Broken Things [SUICA 010]

[thetyro]

Title: Broken Things
Characters/Pairing: Sterek, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall Jackson Whittemore, Kanima (The)
Rating: G
Word Count: 2,846
Prompt: Stiles would regard Derek as a much more heroic figure if Derek would just consider a few minor adjustments to his methods of operation.
[Also available on AO3]

Derek's not bad at being a superhero.

He stands by that (mostly because admitting otherwise seems like it might trigger a total meltdown). He's lousy and imperfect and off and slipshod and substandard, and he's even heard the word "dreadful" tossed around. But what he really is is clueless.

Contrary to popular belief, inspirational words don't instill even a basic, instinctual know-how, and Laura didn't even leave him any divine guidance, and that was too bad. The idea that “You must be the person you have never had the courage to be. Gradually, you will discover that you are that person, but until you can see this clearly, you must pretend and invent,” was nice. But not as impactful coming from his “Inspirational Words of Wisdom Calendar.” He has a feeling Laura would have had something a bit...better. Laura, after all, had known exactly what she was doing.

Laura was the hero type, and her alter-ego had fit her like a second skin. She was meant to have Talia's powers. It made sense. She was the one who had the brains and the drive and the emotional stability to channel her grief into something besides mindless revenge.

Derek's still not sure he's cut out for this. He's not bad, but he's not good either. Hasn't really caught a stride since inheriting his power-up. You'd think the universe would have cut him a break at some point.

But as he gets hurled through the air and crashes through the windshield of a cop car, he has to admit that it doesn't seem like that is coming any time soon.

The impact of his back against the glass ripples through every bone in Derek's body. His head crashes into the center console radio, sending sparks and static flying through the air, and his claws take out a chunk of dashboard on either side of him. General durability and cell regeneration or no, it still feels like getting punching in the back of the head by, well, a car.

He's suddenly in a significantly worse mood than he was a minute ago.

The cruiser is an immaculately kept Ford Crown Victoria. Four doors, black and white, and spotless. It's one of eight police vehicles on the scene, sort of to the back and the left. But Derek doesn't have to open his eyes to know the punchline here. He can smell it, even as he simultaneously tries to focus on healing and getting up.

“Are you kidding me?” officer Unpronounceable First Name Stilinski yells, voice bouncing around Derek's skull. “Again?!”

-

Beacon Hills isn't a huge city. It's a low-crime urban center with some suburbs separating it from the vast expanses of Northern California forest around it. It's just barely big enough to really be called a city, and Stiles sure as hell didn't think it was big enough to warrant it's newest protector.

Wolf's Bane is 6'1 and a car-crushingly dense 200lb. (Danny is the most amazing and terrible member of the forensics team.) A frustratingly good body in clothing so tight Stiles is sure it should be illegal. He's got stupid-good cheekbones under that Robin-style mask and these really cute bunny teeth that don’t really much the whole “wolf” thing. But that’s okay, because sometimes he smiles and that’s a very charming and disarming thing and-

And Stiles shouldn’t be dwelling so much on his smile and his ass.

He shouldn’t be dwelling on that at all, in fact.

More to the point (if there ever was one); Stiles isn't sure if the red on his costume is to break up the black or to match his eyes, but the wolf insignia sums up his powers pretty well. He looks a bit like a villain but...Stiles isn't about to even pretend he's worried about Wolf's Bane going rogue. Not only because Stiles has trouble taking people in spandex seriously, either. His teeth and claws look scary and he's got a really convincing growl, but he's not a bad person. Stiles is sure of that. He's a jerk with zero concern for city property, but he's not out there looking to maul things. He's really trying to protect people, and when it came down to it and it was Stiles about to get smashed, he'd managed to come through.

Stiles doesn't actually have as much of a problem with vigilantism as he should. Officers were discouraged from both holding and/or voicing any kind of support for even the most helpful of illegal activity. Stiles gets that. He even kind of agrees.

There are a lot of inherent problems with vigilantism, and they were only magnified when tights were thrown into the mix. Whatever someone might think about the state of the criminal justice system, it was, in fact, a system. And no judge wants to touch a case where the arrest report includes mention, no matter how skillfully euphemistic, of man, women or child in spandex, body armor and a mask.

So yeah, Stiles has a lot more paperwork and a lot more stories about guys getting out on this or that technicality because someone doesn't know the first thing about police procedures. But it still kind of works. Crime was down. And that, as Stiles had quickly learned, was when you had to really start worrying.

That was when the super-powered crime comes crawling out of every abandoned power plant and questionably ethical mental institution for miles.

Still. None of that is really what Stiles is mad about. No, no. No. His problem is that Wolf's Bane is a jerk. A jerk with an affinity for wrecking HIS stuff.

He could deal with the guy landing on his car once or twice. Three times? Six times? There was no way that wasn't malicious. Not to mention threatening to rip his throat out with his teeth. Stiles doesn't feel he deserved that.. It was not his fault Mr. Grumpy-Breeches was having a bad day. Stiles is sure he had a very tragic back-story and really just needed a hug or something, but still!

-

As he's seething in general displeasure, Scott pokes his head over his cubicle wall, goofy smile a give away that he's about to clock out for the day. Stiles isn't.

“Still mad?” Scott asks.

“Yes,” Stiles answers.

“I don’t think he’s aiming for your cars.”

“I don’t care. This is a personal attack. Did I mention he growled at me again? And threatened my throat.”

Scott laughs, sheepishly. And although he doesn’t make the obvious comment about Wolf's Bane and Stiles’ throat, Stiles doesn’t forgive him enough to share the laugh. He can almost see the humor in the whole situation--or at least he could if sourwolf had a tendency to break other people's things. Things that were other people's. As it is, Stiles hurls a pen at Scott's head for his insubordination, and (like a good friend) Scott lets it hit him.

“I'm going home for the day,” Scott says, rubbing the pen mark off his forehead. “I'm almost done with that missing person report... Not so much the “snake people” thing. Get it to you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, yeah. It's fine. Go see Allison,” Stiles says, waving him off. “It's not life or death that I have it tonight. Plenty of my own work to do.”

 

-

It's a pretty quiet night. Stiles spends most of it drinking terrible cup of coffee after terrible cup of coffee and trying to force his brain to focus on his paperwork mountain.

He's four hours and two pages into his shift when dispatch rings the main line. Stiles picks up, praying these very rare circumstances are going to provide him with something exciting.

They do not. It's just the silent alarm going off in the high school gym. Stiles figures someone probably left a window open and it's either teenagers being teenagers or a squirrel or something. That's the kind of job this is; one day you're in the middle of an epic fight between god-like men, the next you're glorified animal control.

Stiles still quickly volunteers himself to go. It's better than sitting around at his desk doing nothing, and because no one else wants to, he's soon driving down the winding suburban road towards the high school.

 

The lights inside the school are all out, and there are no cars in the lot or anywhere on the street... Stiles wishes there were half a dozen students drinking beer and racing goats through the gym. It would be way more light-hearted, and the image makes for less of a pit in his stomach when he pulls up to the silent building. Instead, he finds the school is dark, the lights out, and the doors hanging off their hinges.

Stiles parks his car in the otherwise empty lot and takes a deep breath before grabbing his flashlight and getting out of the car.

Inside, the lights don't come on when he hits the switch. That should be the point he turns around, goes back outside and radios in for backup. A lot of backup. But he's got one of those gut feelings, and instead of doing any of that, he starts down the dark hall by the light of his flashlight.

The school is big, but there's a trail of claw marks crisscrossing lockers and stretches of floor, and that's not hard to follow.

It is now past the point he should have turned around, gone back outside and radioed for backup. Instead, he takes off running. Because he's pretty sure Wolf’s Bane doesn't have anybody he can call in as backup. And because Stiles is that kind of person.

The stupid kind.

-

 

Derek has decent night vision, but it's not much help against an enemy who can seamlessly camouflage into the background. He's tracking the reptilian problem by sound and smell. And as good as his ears and nose are, the room echos so much and smells so strongly of chlorine he almost can't see straight. He's left crouching low to the ground, breathing through his mouth and turning wildly towards every scrabbling sound.

Kanima's human. Or he was human. It's hard to tell under the scales, so Derek's not sure about how human he is now. (He has to assume, because if he gets a chance to rip Kanima's throat out and finds out later he was just some stupid kid-)

It's one of about a hundred things Derek's not sure about in this fight. He doesn't know a thing about the building layout, or his enemy. He's pieced together it is a school with at least two hallways between its back door and its gym, and some theories about camouflage and paralytic venom, and that's about it.

He's not feeling at all in control of the situation.

Kanima lunges at him, and Derek's got just enough warning to throw himself to one side and take a swipe at its passing mass. He misses, his claws gliding through the air a few inches short of the thing's leg.

It takes Derek a minute to register that it didn't miss. He's still watching it catch its balance and turn to hiss at him when a sudden white hot pain shoots across his shoulder.

His arm is suddenly deadweight. It drops to his side, shoulder refusing to even try, leaving him scrambling for a way to get this back under control with just the use of one arm. (And based on how the numbness is spreading, a very short amount of time.)

At least, he thinks to himself, he's only got himself to worry about. The school is empty, not so much as a night watchman or janitor to worry about protecting.

That's when the door between him and the Kanima bursts open and Stiles is suddenly between him and eight hundred needle-sharp teeth.

It's not a comfort, it's a shot of adrenaline that nearly sends him leaping over Stiles. Or it would if his whole right side wasn't numb. Instead he stumbles forward, grabbing Stiles' by his uniform and shoving him out of harms way. (It's not the kind of rescue that he thinks makes people swoon, but his relationship with this particular member of Beacon Hill's police force has, tragically, never involved swooning.) Kanima jumps at him, and with his whole body numb and heavy, it takes very little for him to be knocked backwards into the pool.

-

 

Stiles has no idea if lizards can, as a rule, swim. He's pretty sure that if this one can, it's going to move a lot faster than him in the water. He's fully dressed and about to be supporting a lot of deadweight too. He's betting on this thing either not caring or not being able to follow or already being gone as he kicks off his shoes and dives into the pool.

He scrabbles for Wolf’s Bane, kicking off the bottom of the pool and breaking the surface with a gasp. Wolf’s Bane isn't as heavy as Stiles thought he would be, and he coughs up a few lung-fulls of water and starts to breath right away, but he's still limp and Stiles is almost too busy looking frantically left and right and back and down for some sign of Kanima.

Finally he catches a glimpse of movement as Kanima moves out from behind the bleachers and around the far side of the pool. Stiles lets himself be hopeful.

“I don't think it likes water. We're okay... Bet you didn't think you'd be the hero and the damsel in distress tonight, huh?”

“I will bite you.”

“Sure you will. How long before you can swim on your own?” Wolf’s Bane doesn't answer. “Dude. I am serious. I need to know this. Are you listening? “

“Shut up," Wolf’s Bane orders, glaring at the water because it seems he can't turn his head enough to glare at Stiles."I'm trying to take stock of the situation. We're in a pool and-”

“Stand back, everyone. World's greatest detective at work. “

Derek tries to bite Stiles, but his neck still doesn’t seem to be cooperating, and instead they float in silence a while. Even with their lives still in danger, Stiles doesn't feel he has enough to do when he's not talking. And he needs a distraction from the fact his legs are starting to hurt from the effort of keeping them both above water.

“You're not very good at this,” Stiles mutters, mostly to himself. But of course He hears him.

“I know that,” Wolf’s Bane answers. It's like a verbal shrug. He's not even angry about it.

Fuck.

Stiles regrets the quip. He regrets everything. If it wouldn't doom them both, he'd let himself sink.

“I didn't mean that,” Stiles finally offers. “Not really. I mean--I don't think you're terrible at being a hero or anything. You're kind of an asshole, sure--”

“Just shut up.”

“See. This is what I'm talking about. It would not kill you to be a little more friendly. In fact, considering your situation, being an asshole is way more likely to get you killed..\..Only not really. Because I'm not going to drown you. I am already in the pool. I've signed up for the long run... Look, I think it's really cool what you do. You're obviously still getting the hang of it, but... you're heart's in the right place? You're not terrible...I don't think you're terrible, anyways.”

Wolf’s Bane doesn't answer, and Stiles does him the great service of pretending he doesn't seem him blush under the edges of his mask.

“I think I can feel my feet.”

“That is a good sign."

Stiles hums to himself, somehow pleased with this turn of events despite the circumstances. This guy is a lot easier to like when he's not actively making Stiles' life hard. Stiles is so pleased that after a few seconds of consideration, he goes for the next goal post--

"So...I'm Stiles. What's your name? “

Wolf’s Bane looks at him like he's nuts and Stiles can't help but laugh. “Man, come on. We're obviously going to be seeing a lot more of each other if we live through this. I am currently in the process of saving your life. What am I even going to do with a first name? Google you?”

“It's Derek.”

It's taken so long for Derek to answer that at first, Stiles is just confused. What's a Derek? Does it have any relevance at all? It's only after he's uttered a confused “What?” that it hits him.

 

-

 

Derek's a good hero, but Stiles is convinced he needs help. Lone wolves are really romantic in theory, but they get their asses kicked in practice. Derek's still pretending he didn't give up his secret identity and doesn't trust Stiles, but Stiles thinks he's at least started the process of winning him over.

And if Derek's still the kind of jerk that picks his car out of hundreds or options to bash someone over the head with? Stiles has decided he can forgive that.