Chapter Text
His feet stood frozen to the floor. Goosebumps forming on his neck as he fought the first panic attack he’d had in five years. Well, three and a half. But that last one didn’t really count. He didn’t know what he’d expected to happen for his first real assignment as a probationary agent. A lot of paper work, carrying coffee, drudge work. You know, the kind of things they always told you to expect when you’re new and pushed into an established unit.
What he hadn’t expected was to enter the room and stare straight up at a crime board, filled to the brim with pictures and lines connecting each face to others. One half filled with the familiar faces of his pack – his friends, the people he’d grown up with, some he’d barely said hello to – while the other half was filled with mostly unknown faces, and some that he wished he’d never known. People who’d hunted his friends, who called innocents monsters and thought themselves the heroes in their own stories, even though they were the bad guys in everyone else’s.
He’d stood stunned, and for a moment he wondered if he was dreaming, if this was the nightmare he’d had since the war against Monroe first started. He checked; he only had five fingers.
His eyes immediately went to Scott’s picture on the board, somewhere below Chris, with a question mark next to it. Then he expanded his view and looked at the others. Chris on the top, Derek next to him, also with question marks; Liam and Theo somewhere on the left, Peter and Malia on the other side. And that was just the center of the board. Some of the faces were familiar from Facebook posts, but people he’d never even met in life, others…he probably knew by name but couldn’t put a face to.
He turned back and headed straight for the bathroom. Wondering if they’d follow him, if his name was supposed to be somewhere on the board. He poured water on his face, trying to think, trying to catch his breath.
He leant back, his head against the wall, and forced himself to take deep breaths. Tried to remember everything he’d ever been taught about how to manage this, this…moment.
When he finally did so, there was an older man standing next to him, waiting.
“Wh…what?”
“Are you alright, Stilinski?” Stiles couldn’t believe it. David Rossi, a veritable legend in the Bureau, one of the men who’d created the BAU. And he was talking to him. For a moment Stiles forgot what had led to his panic attack in the first place. It hit him again a second later.
“I just…” he tried to play it cool, but he knew how suspicious he’d be, if he’d seen anyone else act the way he’d just done. He stared at the mirror, almost kicking himself for how guilty he must have looked for someone like Rossi to have followed him.
“It’s Stiles.”
“What?”
“They call me Stiles.”
“Alright, Stiles. So what happened.” Rossi didn’t touch him. He seemed calm, waiting for an answer.
“The case, I…I guess I was a bit shocked.”
“Why?” Stiles looked at the man’s face, trying to read how much they knew, to figure out just how much shit he was in.
“Seeing my best friend’s face on the board.”
It was a last ditch save. He knew there was no way to cover up his behavior, and if he didn’t want them to instantly kick him off the team, he’d have to do something to explain it. It was desperate, but it had to work, because he needed to stay on this case.
Scott would need him there.
“So you do know McCall.” Stiles stared back at Rossi. The man still seemed friendly, but there was a core of steel behind his eyes, something calculating, profiling his every answer.
Yep, definitely a trap.
“Imagine our surprise when during your background check, we noticed some of Argents’ main associates.”
“You mean, Scott and Malia.”
The man didn’t answer.
“Look, Malia and I used to date. Scott and I, we grew up together. Liam, Scott used to mentor him in high school. I know Scott, I don’t know what you’ve got on him, but I’m sure he hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s just not…”
“And his connection to Argent.”
“Chris is his stepfather.” Rossi nodded as if he already knew this. It was then that Stiles realized that this wasn’t just a trap; it had been a test, to see if he’d keep quiet or not.
“So when was the last time you saw Scott?” Rossi seemed so relaxed, as if Stiles entire career and freedom weren’t on the line.
“Too long.” He whispered. About four years ago. “Different schools, different fields. We used to meet up occasionally, when we went home to Beacon Hills. But we had our own lives. Look, just tell me, what’s he supposed to have done?”
And Stiles let Rossi bring him back to the case room, where he was told the most amazing story, of two groups, one code named ‘the Hunters’, and the other ‘the Wolves’ or ‘the Werewolves’, who seemed to be involved in some kind of gang war that had already taken hundreds of lives.
Both were regarded as criminal organizations with branches ranging from the entire American continent to Europe, Asia, Africa and even Australia. Both had ties with organized crime. The Wolves’ ties with the Calavera cartel were suspicious, while the Hunters were linked with the Russian mob and certain factions of the mafia.
Stiles had to hold back hysterical laughter through half of it, and keep himself from correcting them the rest of the time. By the end he was luckily able to blame it all on shock. And then they gave him a phone, five people listening in on every word.
“Scott…we need to talk.”
********
The next few days were some of the hardest of Stiles’ entire life. Dealing with the senior agents as they picked his brain for any bit of knowledge he had on the Argents, Scott and any other wolf he was even halfway familiar with, was bad enough. But on top of that, a deeply insecure part of him kept worrying of what would happen if Scott didn’t want to talk to him anymore.
It might be best for Scott, but for Stiles himself, he couldn’t help but hope that this would at least give him an excuse to see his best friend, to know that he was fine. To touch his friend, to feel him for real and see him as something other than a picture on Facebook, or a quick comment in response to one message or another.
Stiles was first to arrive at the arranged meeting place. He sank down on his chair and settled himself with a glass of soda, making sure that everyone was in place. He didn’t bother to tell their unit chief just how obvious the surveillance van was. If Prentiss didn’t know so already, then she probably didn’t deserve her job.
Scott sucked at subterfuge. Or at least he used to. Stiles tried to think of the last time he’d seen his best friend, his Alpha, that wasn’t over Skype. It wasn’t Scott’s fault. Or anyone’s fault. But they were both so damn busy.
Stiles had school, field exams, first Berkeley then Quantico; Scott…he had road trips, online courses, night classes and anything to get some work in, in between endless fights for his life as the General in a war most of humanity didn’t know or care about.
He hadn’t even thought about the meeting place when Scott picked it. A small café in Washington near Pennsylvania Avenue. Just a few sitting places outside, leaving him in clear view of the road.
Scott was already half an hour late, so Stiles ordered a drink and waited. It made him worry that Scott wouldn’t come at all, or that he’d just send one of their friends. That one of them had heard the other heartbeats behind him and thought the worst of him. After all, they hadn’t talked in months, almost a year by now.
He remembered how he used to fear that there’d come a day when he and Scott wouldn’t be best friends anymore. He hated to live in the reality of it.
Stiles didn’t even know how it had happened. How they’d gone from being nigh inseparable, and nightly phone calls to maybe a call once a week, then once a month, until eventually even that had petered out.
It had started with being too tired to call after a long day in class, or Scott not being able to call him back because he was undercover, or because he didn’t have any internet or phone access. But the longer it went on, the fewer specifics Scott would give him on the cases he was dealing with. And since all of Scott’s life was about the fight, that didn’t leave them much that they could talk about. The hardest part of it all wasn’t that they’d had an argument. If there had been one specific moment where he could say, ‘that’s when we stopped talking’, then they could have dealt with it. It’s that once you haven’t talked to a person for a month or two, you start thinking, “what if they don’t want to hear from me?” and “Why didn’t ‘they’ call ‘me’ sooner?”
And once that kind of thinking started playing in your mind, it became harder and harder to pick up the phone and call.
He could feel the cold wire against his chest, and he hated how his first reason to go talk to Scott again came with pretense. Sure, the idea of playing double – no, triple – agent had seemed cool back at the FBI building. But it was starting to feel more and more ridiculous now. Especially now that he had to find a way to let Scott know that people were listening in on them.
He startled when he heard Scott’s arrival. A heavy motorcycle, Stiles didn’t know enough about them to recognize the make. Scott was wearing a leather coat, boots, worn jeans. His hair was longer now, back to being as floofy as it had been when they’d been younger. Were those beads? Stiles wasn’t even sure. And those tattoos. Stiles knew Scott had always wanted a tattoo, or two, or three. But he couldn’t help but notice the colors coming from under the shirt’s sleeve, as Scott held up the helmet under his arm. Scott’s smile seemed hesitant; did Stiles imagine seeing it brighten when Scott saw him, and then retreat a second later? Or was that wishful thinking? He wasn’t sure if he was projecting his own insecurity.
Stiles wanted to say something smart, something meaningful, and yet all he could think of saying was, “So how much fire did that one take?” Scott stopped, and then he grinned as he rolled up his sleeve a bit.
Stiles flinched in his place. Even now the idea of willingly enduring that much pain…Stiles would never get it.
“Remember what I told you about how I had to stay in New York a few years back? The Marston Pack? Derek knew a tattoo artist up in the Village. He also did the ones on my chest and legs.”
“Jesus, Scott.” And for a moment they were back to being in high school, Stiles almost expected Scott to pull him into a hug. It even looked like Scott wanted to. But he didn’t, they didn’t. And instead they just sat down, on opposite sides of the table. As if he was talking to a friendly stranger, rather than the closest thing he’d ever had to a brother.
Scott looked tired – he looked well physically, but there was something fragile in his eyes. If the reports Stiles had heard of that fight yesterday, that had left fifteen dead, were correct, then Stiles couldn’t blame him. But at least the feds didn’t know just how involved Scott was in things. He hoped.
“So how’s things been?” The words sounded stupid, even to his own ears. “Heard anything from Matt lately?”
Scott looked at him for a moment, his eyes searching Stiles’. “Not since the station.”
“Yeah, that was a wild night. Remember the look on your mom's face when she figured out what we were up to?”
Scott winced at that, and Stiles almost wanted to stab himself for bringing it up. But Scott needed to know that something was up, just so he wouldn’t say something that the feds could hold against him.
“So how’s Chris doing?” And please let Scott realize that Chris is the one they think they're after.
“Chris is…Chris. He’s been taking me along with him. I guess he hopes I’ll follow in his footsteps now, now that he no longer has Allison.”
In other words, Scott was hunting with Chris. Good. Stiles had been worried that Scott was out on his own. Scott never did well on his own. He was too much of a social creature, and not even just because he was a werewolf.
And now he was under investigation from the FBI. What would happen if they arrested him? How would someone as innocent and trusting as Scott survive in prison, on his own, without his pack to watch his back?