Work Text:
Derek Hale is a big guy. He’s like six feet tall, with two hundred pounds of solid muscle to back it up. Stiles is exactly average in height at five four, with a rather pathetic one hundred and sixteen pounds that back up absolutely nothing. And they’re alone. In her car. Reasonably, she’s holding her pepper spray in one hand and keeping her finger steady on the button. The hell if that bullet’s going to keep him down, he’s a fucking werewolf. Stiles isn’t taking any chances.
“We’re almost there,” she mutters, pulling off onto the road that parallels the preserve.
Derek rouses, eyes opening.
Stiles subtly angles the pepper spray, switches her foot to the brake.
“Almost where?” Derek mumbles.
Could be a ploy. Stiles doesn’t relax.
“Your house,” Stiles replies.
Derek sits up and Stiles almost nails him with the pepper spray before he says, in a voice that implies she has some sort of major mental deficiency, “What? No, you can’t take me there.”
“I can’t take you to your own house,” Stiles says skeptically.
“Not when I can’t protect myself,” Derek says through gritted teeth. He glares at her, like that’s somehow her fault. Which, it’s not. This is exactly the opposite of being her fault.
Stiles pulls off to the side of the road and turns off the Jeep. “All right. What happens if Scott doesn’t find your little magic bullet? Huh? Are you gonna die?”
“Not yet,” Derek grits out, and starts to roll up his sleeve. “I have a last resort.”
"What do you mean? What last reso—oh my God, what is that?” Stiles squawks, recoiling from to glowing, blackened, gaping wound in Derek’s arm. She’s angling her pepper spray at it before she realizes what she’s doing.
Derek scowls at her. Or squints. Somehow both at the same time. “Are you—is that pepper spray?”
“Yes,” Stiles says defensively. “Shut up, or I’ll spray it on your gaping wound.”
Derek blinks at her, looking almost startled for a few seconds, and then he sinks back into his seat and scowls. “Start the car.”
“And go where?” Stiles asks.
“Just drive,” Derek snaps.
“Uh, buddy, have you looked at gas prices lately? I am not just going to cruise around town for a few hours while you have a nice nap. This is not a frickin’ subway.”
“Start the car,” Derek says again, gritting his teeth.
“No.”
“Start the car, or I’ll—”
But he stops.
Derek stops.
Stiles blinks at him, startled. “Or… What?”
“Just start it,” Derek says irritably.
“What’s gonna happen if I don’t?” Stiles presses. “Come on. Tell me.”
“Please,” Derek grits out, like it’s literally killing him, “start the car. Stiles.”
“Please?” Stiles repeats incredulously, and she can’t help the laugh. “Did you seriously just say the word please? Is this a symptom of your freaky werewolf bullets? Acute kindness?”
Derek sighs and slams himself back into his seat. “Never mind. Just—let me out. Send Scott to the house, when he has the bullet. All right?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Stiles says, leaning over to stop Derek, who’s in the middle of fumbling with the door. “Didn’t you say that you’d die there or whatever? Hunters would find you? Keep your ass in the car, buster.”
“Careful. It almost sounds like you might care about me,” Derek mutters, as he subsides back into his seat.
“Yeah, because you’re helpful to Scott,” Stiles snaps.
Derek raises his eyebrows.
Stiles slaps him across the face. “Just because I’m a girl and you’re attractive doesn’t mean I have secret feelings for you, you prick.”
“I wasn’t—” Derek stops and closes his eyes. “Forget it. Would you at least put the pepper spray away? I’m—I’m not gonna hurt you, all right?”
“Yeah. Uh-huh. Not happening,” Stiles says flatly.
She starts the car, pointedly keeping the pepper spray at the ready, and starts on a course for her house. Dad’s been practically living at the office, heading the manhunt for Derek, so they’ll have the house to themselves. And she knows the code to the gun safe.
It isn’t until almost a year later that Derek finally lets it slip, after he holds open a door for her.
“Are you shitting me?” Stiles demands, coming to a dead stop in the Taco Bell parking lot. “You—because I’m a girl?”
Derek exhales. “It’s just—get out of the middle of the parking lot, Stiles, you’re gonna get run over.”
“Oh, yeah, because I’m a girl,” Stiles snipes, shrugging off Derek’s hand on her shoulder. “Because women are stupid and weak and slow, so we get hit with cars. Unlike men.”
“No, Stiles, I’d tell you to get out of the middle of the parking lot even if you were a guy,” Derek says, rolling his eyes. “I promise. I don’t like seeing people I care about in danger, regardless of their gender. You know that.”
Stiles sighs, crosses over to the Camaro, and folds her arm over her chest. “Okay. So. Let’s talk about sexism.”
"It’s not sexism, Stiles.”
“Newsflash, Derek,” Stiles snaps. “If you have to explain your actions with the phrase ‘because you’re a girl’, it’s sexist.”
Derek closes his eyes, inhales, exhales, and then opens his eyes again and says very quietly, “My mother always taught me—taught all of us—that respect for women was important. That their history of struggle, their present day struggle, the pain and the fear they feel that men never will… it deserves respect. So. When I do things for you, or for any woman, it’s not because I think you’re weaker. Okay?”
Stiles’ mouth opens, but it takes her a moment to get the words out. “I. Really?”
“I grew up surrounded by women with super-strength,” Derek says wryly. “They wouldn’t have let me live if I didn’t have anything less than respect for them.”
There’s a slow, growing smile on Stiles’ face. A laugh bubbles up inside of her and spills out of her lips, and then she’s falling forward and pressing a kiss to his lips. Derek automatically wraps his arms around her and responds, pushing back gently, and biting softly on her lower lip when she starts to pull back.
“I am,” Stiles breathes, “the luckiest person in the world.”