I'm writing this now so I don't forget to post it lolo also this is extremely unedited take this however you want!!! It could be romantic Latte or platonic//bromance Latte!!!
So everyone's talking about how Shiro coming back and bringing Matt with him will make Lance feel like he's going to get replaced as the blue paladin and/or how Lance feels like Matt would be a better blue paladin
What if Matt actually brings Lance's confidence down a tad bit when he first arrives, but quickly picks Lance up again after they actually start talking// get to know each other?
Also in my head Matt is like the leader of the rebellion group// is in second command (like a deputy of some sort)
When he first arrives with Shiro, Pidge is the first one to just run up to them and squeeze the living shit out of Matt, and they just have this long ass bro hug (even though Matt is basically getting suffocated). After, Matt meets everyone else on the team (except Lance) and gets along with literally everyone (Slav included).
Both Matt and Keith constantly look after Shiro, and literally baby him 24/7. Matt even teaches// practices hand to hand combat with Keith. They also are sometimes lone wolves and follow their instincts most times during a mission (but Matt knows how to back down// knows when to listen to his team most times) Also they both have fuzzy hair
Apparently Matt was once an engineer of some kind back at the Garrison, and loves eating anything Hunk gives him. Matt joins Hunk and Pidge's group, helping them out with mechanics and stuff, (since he was most likely a higher rank then both of them at the Garrison), sometimes even correcting Pidge when they're doing a separate project of some sort.
Allura talks to Matt about plans of sorts, and loves his ideas// adjustments to some of her original plans for a mission, and Matt started studying Altean with the help of Coran when he tries pronouncing the words and when he has problems understanding the rules of the language
The only person he hasn't really talked to// met yet is Lance. The main reason why is because Lance doesn't want to ruin his relationship with Matt the same way he thinks he messed up with Allura when they got to know each other.
Everyone just adores Matt and constantly puts the spotlight on him. He's even better then Keith with most things, which is astonishing to Lance, but it hurts more knowing that he has spent his whole Garrison year trying to beat Keith at basically everything, and impress both Keith and Shiro but never gets a praise out of anything.
He has a hard time thinking what his special talent// what he contributes to the team. In his mind, his only talent right now is being extremely annoying.
Lance doesn't hate himself. He has his insecurities sure, but he doesn't hate himself. He just hasn't found what he's good at yet. It used to be taking care of his family and comforting them when they had a bad day, but that doesn't seem to end the case anymore. Sure he was there for everyone else when Shiro went missing (I'll probably write another post about it later)
Also, Hunk doesn't upright ignore//forget about him. He still talks to Lance and he kind of knows about Lance's attention needs, but with all the missions and projects with Pidge, it's hard being one person. They're still friends, but they just aren't as close as they used to be.
Lance is the kind of person that doesn't tell anyone anything unless you confront him about it because he thinks he's just being a burden to everyone. He knows that he has to stop bottling his feelings, but it's hard when the people you consider to be your family is busy dealing with they're own problems .
He would talk to Coran, but he's trying to be there for Allura whenever she needs him, since they're still mourning over Altea
There's Shiro, but they aren't exactly 'close'. At all. Shiro is still trying to recover from his one year as a Galran prisoner. It's harder for him to move on since one of his arms was removed and replaced with a metal one after being experimented on.
Pidge is still looking for her father, and Keith is still adjusting to the fact that he has Galra blood inside of him, and is also looking for his family.
Slav isn't exactly helpful with emotional stuff, and Kolivan is a rebellion leader leading a large group of followers
Lance can't just break down in his room. People would hear him, and he'd probably get scolded for not telling anyone about all his problems and his attention needs .
That's where Matt comes in. So let's say that Lance is hanging out at the front of the ship one night when everyone else is sleeping, just watching the stars and thinking about his family, maybe even messing with the star map
Matt couldn't exactly sleep that night because he was wondering where his dad was, or/ and how his mother was coping with the loss of her family. He gets out of bed and makes his way to the training deck (something he picked up from Keith), only to be stopped when he sees the glow of the star map in the front of the ship. Thinking its Pidge for the hundredth time that week, he walks in ready to scold the fuck out of her.
When he sees Lance just sitting on the floor of the ship, a blanket over his shoulders, and still wearing his usual outfit instead of his pajamas, Matt gets a little worried. He actually scares the fuck out of Lance when he asks him what he was doing, and Lance starts cursing in Spanish, since he was born in Cuba. Matt apologizes for startling him, then asks if Lance is alright.
Lance just gives him a shrug, before zooming back into one of the planets in the star map. Curious, as to what the paladin was looking at, Matt takes a peak over Lance's shoulder. It's Earth that Lance is looking at. The sudden realization that Lance is homesick is enough for Matt to sit down besides the paladin and put an arm around his back in support.
Matt let's Lance vent on and on about his family and how fucking much he misses them and how much he just wants to tell them that he's okay and that he's coming back as soon as he can, and how much he's kept his feelings in because he never had a chance to talk to anyone about it. Matt just listens to him, not even interrupting him once throughout the whole thing, and rubs his back often when Lance looks like he's about to cry.
When Lance is done, Matt admits that he's homesick as well, but only because his mother has basically been abandoned by her family, and once in a while he feels guilty for not trying to get back home and instead is joined a rebellion group, but he knows he's doing it for his mom's sake, and for the Earth and all the other planets are safe.
And they just talk, except it's extremely awkward because this is the first time they've actually TALKED to each other since Matt arrived, and in the Earth calendar Pidge has, it's been months.
But they do talk (finally), and most of the things they talk about is either about Pidge being a dork or how they miss their families, maybe even some weird/goofy stuff, like how Slav actually does calculations stuff or how many planets there actually was using some mathematical bullshit methods, and by messing around with the star map.
Then Lance accidentally brings up how awesome Matt is and how he should be the Blue paladin and not him because to his team Lance is just an annoying try hard// joker
So Matt quickly throws that thought out the fucking window, and tells Lance how much the team cares about him and how much Pidge has said about him and how brotherly// awesome he is and how he's an amazing sharp shooter, while Matt is just some dude that used to be a coward most of the time
So they just talk about how amazing the other is and they keep talking throughout the night (until they fall asleep on one another)
This is extremely lame lol I'm sorry
