#oh shoot emma wrote something uwu

[legendary-nerds]

right hand man

a half-baked plance fic idea from yours truly  

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

basically, the idea is that after the paladins fought sendak, somewhere near the end of the battle (i’ll explain how in a second, i promise) pidge loses an arm. she’s okay, for the most part, but until the garrison can get her a prosthetic with a hand capable of what pidge needs to do (coding, close/mid range combat, video games) she needs help. she finds that help in lance, who is just trying his best. 

basically, when keith killed sendak, his prosthetic wasn’t quite out of power yet. so it was basically twitching and moving on it’s own while sendak’s corpse was following the stages of decay. morbid? yeah. but stay with me. 

essentially, after the battle, pidge and some garrison techs took sendak’s body to the lab to ‘turn off’ the galran arm and study it.

it didn’t go well.

pidge what happened in the moments before. 

sendak’s arm glowing bright purple and swinging around in attack mode. the screams from the poor garrison kids tasked with helping her out. her own screams as the glowing hand sliced though her bicep.

from there, it was a blur. she could remember the cold linoleum floor, and someone screaming her name as they picked her up from the same cold linoleum and ran for the nearest health bay.

there was a lot of blood.

when she came to, she was alone. 

a nurse came in as soon as it was known that she was up again, of course. but when pidge reached for the hospital grade cup of orange juice, her arm didn’t move with her.

when she looked to her right side, all she could do was start to cry because there is no limb there and she could’ve sworn there was a limb there when she went to sleep, what happened?

shiro came in soon after to let her know what went down, and pidge didn’t stop crying until her family showed up. 

together the holts and shiro helped pidge through her shock until she could calm down a little bit. because hey, she was one limb short, but she was alive. and it never stopped shiro, right? 

after the shock, she realized that having one arm sucked. 

she needs help getting used to everything, but she hates asking for it. her family is usually around, and she knows that they want to help, but she can’t do anything, and it makes her feel helpless for the first time in a while. 

hunk tries to cheer her up with actual earth food, but it just reminds her that she can’t use utensils with her non-dominant hand. she almost feels bad for how much time hunk’s spending with her, since he could be with shay. 

she asks him to cut her food, and it’s embarrassing, but with hunk it’s a little less embarrassing.

hunk and shay sometimes visit together and they’re so sweet pidge thinks she’s gonna stay in the hospital when she gets type 2 diabetes from these nerds.

shiro takes off his new, shiny, altean arm when he’s with her (to show solidarity) and just kind of hangs out with her in between atlas meetings. pidge likes spending time with shiro a lot, it feels just as natural as before. they talk a lot about pet peeves,

“everyone looks at where your arm was like if they stare hard enough, they can grow it back for you.” 

“ugh i know! like, they mean well, but god, thanks for the reminder buddy! i’d wave if my hand wasn’t busy!”

their morbid jokes really unsettle the nurses but it feels good for pidge to laugh. 

keith doesn’t say much but he just hangs out and watches tv with her. it’s all pidge wants really. hanging out with keith is normal, until he remembers the situation. then it’s just funny.

while you’d think he’d be a natural, he wasn’t around to help shiro adjust since he was, you know, on a galra ship.

one time pidge woke up to keith swiping his hand under her stump, almost to verify that the limb wasn’t there and it was the funniest goddamn thing pidge had ever seen. he was so stunned.

keith is trying his best, and pidge loves him for it. 

allura and coran stop in all the time to give her updates on her new hand, but it’s taking longer than expected.

allura likes to help pidge do her hair or paint her nails, and one time without thinking, she asked if pidge would get manicures at half price.

pidge pointed out that she doesn’t really want to get manicures from anyone but allura, and the princess’s smile was a mile wide. it made pidge feel all warm to know that allura was happy. 

she doesn’t really see anything wrong with pidge’s unpredicted amputation.

coran keeps trying to encourage a balmera to “grow number 5 a crystal!” for her new altean arm but shay has to remind him it doesn’t work like that, and just because he rubs the balmera’s surface doesn’t make it work faster. it’s a valiant effort though, and coran always assures pidge that she’ll have a new, better arm “in a jiffy”.

and then there’s lance.

pidge and lance were used to hanging out before, but ever since pidge lost her arm, there’s been a rift. they hang out in pidge’s hospital room all the time, and he’s always okay getting pidge junk food from the vending machine by the receptionist’s desk, but something’s off. 

pidge eventually asks him what’s wrong. 

“it’s weird, i guess?”

“lance, that’s the dumbest shit i’ve ever heard. why are you acting like me without an arm is weird?”

“because i’m pretty much the only reason you don’t have your dominant hand anymore!” 

“lance, that’s even more dumb. what on earth are you talking about?”

“i saw sendak’s arm start to flip out. i saw it start to glow but you weren’t looking, and my keycard wasn’t fast enough so i couldn’t get in, and the techs were screaming, and i could’ve stopped this whole thing but i wasn’t in time.”

“you were the one who carried me to the emergency room, right?”

“the one and only.”

“god, lance. thank you so much. i’d be much worse off if i had died, you know.”

it ends with a hug. pidge wants so badly to wrap her arms around him, but all she can do is melt into lance and cling onto the back of his jacket while he holds her.

when pidge gets home from the hospital and takes off her bandages, she can’t look at her stump. it’s scarred, and it looks mangled. she’s cut off her hair and she started dressing in cargo shorts and been through hell, but she’s never felt less pretty than in this moment. 

the garrison standard issue homes assigned to the paladins families are in a cul de sac, so lance spends a lot of time at pidge’s house.

they play video games, but when lance puts in a street fighter type game they’re only allowed to use long range attacks (since pidge can’t use a joystick)

they also play fireboy and watergirl together.

“you know, i used to be both fireboy AND watergirl because it was challenging.”

“no, i’m pretty sure you played both because you were a massive nerd.”

“rude.”

“you’re my favourite nerd, pidgeon. don’t get mad.”

over time they start to grow more and more attached to each other, romantic-styles.

there’s a lot of cuddling.

one time pidge tried to throw her arm over his chest but she just forgot that she couldn’t. 

“thanks pidge, i get the idea.”

“you know, my phantom limb is pinching your nipple right now.”

there’s also a lot of pidge whipping her long sleeves around like a whip as an attack since she doesn’t fill it out anymore. 

they recreate the “don’t fuck with me! i have the power of goD and ANIME ON MY SIDE!” vine with pidge flailing the sleeve of lance’s jacket around

it makes matt cry laughing before he gives lance the “so you’re dating my sister” talk. 

life is good. lance is never too far behind when they go places, in case pidge is put off balance or needs help with something.

one time pidge started playing “every step you take” by the police because lance was almost stalker-ish with how he was watching her to make sure she was okay.

“rude, pidge. rude. maybe i should let you fall down the stairs when you can’t grab a banister.” 

lance is also acutely aware of how pidge’s scar tissue affects her self image, so he does constantly tell her she’s beautiful. especially if she wears a tank top of something that doesn’t hide her stump. it works too, because one day she looks in the mirror and finds it less ugly than she did.

when pidge’s arm is complete, shiro’s a little jealous.

it’s all white, with hints of green that match her paladin armor. the crystal that the balmera produced is also green, thanks to shay being extra and wanting to make pidge happy. it has a super acute wrist joint and finger joints so pidge can type at lightning speeds, and it’s easy to get on and off. lance watches her when she opens it, and plants a kiss on her forehead because his girlfriend is ADORABLE looking at her new hand, okay? 

“so pidge, i guess you won’t need me around anymore now that you’re back in action.” 

“oh please. i’m always gonna need my right hand man.”

YOU MADE IT TO THE END!!! CONGRATS!!! thank you to @justpidgance for motivating me to post this, she’s partially responsible ladies and gents. it’s just a cute lil thing i had floating around. thanks, drive home safe, wear your seatbelts.