AN I inhaled Voltron and now I have many a feeling about everyone and now here's my excuse to show lots of emotions and bonding over food. Enjoy.

"Hey, Hunk?"

"Yeah, Pidge?"

"Why don't you make any human food?"

Hunk turned to look at her, eyebrows raised in surprise. She sat on the opposite counter, heels bouncing off a cupboard door.

"Uh…I dunno? I mean, I do make human food, it's just…y'know…alien ingredients."

"Yeah, but you never make any dishes from home. It's meat, starch, veggies—great, but nothing that tastes the same."

Hunk blinked at her, cycling back through his mental list of foods. He leaned a hip against the opposite counter, arms folding.

"Huh. I…guess not. It's not really a conscious thing, just…that's what happened. I don't really look at emorpha beans and see lasagna being made from their tentacles," he said, wriggling his fingers to imitate the weird, purplish pods and their disgusting roots (he'd been horrified to discover that his favorite non-human dessert had been made from something that looked like a baby cthulu, but that was probably what aliens would say about artichokes).

Pidge snorted and rocked back on the counter. Hunk grinned and turned back to his bowl. His latest culinary adventure was dumplings, though he wasn't entirely sure how some of the ingredients would handle being steamed to death. He stirred the filling a moment, considered, added a bit of salt, stirred again. He glanced over his shoulder.

"So…why'd you ask?" he said casually.

Pidge was aptly named, in Hunk's opinion. She was rather like a bird; approach too fast and she'd run off and likely never come back. Wait and offer her a crumb here or there, though…

"Oh, I dunno," she said, shrugging. "I just…you get homesick for the little things."

"Yeah," Hunk said, nodding. "I miss my sock drawer."

"What?"

Hunk gave her a defensive look over his shoulder as he spooned out filling onto handmade wrappers. "Look, I am a man that enjoys comfortable feet, and I have yet to find an alien planet that has mastered anything like the cotton-nylon blend."
Pidge snorted again. They were quiet for a moment, the kitchen filled with the sounds of him spooning out filling, her thmp-thmping her sneakers against the cabinet.

"But seriously," she said. "Could you?"

"I dunno, sure. What do you want?"

No one on the team had ever give him requests before. Usually (and this was after they had clicked their tongues and doubted his tried and true palate), they just horsed down whatever he laid out, then moved on without proper feedback. He hadn't really considered them as an audience he had to cater to. So long as it smelled fine and wasn't more of Coran's strange concoctions, everyone was happy.

"Oh, uhm, I dunno," Pidge said, startled by his easy acceptance. "I…I dunno."

"Please don't say casserole," Hunk joked. "I'd rather eat more space goo than a casserole. Why don't you grab a spoon and make yourself useful, anyway?" He gestured the bowl at her.

"Hunk, the best thing I can cook are brownies from a box."

"Well, now the best thing will be space dumplings. Wash your hands."

She slid off the counter, mouth pursed in a petulant line as she washed her hands, then sauntered over to him. She stood beside him awkwardly, staring at the line of crimped dumplings he had already made.

"I don't know how to do this," she said. "Your little meat things are gonna turn out terrible if I—"

"Pidge. You take a scoop then fold. Relax."

Hunk showed her the laborious technique (scoop, place, fold, crimp, set aside), then handed off the spoon. She grimaced at him, then scooped out a spoonful of filling. After a few awkwardly shaped dumplings, she seemed to get the hang of it.

"Could you make something like a chicken pot pie?" she asked after a long moment. Hunk glanced at her, but her eyes were fixed on her work.

"Yeah, sure. I'll see what I can do."

She nodded, eyes still down. They filled half the plate with dumplings before she spoke again.

"Why do you cook so much? I feel like this is literally the only place I see you in your spare time."

"Well, you guys cook like cavemen, and I banned Coran from here, so—"

"No, but seriously. Why cook, instead of work on computers or something? You literally never talked about cooking in school, but now food is the only thing you think of."

Hunk shrugged, then checked the steamer he had jerry-rigged on the stove. "I didn't cook this much before. It was a hobby, but I didn't actually have access to the kitchens at school, beyond stealing food with Lance or something. Now, though, we have hours of time that's just empty, and I need something not Voltron related to get me through the day."

"I guess," she said, adding another dumpling to the plate.

"It's kinda like therapy," he continued. "Like veterans who take up gardening. I can focus on making food and having fun, but not feel guilty or stressed at wasting time or something."

Pidge shrugged, scraping her spoon around the bowl for the last of the filling. "I guess. I just don't see anyone else with a hobby like this. I don't need a hobby. I haven't really thought about it."

Hunk smirked and rolled his eyes, because, yeah, no one on the magic space castle of hope could really be said to have proper coping mechanisms. But he also figured that commandeering alien tech and creating new programs were Pidge's version of cooking.

"So I know why I'm in the kitchen a lot," Hunk said, taking the plate and loading the steamer. "What about you?"

Pidge froze like she'd been caught doing something wrong, shoulders drawn up to her ears. "I—I—I dunno, it's just a kitchen. It's not that weird."

"Pidge, you're literally the only person who comes and hangs out with me in here." Ignoring the mice, of course, because Hunk was pretty sure they were less interested in spending time with him and more interested in stealing snacks for Allura.

Hunk shrugged again, turning to face her now that the steamer was full. Pidge scuffed her feet, then looked at him.

"It's just nostalgia, is all. Back home, the kitchen was the center of our family. Mom would cook, Matt and I would do homework or plays games at the table, Dad would read the paper… That's just what we did."

Pidge's expression remained soft for a moment before she straightened and plastered on a fake smile.

"Old habits, or whatever. Tell me when the dumplings are done, 'kay?" she said, then sailed out of the kitchen.

Hunk shook his head and started on the dishes.

All it took were a few crumbs and some patience, and then something magic would happen.

The following week, after another Galra outpost crisis and an aggressive food scouting expedition from the local markets, Hunk produced a frankly delicious chicken pot pie. Pidge beamed at him when he carried a still-hot slice into her room. She also started carting her tablet or newest project into the kitchen, working at a secluded part of the counter. She didn't say anything about it, but she did offer to be his taste tester, and, if she wasn't too engrossed, would help him do the dishes.

A few days after that, Keith poked his head into the kitchen.

"I, uh, heard you take requests?"

"Yeah! What do you want?"

"Tex-Mex," he said, then slunk away before he caught a case of the feelings.

Hunk grinned and reviewed his ingredient list.