness yes.” Pidge was giggling, but she managed to stand, turning to offer a hand to Shiro. “Common, it’ll be fine so long as you don’t actually punch Lance.”
Shiro chuckled, he’d never hurt one of his teammates.
He and Pidge made their way back to the commons space where the rest of the team was hanging out, in hopes of putting their conversation behind them for good. However, Shiro once again felt the protective urge when Pidge went to sit extremely close to Lance, giggling at the frustrated huff Shiro accidentally let out.
The next few days, Shiro could be found keeping a close eye on the couple, most likely glaring daggers at the Blue Paladin whenever they made eye contact.
One day while the Paladins were taking a break from training, Lance decided to push Shiro’s buttons.
Lance had been made aware of Shiro and his newfound “Dadness” and decided to see how far the man would let him go, within Pidge’s comfort level of course.
“Hey Pidge, that was some great dodging in that last sim.” Lance complemented her, starting off easy and slow, trying to work his way up to the most buttons he could possibly push.
“Really? Thanks! You weren’t so bad yourself, I never knew a gun could shoot that fast!”
The two continued to talk for a bit, Lance eventually grabbing onto the girl’s hands and kissing one of them, shooting a sidelong glance at Shiro.
Shiro was absolutely steaming. Hunk had taken it upon himself to sit near the man to keep him from doing something reckless, but Keith on the other hand, really wanted to see Shiro punch Lance.
After the hand kisses didn’t set off Shiro, Lance pulled out the big guns, leaning in to whisper his plan to Pidge, who snickered and nodded eagerly, it was a win-win situation for her so she didn’t mind one bit.
Hunk had secretly grabbed a hold of Shiro’s belt as soon as Lance had started to whisper in his girlfriend’s ear, the little shit was going to do something stupid and Shiro was ready to punch the boy who might deserve it.
Lance turned to look at Shiro with a shit eating grin, pointing his hands to the man with two finger guns and winking at the older man before grabbing Pidge around the waist and dipping her into a passionate kiss.
It was a kiss pulled out of a movie, Pidge threw her arms around Lance’s shoulders, only that and the arms he snaked around her back keeping her from crashing to the ground. Her feet slid farther away from her, but she didn’t care, the kiss was actually pretty amazing for all the shit she gave this iconic kiss for as a kid.
She didn’t get to enjoy it long however, Shiro was practically exploding across the room, causing Lance to bolt up right, dragging her up as a result.
“VOLTRON WILL JUST HAVE TO FIND A NEW BLUE PALADIN, I AM GOING TO PUNCH LANCE OUT INTO SPACE!”
“SHIRO NO, WE CAN’T FIND A NEW PALADIN, HE’S ONLY TRYING TO ANNOY YOU!” Hunk was struggling to keep Shiro away from the Blue Paladin, who was cackling like mad as Shiro practically dragged Hunk across the training deck. Keith was trying to pry Hunk from Shiro’s waist, shouting “do it, Shiro!” as he did so.
“KEITH NO WE CAN’T LET SHIRO PUNCH HIM!”
“No, he deserves it! We’ll find a new pilot!” Keith was laughing so hard that he had to stop prying Hunk from Shiro to catch his breath.
Shiro managed to make it over to where the couple stood, both looking quite pleased with themselves.
“Pidge, you are GROUNDED!” He growled, causing the girl to laugh and walk over to Keith to tell him all about the situation.
Shiro turned to Lance, who looked a lot less brave now that Pidge had left his side.
“Uh, hi Shiro,” he waved nervously, and that’s the last thing he remembers before Shiro punched the boy as hard as he could.
***
“Seriously, Shiro, we had to put him in a healing pod!” Hunk was scolding the older man when Lance came to, stumbling out of the pod.
“Ugh, you guys should save the trouble and have me sleep in those things!” Lance commented as he stretched out his back.
Shiro looked embarrassed as Lance made his way over to the man.
“Sorry for pushing your buttons, but it was really fun.”
The rest of the team, including Shiro, laughed along with Lance. Shiro made an apology and even went as far as to “grant his permission” for Lance to “date his daughter” and the whole ordeal was over.
Shiro guessed that leadership roles often threw curve balls at you, even ones that you weren’t prepared to deal with. He was just glad he only had to go through that with Pidge, and not the rest of his crew, who were uninteresting in actual dating for the time being.