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Chapter Text

November 2012

Brunski chuckled meanly as the other two orderlies silently shoved Stiles into the Quiet Room. “I always love the sarcastic ones.”

Stiles had to force himself not to roll his eyes. Obviously, Brunski was yet another asshole who enjoyed the power he had over others; Stiles had met too many people over the last few months who shared that trait to be intimidated by it now.

Brunski sneered in derision as he used his greater size to loom over him. Maybe Stiles shouldn’t have smarted off, but he didn’t want to give Morrell up. His notorious ability to annoy people might distract the orderlies from tracking down where he had got the illicit drugs. Morrell was the only person he could count on for help in this place, as frighteningly practical as she had promised to be.

“Give him five of the Haldol.” Brunski handed a syringe to one of the hulking orderlies.

Stiles panicked as he remembered what that drug did; this was exactly what the druid had warned him he must not let happen. “Wait. What’s that? Is that a sedative? Okay, hang on. Hang on!” He struggled, but he wasn't very powerful at the moment. He wasn’t a werewolf, and right now he wasn’t a fox; he was just Stiles. He flailed about seeking to escape their grip. He even begged. “I can’t go to sleep. Okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Look … Get off me, man!”

The orderlies, while behaving like surly thugs, were still trained professionals in addition to being quite a bit bigger than he was. They knew how to restrain an uncooperative patient.

“I can’t go to sleep … you don’t understand.” He started to beg, but bullies never seemed very interesting in listening.

Stiles felt the bite of the needle. In a last desperate attempt, he clawed at one of the orderlies with his blunt fingers. “You don’t get it. I gotta stay awake, I gotta stay …”

The floor was cool and comforting, and these drugs worked as quickly as Melissa’s had.

“I have to stay awake.”

Aaron Brunski leaned back in his office chair after popping one of his favorite mix tapes into the stereo. He did so enjoy teaching punks like that Stilinski kid the lessons they needed to learn. He had been told that the boy was a candidate for the Sixth Floor, yet Brunski had no idea what type of freak Stiles might turn out to be. To his eyes, the patient seemed just another in a line of smart-mouthed brats who had managed to get under Brunski’s skin way too easily. The nerve of that idiot, trying to steal his keys.

Lost in thought, Brunski barely noticed his new orderly enter his office without knocking. Josef Pohlman certainly didn't fit the usual profile of hires at Echo House; he was pale, twitchy, and slight. He had also managed, in his short time there, to make Brunski feel ill at ease. Pohlman had a way of looking at a person which made them feel like a butterfly impaled on a pin. He had only been a member of the staff for three days, yet Brunski was pretty close to letting him go. The not-so-sterling reputation of Eichen House seldom let Brunski be too picky when hiring personnel, but certain levels of weirdness were too creepy, even for this place.

Without preamble, Pohlman began talking in a tone just as if he were discussing the weather, leaning slightly forward, and clasping his hands behind his back. “He’s been possessed by a nogitsune.”

“What?”

“You were wondering what type of freak Stilinski is. He’s been possessed by a nogitsune. It’s sedated now, because someone who knows what they're doing injected him with wolf lichen.” Pohlman’s voice was sinuous and cloying, as if he was repeating a naughty story.

“How did you know that?” Brunski demanded. “How did you know I was thinking that?”

“Oh. I’m psychic; I guess that’s why I was drawn here. But my powers require a tremendous amount of focus even on good days, so, unfortunately, that means they can be very unreliable. One day, I can read people’s minds as clear as looking through glass, and the next all I get are flashes of emotion,” Pohlman confided. “Today is a good day. I read Dr. Morrell’s mind at lunch, and I read your thoughts as I was coming up the hallway to get the keys.”

“Keys?” Brunski surged up out of his chair, instinctively. He found himself reacting to Pohlman like he would to any potentially dangerous patient.

“Yes. I need your keys.” The man explained to Brunski as if he were speaking to a toddler.

“What for?”

“Well, I can’t really kidnap an unconscious teenager out of the Quiet Room if I can’t get the door open, can I? While I do have psychic powers, none of them can deal with locks.”

Brunski stood there in confusion which was slowly transforming into rage. Did Pohlman think that he would just let him kidnap a patient? Why would he want to kidnap a nogi-whatsis anyway?

“Oh, I didn’t think you’d let me.” Pohlman brought his hands out in front of him in order to brandish a silenced pistol. “As for why? A nogitsune is very powerful; a captured specimen could be very useful to the people for whom I work.”

“Now, you don’t need that gun. Let’s not do something we’ll regret.” Brunksi put both hands up.

“Oh, I won’t regret it. You see, over the years I’ve developed a rather strange addiction. I like to read people’s minds as they die.” With that, Pohlman shot Brunski twice, the whispered noise of the gun barely echoing in the hallway outside. Pohlman walked over to the desk and snatched up the keys, pausing only for a moment to drink in the last glimmering echoes of Brunski’s mind.

Pohlman closed the door to the office softly behind him. His superiors would be so very pleased with him when he delivered such a prize. "Hail Hydra."

“How is that possible?” Scott didn't remember making a decision to get up off the couch. His angry reaction to the news had lifted him up as if he were a chip on a flood of boiling water. “You said he was going to be safe! You said …“ He bit his tongue so hard he tasted his own blood; having fangs made that an relative frequent occurrence.

His mother gently took on his hands into hers, cradling them carefully. Slowly, his claws receded back into his fingers. “Breathe, baby, breathe. It’s not his fault.”

Noah Stilinski didn’t look like he shared Melissa’s sentiment. He had come back from the specialist in Los Angeles with the knowledge that Stiles didn’t actually have frontotemporal dementia. It had to be a trick by the demon fox to keep Stiles from resisting him. The news had lifted everyone’s spirits until Morrell had alerted them to Stiles's abduction. Now, the sheriff’s hands trembled even though he spoke with the same professional tone he had used when he had taken over the search on the night Stiles had sleep-walked to the coyote den.

“All we know now is that three people are dead, two are missing, and there's a stolen ambulance. The head orderly, Brunski, was found in his office; he was most likely killed to get his set of the master keys. Two other orderlies were shot once behind the ear, execution style. We're most likely dealing with a professional killer. The other missing person is an orderly named Josef Pohlman; your father is doing a background check on him as we speak. He’s the only lead we have, though he'd only been working at the institution for three days.”

“I shouldn’t have let him out of my sight! I shouldn’t have!” Scott kept trying to fill his lungs with air, but no matter how hard he tried he felt as if he were still suffocating. His eyes darted to the mirror on the living room wall. Anchoring himself wasn't working; he kept having to speak around a mouth full of fangs.

Melissa stroked his face. “You can’t help Stiles if you lose control. Focus on that.”

“I can’t be here.” Scott tore himself away from his mother and ran out of the house, moving so fast that the adults didn’t have time to react. He slammed the door behind him so hard that the lintel might have cracked.

To a stranger's eyes, he would have been nothing more than a monstrous blur on the street, a dark shape flashing through the night. He ran as fast as he could, but he couldn’t outrun the conviction that he had allowed this to happen. His instincts had told him that Stiles going to Eichen House had been a bad idea, yet he had stood aside, nonetheless. Stiles had been so dead set on protecting them by being admitted that Scott had passively, and probably foolishly, relented.

Scott raced through town, cutting through people's yards. He remembered doing this once before, trying to get to Allison’s house so they could steal some alone time while her parents were gone. He’d put so much effort into having fun with her, hadn’t he? But he had barely tried to talk Stiles out of imprisoning himself.

Selfish.

Stiles was gone. Scott’s panic at the thought was as bad as his panic when Stiles had called him in the middle of the night while sleepwalking. He put on more speed, so much speed that he felt his shoes and socks shred. Pain stung his bare feet when they struck the pavement. Stiles had told him that something was wrong, with mysterious keys and appearing and disappearing blackboard writing, yet Scott had been so sure that Stiles couldn’t possibly have been a killer that he had decided to focus completely on the idea that the oni might be after Kira.

Stupid.

When he came to rest in front of Eichen House, it took a few minutes for his feet to heal completely. Of course, his mad dash through the night had been pointless. Even if he managed to pick up Stiles’ scent, he couldn’t possibly track a vehicle, especially one with over half-a-day's head start on him. Stiles had promised he would only be committed for seventy-two hours, and Scott had given in so easily. He’d made mistake after mistake.

Worthless.

He couldn’t find Stiles. He couldn’t save Stiles. He couldn’t protect anyone. He’d been so interested in getting to know Kira – in being normal, in being human – that even if there had been something to do, he probably wouldn’t have done it. Instead, he’d done what he had always chosen to do and pretended everything would be okay until forced to admit that it wouldn't be.

That had to change.

The nogitsune wiggled its toes in the chill air. They were one of the few parts of Stiles’ body that it was able to move, and that was quite an accomplishment for whoever had imprisoned him. At first glance, its prison was more like a hospital of a much higher quality than its previous accommodations. The bed, the monitoring equipment, and the white walls were far cleaner than Eichen House could ever hope to be. The numerous straps holding it to the bed were tough enough to resist its enhanced strength. What’s more, it could feel the power of occult wards inscribed on the walls, infused with real belief, and strong enough to strangle its own magic. Someone knew what they were doing when they built this cell.

The nogitsune could work with that. Let them underestimate it. Let them think that this could contain it. This kidnapping would most likely become the last success these fools ever had.

As if on cue, a man entered the cell alone. The yako could tell from the stench of low-grade magic and various occult equipment concealed on the human’s body that he was a sorcerer. It smiled a wide and beaming smile. Human sorcerers usually offered endless fun. The look on their faces when they realized that they could never live long enough to even begin to comprehend the full array of tricks a nogitsune could play was priceless.

The sorcerer put a small carrying case on a cart and rolled it over to the bed. “How are we this morning, sir?”

“Politeness is an interesting approach. It can’t hurt your chances.” The nogitsune decided to let this uppity dabbler live longer than it usually did. “We’ll play along for now. What is your name?”

“Gregory Belial.” The sorcerer double-checked the straps holding it down.

It was sure that it reacted with what the modern children called a derp-face. Then it started to laugh. Loudly. “Are you serious?”

“You know how important names are in magic; don’t pretend you don’t. It’s a pseudonym, of course.”

“It’s hi-LAR-eee-us.”

The nogitsune was pleased to see it had managed to poke a hole in its captor’s aura of calm. It was less pleased when it saw what the man had pulled out of the box.

“Do you think this is hilarious as well?” Belial said turning the shining silver torc over and over in his hands. “You recognize it, don’t you?”

“You’ll regret it if you put that on us. No matter how long it takes, we’ll find a way to kill you slowly. Very, very slowly.”

“I think I'll take my chances.”

“Do you think you’re the first human who thought they could rule us? Up-jumped little monkeys read a few books and suddenly they think they’re the masters of the universe. We’re a thousand years old. We’ve seen more than you could possibly imagine.”

“Right there.” Belial shook a finger at him. “That’s where you’re underestimating me. Or rather, you’re underestimating us. If I were doing this by myself, you’d have a point. I’d have to be very brave to try, and I’d most likely have to worry for the rest of my life about you breaking free. But I’m not alone. Hydra has existed for millennia, so I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. For example, I didn’t have to track this item down.”

The nogitsune remained silent. This was something it had not foreseen. The wise fox remained silent when things took a turn for the worse.

“You know how this works, right?”

“We do. When you put that on us, you’ll give us a command. We must follow the command until the torc is removed.” The nogitsune spoke carefully.

“Good.” Belial muttered a few words and placed the collar around the yako’s neck. “You will not harm a member of HYDRA in any way.”

The discomfort began immediately. The nogitsune fed on pain, of course, but never its own. Stubbornly, it refused to speak.

“You have to give me a name, my friend,” the sorcerer admonished. “The pain won’t stop until you do.”

The nogitsune was certainly not used to being on this side of torture. The irony was completely unappreciated. It had a number of names it might give, but few of them would be acceptable in this situation.

Belial made an effort to sound reasonable. “All magic requires balance. The torc will make you obey, but only if you have a way out. Speak the name of the person who can take it off.”

“And then you’ll kill them, leaving me bound forever.”

Belial smiled grimly. “Well, that’s usually how it goes. On the other hand, what choice do you have? It will not stop.”

The torc began to feel like someone had coated it with gasoline and lit it on fire. This was intolerable. Finally, it gasped out, “The True Alpha.” The pain ceased.

Belial took a step back. “That’s not a name.”

“It is a unique individual, and that’s all the magic of the torc requires.” The nogitsune felt relief to have at least turned the tables a tiny bit on Belial. “It’s certainly not our fault that you don’t know what that name means or who it refers to. Sucks to be you. Now, since we can’t hurt you, untie us.”

Belial looked at him suspiciously.

The nogitsune smirked. “You’re a big boy, and since you’re absolutely sure that the torc protects you, what do you have to lose?” The fox grinned with silver teeth.

Lydia Martin frowned at the mirror that hung above her vanity. The clock on the wall told her that it was one in the morning. She should be asleep, but she couldn’t bring herself to close her eyes. Instead, she was waiting.

Waiting to scream.

Stiles had been taken a week ago, and here she was sitting at her vanity and staring at her own reflection, as if that were in any way as helpful as she wanted to be. While he had been sleep-walking his way into a coyote den, she had led searchers to the basement of Eichen House, wasting precious time. It was only after his abduction that she realized her premonitions had been warning her about something else entirely. Her powers were still so vague that it made her feel useless, and Lydia hated that feeling beyond almost anything else. Yet, she wasn’t just a banshee. She was an extraordinarily intelligent young woman, and if the powers of her bloodline failed her, she would use her other gifts to help her friend. She only needed a clue as to where she should start.

Her phone buzzed again from its place on her nightstand; she suspected it was Aiden, leaving another message. She appreciated the former alpha trying his best to be supportive. He was just so clumsy about it, so clumsy that it was becoming tiresome. She didn’t want his meaningless platitudes or encouragement to accept what couldn’t be changed. She wanted answers.

However, she checked the phone out of politeness. Aiden had sent her seventeen texts since she had last answered him. A memory from earlier in the year made her breath catch in her throat.

“I’m not ignoring him,” she echoed.

There were five voice mails from Allison. Two from Isaac. One each from Ethan, Derek, Melissa, and the sheriff. She would answer them all eventually. She would answer them when she had something concrete to tell them.

She put the phone down on the table once again with a firm snap. She needed to get out of both her bedroom and her own head. Throwing on a robe to cover her negligee, she headed for the courtyard.

The air was cold against her skin as it was the middle of November. Yet, it soothed her because it gave her something else to think about other than missing Stiles.

And she did miss him. She wondered when that had changed. Was it at her 17th birthday party in the spring? No. He was still hiding things from her then, and he had been totally immature in his affection. It was only recently, when they had worked together on the problems of the Alpha Pack and the Darach that she had begun to desire his presence. It was only when they were consumed with solving the deadly mysteries of Deucalion and Jennifer that he had stopped being so creepily obsessive and started treating her like a real person, and she had found him not only to be nice but also devoted, passionate and clever.

They had become friends, and now he was gone. For some unfathomable reason, it hurt as much as Jackson leaving had.

She walked to the edge of the heater pool; little wisps of fog trailed off of it. She was startled though, because in the reflection of the water, she could plainly see a pair of red glowing eyes above her on the roof of her house. She was scared for a single solitary moment, until she figured out who it must be.

“Scott?”

The figure flinched.

“Come down here.”

With a leap, the alpha landed on the other side of the pool from where she was standing. It was effortless. How different he was from their freshman year!

“How long have you been out here?”

“You weren’t supposed to have noticed,” Scott said glumly.

Lydia walked around the pool to stand next to him. “Were you checking up on me?”

“Yeah. Kinda.” Scott couldn’t look her in the face. At one time, it might have been amusing.

She felt violated. “You weren’t out here just waiting for me to scream, were you?”

“No!”

Lydia found herself accepting his denial. “I believe you. You know that you’d probably hear it from your house … especially for him.” She narrowed her eyes. “How many times in the last week have you been on my roof?”

“Uh.”

“Scott!” She made her voice a command.

“Seven?”

Lydia reached out and took him by the arm, leading him over to one of the stone benches that surrounded the pool. “Any of the others caught you yet?”

“No … wait! Uhm, I’m only …” Scott trailed off.

“What happened to Stiles was not your fault.” Lydia shook her head shortly. “You aren’t going to do anyone any good if you wear yourself out trying to protect all of us.”

“If I don’t, then what am I good for?”

Lydia didn’t know what to say. She, too, had been sleepless out of guilt and regret. What right did she have to tell Scott he couldn’t feel that way?

“You get better,” she said. “You get stronger. We get stronger. We learn about what we are and what we can do, and we take what we learn and use it to find Stiles and bring him home. But that requires common sense, you idiot. Lurking on my rooftop every night until you’re tired enough to fall off of it isn’t going to do anything useful.”

Scott sighed but he didn’t argue. He must have been pretty tired already. She could almost feel the fatigue wafting off of him. “I miss him.”

“It’s only been a week.”

“I miss him every day.” Scott said softly. “I thought … I thought I would have a chance of doing this right, if he was with me. And now, I’m lost.”

“You’re not lost, Scott. You’re just hurt. Come inside. You can use the spare bedroom.” Lydia pulled him up.

“Your mom won’t mind?”

“She and Johnny Ambien had a hot date.” Lydia joked. “Come on, you big idiot.”

January 2013

The Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft roared over the shallow and warm waters of the Atlantic. In this part of the Bahamas, an observer might have guessed that it carried some free-wheeling millionaire on their way to a beach vacation. The observer would have been wrong.

It carried one of the most dangerous men in the world surrounded by other, only-slightly-less-dangerous men and women.

The plane made a perfect landing on a recently-built platform near a sandy short on the northeast side of Samana Cay. No other building was visible nearby save for a low concrete bunker. The very important person glanced out of the airplane’s windows. Two people were standing at the base of the platform, waiting nervously. They had every reason to be nervous.

When the plane was safely landed, Wolfgang Von Strucker emerged from it, leading an entourage comprised of bodyguards and assistants. He paused at the bottom of the plane’s ramp, studying the area. This base didn’t look like much, but that was on purpose. The vast majority of the base's square footage was located underwater, constructed at night in the last years of the twentieth century. It was always intended to look like not much of anything. The cay itself, suspected of being the site of Columbus’ first landing in North America, had been officially uninhabited since the 1950s.

That made it the perfect place for Hydra to keep its more dangerous and volatile occult resources.

Dr. Ranefer and Mr. Belial – Von Strucker always rolled his eyes at the presumption in the name – immediately began to approach the helicopter once it landed. At least they were brave, coming to face him after the tersely worded message he had sent them. It was well known among the troops that Von Strucker had had more than one Hydra agent shot for incompetence.

This time, though, they had little to worry about. He wasn’t going to have an entire department executed simply because their recent mission had been costly. The creature the Department of Occult Armaments had enslaved for Hydra had already demonstrated its usefulness in a few short weeks. The first time they had presented to it a problem to solve, it had devised a plan of such cunning malevolence that every single goal that Von Strucker had set for the operation had been achieved. Its potential usefulness hadn’t been the problem.

The mission had been successful, but it had also seen, in the end, a tremendous number of casualties on Hydra's side. Only the creature itself had survived its first mission, chuckling at its handiwork.

“I thought,” Von Strucker said without preamble, “that the controls you put on it prevented it from harming anyone loyal to Hydra.”

“It does. They do.” Belial spoke immediately and with frantic conviction. "The nogitsune wasn’t directly responsible for a single casualty.”

“Go on.”

“It fulfilled the parameters we set for it, flawlessly and without fail. Its plan simply didn't show any regard for possible casualties, because we failed to specify that we wanted minimum casualties. We were unable to recognize that error before the plan was implemented.”

Von Strucker sneered. “An asset that hurts us as much as the enemy is not much of an asset. Perhaps you just don’t know how to properly motivate it.”

Dr. Ranefer spoke up from her position on the dock, safely behind the sorcerer. “Sir, with all due respect, the creature has a very alien mindset.”

“Everybody wants something.” The Hydra leader stalked forward to the entrance to the base proper. The door to the concrete bunker opened by itself, revealing a high-tech checkpoint.

Belial and Ranefer hurried behind him, followed by his entourage. Belial continued to speak urgently. “We know what it wants: chaos, strife and pain. As far as we can tell, it has no other goal; we’ve found that it values little else on the material plane.”

Von Strucker sighed in frustration. “This is the same mistake this department made with the Bloodstorm fiasco." In the early nineties, the D.O.A. has created a powerful killing machine in an artificial vampire while completely neglecting to develop a means of using it effectively. "I would think making sure dangerous monsters were cooperative would have been step one. As for this … nogitsune … surely it understands that we can make sure it has as much chaos and strife as it can stomach, so long as that chaos and strife is focused on our enemies.”

“It does, but …”

“But what?”

“We … offended it.”

Von Strucker stopped and turned to the pair of occult researchers. “Seriously?”

Belial took a deep breath. “I have read that offending a nogitsune could be dangerous, and our means of recruitment was certainly ... direct. I’ll take full responsibility for the failure of the project, but I don’t know how … I don’t know how to make it worth the effort we’ve already put into it. The torc will protect Hydra from any direct form of revenge, but we can’t trust it to always work in our best interest.”

Von Strucker turned to the sorcerer. “So you take responsibility, do you? Luckily, I’m not so quick to throw away a possible advantage. Yes, the operation cost a lot of resources, but the degree of success exceeded expectations. That’s why I’m here: to solve a problem you two obviously cannot. Show it to me.”

The nogitsune was in its cell watching television, pretending to be bored. The thing looked like a teenage boy, but it turned to stare uncannily into the one-way mirror immediately when the three of them entered the room.

“Can it hear us?” Von Strucker asked.

“No,” Dr. Ranefer observed. “However, it can probably sense you.”

“Me?”

“It’s drawn to potential sources of chaos,” Belial adds. “You have a significant amount of personal power.”

“Fascinating. It certainly looks like a normal human.”

“Essentially, the host is perfectly normal: a seventeen-year-old Caucasian male. The boy has above average intelligence. He suffers from ADHD but is otherwise in good health. A nogitsune, unlike other kitsune who choose permanent host bodies, selects a host as needed in order to act in this world. Without something to anchor it in place, it would simply return from whence it came. That’s why threatening to kill it if it doesn’t behave isn’t a very effective means of control. The death of the host would be an inconvenience to it at most.”

Von Strucker studied it through the glass, and it smiled back at him, blandly and facetiously. “Is the host’s mind still intact?”

“Yes,” Dr. Ranefer answered. “Our psychics can sense the boy’s presence and have even made cursory contact. He appears to be a passenger in his own body, witnessing events but unable to affect them.”

Von Strucker considered this. “That might be useful. Do you have a file on the boy?” Dr. Ranefer had it ready for him. The Hydra leader leafed through it as everyone waited for him to finish. “This is a pretty thorough report. Have you already considered making an appeal to the boy to help you control the nogitsune?”

“We did,” Belial admitted. “As far as we could tell, there was a time when the boy could temporarily wrest control back from the fox, but that time had passed long before we managed to get our hands on him. It’s unfortunate.”

Von Strucker nodded. “Your department is in luck. I may have the solution.” With that he gestured to his entourage and entered the room. The creature had gone back to pretending that it was watching television. Both of them knew it wasn’t.

It yawned. “You’re important.”

“I am. I’ve come here to insure your cooperation in Hydra’s plans.”

“Oh, you have our cooperation.” The boy turned and put his bare feet on the floor. “We just live to cooperate.”

Von Strucker studied the creature. “Obviously, that's untrue. Right now, you’re using us to feed, and we’re reduced to using your talents by placing you under duress. That’s not optimal for either of us.”

The nogitsune shrugged eloquently.

“You have a lot of potential, but without a degree of understanding and trust, that potential will be wasted.”

The boy chuckled. “That sounds like a ‘you’ problem, not an ‘us’ problem.”

“It's a problem for everyone.” The Hydra leader snapped his fingers at one of his subordinates who opened up a long case he had been carrying. “Fortunately for Hydra, there is a solution at hand. I suspect that the controlling entity in that body won’t listen to reason …”

“We suspect that you are completely correct.”

“Therefore, some changes must be made.” Von Strucker brought a bladed scepter with a glowing blue gem out of the case.

Immediately, the creature was on its feet. “What is that?”

“Something far older than yourself.” With a flourish, he turned to face the nogitsune. “And far more powerful.”

They stared at each other for a moment, before all the lights and the television in the room exploded with foxfire. It was meant to be a distraction so the fox could make a break for it. But the people who had entered the room with Hydra’s head weren’t loser orderlies in a mental institution. They were Von Strucker’s personal guard.

“Hold him.” The Hydra leader commanded.

Trapped, they pinned the nogitsune down. It spewed threats, but it couldn’t escape without hurting the Hydra guards, and the collar prevented it from doing so. It promised retribution on them, on their children, and on their children’s children.

Von Strucker chuckled. “Intimidating, but also pointless, in the scheme of things. You will serve and serve willingly. Hail Hydra.” He pressed the end of the scepter to the fox’s chest and the power contained within it reached out and seized hold of the two minds contained within one body.

When it was finished, there was only one mind.

Chapter Text

February 2013

Allison had always relished being woken up by the light of the dawn. It mean she had a day off. When she trained with her father, it always required her to be up far before the sun began to peak over the horizon. When she went to school, her alarm clock would not be set quite so early as on her training days, but she still opened her eyes in darkness.

It was Saturday and her father was out of town. The last few months had seen no new threat appear in Beacon Hills, so she had nothing to do and nowhere to go. She lied with the comforter pulled up to her chin, while the sunlight pouring in through the window glittered as it refracted through the frost. Last night had been unusually cold even for February, dropping below twenty. She could feel the chill on the tip of her nose.

Under the covers, the bed remained luxuriously warm, but that just because of the comforter. Allison had her own personal werewolf as a bed warmer, though Isaac had certainly done more last night. She rolled over to study his face only to find out that he wasn’t asleep. Isaac lay in the same bed, eyes wide open, looking up at the ceiling as if he could find something important there. Allison couldn’t sense chemo signals like a werewolf, but she tell by the flat line of his mouth and the wrinkle in his brow that something troubled him.

“Hey,” she said softly. With a gentle finger, she turned his head to the side, bringing his blue eyes to meet hers. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

“No. Have you been up all night?”

“Only a few hours.” Isaac tried to make it sound like it was no big deal, but he couldn’t meet her gaze. “I’m worried.”

She tried to make light of things to cheer him up. “My dad isn’t going to be back this weekend. We have the apartment all to ourselves. Even if he came back early, you’d hear him, and he wouldn’t come in here without knocking anyway.”

“That’s not it.” His voice was quiet, maybe even ashamed.

Allison put her palm on his cheek. She gently pushed his face up so he was looking back in her eyes once again. There was no resistance. “You can tell me anything, Isaac. If you think some thing’s wrong, I want to hear about it.”

He reached up and pulled her hand away from his face. She couldn't imagine what was bothering him. He had a new home, new friends, and a new family. Isaac’s grades were fine, far better than they had been when he lived with his father. Their relationship was still new, but he seemed happy with it. At least she hoped he was happy with it.

Isaac sat up in bed, allowing the slightly cooler air of the room to slip under the covers. Allison shivered, but she sat up to match him.

“Please, tell me.”

“It’s Scott.”

“Is there anything specific that’s worrying you … aside from the obvious?” Scott had been on edge since Stiles’ abduction. When his best friend had first disappeared, Allison and everyone else had watch the alpha alternate between become frantic to the point of mania trying to find Stiles or alternately paralyzed with remorse. But as the months had passed, those extremes had vanished. Or, at least, she thought they had.

“He quit lacrosse. Some stupid freshman made captain.”

“Well, isn’t that to be expected? He and Stiles were on the team together …”

Isaac immediately tried to get out of bed; she could feel the irritation pouring off him. She reached out and grabbed his arm to restrain him from leaving the room entirely, but she didn’t put any strength in it. She wanted to comfort him, not fight with him. “I’m trying to understand. I’m not trying to tell you that you’re wrong.”

“You … you don’t have the same bond with him as I do.” Isaac said, staring at his feet. “I hate saying that. It’s going to sound like I’m saying I know him better than you do, that I care about him more than you do, because we have this … magic link and you don’t. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have it, because it’s not fair to anyone, really. He’s changed. He’s changed and I feel it.”

Allison got out of bed as well, slid on a robe to protect her from the cold, and walked around the room so she could face Isaac head on.

“He doesn’t smile anymore.” Isaac complained.

“I’ve seen him smile.”

"Not a real one. It’s not his smile. It’s the smile he thinks we want to see. I think if you weren’t walking around him so gingerly because of us … our relationship, you would be able to tell that as well.” Isaac’s voice held subtle tones of accusation, and Allison drew back. Isaac didn’t say anything else, but he bent down to grab his pants.

“Are you mad at me?”

“No.” Isaac shook his head, firmly. “I’m not mad at anyone. But I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what any of us can do, and that pisses me off.”

Allison stopped herself from becoming angry. She couldn’t tell what she resented more: the implication that she was afraid that Scott disapproved of their relationship or the implication that she wasn’t just as close to Scott as Isaac was. Maybe she’d been avoiding Scott since the end of November, but that was only because she was trying to give him space. Stiles had vanished without a trace. She, his ex-girlfriend had started a relationship with his beta. While she saw Scott at school and they talked as friends would, she wasn’t going to try to pretend that either of these two things didn’t make life difficult for him.

“I’ve seen something like this before.” Isaac said, his voice became even softer.

“Scott is in mourning, but it’s not like he’s shut himself inside his house. You live with him; you see him every day. The rest of us see him every day at school. Lydia finally convinced him to stop lurking outside our houses at night, but he’s always been there when we needed him.”

“You don’t see the changes because you’re not looking closely enough. You noticed him keeping tabs on us, but you haven't seen him working out."

"That's a problem?"

"Why would he do that?”

“For …” Allison had been about to say for lacrosse, but Scott had quit the team.

“It's not only that. He’s been pulling down extra shifts at the clinic. I’m convinced most of those shifts are just an excuse to get Deaton to teach him more about ... everything. When he’s not working, he’s been training with Derek: fighting, tracking, mastering the shift. I haven’t seen him watch a movie or play a video game since Stiles disappeared. I don’t think I’ve seen him really relax since Christmas Day.”

“People deal with grief in different ways.” Allison turned to look out the window, any pleasant feelings about the morning long since vanished. “I’m certainly not going to be the one to scold Scott for going to extremes after losing someone he cared about.”

“I know.” Isaac came to her and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair.

“When my mom died, I felt lost. I needed something to grab onto, something to help me make a world that had suddenly turned so wrong right again. Gerard took advantage of that, and I let him.”

“Ally, how long did that last? A week? A little more? I know what grief can do, I told you. I’ve seen something like this before.” He pulled her closer in comfort. “After my mom died, my dad started … I guess you could call it a phase. He tried to be … everything for me and my brother. He took us to the park. He helped us do homework. He learned how to cook. It was like he was trying to make it up to us that our mom died. But as hard as he tried, he could never do it; no one can erase what’s happened. So, after trying so hard and for so long and still failing, he got angry.”

“Scott isn’t your father.”

“Not yet. But Scott’s pushing himself to make up for something that wasn’t his fault. I can see it, as plain as that sunrise. He’s trying to be the Best Alpha Ever, and we all know it’s not going to help. I don’t want what happened to my dad to happen to him.”

Allison turned around and tilted her head to the side. “Then we need to do something about it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You see a pattern in his behavior that might lead to a bad end. So that means we shouldn’t sit here worrying about it; we should do something about it.” Her voice got sharp. “What does he need that we can give him?”

“We?”

“I care about Scott, just as much as you do. I loved him before you even knew him.” Allison hesitated for a moment. “In a way, I still love him.”

“I didn’t … I wasn’t implying that you didn’t. I … care about him as well.”

“You can say you love him, too. We can both love him, and it doesn’t hurt what we feel about each other.”

Isaac shook his head. “I don’t know what to do.”

Allison made her decision. “If you think Scott is going to destroy himself over losing Stiles, then we now have a mission. We’re going to protect him … from himself.”

They stood before the window and let the sun rise.

March 2013

Brock Rumlow entered the CQC Training Gym on the fifteenth floor of the Triskelion. Officially, he was there to give some non-combat personnel basic instruction in close-quarters combat in case of an armed breach of headquarters. Unofficially, this weekly meeting was part of the Hydra recruitment program. Any SHIELD agent claiming to be loyal to Hydra was required to demonstrate levels of combat ability which surpassed what could be expected from their non-Hydra counterparts. The training was brutal; Rumlow made sure of it. If and when the time came to assert control openly, his people would be ready.

In addition, the training also served to reinforce esprit de corps, which was necessary for the success of any long-term conspiracy.

Four members of his STRIKE team were already present and waiting for him, as he expected, but they weren’t alone. This wasn’t cause for immediate concern, because sometime SHIELD employees actually came to take advantage of the official training. Usually they were an office drone wanting to get away from the grind, or an intelligence analyst worried about their softening middle. This time, however, it was a kid. A teenager. He stood on the other side of the room from Rumlow’s colleagues, looking out the window at the D.C. skyline. He was wearing standard-issue work-out clothes, but they hung loose and baggy on him.

“Alright.” Rumlow cleared his throat. “Who are you?”

The boy turned slowly in place, the corner of his mouth quirking up a bit. Rumlow had been trained to get the feel of people quickly, which was an asset in his line of work. The boy looked like any other teenager except for the eyes. The eyes were not right; they seemed to belong to someone far older. “Right now? Stiles Stilinski.”

“What are you doing in my gym, Right-Now-Stiles Stilinski?”

“Well, I’ve been told that you were the best physical trainer in this entire ugly building. So, I want you to train me.” The boy glanced at the other four men, one of whom chuckled.

Rumlow rubbed his eyes with one hand. “How old are you?”

“That’s a matter for some debate,” Stiles replied, shrugging exaggeratedly. “Let’s cut the small talk. Moe, Larry, Curly and Shemp are getting antsy.”

“Seal the room.” The door shut and sealed at Rumlow’s command, and he jerked his head at the boy. At the insult, the four others broke apart and started to circle the young man.

“This training program is for adults. It’s a serious thing I do here, and I don’t have time to teach some snot-nosed brat the basics of combat, especially when it looks like he could be knocked over by a strong breeze. I don’t care who told you to find me.”

Stiles’ eyes slid to the right to watch the men approaching him. He shifted his stance, but he didn’t look concerned.

“You see these men here? They’re real soldiers. Tough. Experienced. Maybe a little mean. And they definitely don’t like being called names.”

“Is that so?”

Without giving warning, Rumlow grabbed ahold of Stiles and threw him to the ground. “That’s called a lift-pull foot sweep.”

Stiles lay prone for a moment to catch his breath, and then slowly stood back up. He turned to face Rumlow, the other four circling the pair. “That’s the English translation, sure. The actual term is harai tsurikomi ashi.”

“So you can speak —”

With a burst of speed, Stiles returned the favor and Rumlow felt his feet flying out from under him. The throw Stiles used required him to go to the ground as well, but Stiles rolled to his feet. “That’s called the sasae-tsurikomi ashi. The English translation is propping-and-drawing ankle throw. I don’t need you to teach me how to fight. I know how to fight. I’ve forgotten more about combat than you have ever learned.”

Rumlow stood back up, making an effort to tamp down his rage. He didn’t like being humiliated. “You sure talk a good game.”

“You’ll find it’s one of my many talents.” Stiles watched as the four other men finished encirclinghim. “Is the cast of Raging Stallion’s next bare-backing masterpiece supposed to be intimidating? Are you trying to scare me straight?”

“Maybe.” The commander of the STRIKE squad sized him up. “You’re a surprise. I don’t like surprises. But I do know that the best way to find out a man’s value is to look him in the eyes when he’s afraid.”

“Oh.” Stiles nodded. “I guess that’s true. After all, there was a teenage boy once. He was very afraid. Afraid that he wasn’t a very good little boy, and instead he was very bad. Afraid that being a bad little boy had hurt his mother. Afraid that he had disappointed his father. Afraid that if people saw how bad he really was, they would leave him behind. Afraid that he would never, ever be as good as his best friend. And most of all, he was afraid of power. Because, if he had power, he was worried that all it would do is prove how bad he really was.”

“Cute story. How is it relevant?” Rumlow was going to give the kid a good scare and then throw him out on his ass.

Stiles sucked in his cheeks and then blew them out. “Because he was right. In the end, he got power, and it turns out he wasn’t a very good boy after all.” He looked Rumlow in the eye. “But he also wasn’t afraid anymore.”

The boy stepped to the side and threw out a palm, which pushed ‘Moe,’ one of the STRIKE team members a good ten feet to slam up against the wall. With amazing speed, he launched himself in the air with an arm wrapped around Larry’s throat. He managed to kick Shemp in the face which sent the man tumbling down to the ground.

These STRIKE members weren’t slouches. Larry ducked down out of Stile’s choke, causing the kid to fall to the ground. Curly tried to pin him to the floor with a foot, but the kid rolled out of the way. Curly pressed the attack, but even prone, Stiles grabbed the leg and hurled Curly into the recovering Shemp.

Rumlow punched down into the kid’s solar plexus. He could hear the breath leave his body, but it didn’t seem to faze Right-Now-Stiles at all. The boy kipped up to his feet.

Rumlow and the STRIKE team had worked together for a long time, and they fell into the same rhythm now. Larry tried to sweep his legs out from under the boy, while Rumlow went for a choke grab. Leaping up over Larry’s attack, Stiles got both hands around Rumlow’s arm. With obscene strength he forced the STRIKE commander down.

“See?” Stiles said with a menacing smirk. “No fear.” He then pulled Rumlow’s hand off his throat and released him.

Rumlow got back to his feet and studied the kid in front of him. “You’re the Enhanced I was told about. Son of a bitch. They told me you weren’t going to come until sometime next week. And they certainly didn’t say you were going to look like this.”

“I don’t do well with schedules,” Stiles smirked. “Never liked them. Never managed to keep to them much. But I can and I will, if you give me what I want.”

“You’re stronger than any human being. You’re quicker. Your form was almost perfect.” Rumlow ruminated as his friends got to their feet. “I don’t see what you need me for.”

Stiles gestured at himself. “This body is healthy, but it’s not at its peak physical capacity. You can help me reach that.”

Rumlow took a step back. “I was also told you were incapable of hurting members of Hydra.”

“Were any of you actually hurt?”

Stiles had tossed them around, but there were no broken bones. Any bruise would be less than they got during any hard workout.

“I’ll need to evaluate you, anyway.” Rumlow gestured toward the weapons rack. “What’s your pleasure?”

Stiles walked over and studied it for a minute, looking up and down. He then reached out and grabbed a jō, picking it up and spinning it around. “It’s not a baseball bat, but it’ll do. Muso beat my ass with it once.”

“Muso?”

“Muso Gonnosuke Katsuyoshi. Invented the technique.”

Rumlow snorted. At the kid’s upraised eyebrow, he laughed. “He lived during the 17th century. You’re expecting me to believe …”

“You want proof. Come at me. One at a time or all at once.” The kid gave a wide, shit-eating grin. “Show me.”

“Try it, boys.”

The STRIKE members all chose the asp batons they usually used on missions. They were shorter than Stiles’ stick, but they were faster and moved like an extension of their arms. Yet, they moved more cautiously this time. Stiles had earned their respect. Or at least their wariness.

Shemp charged at Stiles, lunging at the weapon, hoping to disarm him. The kid tossed the jō at the man, bouncing it off his chest and stopping his forward momentum. He then snatched the weapon out of the air and swept his legs in one smooth motion.

Stiles winked. “You can do better than that.”

The three remaining soldiers charged him, as the fourth one got up and claimed a new position. Stiles whirled the bat like it was an extension of his arm, pushing them back. Tripping one of them with another sweep. He used one hand to push an assailant into each other. When Stiles got hit in the face by a punch, he shrugged it off and spun around. In two minutes, he had scattered them once more.

Rumlow began to pace around the teenager. “You’re holding back.”

“Yeah. I can’t really hurt you.”

“Again, what do you need me for? No matter what you look like, you’re stronger than a human.”

“Much,” agreed Stiles pleasantly.

“Tougher. Faster.”

“All true, but there’s a very good reason I need the training.”

Rumlow picked up a pair of tonfa from the rack. “Show me.” He went in low with a quick jab. The boy took the hit and then pushed him back with the end of the jō.

“It’s about efficiency.” Stiles rushed forward and swung the bat lazily, slow enough that Rumlow could dodge, but the commander chose to block instead. At the last moment, Stiles put so much strength that one of the tonfa shattered.

“I see. How long can you keep this level of power up?”

“Finally the right question, Mr. Rumlow.” Stiles stopped and bowed to his opponents. “I can play all manner of tricks, but they cost energy, and I don’t have an infinite supply. You’ve seen the Asgardian?”

“You can fight Thor?”

“With my metaphorical batteries charged to capacity? I think I could match him for maybe ninety seconds to two minutes — but that’s never going to happen, so just stop thinking about it.” Stiles waved his hands for emphasis. “I would have to be dead drunk to get in a fair fight with a bio-arcanically engineered demigod. So sorry. Pass.”

Rumlow chuckled. “Fair enough.”

“The truth is — the better shape this body is in the less I have to call upon my power, which means I have more energy for when I really need it.”

“That makes sense." Rumlow considered the problem. “You’ll have to avoid using your powers while you work out. I’m not going to be able to go easy on you.”

“Of course.” Stiles shrugged.

They worked out a training regimen program. Rumlow would have this boy ready for the field in a few months.

“Good. Same time next Monday. Be here at eight sharp.” Rumlow said severely. “Enhanced or not, I don’t like my time being wasted by anyone.”

“Sure. Sure.” Stiles offered him a smile.

“Hail Hydra.”

They stood awkwardly for a moment. “Oh,” Stiles suddenly slapped himself comically on the side of the face. “Hail Hydra and all that.”

Rumlow headed toward the showers, but then he turned back to Stiles. “If you have a limited supply of energy, how do you recharge, or is it just a matter of time?”

Stiles gave him a sharp smile. “Oh. I just have to eat.”

April 2013

"You’re moving.” Scott clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white.

“Yes.” Noshiko sat upright on the couch, her hands folded in her lap. She gazed at him steadily, without flinching.

Scott could hear Kira in her bedroom. He imagined her listening to this conversation. Mrs. Yukimura had flatly refused to let her be present. It gave the older kitsune an advantage. Scott could hear Ken puttering around in the kitchen. He was cooking, even if it was the middle of the day.

“You’re moving back to New York.”

“I believe I already said that. The house is for sale, and we’ll be leaving at the end of the semester.”

Scot took a deep breath and counted back down from ten. “You can’t do that.”

“Yes, we can. We only moved to Beacon Hills once I realized that the nogitsune had been released. It’s not here anymore.”

“No. It’s somewhere using my best friend as a meat suit.” Scott spat out with venom.

“That is, unfortunately, true.”

“So your response is … to leave.” Scott hissed the words out. “You’re going to abandon him.”

Noshiko sighed. It annoyed Scott to no end, because she was sighing about his statement not her own actions. To her, he was being unfair. Scott wanted to scream, but it wouldn’t be the right thing to do. It wouldn’t help Stiles at all if he alienated the woman who had the most experience with and knowledge of the monster who took him. She also represented the best chance Scott had to meet that monster again. Given their history, Scott planned — Scott hoped — that it would come back for Noshiko.

“Abandonment implies that there was something I could do about his condition that I haven’t done. The nogitsune has been gone for months—”

“One hundred and sixty-three days.”

Noshiko raised both eyebrows at his specificity. “Yes. Neither I, nor the oni, nor your pack, have been able to locate any sign of the nogitsune or Stiles. This means either that they do not wish to be found or that Stiles is—”

“Don’t say it.”

“My not saying it won’t make it any less of a possibility.”

“Lydia hasn’t screamed. Until she screams, it is not anything.”

Noshiko and Scott locked eyes until she bowed her head. “I understand your position. Please understand mine. My husband and my daughter uprooted their lives in New York so I could clean up my mess. While I have failed to do that, they still have lives to get back to —”

“Kira has a pack here.”

“Kitsune do not form packs.”

Scott clenched his fist again, feeling the claws poke out from the ends of his fingers. “You know what I mean. She has friends here.”

“She has friends in New York. She has better educational opportunities. My husband can rejoin the faculty at Columbia after his sabbatical. And if the nogitsune does come for me, I have far more resources there than I have here.”

“Well …” Scott took in the breath and then filled the next words with as much sarcasm as he could muster. “Good for you.”

The celestial kitsune paused and tilted her head to the side. “I guess I deserved that.”

“Why did you wait so long? Do you think it’s fair to Kira to let her make friends and then take them away from her?” Scott demanded.

“Take her away from you, you mean.”

Scott didn’t yell. He gritted out. “I don’t own her. We just started dating.”

Noshiko accepted that. “I think it’s best that you don’t see each other anymore when you’re not at school. This is going to be hard enough on Kira as it is.” She glanced back at the room. “It’s only for a few weeks.”

“Seven weeks until school’s out.” Scott didn’t know why he offered up that information.

The silence stretched between them. Finally, Noshiko stood up, and Scott automatically did so as well. “I’m not sure there’s any point to continuing this conversation.”

Scott opened his mouth and then closed it, choosing instead to shake his head

“I am sure, Scott, that this is very hard for you. It’s hard for all of us, but in times like this, there are things we must do to protect our family. Everything — everyone — else must be treated as a lower priority.”

Noshiko came closer, until she was next to him. She was almost whispering. “As long as that thing is out there, one of its dreams will be to hurt me. The easiest way for it to hurt me will be to hurt my daughter. She is safer in a city of ten million people than this city of thirty thousand. There is an established community of supernaturals there far more powerful than your pack who will not tolerate a nogitsune in their domain. It’s for her own good.”

“He’s not a thing.” Scott growled at her. It was a real growl. “He’s not an it.”

“Your friend is dead. He was dead the moment the fox chose him.” Noshiko did not back down.

“Don’t come back.”

Noshiko’s eyebrow rose.

“You heard me. Don’t come back. Even if he does come back to Beacon Hills, I don’t want to ever see your face again.”

The older woman thought for a moment. “Yes, Alpha McCall.”

Scott left the house immediately. He thought about taking the time to say something to Kira, but what would he say? It’s not like they had gone on more than few dates. He had had dinner at her house, ruined by Barrow. He had taken her to the rave, also ruined by supernatural bullshit. Since Stiles’ disappearance, they had gone to the movies twice and they had studied together several times, but he had always been a little distracted by Stiles being missing. She had been patient, but even someone as nice as Kira was growing frustrated. He might have wanted to date her, if things were normal. But they were never going to be normal.

Anyway, she was better off never seeing him again.

May 2013

Stiles had both feet up on Pierce’s desk and was playing on his phone when the Secretary to the World Security Council entered his own office in the Triskelion.

“How did you get in here?”

Stiles didn’t look up from the game. “What? Like it’s hard?”

Alexander Pierce put his hands on his hips, shook his head in disgruntlement, hung his umbrella on the coat rack — it was raining in D.C. that day — and took off his overcoat. Stiles was particularly impressed with him; the only weakness Stiles had found in the man was a certain snobbery. Pierce would pretend that not catching pop culture references made him more serious.

“I swear,” Stiles slid both feet of the desk and put his phone away. “Would it hurt would-be world conquering masterminds to watch a movie now and again?”

“I’m a very busy man,” Pierce replied. “Speaking of which, I assume there’s a reason that you broke into my office. You could have just made an appointment.”

“I don’t do appointments, but you know that.” Stiles walked over to one of the couches and flopped down on it. “Sit, let’s chat.”

Pierce pushed his tongue into his cheek like he considered refusing and calling security but then he shrugged and sat down on the couch across from Stiles. Before Pierce could begin speaking, Stiles suddenly sat straight up, his posture changing from teenage insouciance to one demanding attention.

“You know when the D.O.A. put this collar on me, I assumed that it was Belial who made the decision about the wording of the command that it enforces. Yet, I recently discovered that it was all your idea.” Stiles touched the silver torc around his neck.

“It may have been my suggestion, but it wasn’t my decision,” Pierce replied. “I would never have recruited you in the first place, as I’m not particularly comfortable using alien technology or alien entities in our operations. But you know that.”

“Ugh. I’m sure you’ve read my psychological evals. You know how much I hate the word alien being applied to me. I’m as native to this planet as you are.”

“Half of you.”

“Technically, the dimensions in which kitsune dwell are still considered part of the Earth, but that’s fair enough. I’m not one to split hairs. It doesn’t change the fact that when they put this thing on me, it was your suggestion they followed; they commanded me not to willingly harm any member of Hydra. Why not require me to follow any order a member of Hydra gave?”

Pierce studied the seemingly young man for a few minutes. “This is about Project Insight.”

Stiles smiled. “You are quick. But humor me and answer my question.”

“When the Department of Occult Armaments presented you as a potential asset and explained about the control seal, I recommended that instead of trying to ensure your obedience, we ensure our safety. I did that for two specific reasons.”

“Go on.”

“Any organization like ours suffers from internal conflicts in agenda and personality. If such should occur, you’d make an excellent weapon during any inter-branch strife.”

“True. The thought of that makes me hungry.”

“The other reason is that I believe in the conclusions Zola has drawn about Hydra’s previous attempts to install order. Humanity will always resist someone trying to take their freedom away from them, but they might be persuaded to give it up. You may be half al …” Pierce nodded an apology. “You may be half spirit, but you’re also half human, and you could be persuaded to work with us if we made it worth your while.”

“Well, that brain-in-a-can has to be useful for something, I suppose, but in the end both of you were right. I’ve fed very well designing and executing actions that fulfill your need for global destabilization. We have a good thing going here. Imagine my surprise when I find out you’re planning my destruction.”

Pierce cocked his head to the side. “I know of no such plan.”

“Project Insight will identify and terminate any threat to Hydra’s new world order. Any list generated by that program will absolutely have my name on it. I’m not interested in termination.”

The secretary shrugged eloquently. “That is a possibility. So, what do you propose?”

“If you want my cooperation, I’m going to need access to the algorithm’s results before the guns start firing.”

“The algorithm changes daily; I’m sure you understand that. For it to be useful to you, you’d have to have access to it immediately after launch.”

“Which means, I’ll need to be present and involved when Project Insight gets off the ground, so to speak.” Stiles leaned forward. “I’m okay with that. Are you?”

Chapter Text

June 2013

“Thank you for coming.”

Scott sat at the head of the table in the McCall kitchen, arms flat on the table in a bid to project confidence. To his left sat Derek, as relaxed as Scott had ever seen him. To his right sat Malia, who radiated curiosity. And, directly across from him, sat Peter. He had half-smile on his lips, carefully concealing what he was actually feeling. When Melissa had heard that Peter was going to be in the house again, she had objected strenuously. It had taken Scott hours to convince her that it would be perfectly safe, but if she didn’t want to be there, he’d schedule the meeting for some time when she was at work.

So there was no one else in the house, and there wouldn’t be for hours.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Derek said easily. “But, you know we could have met at the loft if you wanted.”

“I do appreciate being thanked, on the other hand,” interjected Peter. “I have to admit that I am roiling with curiosity about why.”

Scott had been telling himself all week he wasn’t going to let Peter bait him. He couldn’t afford it, and he should be used to it by now.

His relation with Derek had done nothing but improved as time passed, and Malia had been over at Scott's house quite a lot. Scott had taught her all he could about shifting, after which he had — albeit very reluctantly — introduced her to her biological father. The process of those two getting to know each other had mercifully kept Peter quite busy over the last few months.

“There are a few things that I want to discuss with all of you.” Scott tongued the inside of his cheek nervously. “It feels like I’ve been the alpha for a week, but it’s been seven months, and I’m afraid I still don’t know everything I should about being one.”

Derek immediately spoke. “You’ve been dealing with a lot of things. You’ve not done a bad job considering what you’ve had to face.”

Peter simply rolled his eyes.

“Thanks, Derek, but I think we all know I could've done better. I’ve been trying to learn things from both you and Dr. Deaton, but I haven't made that a priority, and I've could to think I should. Now that school’s out, I need to get down to the business of being an alpha.” Scott smiled faintly at Derek. “Of all the things I should have been doing, I think I want to start with you. Or, more precisely, your family.”

Malia still didn’t seem that interested, but Peter leaned forward slightly in the chair.

Derek shook his head. “You don’t need to …”

“I do. Dr. Deaton told me about your mother.” He glanced at Derek. “Who was your sister.” He nodded to Peter. “She held a lot of respect and admiration from the other werewolf packs not only because she could shift into the form of a wolf, but also because she strove to be just and fair in her dealings with every pack. I didn’t want this responsibility, but it’s obvious that people get hurt when I don’t take it seriously, so I want to be more like her.”

“I never met her.” Malia added from her seat.

“She had the benefit of good press,” quipped Peter. If the intensity of a glare translated into physical force, Derek’s would have sent Peter through the kitchen wall.

“The Hale family founded Beacon Hills. They helped build this city. You may have lost the alpha spark that belonged to your pack, but I still recognize you — all of you — as the Hale Pack.” Scott hoped he sounded like he knew what he was doing. He had practiced this with Dr. Deaton. He would have practiced with Stiles … but that had become impossible. He gripped the edge of the table. He couldn’t think about him now.

“That’s generous of you,” Derek said. “We are a family, but we’re not a pack. You can’t have a pack without an alpha.”

“I know. That’s what I want to fix.”

Peter tried to play it suave but every shifter in the room heard the surge in his heartbeat. “How?”

“I am asking you three and Cora to officially join my pack. I know there’s been difficulties between us, but … I think we can get past them.”

“Why are you interested in doing this now?” Derek asked in spite of himself.

“I rely on you already, Derek. You’ve helped me a lot, and the idea of you being an omega, well, that doesn’t sit well with me.”

“A change in tune,” sneered Peter. “You didn’t always sound like that.”

Scott closed his eyes for a second. He wasn’t going to get angry. “The difference is I’m not forcing anyone. I’m asking. And I’ll be content if you say no, but I’ll be happy if you say yes.”

“Sure.” Malia said. “I don’t mind.”

Peter was staring at him when Scott opened his eyes. “Seriously?”

“I think you would make a good addition to the pack, Peter. You know a lot of things about the world that even Dr. Deaton doesn’t, and you have a certain perspective that could be useful.”

“True.” The smirk twisted on the older wolf’s face. “What’s in it for us?”

“You would join the Hale Pack.” Scott announced. Dr. Deaton had told him it was possible, due to the circumstances of his Bite, for Scott to declare himself a Hale and thus the Hale alpha. “And when I pass on the alpha spark, I would pass it to a descendant of the Hale bloodline, chosen by members of your family.”

Malia looked confused which rapidly turned to disinterest. Derek and Peter looked, for lack of a better word, stunned.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Derek asked. “Maybe we could talk privately upstairs?”

“Nephew, this concerns our family’s future. The alpha has made a magnanimous offer, and I would be disappointed to even think that you would try to talk him out of it.”

“Fine.” Derek dismissed Peter with an eyebrow. “You get to be disappointed. Scott, your alpha spark is yours; it came from you. It’s your legacy, and it should be your children’s legacy.”

“My legacy is crap if I don’t do the right thing. My legacy is crap if I can’t protect my pack.”

Malia shifted uncomfortably. She never blamed herself for Stiles’ abduction from Eichen — she didn’t think like that — but she hated being reminded of it. She had liked Stiles.

“You’d be amazed how often those two things are in direct opposition,” Peter remarked slyly.

“Scott.” Derek shook his head, about to begin on the same thing everyone else had been saying for months, that it wasn’t his fault. “You don’t deserve-”

“You don’t deserve to be omega. Cora doesn’t deserve to be an omega. Malia deserves a pack.” Coyotes didn’t have the same alpha-beta-omega structure as werewolves.

“And me?”

“Peter.” Scott looked him right in the eye. “Your family doesn’t deserve to lose another member, even someone such as you.”

“You wound me. I thought we were getting along.”

“We are getting along,” Scott snapped back. He paused and then spoke more gently. He decided to go for the same humor that Stiles would have used if he was at the table. “I’m never going to ask you to take me to a ball game like any other werewolf dad, but if we let the past die, maybe we can make a better future.”

“Ugh.” Peter mimed disgust. “Have they nominated you for beatification yet?”

“What do the others think about this?” Derek asked suddenly.

“They agree with me.”

“Do they?” Peter objects. “The Argent girl—”

“Her name’s Allison,” Malia interjects. Malia got along with Allison quite well. The two of them and Lydia had become fast friends. It was a source of contention between her and her father.

“Allison.” Her biological father conceded. “Isaac, and the darling Lydia.”

“They all agreed with me, with varying levels of distaste and concern, but they agreed with me.”

“I’m sure they did.”

“Peter,” Derek scolded. “Why aren’t they here?”

“They will be. But I wanted to talk to you three first and give you time to deliberate over it. I’ll go wait for your answer outside.” Scott got up and walked out to the back porch, closing the door behind him. Walking across the backyard, he noted that he should have mowed the thick grass. He would do it tomorrow. Now, he wanted to be far enough away so that they didn’t think he was listening. They probable wouldn't have cared, but he did.

Regardless of Derek’s shock, Scott didn’t mind the idea of returning the alpha power to a Hale. It’s easy to give up a legacy that you never wanted, and you didn’t think you deserved. Scott tried to imagine what Stiles would say to him right now. Would he agree? Probably not. Stiles didn’t believe in giving things up to be safe; he’d have argued that a small pack of people you trusted would be far better than letting Peter anywhere near him.

But when Scott had needed enough to power to find and save Stiles, Scott discovered he didn't have enough. He promised himself that things would change, and this was the first step. If it meant dealing with Peter as a member of his pack, then it had to be done.

And besides, he owed it to Derek to see that Derek’s family — the thing he valued most — was protected. Only Derek really understood what losing Stiles had done to him. On Scott’s worst nights, he’d find Derek at his front door, and the older werewolf had never said how he knew when to come. They didn’t talk, but Scott could feel that Derek understood. Derek would just sit with him, a grim brooding presence, until Scott finally could sleep.

He would never be there in the morning light. There was no way Scott could ever pay that kindness back, but he’d try. Helping to recover the renown of the Hale family was a good start.

Scott stared into the woods, thinking of the times he and Stiles had played here under the sun and under the stars, through rain and snow, until he heard Allison’s car pull up. His remaining pack members had been hanging out at the Argent’s apartment while he met with the Hales alone. It must already be seven o’clock then. He moved to intercept them — if the family was still discussing it, then he wanted to give them as much time as they needed.

Derek appeared at the back door and waved him in.

“If you need more time …”

“Scott, we’ve been talking about this for over an hour.”

“You can have all the time you need …”

The former alpha’s lips twitched up. “Just come in. If you think Peter and I haven’t discussed our family’s situation before, you don’t know us very well.”

“But you never said anything.”

“Neither of us had a right to demand, let alone ask for, a place in your pack. Don’t deny it.” Before Scott could push on, Derek turned around and walked back into the house. By the time he got to the kitchen, Allison, Lydia, and Isaac were there.

“Isaac, could you grab a folding chair from the pantry? We should all sit down.” There were only six seats at the dining room table. Scott noted that Derek saw on one side of Peter and Malia on the other, so no one else would have to sit next to the oldest werewolf. Peter looked faintly miffed, as if he had spilled expensive cologne on the floor. Allison sat down, ramrod straight and in full Matriarch mode, across from Malia, who smiled, guilelessly, at her. Lydia was looking at anyone but Peter, and Isaac was looking at anyone but Derek.

Scott turned to Derek. Derek jerked his head at Peter, and Scott remembered — Peter was indeed the senior Hale.

“Alpha McCall,” Peter said with a twinge of oily disdain, “the members of the Hale Family accept your proposal. We will submit to you as betas in your pack. We only ask that our niece Cora be given an opportunity to do so when her presence permits.”

Scott stood up. “She has all the time she needs. She’s welcome among the pack in any case.” He flashed his eyes in the way he’s only done instinctually before — an alpha showing their dominance. Three pairs of blue eyes and one pair of yellow eyes flash back. Scott felt like someone had stomped on his chest. He had only ever had one real wolf in his pack before; power flowed into him like a river.

Lydia looked like she had swallowed a toad. Scott took her hand, publicly and deliberately, and squeezed it.

“Okay. There’s something we all have to talk about.” Scott moved on to get people’s minds off of what just happened. “For the record, I don’t intend to hold regular pack meetings, because most packs don’t, but all of you have my number. Call me any time of the day or night.”

Several people acknowledged him with a nod. Some people didn’t.

“The next topic we need to speak about are the twins.” Scott raised his hand at the grumbles. “They’ve behaved themselves. They were willing to help us during the situation with Barrow and the … the nogitsune. Some of you have very good reasons you don’t want them to be pack. I want to hear from everybody who has something to say about it.”

“They seem okay.” Malia started out. She had spent some time with them at school. “But I don’t know them very well.”

Isaac frowned. Scott watched Isaac ball his fist but then covertly drop it into his lap.

“Isaac,” Scott said quietly. “Speak. Please.”

“Why are they still here? Do they think if they stick around long enough, we’re going to forget what they did?” Isaac’s voice was high and tight. “But they were right to stick around, weren’t they? You want to give them a place.”

Lydia turned a glare on Isaac. “What they did? No one has forgotten what they did. Or what you did. Or what Allison did. Or what Derek did. Or what Peter did.” She snapped her fingers. “If we start trying to air out dirty laundry at this table, we’d be here all night.”

“Aiden’s that good, eh?”

“Isaac.” Scott’s voice snapped like a whip. “That’s unfair.”

“And Lydia has a point,” slid in Peter.

“When I need your help, I’ll ask for it.” Lydia still did not meet Peter’s gaze.

Allison cleared her throat. “I think most of us have our own opinions and everyone here knows them, so the question really is, Scott, why do you want them in the pack?”

Everyone turned to look at him.

“I don’t want them in the pack.” Scott began. “But this is one of the things that can’t be about what I want.”

That surprised people at the table. He had the attention of everyone but Derek.

“Instead, there are reasons why they should be in the pack. The first is entirely practical. They’re omegas, and they don’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. They would be less of a threat to us and to the people of Beacon Hills if they were my betas. They’d be more stable. In addition, if any more dangerous creatures are drawn here by the Nemeton, their presence makes us more powerful, especially since they have a lot more fighting experience than most of us. We can’t ignore the advantages having them join would give us.”

“The second is compassion. While I know what they’ve done, I also know why they did it. I also know they’ve not lied to us about wanting to change. Abandoning Deucalion made them vulnerable to their enemies. At least one pack has sent an Emissary to me to determine if I had truly taken them in. I told that Emissary that they weren’t pack, but they were still under my protection. I can’t, in good faith, do that forever. If they don’t join us, then they’re most likely dead.”

Isaac said “Good” under his breath. Scott ignored him.

“The third is … morality.”

Peter sighed around an “Oh, please.”

“None of us are innocent, yet all of us deserve a second chance. Given their behavior, they’ve earned the ability to convince us that they’re worth of that chance, but they can’t convince us if they’re always on the outside looking in.”

Malia squinted her eyes. “But you said you don’t want them in?”

“I don’t. I know that they’ve tried, I know that Aiden’s with Lydia and Ethan’s with Danny, but …”

“But?” Malia was relentless.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, but it does, alpha,” Peter pushed.

“If it weren’t for the alpha pack, there would've been no Darach, if there had been no Darach …” Scott trails off. “But it doesn’t matter. This isn’t about what I want.”

Isaac was gazing at him. “Maybe it should be.”

“No. It’s about what’s best for the pack and what’s right.” Scott’s voice crept up a few decibels.

His frustration silenced the table. Scott looked down at his lap. This is exactly what he didn’t want to do. He wanted to run his pack like a group of equals, with him only providing leadership, not smacking down those who disagreed with him. He was no tyrant.

“Is this Scott’s coping mechanism you all keep talking about?” Malia asked, innocently.

Scott blinked. Everyone at the table except Malia and Peter were red-faced. Peter was gleeful.

“I’m not coping …”

“Obviously!” twittered Peter.

“This isn’t about Stiles. This is about being an alpha. Now, let’s get back on topic. I’m not a tyrant. Everyone agreed to my offer to the Hales. I want everyone’s agreement before I offer pack membership to the twins. Let’s talk about conditions.”

Scott sat back down. It was going to be a long night.

July 2013

Stiles maneuvered his new dark blue Aston Martin DB9 into an open parking spot, remarkably on the same block as his destination, which in D.C. was a good omen. The sports car virtually purred beneath his hands. He had never driven a car like this before — at least, not in this body — and it was thrilling on a visceral level.

The Hat and Tails hadn’t been difficult for him to find. Stiles had seen an advertisement for the hip new lounge on television one morning as the clock crawled past two. On a whim, he decided to take a night to entertain himself. In the months since he’d been moved to D.C. from the Bahamas, he had spent most of his time training, integrating with the Hydra command structure, learning how to blend in with the legitimate SHIELD agents, and planning and participating in two separate destabilization missions. He wasn’t hungry, and he wasn’t needed this weekend. It was time to have some fun on his own.

He checked himself in the mirror. New haircut. Manicure. New clothes. He chose navy dress pants, hemmed and fitted, and a white silk shirt with a wing-tip collar. As an inside joke, he topped it off with a fitted black silk vest, embroidered with red spider lilies. He looked … so very good and so very bad at the same time. His own father would barely recognize him.

His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. He slammed the door a little harder than necessary as he got out.

The bouncer at the outside of the club took one look at him and scorn filled his eyes. “Aren’t you a little young?”

Stiles presented him with the excellent identifications that he had received: a driver’s license and a SHIELD badge.

“Twenty-four?”

“I look young for my age.”

The bouncer took his job seriously. He studied them. “These look okay …”

Stiles played it smooth; sometimes people just needed to reassure themselves they had fulfilled the basic requirements of life. “Here’s my credit cards. Call them up.” He handed some impressive plastic over.

His confidence paid off as he knew it would; the bouncer let him pass with a nod but without any further follow up. The successful trick made a part of him vibrate with contentment.

The Hat and Tails decided that its targeted aesthetic would be culture clash. The decor was clearly turn of the nineteenth century, while the music was all the most popular club hits of today. All the servers and bartenders wore the name of the bar, male or female. Stiles found it sort of tacky, if he was honest.

The bartender was a beautiful woman with long neon green hair under a top hat and a smile that never seemed to fade. Like all tenders everywhere, she dressed to show off her assets — if her jeans were any tighter, she’d lose the circulation in her feet and a pink and gray tank-top that said "I like my women like I like my men. That’s it. That’s the joke. I’m Bisexual." beneath her jacket. At his order, she pushed a Jack Daniels Select on the rocks over to him.

“Put it on my card.” Stiles produced a Black Amex with the same name as his other fake identifications.

“Don’t worry, it’s been taken care of.” With a wink, the bartender gestured down toward the other end of the bar. An extraordinarily attractive man, tall, muscular, with green eyes and a well-trimmed black goatee, nodded in sincere greeting. There was nothing wrong with him at first glance, beyond a slight resemblance to someone who could have been. Stiles could get past that; he could enjoy being admired, being pursued. Stiles wouldn’t begrudge himself a little more fun.

The elation vanished as soon as he touched it. He tried to hold on to it, but it slipped away between his fingers.

In his new state, he still had to feed off others’ pain, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be polite. Stiles deliberately caught the attractive gentleman’s eye, waved a thank you, but shook his head in gentle refusal. The man — even more attractively — graciously acknowledged Stiles’ answer and left him alone.

Stiles look down at the whiskey in the glass, remembering another club on another coast. That one had less expensive fixtures, less expensive liquor, a cheap and most likely used smoke machine, and a lot of really friendly drag queens.

To someone far away, he whispered. “Well, your face was saying something.”

Stiles drained the glass completely. It burned going down, but before that feeling was completely gone, he had ordered another. He suddenly didn’t want to sit at the bar, and he didn’t need to. He took his drink and started to walk toward the dance floor.

As was universal in clubs like this, the dance floor possessed less illumination than the rest of the club. In that intimate darkness broken rhythmically by strobe lights, a mass of bodies revolved on the floor. Some of these bodies let the music take over their movements, flowing in dynamic unison with perfect strangers. Some of them flailed about like Tasered guinea pigs. At the screened-in standing-only tables on the edges of the dance floor, other people negotiated their evening activities wordlessly, their actual conversations drowned out by the music.

Stiles closed his eyes and let his senses spread throughout the room. He could sense the chaos within several patrons who were so drugged up they couldn’t be sure where they were or what they were doing, and they didn’t much care. He could sense the strife between couples whose relationships were in their last gasp. One woman over in the corner was in terrible pain, but she was pretending she wasn’t. It was a smorgasbord of possibilities, if he decided to make that his goal. It was tempting.

There had been a time in his life when Stiles had had to react to the things which other people did. When Derek had threatened to rip his throat out with his teeth to get his cooperation, he had had to react to it. When Peter had kidnapped him to get him to roll over on Scott, he had had to react to it. When Gerard had dragged him into a basement and had demonstrated how helpless Stiles had truly been, he had had to react to it. When Jennifer took his father while he watched through a classroom door, he had had to react to it. When Scott went with Deucalion, throwing Stiles' own limitations in his face, he had had to react to it.

React. What a flimsy word to disguise a flimsy lie. React implied that he had had a choice in what to do, but the truth was his only choice had been how he would capitulate.

That was not true. Not anymore.

Stiles completed his circuit of the dance floor. So many people surrounded him who would be vulnerable to anything he chose to do. So many people who would have to react to him. He could get used to this; no, he was already very used to feeling so powerful. He was no longer the object, no longer beaten to send a message; he was the actor, the one who got to send the message. With a smirk, he took a deep hit off his whiskey.

Humanity hadn’t changed much in a thousand years. Yes, they were cleaner. Yes, they were healthier. And, yes, they had wonderful toys. But in the end, they were still lonely, still weak, and still so, so easy to manipulate. Stiles considered the situation before him and then left the dance floor for the quiet lounge. He wasn’t hungry tonight.

He walked down the aisle of the lounge when a couple caught his eye. They were a man and a woman, one pale and red haired and the other swarthy and black haired, who were easily the two most beautiful people in the entire place. They sat across from each other, hunched over untouched drinks. One was all concern and soft glances. The other stared morosely at the condensation on the tabletop. They would be perfect to spend the evening with.

A slow smile spread across his face. He’d be witty. He’d be clever. He’d impress them with his knowledge, with his experiences, with his quick tongue and refined taste. Then he’d take them to their apartment or they’d come to his comfortable condo, and he’d show them everything he had learned about human pleasure. It would be the definition of fun.

“You don’t look happy,” one said to the other. “You should drink a little.”

Stiles paused in the middle of his approach, heat spreading on his face, as if he was near a fire burning in a metal drum. He looked away, out through the glassed windows of the quiet lounge and across the D.C. skyline. He was standing stock still, but he could feel rocks and dirt on his back.

I don’t want any more.

Stiles whispered once again, frustratingly, irresistibly. “You’re not drunk?”

I’m not anything.

This wasn't the plan. The plan had been to enjoy himself, not to wallow in things well and rightly passed. Why was he afraid? He should be fearless now. Phantoms should have no purchase.

He detoured to a corner table, away from everyone else. It wouldn’t take him long to get back on track for this evening. He only needed to sit down, focus on what he wanted, and get rid of all that extraneous nonsense.

He wasn’t drunk yet, he knew that. His metabolism was different now, and if he did start feeling drunk, he could burn it off. Then where was all this melancholy bullshit coming from? Angrily, he took another belt from his glass. Maybe he should get drunk. He needed a distraction.

His phone rang, which was not the type of distraction he meant. Stiles grumbled as he pulled it out.

“Fox.”

“You’re needed back here. We have an Epsilon Yellow situation.”

It was a possible security breach. They didn’t happen often, but they had potential to be bad.

“Oh, yay. On the other hand, why are you calling me?”

“It’s Epsilon Yellow.”

“I heard you the first time — I’m not on that response team. If I came in, all I’d do is sit in an office until someone else made a decision somewhere else.”

The operator on the other side was a bit at a loss. They weren’t used to someone refusing to answer an alert. “But … it’s an all-hands-on-deck alert.”

“And thanks to the wonders of modern technology I can be ready-to-go while sipping my drink at this bar,” Stiles replied sarcastically, “on my night off!”

“I’m going to have to report this.”

“By all means, report it. Write down my name and the time and what you said and what I said — oh, and add ‘Fuck! Off!’ — and then hand it to your supervisor who will hand it to her supervisor who will hand it to his supervisor who will hand it to someone who will stress to me the importance of responding properly to alerts and who I will blow off just as thoroughly as I am blowing you off.”

There was silence on the other end of the line for maybe a minute and a half. “Okay.”

“Excellent. You have a good night now!” Stiles disconnected the call.

This night had been an utter disaster. Not only had various intrusive and unwanted thoughts ruined every single attempt he had to enjoy himself, but now Hydra was being as prissily authoritarian as his second-grade art teacher who had repeatedly told him that painting Scott’s face to look like a tiger was not the proper use for washable tempera.

It took a moment of ritualistic breathing to get his pulse under control. It was intolerable — he should be in control of his own life. He should be in control of his own emotions. If he wasn’t, if he was so easily flustered, what was the damn point of any of it?

Chapter Text

August 2013

There were many things that Scott could blame his mistake on if he wanted to. The late afternoon sun glinted through the trees made it hard to see. Sweat from exertion and the withering heat of the day stinging his eyes didn’t help any. He was being attacked by three different opponents at once, and two of them were psychically linked with each other as well as having the benefits of years of practice fighting together. In addition, he was holding back so as not to hurt any of them. Whatever the reason was, it didn’t matter. What did matter was that Aiden grabbed Ethan by both wrists and swung him at Scott like a living bludgeon, magnifying Ethan’s momentum as he planted both feet in the middle of the alpha’s chest.

Scott felt his ribs shatter when he failed to dodge the blow. He stumbled back against the nearest tree, rough bark digging into his back. His left hand was no longer working right, his mouth was full of blood, and his right knee was still aching from where Isaac had hyper extended it. He tried to stand, power through his recovery, and continue the fight, but he couldn’t manage it, sliding down to the ground.

His vision swam and he momentarily lost track of where he was. Instead, he was suddenly acutely aware of his bare calves resting on the forest floor. It seemed a weird thing to focus on, but, honestly, he had recently taken a few strong shots to the head. No one could blame him for a little disorientation.

Once the world came back into focus, he spat excess blood onto the ground and wiped his lips on his shirt sleeve. “Give me a moment and we’ll go again.”

Aiden and Ethan glanced at each other in that strange silent communication they practiced. Aiden shrugged stoically, and Ethan responded to that gesture with a resigned grimace. Neither of them said anything, for which Scott was grateful.

Isaac, on the other hand, was staring at the alpha with open concern. He knelt down to check his wounds. “Scott …” He trailed off at the glare he was given in reply.

“I’m fine.” Scott shook his head once more to clear it of the last of the fuzziness and brushed away Isaac’s outstretched hand. As he used his claws to pull himself up, he explained, as patiently as he could. “Our enemies aren’t going to wait until I’m healed before they attack. I’ve got to be able to fight while injured.”

Isaac worked his jaw, but he didn’t press the issue.

Scott scanned the edges of the glade, where the rest of the pack had been observing. He saw Malia perched on a fallen log. “Come on, you join in this time.”

“Nope.” Derek’s voice cut through the glade. The middle Hale walked over from where he had been observing to right in front of Scott. “I have a different idea.”

Scott squinted at him. “What’s going on?”

Derek ignored his inquiry but turned to the pack. “The rest of you get lost. I’d suggest going swimming. Lydia invited us to use her pool after this was over, and it is over now. Go have some fun.”

“Excuse me?” Scott demanded to Derek’s back.

Aiden, Ethan and Isaac melted into the woods, almost immediately. Malia looked over to where Peter had been lounging about. “Are we going to Lydia’s?”

Peter chuckled. “I’d rather stay and watch what will no doubt be an entertaining mutiny.”

Derek glared at Peter and growled openly. Scott couldn’t quite see Derek’s expression from where he was, but it had to be intimidating.

“As you wish.” The older werewolf smirked, got up off the ground, and held his hand out to his daughter. “Come. I’ll go buy you some ice cream.”

Malia looked between Scott and Derek, seriously. “I want to know what’s going on.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re welcome.” Peter sauntered off. “What type of ice cream is your favorite?”

“I don’t know.” Malia shrugged.

“Then before us we have a wonderful opportunity. Goodbye, Derek. Goodbye, Alpha.”

Derek waited until everyone was completely out of earshot, even werewolves. Scott stood, jaw clenched and muscles coiled, staring at Derek, waiting for the real discussion to begin. He supposed he could have stopped everyone from leaving, but he owed it to Derek to hear what he had to say.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Derek finally turned back to him.

“Combat training.”

Derek shook his head sharply. “It’s ninety-five degrees out, and we’ve been at it for four hours. We’ve been doing this three times a week for months.”

“You haven’t complained before.” Scott shrugged off the obvious concern. “In fact, you supported me on this.”

“No, I supported you at first because training is important, and because I didn’t understand what you were really trying to do.” Derek sighed. “I understand it now, and it needs to stop.”

Scott turned away. “I’m trying to train! There’s nothing else to understand.” He stomped away to where they stored the canvas bags. Scott had put them together so their practice wouldn’t get interrupted. He dug into one of them, searching for a bottle of water. When he couldn’t find any, he gritted his teeth. “God damn it!”

Derek was watching him with his hands on his hips in a posture of disapproval. “The last one was drank an hour ago. Scott, you have to rethink what you’re doing.”

“I’ve thought about it! I’ve done nothing but think about it. I talked to you, to Peter, to Argent, to Doc, and I’m doing everything right!” He continued to root through the bag. There had to be something in there.

“You’re doing everything right far past the point when it stops being right. You’re driving yourself and your pack too hard. There’s more to life than this.”

Scott clenched his fists. He stood up slowly and turned around, counting down from ten. He put a smile on his face. “Well, look who’s growing up.” He meant it as a joke, but it didn’t come out as one. It came out as bitter and hurtful.

Derek didn’t flinch from his position. “Repeating my mistakes won’t make them any less mistakes.”

“I’m … I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” Scott took a deep breath. “It’s not the same thing, and that was wrong of me to do. You were in the middle of a war, and I’m not. I’m just getting ready for the next one.”

Derek crossed his arms and walked over to where Scott was standing.

“I’ll apologize to them all. I’ll cut back on their training.”

“It’s not just the training and you know it, Scott. When you started your be-a-better-alpha program, it was impressive. We all thought so — even Peter.”

Scott didn’t say anything but stripped off his shirt and started to dry himself off with a towel.

“Now? I agree with Allison and Isaac. This is bordering on masochism.”

“It’s not …” Scott bit the inside of his cheek. “I’m fine.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “You’re not fine. You’re—”

“If you tell me I’m punishing myself, I’m going to scream.”

“I won’t tell you that, because I happen know that Allison, your mother, and Isaac have been trying to tell you exactly that for months. I know I’m not going to have any more luck than they did. Instead, I am going to tell you that what you’re trying to do won’t work.”

“I’m trying to be ready!” Scott roared the last few words.

Birds flew out of the tops of the trees, scattering at the power of an alpha. Scott watched them fly past. He waited until he was calm once more before turning back to Derek, who had not yet lost his own equanimity.

“Last summer, I went to school. I brought my grades up. Last summer, I worked extra shifts at the animal clinic, so I could buy a motorcycle. Last summer, I played at being human.” Scott clapped his hands. “Meanwhile, in the real world--”

“You did what you should have been doing.”

“How can you say that? I know I can’t, because I know what happened next. When school started again, the real world came back with a vengeance, with alphas, with a darach, with sacrifices. What might have happened differently if instead of fucking around pretending to be something I’m never ever going to be again, I had learned everything you could have taught me? How many members of your pack might still be here if I had been a better werewolf?”

“What happened to my pack was not your fault nor your responsibility.” Derek’s eyes blazed blue. “I know whose fault it was, and I resent you trying to take the blame for it.”

Scott didn’t back down. He wanted Derek to be angry with him. “If I had been a better werewolf, we could have won that fight in the bank vault and Allison would never have had to break the seal. If I had been a better werewolf, we could have stopped Boyd and Cora without having to use the school’s boiler room, and Jennifer would never have gotten her hooks into you. If I had been a better werewolf, we could have won the fight in the mall and spent the eclipse getting drunk.”

Derek growled. “That’s a lot of bullshit to spew in one breath, Scott. Have you been practicing?”

“Did I tell you that Deucalion offered me a deal?” Scott took an aggressive step forward into Derek’s personal space. “All I had to do was snatch his stupid white cane from his hand, and he would have told me where Deaton was six hours before I actually managed to figure it out on my own. If I had been a better werewolf, Cora and I would have been with you at the loft long before the twins and Kali got there. Yeah, you made mistakes, but you spent your time getting ready to protect those who relied on you, while I followed a word-of-the-day calendar. How can you even look at me?” He pushed the other wolf back with one hand.

Derek’s eyes intensified and then subsided. “Well, you’ve convinced me. I now totally believe you’re not trying to punish anyone.” He shook his head. “Get over yourself! You can’t force me to participate in your self-flagellation. You used me once; you don’t get to use me again.”

“I …”

Derek grabbed him by the shoulders. “Stop. Stop right now. I know, better than anyone, exactly the hole in which you’re standing. Once you think you’ve made a mistake from which there’s no coming back, you find that it feels good to pile anything else that goes wrong on top of it. It gives you a sense of control. It wraps around you like a warm blanket, cutting you off from the hard work of moving on. But, in the end, you won’t know who else you’re hurting until it’s too late.”

Scott swallowed awkwardly. “I’m trying to be a better alpha …”

“You are a fine alpha. Theoretically, your training and your focus will make you even better; what you’re failing at is being a human being.” Derek put his face directly into Scott’s face. “Stiles is gone.”

It drew a growl from his lips as it always had.

“Throwing your own life away isn’t going to bring him back, isn’t going to honor him, and, in the long run, it isn’t even going to make you feel better.”

“I don’t want to feel better!” Scott shouted, so loudly that it echoed throughout the Preserve.

Scott stared at Derek. The other werewolf didn’t say a thing, but his eyes spoke loud enough. They were filled with pity and with recognition.

“I’ll … I’ll see you later.” Scott turned around, picked up the canvas training bags, and went home.

The cicadas sung to each other in their loud droning chant. It comforted Stiles, because the song sounded the same in this century as it had in the last, and the century before that, and the century before that. No matter how much things above the ground shifted, the earth remained solid under his feet.

He shut the door on his Aston Martin hard in the balmy twilight, but it didn’t disturb the insects at all. He wasn’t likely to be disturbed by anyone else, either. From the look of things, the army base hadn’t been used in a long time. Of course, that was what it would look like to the uninitiated. It actually saw infrequent but regular traffic, as far as he had read in the files that he had accessed when no one else was looking.

Stiles managed to get past the outer fences pretty easily. After all, he knew exactly where he was going. While he may have struck a deal with Pierce, he didn’t trust the Secretary to keep his end of the bargain. If someone couldn’t get the reassurance they needed from the man in the charge, they had to go see the man with the plan.

Or, more precisely, he had to see the computerized remains of a man with an algorithm.

He had to give it to Hydra; they had chosen this location well. If he didn’t know where he was going, even someone like him would never have been able to find it. If he didn’t have superhuman strength, he would never have gotten past the walls. If he wasn’t able to manipulate electricity through the subtle application of foxfire, he would never have made it past all the other defenses.

The room was vast and dusty and filled with the cutting-edge computer technology of the 1970s. Stiles chuckled. Was an upgrade impossible? He didn’t know.

Stiles made himself comfortable at the desk with only the emergency lights on. “Hello, is anybody home?”

The lights in the place came up. The drives in the forty-year-old machines whirled to life.

- You are not funny.

“I disagree. I’m hilarious, Zola-matic.”

- What are you doing here?

Stiles spun around in his seat. “That should be obvious. I came here to see you, my man-in-a-can.”

- Members of Hydra are instructed to contact me through the Internet only. Coming to this place requires authorization from a Department Head. You are in violation of protocol.

“Yeah. I do that.”

- So it has been noted.

Stiles sobered up. “Strangely enough, that’s exactly why I’m here. You and I, we need to talk.”

- I’m not sure I agree with that statement.

“I’m Hydra’s only reliable enhanced operative. I need to talk to you, and I suspect you need to listen.”

The monitor smirked. Stiles swore that it did. - You are operating under two very debatable hypothesis. First, you will soon no longer be Hydra’s only reliable enhanced operative. Second, I doubt that I have not anticipated what you have come to say.

“Oh.” Stiles affected nonchalance, because he wasn’t going to show this literal Nazi think tank guess that he was thrown by that. “Did they hide that from me on purpose?”

- Negative. Von Strucker does not agree with my positive assessment of the twins’ progress. However, I believe that Hydra will soon have agents capable of taking on the Avengers who do not have your … appetites.

“We’ll see.” He tilted his head to the side. Zola did not reveal information like that unless he had another motivation. “And, if you’ve already anticipated my visit, why don’t you tell me why I came?”

- You are interested in my algorithm.

“Duh. Anyone who knows about it would be interested in it. You’ll have to try harder than that.”

- You desire to know if you are on the list. You desire to know if people who are important to you are on the list.

“Duh, again.”

- You desire to know if status as a so-called supernatural creature has been factored into the algorithm itself. As a member of this supposedly hidden world, you are concerned that Project Insight will cause the extinction of these races.

“Mostly correct. I’m not worried. I’m … curious.” Stiles leaned forward and rested his chin on his hands. “And the supernatural does exist — I’m walking proof.”

- The supernatural is simply the natural we do not yet understand.

“You’re quoting Clarke’s Third Law to me?”

- I said it first in 1935. Stiles thought the mechanical voice sounded petulant.

“I’ll have to remember that for the future.” He leaned back in his seat. “So how are you going to handle people like me who are on the list and work for Hydra?”

- Why would a member of Hydra be on a list of people who could oppose Hydra?

“Do you expect me to believe that your algorithm has never returned a Hydra operative? And in the future, if you want to deflect me, don’t answer a question with a question.”

The computerized egghead paused. - Very well. Yes, certain Hydra agents have appeared on generated lists. I have not been able to refine the algorithm to remove them.

“I doubt you will. Humans think they are very simple to themselves, but in reality, they are extraordinarily complicated. History, biology, society — eternally giving them different wants and needs. Thus, loyalty has limits.”

- A fair assessment.

“Which is why Hydra’s dream won’t come true.” Stiles laughed. “Humanity will always want what it can’t have, what it shouldn’t have. Project Insight will have to be run again and again and again for the rest of time.”

- Of course.

Zola’s dry assurance caught Stiles off guard. “Most attempts to shape humanity that I’ve witnessed are massive failures because they assume that the bloody work will need to be done just once.”

- Human nature is violent and chaotic. It will remain so. Hydra’s new-grown civilization will always require frequent pruning. George Orwell once described the future as a boot stepping on a human face, forever. Poetic but that does not mean it was inaccurate.

“So, you’re just going to kill people every year?”

- By my calculations, it will only need to be done approximately every five point four years, though it would be prudent to vary the interval from time to time.

Stiles foresaw it clearly in a flash. The Insight helicarriers would multiply and circle the globe. No one would know when death would rain down from the sky. And so it would go on. Forever.

“You know, I’ve met some monsters in my lifetime. I’ve been the monster in more than one lifetime. But this is pretty awful, even for me.”

- Shaping the world requires the conviction to do what is necessary. Do not worry. Your name has never been generated by my algorithm. Zola may have been a computer, but he could sound plenty smug.

“Never? I don’t believe it. How is that possible? I eat chaos.” Stiles protested, half-heartedly.

- You absorb the negative psychic energy generated by social disruption and psychological distress. These activities have their place within Hydra’s New World Order.

Stiles remained silent for a moment. “But the list isn’t just about who would fit, it would also include those who would seek to thwart you. I must have shown up before they put this torc on me.”

- Incorrect. Neither of your constituent parts ever appeared on the list.

Stiles stood up. “Now, I’m a little relieved, but I’m not sure that your algorithm is one hundred percent accurate.”

- It is unfailingly accurate. If I may indulge in a bit of armchair psychology—

“You can’t sit, dude.” Stiles felt like deflecting this conversation without admitting it.

- The dimensional parasite which has been fused with your body, for all intents and purposes, has a very clear goal: consumption. Challenging Hydra’s control of the world would do nothing to reach that goal. I have read the report on the human host.

Stiles felt a little sick. He lashed out. “Did they hand out my psych reports as party favors?”

- As you boasted earlier, you are Hydra’s only stable enhanced individual. Your human host is very intelligent, when not plagued by debilitating neurodivergence, post-traumatic stress, or a lack of self-discipline. Pursuant to the topic of our conversation, your profile shows, while fiercely devoted to certain individuals, a distinct amorality when dealing with others. The likelihood that your human host would have posed a threat to Hydra is negligible.

“Well, if that’s all it takes to be taken off Hydra’s radar, underestimate me then. Good night, Herr Doctor.” He turned his back and headed towards the exit.

Zola obviously desired the last word. - In other words, Fox, you are not a hero.

If he had any common sense, he should pull over and stop driving. He understood that his own behavior was ridiculous: he was soaked to the bone, he did not have a destination, and he had only avoided crashing twice in the last fifteen minutes because he had superhuman reflexes. Scott had driven aimlessly around town for hours it seemed while a late-summer thunderstorm had pummeled Beacon Hills.

It wasn’t as bad as the storm Jennifer had conjured, but he couldn’t shake the sense memory. It made his hand tremble on the throttle; anxiety crawled like worms under his skin. He kept driving.

Scott didn’t want to keep feeling like this. He would have loved it if the confrontation with Derek had cleared all the disquiet from his mind. He would have loved to say that he was starting to be okay and he was ready to move on. It would be a lie. He felt exactly the same way he did for the last months, from the day he learned that Stiles had been kidnapped to the blow-out with his second. As much as he realized how off he was, if he had had his way, he’d have kept up the training regimen. It was better than doing nothing.

But his goal had never been to hurt the other members of the pack. Just because he was a mess didn’t mean that they had to pay for it.

The road spread out a wet, black ribbon before him. He should have been excited, but he wasn’t, even if next day was the first day of his senior year. The last first day of high school ever. But he could not draw any comfort from it, because Derek was right. Stiles was gone, and so not a single thing mattered to him about school or anything else.

Coming to rest at a stop light, he looked at his watch. He had time if he wanted to go.

Isaac, Allison, and Lydia had all called him, inviting him to go tonight. They had all been careful not to put any hint of emotional blackmail in their invitations. Scott had not turned any of them down; he had implied instead that he could show up. He had little motivation to go to Senior Scribe, but …

He had hurt all three of them with his single-minded focus, so he turned down the road to the high school. By the time he pulled into the parking lot, the rain had stopped. He pulled off the helmet and hung it on the bike.

Joining the throng of seniors rushing through the storm, he headed toward his normal entrance. Almost all the seniors he knew were there, even the ones with which he had ever talked. They were almost happy — it was an exciting time for seniors. And why not? They were here with their best friends, sharing umbrellas or shouting with glee as they ran through the rain. Scott had to fight off the urge to get back on his bike.

“Scott!”

Isaac called out the moment he stepped in through the front doors. He, Allison, and Lydia were standing right outside the chemistry lab. Scott’s heart clenched a little; they had been waiting for him.

“What happened?” Allison asked, taking in the state of his clothes. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine. It’s just been raining really hard.” Scott forced a smile on his face. “Doesn’t mix well with a motorcycle.”

Lydia studied him. She absolutely knew he was bullshitting, but she chose not to say anything. “Glad you could make it.”

Scott shrugged. He could do this for them.

Isaac and Allison each took hold of one of his wrists and pulled him down the corridor.

The line in the library stretched from the second floor all the way past the check-out desk. Scott let himself be guided by his friends to the end. Another senior glanced behind him to where Scott had created a puddle on the floor. The alpha shrugged. “Bad night.”

While they were waiting in line, Lydia asked about their schedules for this semester. Allison was focusing on finishing her core requirements. The school she had been to before Beacon Hills High had had very different systems, and some credits hadn’t transferred over. There was no reason for her to panic. She was planning on getting either an education degree or a business degree, she wasn’t sure yet.

Isaac was taking easier classes, hoping to get his grades high enough to get into a community college. He hadn’t decided what he was aiming for, though he had talked about getting a degree in construction.

Lydia confessed she only had one class this semester and one class next semester. The rest of her time she would be taking on-line college courses so she would be able to enter MIT as a junior.

Scott whistled and Allison clapped for her. Lydia took it in stride.

“Why not just go there as a sophomore?” Isaac, of course, goes for the totally unnecessary and inappropriate question. Allison gently shoved him. “What?”

Lydia didn’t answer, just tossed her hair and shrugged. Scott took her hand and squeezed it. “We like you, too,” he whispered to her.

When it was his turn, he had to admit that he had a really tough semester in store of him. In order to even have a chance of getting into Davis, he needed to pass the toughest class in school, and that meant he had to take Mrs. Finch.

Lydia frowned at the news. She was taking the class as well.

“Well, you’re dead.” Isaac joked. “You know what everyone says.”

Scott rolled his eyes. “Yes, I’ve heard the stories that Mrs. Finch likes to eat her students raw.”

“If it’s actually true,” quipped Lydia, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

They all laughed, but Scott felt a pang of anxiety. He had gotten his grades back up into a high B average, but AP Biology was the hardest course in the school — mostly because of Mrs. Finch’s attitude toward her students. She seemed to think it was her duty to weed out the ones who weren’t serious about pursuing the biological sciences.

Scott wasn’t sure he could make it, but he would try.

It was their turn already, approaching the shelves. Each senior class had chosen two to three shelves and had each member write their initials on them. The tradition stretched all the way back to the 1940s when the Hales had built the school. After the library had to be completely redone because of Jackson’s rampage, the school administration had made sure to carefully transfer all the old shelves. The tradition tied the alumni to the school and the community.

Isaac was first and chose some place where there would be plenty of room for the rest of the pack. He handed the marker to Allison, who put her initials near to Isaac’s, but not as close as some couples did. Scott felt the edges of his mouth turn up in a small, sincere smile. Lydia put hers underneath them both. It was clear she intended Scott to put his at the top.

Scott stepped up and thought about it. Instead of putting himself at the very top, he wrote his initials a little to the side. Then, directly next to his, he wrote M.S.

The other three were silent. Allison reached out and laid a hand on Scott’s shoulder and squeezed it, reassuringly.

“I wouldn’t be here without him.”

“None of us would,” Lydia replied.

They walked down from the second floor of the library, quiet and contemplative. Allison and Isaac held hands as they did. Scott tried to see senior year, college, life itself without Stiles by his side. He couldn’t. The future was hidden from him.

When they reached the parking lot, the rain had stopped. The full moon was peeking out behind the clouds. It had been the full moon, hadn’t it?

“It’s late,” Scott said, staring at the moon. “We should go home.”

Isaac opened his mouth to say something sassy, but then he paused. “Do you smell that?”

Scott took a deep breath. He could smell it, now that he was focused. “Blood.” He sharpened his ears. “There’s a fight. This way.” Scott took off at a sprint. He had practiced tracking by scent and sound with Derek and Peter for months.

In the tunnel between the football field and the cafeteria entrance, a tall, dark shape was beating the living shit out of a shorter, smaller shape. They weren’t human, because Scott could see that the smaller shape’s eyes were glowing bright beta gold, and the taller shape had … glowing blue talons. With a might slash, the taller shape put the smaller one on the ground. Maybe the smaller shape was dead.

“No!” Scott cried. He put on speed that not even Isaac could match, leaving his friends far behind. As the taller figure raised its hand to strike again, Scott bowled into him, picking him up and throwing him across the tunnel.

Scott stood over the downed werewolf, because that’s clearly what he was. His clothes were covered in blood.

“Scott …” Somehow this werewolf knew his name.

“Good. I was sure that beating this omega scum would bring you running,” sneered the tall, blood-covered monster with the talons. “He made the perfect bait.”

Scott didn’t know who this monster was. He didn’t need to. He was just another person using those weaker than him as bait, as fodder, as a host. His eyes went red. “What do you want?”

“I want your life. I want your power. I want your —” What the man got was a fist upside against the side of his face. And then another. And then another.

For months, he had practiced with Derek, with Allison, with Chris, with the twins, even with Peter. For months, learning how to fight other shifters. With one leg he pinned the monster’s knee to the concrete wall so hard he could hear the bones shatter. It had all been for this moment when he had to stop a monster, just like the monster who had taken Stiles away from him. When the creature swiped at him with its neon blue talons, Scott grabbed the hand, redirected the momentum, and smashed it right into the concrete ground. The claws broke off his fingers like balsa wood.

Scott reared back, ready to punch the man’s face again when Allison called out in a shocked voice. “Scott, stop!”

Isaac and Allison had come down there, Lydia arriving a moment later even in heels. They were looking at him in surprise.

“He’s beaten. Look.” Isaac said.

Scott took a step back. There was blood on his knuckles, but it wasn’t his. At least he hadn’t used his claws. The man seemed less impressive with a busted knee, a swollen face, and broken claws.

“Leave now.” Scott commanded. “Or I’ll break something else until you do.”

The man hobbled away as quickly as he could. The alpha turned around to face Allison and Isaac. “I wasn’t going to kill him.”

“Of course not,” Lydia said briskly, bending down to help the wounded werewolf to his feet. “I would have sensed it.”

The golden-yellow eyes faded from the werewolf, who looked to be about Scott’s age. He also looked somewhat familiar, though Scott couldn’t place him.

“Are you okay?” Scott asked, observing the torn clothing and the blood-soaked shirt. “Why are you here? Do you know who that was?”

“I’m okay now. I’m here because I was trying to find you, but I don’t know who that was,” the other werewolf admitted. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

Scott studied the other werewolf. A memory surface, of Stiles, him, and this boy playing on the monkey bars together. It was a memory from a time before his life had been ruined, before he had lost the one person that had always been with him. “Theo?”

“I knew it.” Theo’s face lit up with a smile, one full of hope, one full of relief that finally he was safe. “I knew you’d save me, Scott.”

Chapter Text

September 2013

Stiles was bored. He hadn’t thought it would be possible for him to become bored anymore. He wasn’t stuck in high school, his mind going to a thousand different places except the one place where the teacher desired him to be. He wasn’t broke. He had plenty of money and plenty of opportunities to spend it. At this moment, he had plenty to do; he was supervising training exercises. He found them tedious because he knew they were useless; he had only attended in the first place because he was asked to by people he couldn't ignore.

The fiasco before him, however, was getting more frustrating by the second. All his power and skill was moldering in the heat of this Caribbean practice ground

“Oh, sweet bunny rabbits of the Veldt, can we end this already?” He complained out loud.

The scientist running the exercise shot a look at him that would have killed a lesser person. Her brown hair was as short as Stiles’ sophomore-years hairstyle, but not as short as her temper. “If you would like to offer some constructive criticism, I would be more receptive.”

Stiles jumped out of the chair, pinwheeling his arms in an exaggerated motion. “I have so much constructive criticism. So. Much. Would you care to dismiss the Low-wattage Power Rangers?” He gestured derisively toward the six-person squad that had been systematically embarrassing themselves on the training ground for most of the morning.

Dr. Ranefer’s gray eyes narrowed in irritation, but she turned to the group and turned off her digital clipboard. “We’re done for the day. Take the afternoon off.”

The group of men and women in fatigues — Stiles refused to call them a squad — gathered up their equipment and headed off toward their quarters, gratefully. After all, there were worse places to train than an island in the Bahamas; an afternoon off meant time on the beach. The lead researcher of the Department of Occult Armaments stared at him coldly, while Stiles affected disinterest until the others were out of earshot.

She put her digital clipboard on the table they had been set up fro the drills and started to take off her lab coat. “I find your attitude extraordinarily unhelpful.”

“I find the fact that you asked for my perspective on your proposal and then proceeded to ignore everything I told you extraordinarily stupid,” Stiles replied. He watched Dr. Ranefer carefully, however; she had never taken off her lab coat in his presence before, and he sensed it meant more than her being overly warm.

“Are you talking about the feedback you sent me on my proposed Project Vargulf?”

Stiles winked at her. “That would be the one.”

“I read your report quite carefully. It didn’t take me long as your input on this project was exactly six words long: This is dumb, don’t do it.”

Stiles nodded vigorously. “And, judging by what I’ve been seeing on the field, I was right. See? I’m being helpful!”

Beneath her coat, Dr. Ranefer was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, which exposed the linen bandages that started at her wrists and seemed to go all the way up to her neck. She began to unwind the ones on her left forearm.

“What are you doing?”

“I am going to demonstrate to you how serious I am about my work, Fox.” Beneath her bandages her skin was both the color and texture of curdled milk. It was a little gross, to be honest. “Why do you think that I earned a leadership position within the Department of Occult Armaments at such a relatively young age for a scientist?”

“I don’t know; is it because you’re a deranged fascist?”

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” She took a menacing step forward, and Stiles took a cautious step back. “This is why.” She pinched the flesh of her arm, and as Stiles watched a beetle-like insect erupted out of the woman’s flesh. The beetle paused to examine it surroundings before seeming to orient itself toward him. From underneath a carapace the color of clotted blood, it extended its wings and flew at Stiles.

Instinctually, Stiles lashed out with the charge of foxfire he kept for emergencies. The insect burst into flame before it even got close to him. “You should have that looked at.”

“I have spent the last twenty years having it looked at. It defines my life, after all. My parents were explorers. To them, finding new species of animals and plants was far more interesting than say, making sure their daughter had a normal life. On their last trip, my family journeyed deep into an uncharted area of the Amazon Rainforest. It turned out that the lands they wanted to explore were considered forbidden by the local tribes. They tried to warn us, but my parents didn’t listen …”

“As white explorers tend to do.” Stiles grimaced. “Can I say this sounds like a bad movie plot?”

“It does, doesn’t it? They didn’t listen, and all three of us became infested with a species of insects that seem to not quite follow the laws of nature. My parents died in agony, but I was saved by a member of the local tribe. He didn’t think it was right for me to suffer for my parents’ iniquity. He taught me the herbs that would keep the insects inhabiting my body dormant so they wouldn’t kill me, and I figured out I could operate as a normal human as long as I kept certain parts of my body wrapped in bandages treated with that herb.”

Stiles relaxed as Dr. Ranefer slid back into her lab coat.

“Any treatment of which modern medicine could conceive would kill me before it got rid of the insects. Any treatment of which traditional occultism could conceived was also completely inadequate, short of selling my soul to a demon, and I don’t know how to do that. Most people believe I should learn to accept my fate and learn to live with never being able to safely touch another person or have a child of my own or any of the other activities a normal human takes for granted. Being part of Hydra gives me the resources to search for a real cure, but they don't provide that for free. No one else is going to find the cure for me, so every step I take I must take for myself.” She pushed her glasses up on her face. “As a consequence, I have little tolerance for people when they tell me I can’t do something but won’t explain why.”

“Fair enough.” Stiles shrugged. He respected that attitude. “Your story has touched my heart.”

“No, it hasn’t.”

“No, it hasn’t, but that doesn’t mean I can’t experience a little empathy. After all, my story also started with a friend of mine and me going somewhere we shouldn’t have gone. On the other hand, I don't have any issue with you. My problem is with what you’re trying to do with those clods. They’re omegas.”

“I know that.”

“You know the word, but you’re not understanding the term. As a consequence, you’re ignoring basic realities about werewolves because they don’t fit the goal you’re trying to reach.” Stiles shrugged. “Treat me to a drink at the PX and I’ll walk you through it.”

To her credit, Dr. Ranefer agreed, so Stiles led the doctor to the small complex of rooms that served as both a store and a recreation center for those living at this Hydra base. He commandeered a table in the far corner, pulled a chair out for his guest, and threw himself down in the seat across from her. For her part, Dr. Ranefer remained focused on him but relatively patient. Given the knowledge that she had a whole colony of cryptid insects living inside her, Stiles was impressed. The old Stiles would have been driven to distraction by a single mosquito bite.

He ordered the fruitiest umbrella drink on the menu. “I take it that it was your idea to create a werewolf assault squad for Hydra.”

“It wasn’t mine. It was Gregory’s.”

“Oh, of course it was, but you got saddled with making it happen. I think it’s a pretty cool idea myself, except it’s fucking impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible.” The scientist stated clearly. “And Belial’s reasoning is sound. Why try to make super soldiers when nature has already done so?”

“Which is exactly where you two went off the rails. They weren’t made to be soldiers.” Stiles spread his hands out on the table. “I know this because I’ve spent a lot of time with them. You’ve made the same quintessential mistake that so many people, including some werewolves themselves, have made: you conceive of a pack as a military unit. I don’t blame you; I can see where the nature of the alpha hierarchy and the supernaturally enhanced capacity for violence might lead people to think of werewolves in those terms, but the truth is that a pack is much more like a family unit.”

“I’ve adjusted for the psychological differences.”

“No, you really haven’t.”

Dr. Ranefer frowned. “Why don’t you tell me what I’ve misunderstood, then, instead of being cryptically unhelpful.”

Stiles’ eyebrows shot up in recognition, and he burst into laughter. It was a fully belly laughed. “Oh, God, I’ve Deatoned you.”

The doctor raised one eyebrow in a silent question.

“Someone I knew in the past was well known for giving the most infuriatingly vague answers. It took me a while to figure out that, while he never lied to us and that he wished us the best, he was always very careful about not sharing information that he felt shouldn’t get into the wrong hands. I’ve essentially done the same to you. So, I’m gonna say fuck that guy, let me give you the full break down.” Stiles leaned forward over the table. “The key principle that you have to remember whenever dealing with werewolves and other affiliated shapeshifters is the shape you take reflects the person that you are.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“Then I didn’t explain it very well. Significant psychological differences can affect the baseline physiology of a shapeshifter; it’s rare but it happens. Psychological trauma and psychological history can affect their physical characteristics, even as the inherent nature of werewolves creates new psychological handicaps. For example, I once knew a werewolf who nearly died because he was overwhelmed by so much misdirected guilt that he stopped allowing himself to heal.”

Dr. Ranefer nodded. “Thus, the importance of an emotional anchor, which you’ve also mentioned before. If you read my proposal, Project Vargulf was designed to give these isolated werewolves an anchor in the same esprit d’ corps used for unit cohesion by the SHIELD Strike Teams.”

“On paper, that sounds fantastic. Werewolves whose power and control are linked to their devotion to Hydra’s goals. There are only two fundamental problems with your idea.” Stiles sipped on his fruity drink. “This is very good! Who makes this?”

The doctor sighed at the digression.

“How do you get the stuff for these drinks here? We’re on a supposedly uninhabited island in the middle of the Atlantic? Why go through all that trouble?”

“We have to supply food and water to the facility anyway, as well as medical supplies and all sorts of necessary materials we can’t make here ourselves,” Dr. Ranefer said exasperatedly, “as for the alcohol and non-essential materials, studies show that if people who must work in isolated facilities for significant lengths of time feel at home they’re far more productive … oh.”

“Yes. Oh. Werewolves form family units which we call packs out of instinct. Within a pack, they are more comfortable, more self-assured, more stable and thus …”

“More powerful.”

“Exactly, doctor.” Stiles took another slurping sip off his drink. “Can I call you something else? I’m not really a title sort of guy.”

“Ayla.”

“Ayla, the first fundamental problem your program faces is that you’re trying to build a house out of warped timber. Werewolves become omegas because they’ve been excluded from the pack structure. You haven’t asked yourself, in a species that has a psycho-arcane drive to form family units, why have these particular individuals been excluded?”

“You make a good point, Fox—”

“Stiles.”

“Stiles. Okay, Stiles, tell me what makes an omega.”

“Either they’re alone by choice, they were kicked out of their pack, or they’re the sole survivors of a pack that’s been destroyed. Any which way you slice it, they are psychologically damaged. It doesn’t help that four out of six of them are blue-eyed.”

Ayla snorted. “Supposedly, that means they’ve killed an innocent. As if someone can tell if a person is objectively innocent.”

“We can’t tell if they’re objectively innocent, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some force out there which can. Stop thinking like a scientist and start thinking like an occultist.”

“I see. Is there an entity which governs such things?”

“No one knows for sure — I have access to a thousand years of occult lore, and I don’t know for sure. But serious thinkers have always believed that there is at least some form of cosmic phenomenon connected to werewolves. I, for lack of a better term, call it Lycaon. But we’re digressing from what you need.”

“Thank you. What’s the second reason my program is doomed to failure?”

“Even if the subjects were mostly healthy omega with stable anchors, you’re trying to form a pack without an alpha. That’s not going to work.”

“I was trying to compensate by focusing their loyalty on Hydra’s leadership.”

“Humans can’t be alphas, because alphas aren’t just leaders. They also represent a true focal point for the pack and the hope of continuation, which is a biological imperative in even non-supernatural creatures, but even stronger when mystic bonds are set up between individuals.”

“I see your point. You think I’ve been trying to put a square peg into a round hole. Could we find an appropriate alpha?”

“Could you find an alpha who is willing to lead their pack into battle for Hydra? It’s certainly possible.” Stiles immediately thought of Peter, who was just selfish enough to do it for the right reward, but Stiles would have to be a lot more fucked up than he was right now to suggest him. “But such alphas would be few and far between.”

“So, what do you recommend?”

“Ayla, just because you’re not going to get a viable assault team out of these rejects, doesn’t mean that they can’t be useful to Hydra in other ways. Unstable killing machines have their uses. There’s always a way you can turn other people’s failures to your advantage.”

“I mean, it’s possible,” Aiden admitted from his position on the couch. He kept his gaze fixed on the ground rather than looking Scott in the eye. Lydia, sitting next to him, patted him comfortingly if only a bit condescendingly, on the knee.

Ethan was standing in a shadowy corner of the loft. He wasn’t studying the floor for answers like his brother; instead, he had instead managed to fixate on Scott’s knees. Danny wasn’t at this meeting at Ethan’s request. “I told you about our alpha before Deucalion. He was a murderous scumbag, and at that point you're describing, he was desperate. We were …”

The twins hunched their shoulders uncomfortably and in perfect unison, even across the room from each other. If it hadn’t been for the topic of the conversation, it would have been hilarious. Derek cleared his throat, pointedly.

“We were working our way through the pack. By the night that this Theo described, the alpha had probably lost half his pack. It’s reasonable that he was desperate enough to bite a teenager with no preparation just to replace the betas he had lost.” Ethan licked his lips and glanced at Derek.

“The betas you had killed,” Derek clarified.

Scott sent Derek a disapproving look. While no one could say that the twins didn’t deserve it any time Derek wanted to twist the knife, Scott felt that he couldn’t let it continue. To be fair, it seemed that the twins had resolved to take whatever Derek decided to dish out, which was probably good for everyone. At this point, however, Scott needed information more than the twins needed to feel remorse. “Why would your alpha let Theo go afterward?”

“Having a beta, even if that beta isn’t physically with you, still gives you strength,” Peter put in. “As much as you fought me, Scott, your very existence helped me heal faster.”

“It would also be a good tactical decision in that situation. He was being hunted, and his resources were being systematically destroyed. It made sense to protect a new resource by hiding it,” Allison added. “If no one knew Theo existed, how could they kill him?”

“So, the story is plausible.”

Isaac came out of the kitchen and sat down next to Allison, carrying two cups of coffee. He held one out to her. “If you believe that any alpha would bite a fourteen-year-old skateboarder.”

“Yes.” The twins answered in unison.

Ethan followed up the declaration by pushing himself out of the corner and stepping into the middle of the room. “I wasn’t lying when I told you that our alpha was among the worst monsters you could ever hear about. Humans were nothing but meat to him. We watched him kill a couple just because he wanted their car.”

“And then he made Ethan and I clean it out.”

Cora sneered. “Oh, you poor babies.”

Aiden snapped back. “Look, I know that some of you have every reason to hate us, but you don’t know what our lives were like before Deucalion found us. We were trapped by this psycho. You think the Alpha Pack piled up bodies? At least Deucalion had a reason, no matter how crazy it might have been. Yeah, we joined with Deucalion because there wasn’t anyone else offering to help us. What were we supposed to do? Our alpha screwed every pack we came across, to the point where they still hate us. Go to the police? You know why we couldn’t do that. Go to the Argents?”

“Probably not a wise idea back then,” Allison put in.

“Why didn’t you just leave?” Isaac suggested bitterly.

Aiden was getting irritated. “Why didn’t you just leave your father?”

“Enough.” Scott wasn’t angry, but he still couldn’t let old wounds keep him from getting what he needed. “We’re meeting to talk about Theo, not about Aiden and Ethan’s past.”

“But they’re linked,” Derek pointed out, not at all reluctantly. “That alpha was brutal enough to turn a fourteen-year-old without permission in the middle of the night and then abandon him because of the twin’s rampage. We’ve established that much could be true, but I also think we need to figure out how Theo evaded your notice.”

“There’s also a flaw in the story that we need to resolve. Aiden, you've told me repeatedly that you killed your alpha last.” Lydia pointed out from her place on the couch. Aiden nodded at her touch on his arm, so she continued. “But Theo said that he ran into another werewolf who told him that his alpha was killed by you two. If you two murdered the entire pack before dealing with your alpha, who was this unknown beta?”

“Are you completely sure you killed all the other betas you knew about first?” Allison asked Ethan.

“Yes. Deucalion created the plan. Killing his betas would weaken him enough so that we could win.” Ethan admitted.

“Could it have been another werewolf bitten like Theo claims to have been?” Scott wondered. “Or another werewolf who just happened to witness things?”

Aiden shook his head. “What werewolf would stick around to watch a fight between the two most violent packs on the North American continent?”

“And,” Lydia added, skeptically, “the probability that two random people bitten by the same alpha but kept purposefully hidden would run into each other is not large.”

“So, Theo lied,” Isaac came to that conclusion.

“Not necessarily,” Peter pointed out. “The Alpha Pack’s reputation would be significant among any reasonably informed werewolf, so it’s possible that if Theo ran into a random werewolf, they might have suspected that the twins had killed their alpha. Again, a small possibility but still a possibility.”

“So, he didn’t lie?” Isaac questioned in confusion.

“On the other hand,” Peter smirked, “if I were going to infiltrate a pack, I would take special care not to have a perfectly flawless cover story. Perfection is always suspect. If I were creating such a cover, I would purposefully include details that couldn’t be easily confirmed in order to create a sliver of doubt.”

Scott closed his eyes in irritation. Peter could never just be helpful; he had to manipulate things for his benefit, even if that benefit was purely his own amusement. Yet even as Peter enjoyed his disruptions, the older werewolf usually had a point.

“What do you want to happen, Scott?” Derek asked quietly.

“I want …” Scott turned away from them. “Theo says he’s tired of living in fear, and we all know that comes along with being an omega. We have a strong pack; we don’t need any more werewolves, but we certainly have room for more. In addition, we knew the Nemeton would draw people here, so it’s not unbelievable given our pack’s reputation …”

“Your reputation,” Cora smirked in an eerie resemblance to Peter.

“Our pack’s reputation that we might be willing to take him in. And beyond that …”

“You were friends before,” Lydia added. “We understand how that could be appealing.”

Scott turned his back to the pack and walked to the loft’s great window. “You all know how much trouble I’ve had during the last nine months dealing with the loss of Stiles. I’ve been obsessive to the point of damaging my pack. Several of you have pointed that out to me, and you were right to do so. Which is why I’ve been more … aware of my own emotions in this case.”

Malia chuckled and everyone else looked at her for the inappropriateness of it.

“The problem is that Theo turns out to be exactly what I need. He’s exactly what I want right now. I’ve spent months raking myself over the coals because of the friend I couldn’t save, and now here comes one I can save. It’s clear I can’t trust myself to make the right decision — any decision I make will be about Stiles, and that’s not fair to the pack. So, I’m turning to you.”

Scott turned away from the window. “Tell me what I’m missing.”

Allison stood up and went over to Scott and grabbed his hand. “I know that took a lot to say. We appreciate it.”

“How did he survive?” Ethan asked. “I know that my brother and I aren’t in the position to question him, but by his own words, he survived for two years on his own as an untrained teenage omega.”

“I survived for a year,” Scott shrugged. “Cora survived for six.”

“The false modesty is charming, alpha, but we all know that you’re not the standard for omega behavior,” Peter snidely added. “Considering the stories most of us in this room grew up on, teenage omegas are bloodbaths waiting to happen. There’s a reason that Derek was so forceful with you in the beginning: omegas are historically a threat to peace and quiet.”

Derek and Scott glanced at each other, but there was no embarrassment or resentment between them. Bygones had long since been bygones.

“You can’t underestimate how omegas are treated in other packs.” Cora stood up, reflexively. Her face was solemn, but her voice was bitter. “When I ran from the fire, I didn’t plan to go all the way to South America, but I ended up not having any choice. Every pack in California and every pack in Mexico wanted nothing to do with me. It didn’t matter that I was eleven years old, by the way human measured years, it didn’t matter that my family had been destroyed by the Argents …”

Allison didn’t even flinch.

“It didn’t matter that my mother was a much-respected Alpha. An omega was simply too much trouble. By the time I managed to reach our mother’s allies in South America, I wasn’t in very good shape. Even then, I was lucky that they owed Mom a favor.”

“I did fine in the forest for eight years,” Malia offered from her seat.

“You’re a werecoyote,” Isaac countered.

“Are we that different?”

“Yes.” Derek stated. “Deaton can confirm this for you.”

“We’re digressing.” Scott brought their attention back to him. “There are doubts, and we can speculate all we want, but what we really need is more answers from Theo. I’ll get them.”

Isaac jumped up. “Do you want someone to go with you?”

Scott shook his head. “This isn’t an interrogation. Thanks for all your input, guys.”

He hadn’t been lying when he had told the pack that he didn’t trust himself around Theo. The time he had spent with the omega since he had arrived had been … wonderful. Scott had felt comfortable in a way that he had never felt with his pack since they had become his pack. Scott called Theo on his phone and arranged to meet him at the lacrosse pitch at the school. No one would be there at this time of night, so it would be neutral ground.

“A little late for practice?” Theo called from the bleachers.

“We’re not practicing. We’re here to talk.”

“I’m staying with you, Scott. We could have talked at the house.” Theo seemed confused.

Scott sat down heavily on the bleachers. “I didn’t want to talk to you there. It kind of feels like home-court advantage, and I don’t think that’s fair to you.”

“Oh, it’s going to be that type of conversation.”

“Yeah.” Scott scratched at the back of his neck.

They sat in silence on the bleachers. Over the last few weeks after Theo had arrived, Scott had ended up sitting alone in comfortable silence with him several times. Watching television. Studying in school. Eating lunch outside when the weather was nice. Theo would simply sit next to him, sometimes with others about but sometimes alone, and they might exchange six words the whole time.

Yet, he would be there, filling the hole that Stiles had left. Scott couldn’t help but appreciate it. The pack members in high school were often hung out with him as well — Allison, Isaac, Lydia, and Cora — but it wasn’t the same with them. Allison and Isaac would be delightfully cute, Lydia would be superior, and Cora would all but growl at anyone who came near; they were a pack and that was great. Really, it was. Yet there was something about how the non-pack Theo was here just for him that made Scott feel better.

It made him feel like he had regained something he had lost.

Perhaps the bleachers had been a bad idea.

“I talked to the pack, and they had questions, so that means that I have questions.”

Theo nodded, seemingly undisturbed.

“We can’t confirm the story about you being bit by the twins’ alpha.”

“Does that matter?”

Scott paused, struck by the question. Did it matter? If Peter had died during his killing spree and not resurrected himself, no one would be able to discover any proof of how Scott got turned, either.

“Usually, it wouldn’t. But these aren’t usual times, and this isn’t a normal pack.”

Theo looked up into the sky. “I don’t know how to make you guys trust me …”

“Theo.” Scott felt really bad. “It’s not that we can’t trust you, it’s that there’s been too much happening for us … for me, to be able to. You’ve heard about Stiles.”

“I remember Stiles. I came back for him as well.”

Scott let the corners of his mouth curl up but then forced it away. “Last year, I made assumptions. I took people for granted. I let other people make choices when it was my responsibility, and I lost Stiles because of it. I won’t make the same mistakes again.” He looks Theo in the eyes. “I have to ask these questions, for the sake of my pack.”

Theo was silent for a long time, as if he were thinking. Finally, he looked up into Scott’s eyes. “Do you miss Stiles that much?”

Scott started laughing the way a person laughs when it’s the only thing they can do to avoid crying. “It’s been nine months, and it feels like yesterday. It’s like …” Scott swallowed. “It’s like an asthma attack. Stiles is the air, and no matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I struggle to pull him into my lungs, I can’t draw a breath. I don’t know why I’m saying this to you.”

The other werewolf shrugged. “Maybe because I’m not pack, and you don’t have to impress me.”

The alpha looked at him sharply.

“I’m just saying that maybe you’re finding it easier to talk to me because I’m not in your pack. Maybe it’s the same reason Stiles’ disappearance hurts so much.”

“I’m not following.”

Theo looked at him with something close to pity. “You’re in a pack with four ex-alphas, all four of which are older and far more experienced than you are. Two of them were members of the Alpha Pack, which left a trail of bodies all throughout the supernatural world. One of those alphas is the one who bit you, who must take it as a personal insult that you’re an alpha and he’s not. I also heard that you shamed Derek pretty badly as well.”

Scott peered at him closer. He shook his head. “I trust them.”

“Do you? Can you look me in the eye and say that you are one hundred percent sure that, if someone other than a beta of your own making could take your alpha power from you, you wouldn’t keep one eye on Peter all the time?”

“No. I mean, yes, I would. But he can’t …”

Theo raised his left hand with the thumb resting on his palm. “Four of your pack members are members of the Hale family, one of the oldest and most respected families on the West Coast—”

“How do you know that?”

“Are you kidding? Peter and Cora never let anyone forget it. Do you really imagine that there aren’t moments when one of them resents that you, a non-Hale, is in charge?”

Scott shook his head. “I can’t think like that.”

“Maybe you should. The other three members of your pack are your ex-girlfriend, who happens to be the Argent Matriarch; her boyfriend, who abandoned his previous alpha for his incompetence; and a banshee who also happens to be a genius.”

“What are you trying to say?” Scott’s eyes flashed. “You’re trying to say that I can’t trust my pack.”

“No.” Theo held up both hands. “I have no idea if they’re plotting against you or not. I’m saying they all have their own agendas, and that’s not a bad thing, but it could be one reason you feel you have to make sure I’m okay, and it could be a reason you miss Stiles so much.”

“How do you know this?” Scott’s eyes were no longer flashing, but glowing. “Talk.”

“I listen, very carefully. It’s kept me alive. It just seems to me that the only person who was involved in your pack for no other reason but to be in your pack was Stiles. He was the only person here for you and only you.”

The alpha turned away at those words. He rubbed at his eyes. “So? So what? He’s gone and I can’t find him.”

Theo cleared his throat and then whispered. “What if I knew a way you could?”

Scott turned on his heel, grabbed Theo with both hands and lifted him high in the air. “I would say you better tell me right damn now.”

“I can’t do it, but I know these guys.” Theo grabbed Scott’s wrists with his hands, but he didn’t try to struggle. “They’re not good people, but they know a lot, including how to find people no matter where they are.”

“Tell. Me.” Scott’s voice was almost completely a growl.

“They’re called … the Dread Doctors.”

Chapter Text

Early October 2013

“Hecatolite.”

Stiles turned the brick over and over in his hand, measuring its weight, feeling its texture. It seemed no heavier than any other type of clay brick he had ever encountered, but it sparkled in the beams of the worksite’s powerful lights.

“Sodium potassium aluminum silicate.”

With one last examination, he carefully put the brick back on the pile from which he had swiped it. There were three such piles which workers were using to construct holding cells in a new facility on this side of the island. When it was finished, it would be independent of the main base, half sunk into the sand, and camouflaged from the air. Hydra was being careful not to draw attention to this new construction.

“Moonstone.”

Stiles contemplated the bricks for a moment to see if he felt anything. Eventually, he shrugged and turned away toward the jeep that would take him back to the other side of the island and the Department of Occult Armament’s main base.

Gregory Belial, his face frozen between a sneer and a thrown, made it clear he disapproved of Stiles’ entire existence while leaning on the vehicle’s hood. “All three of those words mean the same thing.”

Stiles wrinkled his nose. “What’s the matter, Greg? Are we up past your bedtime? Is that why you’re quoting The West Wing?”

The sorcerer answered him with a glare that would have killed small animals. That was the only answer Stiles received before Belial slid into the driver’s seat.

The fox couldn’t resist the urge to play a little. While he fed well while on Hydra operations, provoking a little strife among colleagues once in a while could only sharpen his appetite. “Look, it might be easier on both of us, if you’re going to be my driver, if we can hold a real conversation at least once in a while.”

Belial growled almost as well as a werewolf could. “I’m not your driver and you know it. I’m just driving.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Stiles smirked at him.

“No, you’re not.” The other man nearly stripped the gears putting the jeep in drive, and they tore off into the Caribbean scrub of the island’s center.

Even if he had been as completely human as he had once been, Stiles would have been able to detect the anger pouring off the man. “I’m serious, Greg. We’re going to be working together very closely in the future. We need to be able to talk things out, like men do.”

The other man didn’t reply instead turning on the headlights with a little more force than he needed.

“Well, luckily this is a short drive, or it would be really boring.” Stiles laughed. “I suspect you’re a little pissed because you thought I’d be your servant and not your equal.”

Belial made such a sharp over-correction to the jeep’s path that Stiles would have flown clear out of it if he hadn’t possessed supernatural reflexes.

“A hit! I’ve scored a palpable hit!”

The sorcerer snarled. “Really? Is this a game to you?”

“Yes.” Stiles gave him a face full of mock surprise. “I thought you would have understood that by now. I could tell you that it’s not personal, since, after all, I am a trickster, GB, but that would be a really bad lie. If Hydra’s going to cage something like me, then they’ve got to expect me to act out once in a while. Sometimes they’ll be fun tricks, like teasing you.”

“Hardly fun for me.”

“Yet, loads for me!” Stiles crowed. “You should be happy about that it’s something as innocuous as teasing, because sometimes my tricks turn out to be not so pleasant for the target. You get my special attention because you were the one who put this collar on me. While I can’t hurt you, I can certainly make sure I get a great deal of enjoyment at your expense. In this case, I’m going to encourage you to stew in impotent rage because I’m your equal now.”

Gregory Belial chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I’ll admit, this isn’t the outcome I imagined when you were brought to my attention as a potential asset. You are wrong about several things, however, the first being that I’m not stewing.”

“No?” Stiles put on another surprised face.

“When I look at it logically, your … promotion … makes sense. You have a lot of experience, Fox: a thousand years of manipulating others in order to feed. I can hardly claim to match you in that department. I’m barely three times the age of the body you’re living in now.”

“You don’t look a day over forty,” Stiles joked.

“Sorcery has its advantages.”

The rugged, stony ground of the interior of Samana Cay was covered with thin vegetation, yet eventually it gave way to a sandy beach. As the vehicle rumbled towards the concrete bunker, Belial pressed a hidden control in the jeep and a large garage door clanked its way open.

“Yet, as I told you when you first joined us, I’m not alone. Taking advantage of Hydra’s personnel, resources, and, most importantly, its history makes me far more powerful than I would have ever reached working solo. Am I jealous that you’ve come so far in so little time? Absolutely. I’m not a boy scout. But I also have to remember that you’re not an eighteen-year-old we snatched off the street.”

Stiles chuckled. “It wasn’t a street — it was a mental institution.”

“You know what I mean.”

Stiles preened a little. Sometimes the truth hurt; sometimes it didn’t. “So, as your equal, anything else you want to talk to me about?” He took a step out of the jeep, watching the garage door close after him.

Belial nodded, solemnly. “If you could satisfy my curiosity about something, I’d be grateful.”

“Sure. I’m feeling generous”

The sorcerer said his next words as nonchalantly as possible. “Does the human part of you ever scream in horror at the price of his new existence?”

Stiles whirled about, shocked into speechlessness.

Belial mugged at him, twisting the knife, even while taking pleasure in the reversal. “Does he?”

“Well done,” Stiles said coolly, composing himself. “You set that one up pretty effectively.”

“Thank you. I thought it might be important, since we’re going to be equals, that you understand that I can dish it out as well as I can take it.” The sorcerer walked away with a little bounce to his step. “See you at tomorrow’s staff meeting.”

Belial disappeared down the staircase that led into the base proper, but Stiles didn’t follow him immediately. Instead, he stood next to the jeep, stunned by the verbal gutting he had just endured. He had to give the sorcerer credit; it was a good shot.

Taking a deep breath, he walked outside the garage. The crescent moon hung in the clear sky, and there was only the slightest breeze coming in from off the ocean. It was quite beautiful, but it wasn’t going to be a sufficient distraction. He was going to have to think about being Stiles again, and he didn’t want to deal with the feelings that would bring to the surface.

Undeniably, the harsh truth was that the sorcerer was right; he couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t. He fought off the urge to scream into the star-dotted sky, but it was a close call, and it only happened because he didn’t want to have to explain to anyone who might overhear. Even with all the endless memories and the fantastic powers that merging with the nogitsune had given him, he still sometimes thought of himself as the son of Noah and Claudia. In the middle of the night, he would dream up scenarios where he would escape, make Hydra think he was dead, go home, go back to high school, make it to graduation, and matriculate at some big college on the west coast where he could join a fraternity and drink himself into happiness. He could hang out with his friends. He could see Scott.

But it was never going to happen, because he was no longer just Stiles.

The nogitsune didn’t really have a name and didn’t want one. It took a name when it needed to and only if the name of its host wouldn’t suffice. When a possession lasted longer than a few weeks, it chose to live simply and wisely. It established hidden caches of money for use if required, it kept its ear to the ground when it came to supernatural events, and it read up on new technology and politics because those were sometimes necessary for its more elaborate tricks. But it never really spent time finding a home.

Mostly, it fed.

That was why, even with all the knowledge Stiles had now, with all the faster reflexes, the greater stamina, the strength, the foxfire, he couldn’t bring himself to break from Hydra and go home. For the rest of his life, however long that would be, he would never escape the need to feed on chaos, strife, and pain. The part of him that remembered coming downstairs to find his father trying to cook them breakfast could also easily imagine messing with the settings on the stove so everything got burned up out of sheer malicious glee. The part of him that knew everything there was to know about Lydia Martin now had dreams about her agonized wailing after he had arranged for her mother to die in a way she couldn’t stop. The part of him that longed to goof off for hours in Scott’s room had access to a dozen plans to split the True Alpha’s pack apart.

He could go home, but it would require every ounce of willpower he had not to tear their lives apart. And if he slipped, if he slipped once — well, he still remembered how the hilt of ninja-to in Scott’s stomach wiggled when the alpha tried to breathe.

No. Hydra was safer. He couldn’t hurt its members directly, but they gave him plenty of opportunity to feed from people he didn’t really care about: intelligence agents, industrialists, politicians. No one he knew.

When he wanted to scream, like tonight, he made himself think of his new car, of his new lifestyle, of all the exciting opportunities he’d have as the Fox. And if that didn’t do the trick, he called up the memory of his mother calling him a monster and a killer. Because now, it had the benefit of being true.

Maybe it had always been true.

Even after Peter opened the door to his apartment, Scott hesitated. From the outside, it looked like a normal, if very upscale, apartment in downtown Beacon Hills, exactly as Peter had always described it. Still, Scott had always imagined that there would have to be some sort of sinister aura around the place, as if it had to be unusual to shelter someone with a story like Peter’s. But it didn’t.

“Scott. This is a surprise.”

“I know. I apologize for not calling ahead of time, but I wanted to talk to you … and only you.”

Peter considered him carefully. “How did you know that I was alone? I could have had some guests over.”

“You don’t.” Scott stated. He understood that this was a test. “Unless they can hide their heartbeats and their scent, I knew you were by yourself the moment you opened the door.”

“And if I had had someone?”

“I would have apologized for interrupting and come back another time.”

Peter didn’t seem angry at all; instead, he was very curious. “Yet, you couldn’t call.”

Scott shoved his hands into his pockets. He looked Peter directly in his eyes. “May I come in?”

The older wolf considered the question for about thirty seconds and then, with an elaborate flourish, invited the alpha in. The furniture wasn’t the stuff you’d buy at Ikea — it was Art Deco and a delightful cool green color. Peter had put a lot of effort into the place.

“Thank you.”

“Oh, no, alpha, thank you.” Peter lilted. “I had thought tonight was going to be boring, so boring that I was about to watch some dreary police procedural. Thus, your visit means I already owe you one. What do you want to talk to me about that you don’t want the pack to know?”

Scott frowned and looked around the room, focusing on a Steuben whiskey decanter instead of the man’s face. Of course, Peter would figure out why he had done this. “I need to talk to you, and I need your discretion.”

“You could order me to be silent.”

“I suppose I could. Ordering people around isn’t my style, but I will if I have to.”

Peter considered this. “I promise it will be stay between us. This is a night for firsts. Why don’t we sit down? Do you want something to drink?”

“No. I’m good.” He took a seat while Peter went into his kitchen and poured himself a glass of wine. Scott took a seat on the couch and waited patiently.

“So, what’s the issue?” Peter’s contentment with the situation could be felt from across the room. It occurred to Scott that he was fulfilling one of Peter’s more benign motivations — he loved to feel needed.

“I talked to Theo about his time between being bitten and finding me. He admitted that soon after he was turned he was found and, for a lack of a better term, recruited by a group of not very good people. They eventually let him go.”

“Obviously, there was a reason he didn’t feel like sharing this with the pack earlier?”

Scott looked Peter in the eyes once more. “People will do terrible things if they think that it’s all they have left, won’t they?”

The older werewolf’s eyes opened wider. The corner of his mouth curled into a little grin, and he lifted his glass to toast Scott.

“Sticking with them allowed Theo to survive being an omega. Yet he also admitted that he was their collaborator during that time, and he left their employ not only to find me but to find another way to live. While I listened to his explanation, I tried to monitor him as closely as I knew how, and nothing he said seemed to be a lie. But there was more. He told me that they could help me with something that I want, more than anything else.”

Peter nodded. There was no need for him to guess out loud that it was about Stiles.

“I’m not sure if I believe him completely. He could be a really good liar.” Scott rubbed one finger on the arm of the couch in distraction. “If they have the ability to do what Theo says they can do, I’m more than willing to take the risk.”

“All valid thinking, but I’m not sure where I come in.”

“He told me that these people had come to Beacon Hills long before he joined them. That they knew this place, and they knew about the Nemeton. I’m hoping you know more about them. If you can confirm anything about what they can do or if they might be able to help me, then … then I’ll feel better if I choose to use them.”

Peter nodded. “That’s a good idea, but why not go to Deaton? He is your Emissary.”

Scott scratched at the back of his neck and didn’t answer. How could he say that he was afraid that Deaton would tell him in no uncertain terms not to take this chance, that it was too risky, or even worse, that these people had no way to find Stiles?

“They’re called the Dread Doctors. Have you heard of them?”

Suddenly, Peter stood from his seat. He grew pale and the wine slopped from his glass and stained the carpet. He paid it no immediate mind. “Well, when you go digging into the darker side of the supernatural world, you don’t play around.”

“Then you have heard of them.”

“I’ve done more than that.” Peter walked into the kitchen. He came back with two full glasses of wine and a bucket to clean up the spill. He handed the second glass to Scott.

“No, thank you.”

“Drink. You’re going to need it for this.”

Scott thought about refusing, but he wasn’t going to interpret Peter obviously caring about the emotional well-being of someone other than himself as anything other than a dire sign. He sipped at the wine. He’d never drank much of it, but this kind did seem to taste really good.

Peter, for his part, didn’t immediately resume the conversation. Instead, he got down on his hands and knees and deliberately, carefully cleaned up the wine he had spilled earlier. If he hadn’t known the older werewolf, Scott might have assumed he was being mocked, but this wasn’t Peter’s style. Peter was stalling, mastering himself emotionally and getting ready to speak without admitting the need for preparation. The very name of the doctors had spooked him.

Finally, Peter was satisfied that he had cleaned up the wine before it had a chance to stain too terribly. He put the cleaning supplies away, resumed his seat, and then favored Scott with a grim and brittle smile.

“I know about the Dread Doctors. I fought the Dread Doctors, alongside Talia. They did come here before, and they killed a lot of people.”

Scott gritted his teeth.

“It was 1996. I was twenty-eight, though I didn’t look like it back then. Derek was six. Cora had just turned one.” Peter got a faraway look in his eyes.

Scott blinked. “You don’t look like you’re forty-five!”

“Why thank you!” Peter smiled. “I know that you’re still relatively new that this, but we’re shape-shifters. I looked like I was twenty until the fire. I could possibly look like this until I hit eighty. You’ve not met her, but Satomi Ito is nearly one hundred and twenty and doesn’t look a day over sixty. It’s really not that hard.”

“Okay. Go on with your story.”

“It was a beautiful autumn. Just enough rain to turn the leaves their brightest shades. Mornings sharp and chilly, yet with afternoons warm enough to run around without a jacket. I was about to drive into town to pick Derek and Laura up at school. They could have ridden the bus, but … well, I was often at loose ends, and I had a brand-new car.” He tried to hide it, but Scott picked up the faint scent of regret bursting from Peter, though it was quickly excised. “Before I could go anywhere, Talia came charging out of the house and ordered me to drive her to the police station. Something had happened.”

“To a Hale?”

“No. Not yet.” Peter shifted uncomfortably. “The first victim had been just a normal teenager. Back then, Talia cultivated the same type of relationship with the sheriff of Beacon County that you have with the elder Stilinski. In their case, it was intended as more of a preventative measure. We were at peace.”

“Must be nice.” The bitter words slipped out of Scott before he could stop it.

“You’re on your way to earning it,” Peter admitted. “You have a pack with six werewolves, a werecoyote, and a banshee. Four of those werewolves are former alphas, which is almost completely unheard of. You have a strong working relationship with the Argent family. You’re a True Alpha. As much as I am equally impressed and annoyed — and reluctantly proud — you’re going to get even stronger. Eventually, the Nemeton will only draw people who desire your protection. That’s how it was for Talia.”

“You’ve always described the tree as dangerous.”

“It is dangerous. All real power is.” Peter nodded, hungrily. “Your pack is tied to the Nemeton. That’s good … and it’s bad.”

Scott nodded and leaned forward.

“Back then the Hale Family was strong as well. We had nine werewolves in our pack, and even though Derek and Cora were too young to fight, their very presence made us stronger, especially because they gave us something to fight for. We were more than a pack; we were a family.” His voice's timbre shifted to an untouchable melancholy. “We had the same Nemeton, only ours was still a great and glorious tree. We had allies, including all the nearby packs: Satomi’s pack, Deucalion’s pack, Ennis’s and Kali’s pack — even though those two weren’t alphas yet. We even had an alliance with the Primal, though it was touchy as Talia found their beliefs …” Peter’s smirk returned. “She called them juvenile.”

“You’ll have to teach me about them later, if you don’t mind,” Scott asked.

Peter continued after a desultory nod. “The sheriff had called Talia down to investigate a dead teenager. Her name was Judy Sample, and she was the niece of someone who was … very close to me in high school. When the sheriff showed her to us, I nearly lost my lunch. She had died horribly, twisted and deformed.”

“I’m sorry.”

A look of fond exasperation crossed Peter’s features. “Of course you would be. But that’s not the important part. The sheriff had involved Talia because Judy’s corpse possessed the unmistakable claws of a werewolf. He had recognized them and thought that maybe she was one of our pack, which she wasn’t.”

“Whose pack was she then?”

“That’s the terrifying part. Talia called in our Emissary to confirm what she suspected, and Rebecca certainly did.”

“Deaton wasn’t your Emissary?”

“Not yet.” Peter said quietly. “Though the thing that should concern you is that Judy wasn’t a born wolf. And she wasn’t a bitten wolf.”

“What?”

“If another Alpha would have dared to bite a resident of Beacon Hills without a Hale’s permission, it would have been war. To bite a teenager and then let her get killed like that … well, my sister had excellent control, but the thought of that made her show a bit of fang. Yet our Emissary pointed out that while Judy’s claws were a werewolf’s claws, Judy was not actually a werewolf.”

Scott’s jaw dropped open. “How is that possible?”

“It’s not possible,” Peter said emphatically. “The Bite either turns you or it kills you, but she was not fully turned. She wasn’t born or bitten — she was made. She was an experiment. Their experiment.”

Scott could tell that Peter wasn’t lying. He could feel the revulsion — Peter was repulsed! — at the murder. “To what end?”

“We never discovered why. All we kept discovering was the horrible results. Talia was initially infuriated, and then determined, and then desperate. These Doctors are very powerful.”

“What can they do?”

“Other than feats of medical science that shouldn’t be possible, they are very strong and hard to hurt in a fight, even for a werewolf. They also have access to advanced weaponry and influence over electromagnetism. Yet their most devastating power is their ability to manipulate memories. If they were here today, they could be standing in this room, and you wouldn’t remember that they were there beyond a disquieting feeling.”

“Wow.”

“Indeed. There’s a reason that Talia developed great proficiency with sharing and manipulating memories via the claw ritual. She was desperate to figure out what their goals were, but it’s impossible to know thy enemy if you can’t trust your own memories.” Peter shook his head. “I’ve never seen my sister so frustrated.”

“What happened?” Scott was intrigued by the story.

“Six teenagers died. All of them in incredible agony. Whatever the Doctors were working towards, they weren’t making any progress. Eventually, Talia — with my help, naturally — managed to figure out enough of their methods to prevent any more victims. Talia recruited the other packs, and we flooded the city with patrols keyed to the ley lines.”

“Like Jennifer.”

Peter smiled at the name. “Yes. Like Jennifer. What came next wasn’t Talia’s fault, really. What was she supposed to do, let them murder innocents? For the most part, the Doctors had ignored our efforts to stop them, until we actually managed to thwart them. Their response was swift; they surprised us with a frontal assault.”

Peter took a long sip of wine, as if steadying himself.

“Who died?”

“You’ve never heard Derek or Cora talk about their father, have you? The Doctors … destroyed him. I think that was mostly done as a fuck-you to Talia. They also killed our Emissary, which is why we had to get another one.”

“Alan.” Scott nodded. “What was Derek’s father’s name?”

“I don’t know.”

“What? How could you not know?”

“None of us know. They attacked the pack’s memories of him; that’s why I think their approach was motivated by an animus toward our alpha. When the Doctors were done, no one remembered his name or what he looked like.”

Scott was horrified. “Couldn’t Talia get those memories back? Didn’t you have records and pictures?”

“That was the beauty of it, don’t you see?” Peter shook his head. “Imagine looking at a picture of someone you know to be your father and not recognizing him. Even with the most competent of alphas, the ritual to repair memories is painful and dangerous. What mother would risk going into the minds of her children, into Laura’s and Derek’s mind, just so they could remember even the barest recollection of their father, especially as it would mean they would have to relive how it felt when he died? Talia raged impotently for days, but in the end, she did what an alpha had to do. She packed up every single memento of him, put those in a locked chest in the attic, and left her children and all her family with no clear memory of her husband.”

“That’s …!” Scott couldn’t imagine it. He wasn’t the biggest fan of his father but the sheer … horror of such a decision made his throat constrict. “How could she possibly … what could she do?”

Peter was looking down at his wine glass, lost in thought, lost in the past. “Talia was never the same again.”

“I can imagine. What happened next?”

“Oh, we won.” The older werewolf frowned.

“How?”

“The Doctors hadn’t chosen Beacon Hills only for the local property tax rates. They needed the Nemeton for their experiments. So, after they pulled that stunt, Talia cut it down.”

“She cut it down?” Scott’s eyes got big. “I thought it was probably Gerard.”

“A pretty good guess, but no, it was my sister. She made the best call she could. If she couldn’t beat them, she’d make them go away.” Peter shrugged. “Unfortunately, she became far too … cautious after that.”

“What do you mean?”

Peter shook his head, firmly. “Your pack — the Hale Pack — is going to be strong once again. There’s no need for me to hash out the disputes I had with my dead sister.”

Scott leaned back on the couch as Peter fell silent. Whatever he hadn’t wanted to talk about, the dispute between Talia and Peter still disturbed the older wolf. Scott had his own problems to think about. Theo had told him that the Doctors weren’t good people, but, if anything, the omega had undersold it. Scott had no reason to doubt Peter’s word, no reason to think that the Doctors weren’t every bit as dangerous as he said.

“Oh, no.” Scott startled up, aghast. “They’re back because we restarted the Nemeton.”

“Possibly.”

“Fuck.” Scott looked at his drink and downed it one continuous chug.

Peter’s face filled with disdain. “Tsk, that’s not Pepsi. Respect the vintage.”

“I’m sorry.” Scott put the glass carefully on a coaster on the table. “I … I’m not feeling anything.”

“We have to drink it for the taste. I take it my story wasn’t precisely what you wanted to hear.”

Scott nodded. “Theo thinks that the Doctors could help me find where Stiles is being held. He thinks they could help me find him.”

Peter’s smirk returned. “Well, there’s a strong possibility that they could.”

“There’s a strong possibility that it’s a trap.”

“That, too.”

“I can’t do it.” Scott felt the words torn from them. "They’re killers, and they didn’t even have a good reason. I can’t go to them and get their help. It’d be wrong.”

Peter groaned.

“What? Peter, they hurt your family!”

“I know that more than anyone, but this is exactly what I mean when I quip about you never tiring of being morally bland. Yes, working with these monsters is dangerous and it is a slap in the face to me, Cora, and Derek. But things aren’t always so black and white. They may be your only chance to find Stiles.”

Scott’s face screwed up. “How can I look Derek in the face and claim to be his alpha when I decide to work with the people who murdered his father out of spite?”

“With practice.” Peter answered lightly. “You have two competing wants here Scott, and you think you have to choose one of them. Instead, you can choose to view the world in shades of gray — you can be Derek’s and Cora’s alpha, and you can get what you need from the Dread Doctors. You just have to lie a little.”

The alpha felt bile at the back of his throat. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

“I can’t help you there. No one can make that choice for you.” Peter sipped at his wine, a little triumphant. “But I will suggest you ask yourself — how will the rest of your life feel if you knew you had an opportunity to save Stiles and you didn’t try because …” Peter’s voice turned mocking. “It would be wrong.”

Scott couldn’t answer.

Chapter Text

Mid-October 2013

Cold gusts roared down the valley between the hills surrounding the town, pushing an army of dead leaves in front of it. As Sheriff Noah Stilinski opened the door of his cruiser, a dozen of them blew past in through the door. He sighed, tiredly, rubbing his face with his hand. He bent over to pick them up, but the movement brought a grimace to his face. He thought better of making the effort and slammed the door behind him firmly.

In the reflection in the window of the vehicle, he noticed that he hadn’t shaved today. “You’re getting lazy,” he muttered to himself.

He shuffled up the sidewalk to the front door, digging his keys out of his coat pocket. He had just started turning the key in the lock when he realized that the lights were on in the house. He was pretty sure he had turned everything off when he had left for work that morning.

Without having to look, he loosened his pistol in its holster.

Noah went over the list of possible suspects that might want to break into the sheriff’s home. At the very best, it might be someone who didn’t know that this was his house, in which case they certainly had the worst luck. There was also the possibility that whoever it was thought the place was abandoned. He didn’t need to glance over his shoulder to see the grass hadn’t been mowed since August. He had also taped cardboard over the attic window rather than repair it. Thinking the house was abandoned would have been an easy mistake to make.

Noah reached up to his shoulder. “Dispatch, this is the sheriff. Possible 459 at 129 Woodbine Lane.”

He may not be good for anything else, but he was a good cop. He opened the door and entered the room according to all proper procedures.

The lights were on in the living room, just as the lights were on all over the house. The living room had been swept, the piles of junk mail that had threatened to overwhelm the coffee table had been thrown away, and the dishes piled on the T.V. tray had gone missing. He could hear the sound of water running in the kitchen sink.

“Who’s there? Come on out!”

The water suddenly shut off. “It’s just me, Mr. Stilinski.”

“Scott?” The sheriff deflated with annoyance. “What are you doing?”

The alpha came out of the kitchen with a dishrag. “Uhm. Cleaning.”

“Hold on.” Noah grabbed the radio. “Dispatch, this is Sheriff Stilinski. Cancel back up. It’s a false alarm.” He gave the officer on the other end the password which signaled he wasn’t under duress.

Scott’s eyebrows lifted up. “I’m sorry if this caused any trouble.”

“Does your phone not work?”

“Oh, it works. But if I had called you and asked, you would've said no.”

The sheriff took off his jacket. “Probably. Why are you cleaning my house?”

“Because you haven’t.” Scott seemed weirdly calm

Noah narrowed his eyes. “What’s going on?”

Scott waved the dishrag at him. “I’m going to go finish the dishes.” He then disappeared back into the kitchen.

Noah followed. Scott had indeed been cleaning. The kitchen floor had been mopped, and Scott was almost completely finished with the dishes, which was quite an achievement since Noah hadn’t done anything about them in weeks. “Did your mother put you up to this?”

Scott put the rag down on the corner, but he didn’t turn around. “No. This was completely my idea.”

“Okay, so breaking into my house and sticking your nose into my business was completely your idea. Noted. Where’s my scotch?”

“By now, it’s in the sewer system.”

“Scott!”

The young man’s voice turned cold. “I couldn’t really tell if you’d been crawling back into the bottle, so I didn’t take any chances.”

Noah felt his pulse rise in fury. He had a mind to arrest Scott for breaking and entering, read him his rights, cuff him, and haul him down to the station. Not that the cuffs would hold him, if he were being honest with himself.

“Son, you've crossed so far over the line that you can’t see it from where you are. What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m not your son, but I am concerned about you.”

"Have a seat." The sheriff pulled out his own chair and sat down. “Why do this now? And, remember, you’ve always been a terrible liar, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but this isn't the time to start trying to improve your skill.”

“I can help out if I want without needing an excuse. It’s part of the job description.”

Noah sat down at the sparking clean kitchen table. He hadn’t seen it like this since sometime last year. “Which job description? High school student?”

Scott shook his head.

“Alpha werewolf? Or best friend to my son?”

Scott sat down across from him.

“You don’t have to take care of me,” Noah said quietly.

“I think I do.”

The sheriff raised one eyebrow.

“You haven’t been taking care of yourself, and what would Stiles say to me if he came back and saw you living like this?”

“He could say a lot of things, but that’s not your problem and it’s not really my problem.” Noah tried to sound positive, when he felt anything but. “Want to tell me what really brought this on?”

“Maybe.”

“Scott.” He made his voice firm.

“I have a choice to make, and I came here to see how you were doing, because I’ve taken you at your word that you were fine, but in a way, you’re very like Stiles. You don’t like it when people worry about you.”

“I’m a grown man.”

“Grown men need people, too.”

“I’ll let you know when I need it. By the way, how the hell did you get in here?”

“Window in the upstairs bedroom is unlocked.”

“How … right, werewolf.” Noah chuckled. “So, this decision you have to make. What’s it about?”

Scott hesitated and then pulled out the chair opposite. He sat down heavily. “It’s about Stiles.”

The sheriff’s heart beat faster. “You have a lead?”

“No. I have a possible means to get a lead. There’s a group of people who might be able to help me find him, but they’re not good people.”

“We haven’t had a single clue about Stiles on the local, state or federal level.” The sheriff said it heavily. “Who are they that you think they could do more?”

“They’re mad scientist who blend technology and the supernatural.”

“Mad scientists.” The sheriff blew air through his lips. “Why not? But I have to ask, are you sure they’re for real?”

“Peter told me all about them. The Hales have tangled with them before.”

The sheriff frowned. “Well, if Peter said so.”

“I know, but he’s been different since I made him pack.”

Noah’s frown increased.

“You know what? That’s not good enough for me. Go over everything you have again, from the top.”

Stiles flipped a page in the book he was reading. It’s not that the book wasn’t holding his interest. It was a very good book, it’s that the pleasant warmth of the sun on his feet, the gentle caress of the wind on his face, the whispering lull of a quiet ocean, threatened to send him into a mid-afternoon siesta.

He wasn’t fighting it.

He had carried a folding chaise lounge, a big umbrella and a cooler to a part of the beach out of sight of the entrance to the Hydra base. At the northernmost point of Samana Cay, the Atlantic stretched, indomitable and blue, as far as his eyes could see. He was alone except for sea birds and the susurrus of waves.

In what was a new development, Stiles found he liked being alone once in a while. Solitude had been torture when he had been only human. Being alone, even for a little bit, had always reminded him of the silent days after his mother had entered the hospital for the final time, when his house had become a pre-emptive tomb. Back then, he had felt so small, so trapped, by the absence of life. He had felt so vulnerable even when no one was there because no one had been there. As soon as he could and as often as he could, he had filled his world with sound, with action, with Scott.

Now, he had centuries of memories to dig around in, and those feeling of vulnerability had vanished. He could spend a little time alone and not feel abandoned. Honestly, periods of solitude had become somewhat of a necessity. The nogitsune’s sense of people’s weaknesses, of the holes in their souls, remained always on, much like a werewolf’s sense of smell. It had never bothered the fox because the nogitsune lacked even the smallest bit of empathy for its food. Stiles had become something new, something different, and new ways had to be found to live. Coupled with his supernatural sense of the void, he still possessed empathy.

That could get pretty burdensome if you happened to sit next to a colleague who was falling apart inside.

Alone, he could relax. Indeed, he dozed off, the copy of The Goldfinch sliding out of his lap and onto the sand. On reflection, it was both strangely normal and strangely refreshing. Too bad it couldn’t last.

The technician wasn’t a commando, so he didn’t get within 100 feet before Stiles was awake. With a sigh, he turned his head to watch the person and mourn his lack of telepathic mind control with which he could defend his privacy. “I guess that members of Hydra don’t understand what the phrase afternoon off means.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you have a priority call from the Hydra Council.”

Stiles stood up quicker than he wanted to. “Did they tell you what they wanted?”

“Yes, sir, they want to talk to you.”

Stiles frowned at the man's banality and gestured shortly toward his beach gear. “Clean this up.” Still clad in a Hawaiian shirt, Stiles began the long walk back to the facility. Authority had its perks, but it also had its drawbacks, one of them being responsibility. He didn’t bother to change when he got to the Department of Occult Armaments’ control center. It would be delightfully insubordinate, appearing before them with a pair of sunglasses hanging on a cord around his neck, cargo shorts and flip flops, and a dab of zinc oxide on his nose.

“I enjoy that you always try your best to make a good impression.” A sardonic Ranefer commented without looking up from her reports.

“Glad for an opportunity to put a smile on your face. Why couldn’t you do this?”

“They asked for you, specifically.”

“Wonderful.”

The communication pods activated and the faces of six members of the Council appeared, reduced to three-dimensional silhouettes. Stiles smiled widely at the overelaborate contradiction. How much money did they spend on a system that would purposefully show redacted images? It was a fundamental weakness in Hydra that the higher up you went in the chain of command, the less trust there was.

“Did we interrupt your day at the beach?” Even through the distortion, Stiles recognized the Secretary of the World Security Council.

“Duh.” He might obey, but he wasn’t going to bow and scrape to them, and they knew it. “What do you need?”

Another person spoke, one that Stiles didn’t recognize. “Do you speak Chinese?”

Stiles answered in perfect Cantonese that he did indeed know. It had taken him 30 years to learn it in the 14th century, but it had been worth it.

“We need you to go to Hong Kong.”

“Okay.” Stiles wondered what exactly had gone wrong that they were coming to him.

“Project Centipede has had astounding success with augmenting a pre-existing enhanced named Chan Ho Yin. He was a street magician with low-level pyrokinetic powers.”

Stiles watched as the full information files arrived digitally. “But …”

“We’ve lost contact with the Hong Kong facility.”

“Of course you have. What do you want me to do about it?”

The voice, who Stiles still couldn’t recognize, hesitated. The other Hydra leaders seemed disgruntled at the whole situation.

“There’s a special investigative team on its way to the site. At this juncture, using other SHIELD-based assets has been deemed an unacceptable risk.”

Stiles smirked. “You want someone to make sure no one finds anything that points to your little takeover. I’m not a cleaner.”

Pierce finally spoke again. “We’re entering a delicate phase in Project Insight. Most of the people we trust to take care of this are directly connected to SHIELD, but not you. You speak the language and generating chaos is your specialty.”

“I have my own projects.”

“Which don’t need your direct supervision,” chided Pierce. “There will be a plane there in forty-five minutes.”

The fox sucked on his teeth. “You’re going to make it worth my while?”

“Of course,” answered Von Strucker, finally speaking. “What do you want?”

“A status report on my father.”

Von Strucker smirked. “Easily done. Don’t underestimate the SHIELD team. It’s run by Fury’s right-hand man.”

“Maria Hill’s pretty butch, but I’m sure she’s a woman.”

No one on the Council found it funny.

“Okay, okay. Tough crowd. I’m on my way. Anything else, oh wise and powerful overlords?”

The Council vanished from the screens in answer.

Stiles picked up his tablet. “Well at least I’ll have reading for the trip. How am I supposed to take someone named Phil seriously?”

Dr. Ranefer shrugged.

“You’re a fat lot of help. Try not to burn the place down while I’m gone.” He marched down to his quarters, sliding the tablet under his arm.

So much for a day in the sun.

Television shows always made attics seem like they’re gateways to the past. The light was always soft and indirect. Dust floated prettily in its beams, and it never got in your eyes or your throat or your hair. They forgot that attics are either frigidly cold or stiflingly hot. The mustiness was presented as if it were airborne nostalgia and not irritating mold.

But they weren’t completely wrong. It might not be as comfortable as the dramas made them out to be, but they could open the door to a lot of memories.

Scott sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at, of all things, a game of Risk. The box itself was dented and creased, as if someone — or several someones — had accidentally sat on it. Leaning forward, he took it off the shelf and put it on the rough wood floor. The clear plastic boxes held all six colors, even though there weren’t as many red or blue pieces as there should have been.

Stiles had always played blue. Scott had always played red.

One particularly bad winter, Scott had caught a respiratory infection. The doctors had been very concerned that he might develop asthmatic bronchitis, so they prescribed strict bed rest. He would miss two whole weeks of school — the last two weeks before Winter Recess — so, in total, he would be confined to his bed for four full weeks. He was bored out of his mind by day two.

He didn’t know how he could have managed it without Stiles. Every day, every single day, Stiles would come over after school. He'd bring the work Scott had to do from his teachers, though Stiles would often do some of it for him when he had time at school. After all, the more Stiles finished, the more they could hang out. He’d tell Scott all the gossip, update him on Lydia Martin sightings, and describe in great detail all the stupid stuff Greenberg and Jackson and Mrs. Parkman, the social studies teacher they both hated, had pulled. He’d act it out, with great exaggerated gestures, pretending that he wasn’t trying to make Scott laugh.

Then they’d play Risk.

Scott usually won. Stiles would take the early lead, because he was aggressive and clever. He’d see an opening and he’d go for it, without fear. Stiles's problem always seemed to be how much he’d overextend his armies. In a mad gamble, he’d take Asia and Europe, but the next turn would see Scott take enough of it back so Stiles couldn’t profit by holding them. All Scott had to do was wait, and he’d eventually win.

It’d piss Stiles off to no end. He’d sulk for five minutes and then be back to normal.

But he still came over and played every day. And he’d still get mad every day when Scott beat him at Risk.

Of course, they tried to play other games. Stiles was better at them, and when they played them, Stiles would usually win. So, Stiles wouldn’t suggest them again. He’d pretend he didn’t like the games he won, no matter how much Scott said it was okay to play them.

“So, let’s play Risk,” Scott whispered, running his hand over the board.

He heard his mother coming up the wooden ladder into the attic. He quickly put the pieces away and the lid back on the box. He didn’t know why he was trying to hide it. He had wanted to talk to her anyway.

“Scott? Are you up here?”

“Yeah.”

His mother took a few steps up into the place. “You didn’t turn on the light.”

“Don’t need it.”

“How can you … oh, right.” She chuckled and found her way around the boxes. “What’s wrong, honey?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, not buying it.” She came around and sat down on an old steamer trunk. Scott didn’t know what was in it.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

Melissa hesitated before contradicting him. “You have this habit, when you’re really upset but you don’t know what to do, of hiding.”

“I don’t hide.”

“Okay, that’s not the best word for it. You isolate yourself. I’ve found you in the basement, in your closet, up here. One time you started cleaning out the shed in the back yard without me asking you to. I’m your mother — I notice these things.”

Scott looked at her, sitting there in the dim light. He shrugged in answer.

“So, what’s wrong?”

“It’s about Stiles.”

Melissa tried to hide the concerned sigh. She had once or twice tried to get him to go to the school's guidance office. She had even talked to Alan about the possibility of finding a professional to talk to him. He had promised, at the least, to refer Scott to his sister if he couldn’t find anyone else who could fill the bill as a grief counselor.

Scott had stubbornly, if politely, refused. He didn’t need a grief counselor because Stiles wasn’t dead.

“I may have found a way to find him.”

Melissa fought to keep the look of disappointment from her face. “A new one?”

“Yeah.” Scott clasped his hands in front of him. “I know what you’re thinking, but it might really work.”

His mother didn’t say anything.

“Everyone I’ve talked to thinks there’s a good chance that these people can help me find Stiles and whoever took him.”

“Then why are you upset?”

Without going too deep into the story or giving any unnecessary details or even giving the Dread Doctors’ names, Scott told his mother what Theo had said, what Peter had said, and what Noah had said.

Melissa folded her hands into her lap. She was worried; he could smell it.

“I don’t know what to do, Mom.”

“Yes, you do.” Melissa said. “You told me about sophomore year, about how you couldn’t stay out of the fight between Derek’s pack and the Argents, even though it cost you Allison, because you couldn’t just sit by and do nothing, no matter how much you loved her.”

“I …”

“You’ll make the right decision. I believe in you.”

“Fox?” The pilot spoke over the intercom.

“Yes?” Stiles looked up from the briefing file in front of him.

“We’ll be coming in for a landing at Hong Kong in thirty-five minutes.”

“Thank you.” Stiles rotated on the seat to face the four-man squad behind him. He loved doing that — he had dreamed about doing it as a child — so he could feel the impish smile on his face. “Okay minions, nap time’s over. Get dressed.”

The squad stirred to wakefulness. One of them, who had been mostly awake already, muttered about them not being minions.

“Oh, but you are.” Stiles spun the seat around. He picked up the folder that had been waiting for him on the plane.

He opened it up. It was a medical report on Noah Stilinski. It had been quickly compiled from his father’s most recent check-ups, hospital stays, and eye-witness testimony. While he understood most of it, there were helpful notes from SHIELD doctors on the more esoteric parts of the report. Noah was healthy enough for a law enforcement officer his age who didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, exercised moderately and endured normal levels of stress. There was no sign of long-term effects from the events of 2012, neither Matt’s blow to his head or being kidnapped by a Darach.

Stiles threw the folder down on the table, suddenly unhappy.

Hours ago, the quinjet had flown over California, though nowhere near Beacon Hills. It had been the closest he had been to his father in over a year. He had carefully avoided any missions that would take him anywhere near the most populous state in the Union. It was stupidly irrational. California was huge; the chance of running into someone he knew was infinitesimal, and he had the power to easily fix it should it actually happen. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to go there.

In the end, Stiles didn’t know if he would have had the will to avoid going home if he had been that close.

His musings were mercifully interrupted by the soft alert of a communication link. Stiles checked to see if it was from the Centipede Base.

“This is Fox.” He answered the phone a little dramatically.

“When are you going to get here?” The voice was female; Stiles didn’t know her.

“We’re thirty minutes out.”

She cursed on the other end of the line.

“Is there something the matter, doctor?”

“SHIELD has infiltrated the building!”

Stiles made a pfft sound. “So, you’ve lost control of the situation.”

“No!” The woman protested futilely. “Everything is under control.”

“Sure it is. We’ll be there soon. Try not to get arrested by then, okay?”

The doctor hung up the phone.

Stiles closed his eyes. If the SHIELD team led by Coulson had already found the laboratory, the plan he had run by his superiors wasn’t going to work. He needed to change the dimensions of the situation. This was his element, after all, improvisation.

“Okay, boys, you’re benched.”

There were protests; they had endured a long flight here.

“Settle down, minions. The free-range task force and SHIELD Hong Kong’s task force units are already in place. Even masked, you guys are still SHIELD agents, no matter what your extra-curricular activities. Going into a situation like that violates operational parameters. I’m going in alone.”

“That’s stupid,” said one guy with whom Stiles had never worked before.

“Oh.” Stiles batted his eyelashes at the man. “Your concern for me is overwhelming, Mingus.”

“It’s Minge,” snapped the guy. After a nervous second. “Sir.”

“Thank you for the correction, Mingus, and as much as I’m touched by your thoughts for my wellbeing, this has turned from recovery operation to an interdiction. I’m going there to salvage what can be salvaged and destroy what can’t, and while doing that I don’t need you four getting made by surveillance.” He popped up from his seat. “I’m going to give the pilot new instructions, so meanwhile one of you strapping young men need find me a parachute. Oh, and Mingus?”

“Yes, sir?”

“If you ever call me stupid again, your intestines will decorate the tree at the D.O.A.’s next holiday party. Capiche?”

It took Stiles maybe five minutes to work out a new flight plan, one making it likely the plane wouldn’t even be seen, protecting this part of SHIELD from that part of SHIELD. They’d buzz a relatively open — for Hong Kong, at least — industrial park not two blocks from the Centipede facility. He’d take a commercial flight back.

The gleaming lights of Hong Kong spread out in front of them. Stiles had spent the last few minutes before their revival reviewing not only the map of the area but also the memories in his head of a previous possession — a member of the Teishin Shudan. It had been his last host before Corporal Rhys and his unfortunate imprisonment. He had never thought that these learned skills would come in handy, but here he was.

Landing in the dark in the middle of one of the most densely populated cities in the world was easier than he had imagined. Enhanced agility helped with that. He ditched the parachute and sprinted down the nearest road to the Centipede building, slowing when he only got close to it. Operations were already under way — he could feel the strife from here. He should move closer, get an eye on things, figure out what was going on, and how to manipulate the situation.

Not doing that would be simpler.

It occurred to him, like a brick to the head, that neither part of him wanted anything to do with this operation. Hydra needed him; he didn’t need Hydra. He could walk away, easy blending among the 55,000 Caucasians in Hong Kong. He could go so deep into the community that they could waste years and never find him.

In the distance, a torrent of fire roared into the sky from the roof of the building. Stiles felt an echo of pain from even this distance — someone had come to a bad end.

That could be him. He stood in the alleyway, the sound of sirens in the distance. He could make a bad end.

“Make a decision.”

He could leave right now, and if he didn’t want to stay in Hong Kong, he could make his way back to California. He could pretend he was Just Stiles, since he could pretend with the best of them, and now that he was one creature instead of two. He could see his dad. He could see Scott and the pack. He could.

He could also destroy them.

“Make a damn decision.”

He took a deep breath and strode forward into the darkened alleys surrounding the facility. He’d find any Centipede operatives and get information from them as to what happened here.

Scott stood in the backroom of the animal clinic on a Sunday morning. There was a duffel bag on the floor, packed with things for a trip. Everything was in place for what he had to do.

He had sat down with the pack and explained what he was hoping to do. He had gone over things with his mother, the Sheriff, and Mr. Argent. He didn’t have to do that. It would have been easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission.

But he did it anyway. That was the way he wanted to run his pack. He was completely capable of acting unilaterally, because sometimes you had to make those decisions, but this wasn’t one of them.

Of course, he had anticipated the objections. He shared the entire story of the Dread Doctors that he had gotten from Peter. The objections had ranged from sullen outrage from Cora that he would even consider using the Doctors to find Stiles, to a long and exhaustive list of the tactical difficulties as presented by Allison. He had never put his foot down, never raised his voice, and he had compromised as much as possible.

For him, the risk was worth the reward. He had been able to convince Allison, Isaac, Lydia, and the twins that he wasn’t going into this blind, and that he appreciated how much they wanted to protect them. He had apologized to the Hales enough about using the monsters that killed their father that Derek had finally sat him down and promised that he wasn’t offended.

Everything was ready, even if he still wasn’t sure of the particular path of action he had reached.

He turned to his boss, who was standing in the doorway. “You haven’t said anything.”

Deaton was unruffled. “What do you want me to say?”

“Tell me that what I plan to do is the right thing.”

“I can’t do that, and I am sorry about that, but there’s too much I don’t know. I don’t know about the Dread Doctors. Talia never told me about them, the same way she never showed me the Nemeton nor did she tell me she cut it down. I don’t know if you’re strong enough to do what you plan to do.”

“Why do you think she didn’t tell you?”

“I can only speculate. Maybe she was ashamed? Maybe she didn’t want to relive that particular part of her life again? Maybe she didn’t know how. Many times, people are suspended between alternatives, none of which are totally good and none of which are totally bad.”

Scott glanced to the ground. “How do you decide in that case?”

“You have to choose what is important to you. Is it that the least number of people get hurt or the greatest number of people get helped? And act accordingly.”

Scott frowned again. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”

“No one does.” Deaton said amiably.

Scott looked at his hands. “I have to do this. This might be a trap.”

The veterinarian didn’t answer him. They had gone over this already.

Before he could continue, Theo came in, offering a thin smile. Here it was: his last chance to back out.

“You ready?” Theo asked.

“I’m ready as I’ll ever be.” Scott answered. “But there is one more thing we gotta do before we go.”

Theo shrugged. “Of course.”

“It won’t take long. Can you grab my bag?”

Theo bent down to pick him up and Scott stepped up behind him and wrapped an arm around his head. Before Theo could do more than cry out, Scott plunged his claws into the back of Theo’s neck.

Chapter Text

October 12, 2013

Few would be able to call the cell comfortable; it was only four yards by four yards. The light fixtures were enclosed in heavy, unbreakable plastic, but the cases had yellowed with age, casting the whole room in a grimy light. There was a table, bolted to the concrete floor, a toilet in one corner, a wooden chair, and a narrow bed. It was all thoroughly and depressingly institutional.

Scott felt a little sick to his stomach, but he didn’t have much choice. It was the best call for everyone involved, especially for the person who would have to occupy that cell.

“Don’t leave me in here,” Theo pleaded from behind the bullet-resistant polycarbonate wall. The chimera had been stoic until this point, acting as if none of this mattered to him, but when the door shut on his cell, he broke.

“What else do you expect me to do?”

Theo stared at him like a trapped animal, like a deer on the other end of a rifle scope, and Scott dug his claws into his own hands.

“I don’t know.” Hope had left Theo’s voice.

Dr. Fenris locked the cell door, leaving Scott's childhood friend trapped inside. Scott didn’t look away, didn’t pretend that this was anything but horrible. He didn’t feel triumphant; he couldn’t fight the urge to explain himself. “You were a spy, sent to lure me to my death so your masters could destroy my pack and employ the Nemeton to do something so secret they wouldn’t even tell you what it was.”

“I can help you, Scott. You need to know what they’re doing; I can find out for you.”

“Are you serious? What do you think they’ll do if I send you back to them?” Scott shook his head. He wouldn’t want to be in Theo’s position ever, but it would be folly to try to use him as a double agent.

Theo didn’t answer Scott’s questions, but his face fell. He offered, quietly, so quietly even Scott couldn’t hear it. “I can leave. I’ll leave town.”

“I saw in your mind what the Doctors do to chimera they think are failures, and I promise you, I’m not going to let them hurt you, and I’m not abandoning you in here. You’re going to get the help you deserve; I’ll make sure of it. The Doctors are ruthless murderers, and I can’t protect you out there, because I can’t trust you out there. Not yet.”

Theo’s face contorted between hope, fear, and anger. He lashed out. “You can’t hold me here. You can’t prove I’ve done anything wrong, and you can’t charge me with any crime.”

Scott didn’t take the change in tactics personally. He might try anything to get out of being imprisoned as well. He had readied an answer ready should Theo try that tactic. “You don’t want to push that argument, Theo, because if you do, Sheriff Stilinski will start an investigation into what happened to your family, especially your sister. What do you think will happen when we exhume your sister’s body and prove that you received an unnecessary heart transplant? You’ll find yourself right back here, only then you will be committed with the full authority of the State of California.”

Dr. Fenris shook his head in disdain. “Such monsters in this world.”

Scott pulled Dr. Fenris away as Theo sat dejectedly down on the bed. When they were finally far enough away that he was sure Theo couldn’t hear him, Scott set his jaw and spoke with what he hoped was his most commanding voice. “I want you to understand, he is to be treated like a victim and a patient, not a criminal.”

Dr. Fenris lifted an eyebrow. “You’re a little young to be giving ultimatums.”

“It’s not ultimatum. It’s a promise — I’ll use whatever influence I have to make sure he’s treated well.” Scott spoke with earnest conviction. “He was my friend, once, and they took him, and they turned him into that. He needs help, yet all I’ve really done for him now is put him in a cell.”

“I think you’re selling yourself a little short. Mr. McCall. I know only a little of what has happened. Between what Alan and the sheriff have told me, you could have been a lot rougher on him than putting him in here. I don’t think you have done anything about which you should be ashamed. You’ve examined the alternatives, and you’ve prioritized his health, both physical and mental, when no one would hold you culpable if you didn’t. But now, you have to trust me; in a way, I’m a little offended that you feel you have to ask me to treat him well. The staff has only begun to start diagnosing him, but from what you’ve told me, those Doctors may have been manipulating this boy since he was nine. Yes, Eichen House has experienced some bad times in our past, but we’re still a hospital designed to help people. We’ll take good care of him.”

They stopped at the entrance to the supernatural ward. At Dr. Fenris’ nod, two orderlies began replacing the mountain ash framework in the caged doors, sealing the place so supernatural entites would have serious trouble getting out ... or getting in. Even as the protections were put back into place, Scott could smell anxiety coming off of Dr. Fenris.

“Is there something else wrong?”

The doctor hesitated, but he finally pursed his lips and nodded. “I spoke of bad times here at Eichen. Have you ever been told about Dr. Gabriel Valack, either by Alan or by his sister?”

Scott searched his memory. “I haven’t heard anything about him.”

“Eleven years ago, Dr. Valack was Director of this facility. Now he’s an inmate.”

“Do I want to ask why?”

“He conducted highly unethical experiments on our supernatural patients, both those in the violent ward and those in the general population. These experiments were almost always fatal.”

Scott frowned and looked back in the direction of where he had left Theo.

“I won’t allow things like that to happen again, Mr. McCall. But you have to know that the purpose of the experiments was to study the nature of supernatural powers, much like you’ve told me these Doctors are trying to do. Dr. Valack not only temporarily increased the powers of his patients, but he also managed to … gift himself with extrasensory powers.”

“What? How?”

“He possesses … or believes he possesses … precognition, clairvoyance, and retrocognition. He also can generate illusions on a small scale and exposure to his abilities have been known to put people into psychically induced comas.” Dr. Fenris looked like he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “He performed trepanation on himself.”

“You know,” Scott said, “if I hadn’t been bitten by a werewolf last year and watched the Avengers defeat an alien invasion in New York, I might think you were trying to play a joke on me. How do you contain someone like that?”

“Very carefully. Half-an-hour before you contacted me for help with Mr. Raeken, he sent me a message through an orderly.”

“What did he want?”

“To talk to you. He didn’t tell the orderly, though he did say it was very important. My intermediaries report he won’t say anything more to anyone but me or you, and by my own rules, I’m not allowed to be in a room with Dr. Valack, as I’m one of the few people who can order his release. It’s a precautionary measure.”

Scott felt that old familiar feeling that he was about to be in over his head. “How does he even know my name?”

Dr. Fenris shrugged. “He has psychic powers?”

Scott took a minute to think about it, but he knew better than to turn down an offer of help, even if it was from some deranged therapist. He told Fenris he would go see this doctor and so received a run down in etiquette from the head of the institution. The primary points were easy. Do not cross the line. Do not look him in the eye. His third eye. Scott missed the days he would have shuddered at the idea of a third eye, but it’s nothing compared to what he had seen so far.

The imprisoned doctor had pulled a full Hannibal Lecter, waiting for Scott at full attention as the alpha entered the room at the end of a long way. The man seemed dignified, even dressed in the casual clothes the facility allowed him and wearing a bandaged wrapped around his head. He tilted his head slowly to one side and then tilted it in the other direction, as if fascinated by a truly grotesque specimen.

“Not quite what I expected.”

“I thought you could see the future.” Scott challenged, feeling more comfortable in aggression. “Shouldn’t you have seen us meet already?”

Dr. Valack smirked. “The future is not always perfectly clear, even when I do get a significant glimpse at it. There’s always a little wiggle room that I have to take into account. Honestly, seeing what has happened and what is happening is far easier.”

Scott tried to seem unconcerned. “You told the director you wanted to see me.”

“Yes, I did. It's good to know that someone of even his limited intellectual ability is up to the simple a task as delivering a message. If I felt you would have received it without editing, I would have been more forthcoming but some things are best done face to face, you know. The Dread Doctors are here.”

Scott nodded, slowly.

“You managed to avoid their trap. Bravo.” Valack slowly clapped.

“Why do you care?”

“When they laid a snare for me, I didn’t succeed in avoiding it. As a consequence … well, you see where I am now.”

“You aren’t in a cell because of the Doctors, you’re in a cell because you drilled holes into people’s heads.”

“True, yet why do you think I did that? It certainly wasn’t for an article I would be capable of publishing in the New England Journal of Medicine.”

The alpha shrugged.

“Power, Mr. McCall; I experimented on those people to cultivate power. Power, after all, is the only thing that really matters in this world. Above all, that is the most important lesson the Doctors taught me. At first, I wanted to develop powers of my own.” He touched his bandage. “But that wasn’t sufficient. They were still stronger than I was, and I needed an edge to gain my revenge against them.”

Scott sagged; it was the same old story. “Why?” It wouldn’t matter, but he had to know.

“They ruined me. I was an academic at the top of my field, once. I was on the tenure track at a prestigious university. Then they came to me, and they teased me with arcane knowledge beyond my imagination. Yet once they used the resources I could bring to them, they tried to erase my memory of their presence and vanish completely, leaving me to suffer indignity and disgrace when I attempted to use what I had learned.”

The alpha forced down a sharp retort. He had listened to so many people natter on about revenge that he knew it wouldn’t do any good to try to stop him.

“Power has come to define my life, much in the same way it has come to define your life, isn’t it? You didn’t have any until Peter Hale forced it upon you. Ever since, you’ve gained more and more power without ever really wanting it. Now you have more than almost anyone you know. How much more will you accumulate in the years to come?”

“I don’t care about that, and I don’t care about your personal history or philosophy. Did you actually have something important to say to me or were you just bored?”

Valack tsked at Scott's impatience. “Of course, I have something important to say. Trapped in here, I didn’t think the knowledge I had me any good, until I watched you almost fall to the Doctors’ schemes. You see, you don’t need to use their arcane technology, alpha; I can tell you exactly how to find what’s left of Stiles Stilinski.”

A growl pushed itself out of Scott’s throat at the warning.

“Oh my, what big teeth you have. Believe me, I will tell you exactly when and where you will find him.”

“And what do you want in return?”

“Oh, I’ve already told you what I want. I want the Dread Doctors to be defeated. You’re going to do it for me.”

Scott shook his head. “I don’t kill for anyone.”

“My dear boy, I didn’t say kill. I said defeat. I want them beaten, I want their century-old plan foiled, and I want them to live — if what they do is called living — with the knowledge that they will never accomplish their great ambition. I want them ruined, like they ruined me.”

“Why should I believe you? You’re trying to use Stiles just like they tried to use Stiles to lure me into a trap.”

Valack pouted. “That’s a fair point. Then let me give you a free sample to prove my sincerity. Right now, Stiles Stilinski is in Hong Kong, talking to a very attractive woman. You’ll never get there in time before he’s moved on, but there is a way you can verify what I’m telling you.”

Scott forced himself to stop the transformation. He had to get a grip. “Go on.”

“You need to talk to someone named Phil Coulson in about sixteen hours.” The inmate chuckled.

“I don’t know who that is.”

Valack gave him a phone number. “When you call it, ask Mr. Coulson how the girl in the flower dress got away.”

October 13, 2013

The only name that Stiles had been given for the woman he watched from the shadows of the alleyway was Raina. She was a scientist working for Hydra’s Centipede Project and while officially not part of the command structure of the Hong Kong facility, she was a key asset that the council wanted to preserve. According to her file, she had a tactical mind, a winning way with words, and the ruthless efficiency of a true fanatic.

It didn't take him long tos pot her. She was moving as quietly and as quickly as she could while dragging around a cart of medical supplies. On the other hand, she was moving as quietly and as quickly as she could while dragging a heavy cart of medical supplies, which was not the best idea while trying to dodge patrols of local S.H.I.E.L.D. agents through the alleyways of Hong Kong.

She was going to get caught. While the agents pursuing her weren’t idiots, they were going to find her and arrest her. That he couldn’t allow.

Raina looked around the corner of the alley, judging if she could get across the street without being spotted. She realized she couldn't. If she moved from this position without assistance, she would be taken.

“You know,” Stiles said casually, allowing himself to emerge from the darkness behind her, “I think you would be doing a lot better if you left that stuff behind.”

The woman turned on him, panic in her eyes which she instantly locked away. The only thing remaining on her face was cool appraisal and a naturally persuasive charm. “I didn’t see you there.”

“You didn’t seem me there, because I didn’t want you to see me there, Raina.” At the use of her name, something minute shifted in her eyes. Only a few people, including Stiles, would ever have noticed it.

“Who would you be?”

“Fox.” It was his codename. “I’m here to make sure you make your departing flight from Hong Kong.”

“I’m glad.” She offered him a brilliant smile. “I wasn’t sure if I would make it, honestly.”

“Well, certainly not lugging something around a cart full of what looks like blood.”

Raina moved slightly, keeping her body between him and the canister. “This material is far more important than I am. If you have to choose, make sure this gets away.”

Stiles raised both eyebrows. “What is it?”

The woman frowned.

“Apple juice?”

Her frown grew wider.

“Jose Cuervo 1800 Gold?”

She rolled her eyes.

“The remains of Jimmy Hoffa. Come on, I gotta know.” She went to protest, so Stiles let a hint of 1000-year-old menace drop into his voice. “I have to know.”

Raina recalculated in an instant and smoothly adjusted her attitude. She was very, very good. “It’s a stabilizing agent for the Centipede cocktail. Platelets extracted from a pyrokinetic.”

“All right.” Stiles imagined that would be very important to some people. “When I cause a distraction, you will go down to that main thoroughfare and hail a taxi. I’ll be right behind you.”

“A distraction?”

“Yup.” Stiles said, popping the p. He walked into the middle of the street as he left Raina behind. He saw two SHIELD agents near an all-night store and three more back near what used to be the Hong Kong Centipede facilities. Even though no one could sense his tails unless he allowed it to happen, he began to rub them together. While he wasn’t a thunder kitsune like Kira, all of his species had some ability to channel foxfire. Personally, he was particularly good at introducing chaos into electrical systems, such as the entire power grid for this city block.

The thing about foxfire and kitsune is that they’re not really a separate thing. It's not a tool or something they gain. The energy that people like Noshiko and Kira and now Stiles channeled was simple another part of their body. Young kitsune weren’t even aware of their ability to do it, like a muscle they hadn’t learned to use. It was why the nogitsune had Barrow kidnap and attempt to fry Kira with half the town’s power supply. It might have been years before she learned to manifest that part of herself -- the overwhelming thunder only she could call upon -- and the nogitsune needed it to carve a home in Stiles’ mind.

And now, here they were, or rather, here he was, two-as-one. With a little effort, he shorted out every electrical circuit in the city block, plunging the entire area into darkness, causing some chaos and a bit of strife.

With a spring in his step, he went and grabbed Raina’s cart. It was relatively light for him, as strong as he was now. A taxi was waiting at the main highway, Raina had obviously convinced the man to wait. He easily put the contents of the cart in the trunk and tossed the cart away.

In Cantonese, Stiles ordered the man to drive them to Shek Kong Airfield.

“Why there?”

“It’s the extraction point.”

Raina folded her hands in her lap. “Not the most subtle location.”

“For others, probably not. For me, it won’t be a problem.”

The woman looked toward the driver. “You know he most likely speaks English.”

“I know.” Stiles winked. “But what’s he going to do, call the National Enquirer?”

The driver’s eyes appeared in the rear-view mirror and then disappeared quickly. Stiles shrugged to himself; it was the luck of the draw.

Stiles pulled out his cell phone. “Yay.” It was still working. Sometimes, when he let his foxfire go crazy, he didn’t pay as much attention as he should, and it fried his phone. This time, he had been careful enough.

It wasn’t a simple phone, of course. He texted the quinjet to turn around and pick them up. He was excellent at misdirection, but he wasn’t going to be able to get unregistered biological material culled from unethical experiments on a commercial flight to the United States. Luckily, the quinjet wasn’t far away.

“You know, I’ve only heard of you obliquely,” Raina started. “I didn’t think you would be so young.”

“People have told me that I have a young face.”

“How old are you?”

Stiles laughed. “That depends.”

“Does it? Usually, it depends on how many years alive.”

“In my case, it’s a bit more complicated. Technically, I’m either 18 or 1,045.”

Raina’s face screwed up like she was trying to figure out if he was pulling her leg. “You’re not going to explain that, are you?”

“What’s life without a little mystery?”

It didn’t please her, and Stiles didn’t think it would. For as little time as he had been exposed to her, Raina reminded him of Lydia. She was undoubtedly intelligent, but she was careful not to seem too intelligent, trusting in people to underestimate her because she was attractive and fashionable. She had the same cool self-control and the same ability to carefully create a meticulous mask that few could see through. And, finally, she had a hunger for knowledge. He could feel in her irritation at his evasive answers. She was greedy to know who he was, but too disciplined to push it too far.

He’d have to watch her closely.

Driving through Hong Kong was an experience. The city had spent ninety-nine years curling in on itself until it was one of the most densely packed places on the earth. After it had been given back to China, the Communist authorities had integrated it with the mainland with little thought to what had been there before. As a consequence, roads were narrow and old or broad and wide. The tangled system was prone to congestion, and it took a skilled driver to get anywhere on time.

On the other hand, unless one had been prepared, it would be impossible to follow even one of the brightly colored taxis if the trial didn’t know where they were going. Stiles counted on it.

The airfield seemed deserted at this time of night. The driver pulled into the visitor’s parking lot. Stiles slid out of the back seat and went over to pay the driver. When Raina opened her mouth to speak, Stiles hushed her and handed the man five times the amount they owed. “Keep the change.” Then he went back and pulled the platelets out of the back. He slammed the lid and then waved the taxi off.

“You left your phone in the back seat,” Raina pointed out.

“That I did.”

Once the cab was gone, the quinjet landed in the darkened part of the airfield. Troopers, including Mingus, jumped into action and loaded the blood onto the plane. Stiles extended his hand to help Raina up, like he was a gentleman.

They were on board and in the air in less than five minutes.

“Lock a missile on my transponder,” Stiles ordered.

Raina looked shocked. She was, after all, a scientist and a recruiter, not a warrior.

“It’s standard practice on espionage missions not to leave any witnesses. He was dead the moment you hailed his cab.”

It took little time to blow the vehicle into little bitty pieces.

Once Stiles was sure it was done, he came back and sat back down next to her. She looked flush.

“You okay?”

“I’ve had better days,” she admitted. “I’m not as accustomed to death as you seemed to be.”

Stiles froze for one split second. It was true, but it was also not true. He had just ordered someone’s death like he had ordered curly fries at the local burger joint back home, but he had done it a thousand times before. He pushed the thought from his mind.

“Well, we all have our strengths. What’s a nice girl like you playing for a team like ours?”

She crossed her legs, coyly.

Stiles grimaced. “You’re not going to tell me what’s life without a little mystery, are you?”

“Of course not. I grew out of amateur intrigue in ninth grade. I’m spending these moments figuring out why you would like to know, what I would like you to know, and what I can get away with not telling you.”

“Oh.” Laughter bubbled up out of him. “You’re fun.”

Raina inclined her head, accepting the compliment for what it was. “I want to see the truth that lies within people. I want to see what that truth can transform them into. Hydra will assist me with that.”

“I thought you were a scientist; that sounds like poetry.”

“Science doesn’t have to be dead. It can be alive, and it can be beautiful.” She certainly sounded convincing. “We were able to bring out what was inside of Chan Ho Yin, and it was beautiful.”

“And then you drained every drop of beauty out of him.”

“The pursuit of knowledge has costs,” Raina seemed nonplussed. “Sometimes you pay it; sometimes someone else pays it. The taming of fire changed humanity’s destiny irrevocably, but I can guarantee that more than one of its discoverers got burned.”

“I would hate to see your lovely skin get burned,” Stiles suggested. He told himself that it was a little lewd, but he was eighteen years old. Hormones were hormones.

“Something tells me that’s not completely true.” She demurred. “I know a dangerous predator when I see one.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere. But that’s fine, I’ll change the topic to something more connected to our intrigue. What’s the material good for?”

“ Chan’s platelets are what rendered him fireproof. We can use it to stabilize the Extremis ingredients in the Centipede formula.”

“No more exploding minions?” Stiles joked.

“Hopefully.”

“That’s a pity; I like exploding minions. We’ll get you to safety.”

“Thank you.” Raina flashed him a genuine smile. “Will you be staying around to see what we can do with it?”

“I’m afraid not. I’ve my own plots to hatch. But I’m sure I’ll see the results of your work on the news.”

Scott sat in his living room, confronted by yet another decision that he didn’t feel he had the experience or the depth of knowledge to answer correctly. He had visited his mother at the hospital, the sheriff at the station, and Deaton at the clinic. He had talked with Chris Argent on the phone. He had stopped by and spoke with Derek and Peter at the loft. They had outlined their concerns and made their recommendations, but all of them pointed him at the same truth.

He was the alpha; in the end, it was his decision.

The rest of the pack were at school, even Aiden and Ethan. He wished he could be there right now, but he had only a narrow window of time, and that window was closing rapidly. He wished he could have talked it over with Allison and Isaac. He with he could get Malia’s instincts and Lydia’s insight, but they were busy being … teenagers. He wished he could just be a teenager once again.

But ... he was the alpha; in the end, it was his decision.

There was an ache behind his breastbone, a stubborn spike of pain that wouldn't heal. Sometimes it went away, and then he would go into his room and see a skateboard he hadn’t used since the summer before last or he’d see something clever on the internet, and he thought to himself he couldn’t just wait to share it. But the person with which he learned to skateboard, and the person he wanted to show the video to was gone. He’d been gone for months.

“Stiles,” he said to the empty house. He wasn’t quite sure why he said it. Maybe he wanted to know if he still could. Maybe, in a world with werewolves, and banshees, and kanimas, and kitsune, he could cast a spell and summon back part of the life he had lost.

The clock marched on. If he wanted to find the proof that Valack could give him, he had to make the call now. None of the people he had talked to had recognized the name, though the Sheriff had said it sounded familiar, though he couldn’t place where.

Stiles would have known who Phil Coulson was, Scott was sure of it.

And that was the last straw. Scott punched in the numbers that Valack gave him. The phone rang three times.

“Coulson.”

“Uhm. Hello. Hi, you don’t know me, but—”

“How did you get this number?”

Scott swallowed. He expected it to be a public number. “That’s a long story.”

The man’s voice was firm. “Well, you called me. Why don’t we start with your name?”

“My name’s Scott. I called because I have to ask you about something.”

“I’m sure you do.” There is a pause. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“You wanted to ask me about something?”

Scott tongue nearly stuck to the roof of his mouth. He wasn't even sure he was doing the right thing, and now he was botching it. “Yes, I did. Sorry. I’m not doing this right, but you have to trust me it’s a very long story. Yeah, well, okay: how did the girl in the flower dress get away?”

The silence on the other end was deafening. Scott waited patiently.

“I’m going to ask you how you knew about that, and I’m sure that the words I don’t want to hear is ‘it’s a long story.’”

“Mr. Coulson, I guarantee you I don’t mean any harm. If you could just tell me how that girl got away, that’s all I really need to know.”

Scott felt a bead of sweat on his lip. How much was he prepared to tell? How could he convince a complete stranger to give him what he needed?

“An entire city block in Hong Kong lost power without an explanation. I’m sure you could see about it on the news.”

Scott felt his heart drop into his stomach. Foxfire could cause a power outage. Stiles could be in Hong Kong.

“Thank you. I mean, I know this sounds ridiculous, but you helped. A lot.” Scott stuttered into the phone. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.”

“Well, Scott, we need to know more. You called a private secure line for a government agency, so —”

Scott hung up. It was probably something stupid, but he didn’t need to involve the government. All he knew he had proof.

Gabriel Valack could help him find Stiles.

Phil Coulson looked at his phone, grinned wryly, and set it down on the table. “I guess he didn’t want to talk that much.” He turned across the room to Skye. “You have the trace?”

“Yeah,” Skye tapped steadily away with the equipment. “It’s kind of ridiculously easy. This guy wasn’t using an encrypted cell phone. I’ve got him.”

The rest of the team gathered around the table.

Coulson waited patiently as Skye pulled up a map of California, and narrowed it down to a county, then a city, then a street, then a house. “He apparently called us from his living room. 821 Williamson Street, Beacon Hills, California. Scott McCall.” Skye smiled wryly and looked up at Phil. “Why would a high school senior be calling you, boss?”

“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.” He turned and left the situation room. “I’ll have May change course.”

Chapter Text

October 14, 2013

The Bus roared through the Pacific sky, hurtling above the waves and below the clouds. The Boeing C-17 was still five hours out from the California coast.

Skye was tired. She had tried to get some sleep after they had left Hong Kong, but the bracelet on her wrist felt like a ball and chain. When she closed her eyes, all she could see was the disappointed faces of people she had very much come to not want to disappoint.

Most of the team had gathered in the briefing area, before the holographic screen. Coulson, shaking his head in frustration, descended from his office, where he had just got off the communication channels with headquarters. “Okay, team, tell me what you got. Skye, you first.”

Skye stood up, taking a breath, finding the eyes of the team on her. She imagined they were all looking at the monitoring bracelet on her wrist. After the fiasco with her Rising Tide now-ex-boyfriend, she now had something to prove. Luckily, her first task had been easy.

She brought up a picture of their target along with accompanying documents. “Scott McCall. Hispanic male, age 18. Born October 6, 1995, in San Diego, California. Moved to Beacon Hills, California in 1998. He’s a senior at Beacon Hills High School, where he is fighting to maintain a 3.3 grade point average.” Tapping a button on her laptop, she brought up a picture of him in sports gear. “Despite a bad case of asthma, he used to be captain of the lacrosse team.”

Ward pressed his lips together. “That’s impressive. Lacrosse requires a lot of stamina.”

“He lives at 821 Williamson Road with his mother, Melissa Delgado McCall, a nurse at Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital. More importantly, his father is Special Agent Rafael McCall, assigned to the San Francisco Field Office of the FBI, though court records indicate that he’s a non-custodial parent.” Pictures of both parents flashed across the screen. “He works after school at the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic, and he’s applied to University of California, Davis, expressing interest in their pre-veterinary program.”

Phil crossed his arms in disappointment. “Nothing stands out. Any indication of how he might have gotten access to my personal phone number?”

“Sorry,” Skye answered. She had looked really deep to find anything. “There’s also no indication of why he would want it. I couldn’t find any connection to radical organizations or anything political at all.”

Fitz looked up from his cup of coffee. “Could his father have given it to him for some reason?”

“Since the Avengers don’t have that number, I doubt it.” Coulson studied the picture.

“All-in-all, he seems pretty average. The only black spot on his record was a restraining order issued during his sophomore year. He kidnapped a classmate and locked them in the back of a prisoner transport van as a prank. The boy’s parents refused to press charges, and they eventually dropped the resulting restraining order.”

Fitz frowned. “That’s pretty extreme for a prank.”

Skye wondered if Fitz had been pranked in school. Classmates could be cruel. “Classmates.” She said aloud.

“Something?” Coulson demanded.

“Let me check my hunch out.”

“I’m thinking about that asthma,” Simmons wondered out loud. “A high-school athlete with that disability could be easily frustrated by his inability to perform. He could be a possible recruitment candidate for Centipede.”

“I thought so, too,” Skye replied while calling up the high school student roster, “but I couldn’t find anything linking him to Centipede or Hong Kong at all.”

The group fell silent, staring at the documents, looking for anything out of the ordinary. In the middle of this, Ward received a phone call and stepped out of the room. He didn’t even glance in Skye’s direction.

Skye hunched over her laptop, frustrated with herself. “There’s got to be something we’re missing.”

“I’m sure there is.” Coulson turned to her from where he had been gazing at the board. “We just have to find it, but I’d really like to have an idea about how to approach him before we get there.”

Ward returned as if waiting for his cue. “Well, that was the Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco Field Office. Special Agent McCall will meet us on the ground at the Beacon County Airport.”

“Good. There’s our way in.” Phil turned to May. “Tell me about the city.”

The agent stepped forward and pushed Skye’s research to the side. She brought up her own set of files, all marked with SHIELD clearance stamps. “Here’s where things get more than a little interesting. Beacon Hills has had five Red Events in the last three years, it has a 0-8-4, and — I double checked this — it has a Black Flag.”

That news put a frown on Coulson’s face, a look of surprise on Ward’s face, and twin excited glances for FitzSimmons. Skye looked around, lost. “What’s a Black Flag? What’s a Red Event?”

“I fail to see the point of meeting here,” Gideon Malick looked over the Potomac from the open-air restaurant on the roof of the Watergate Complex. “We’re exposed.”

“What’s the point of taking over the world if you don’t get to enjoy yourself?” John Garrett pulled out a chair and sat while reaching for the drink menu.

“The restaurant is secure,” Baron Von Strucker promised. “The guards are ours; the wait staff are ours. The kitchen staff know only that they’re being paid very well.”

Gregory Belial took a seat at the table with much less gusto than Garrett had. None of the others paid him any attention.

“Still, it’s an unnecessary risk.” Malick emphasized.

“The point, gentlemen,” said Secretary Pierce, who had a knack in always being the last to arrive, “is perspective. What we’ve accomplished.” He gestured to the Triskelion, looming across the river. “What we haven’t accomplished. What we can do, and what, as of yet, we cannot.” He was carrying a high-end tablet which he set up at one of the place settings, screen facing the others. “Let’s eat before we go over reports.”

The chef at this restaurant was among the best in D.C. When you tallied the cost of the meals, the wine, the cigars, and renting the whole facility for five people (and a laptop), it rivaled the cost of a family sedan. Three of the men sitting there wouldn’t remember what they had eaten by the time they woke up the next morning, one had openly snagged a bottle for the flight home, and Gregory Belial picked at his food.

After they were finished, Pierce turned on the laptop, which brought the electronic face of Arnim Zola to this meeting of Hydra leaders. They went over projections and reports. Belial carefully offered up only bland criticisms.

Pierce checked his watch. “I think we’ve been mired in the details enough for one night; let’s hear the summaries.”

Zola, whose digital face was unreadable, was the first to speak. -Given no delays, Project Insight will be ready for deployment on January 15 of next year.

“So quickly?” Malick questioned, ever cautious.

- Once construction on the helicarriers is completed, delay only increases the chance of discovery. If the other divisions are not prepared, we will have to compensate.

“Work with the artifact continues quickly,” Von Strucker remarked, not the least bit defensive. “Project Meister des Bösen has already produced two workable superhumans, which brings our count to three once you add the Department of Occult Armament’s Fox. At this rate, we’ll have a team capable of taking on the Avengers by the end of next summer.”

Belial shifted uncomfortably at the mention of his department.

Garrett guffawed. “Your PR department needs a swift kick in the pants, Strucker. What type of name is the Masters of Evil?”

“It has different connotations in German.” Von Strucker bristled. “It refers to our mastery of the Scepter and the threat it represents. It’s certainly no more ridiculous than Project Deathlok.”

“You got me there!” Garrett smirked. “I don’t care what it’s called, as long as it works. If Insight doesn’t take out all the Avengers, we’re going to need a response. They’re not going to sit down and take it.”

“No, they won’t,” Malick worried.

“Centipede and Deathlok are on schedule. Only one element remains out of our reach.” Garrett turned serious. “Once we get it, you’ll have an army of obedient super soldiers. By the way, Greg, thanks for the loaner. Fox managed to get my scientist and a key ingredient out of Hong Kong with SHIELD being none the wiser.”

Belial hated to be called by his first name, and he hated even more to be mocked, but he gritted his teeth. “It’s not a problem.” The other leaders turned to him and he continued. “Project Vargulf shows great promise, and we should be able to move against the Masters of the Mystic Arts if they propose a problem.”

“We?” Strucker queried with mock innocence. “I thought that Vargulf was Fox’s project.”

The sorcerer sat up straighter. “We’re a team.”

He was grateful that not one of the human Hydra leaders laughed in his face. Zola, on the other hand, could not contain a note of glee. - Mr. Belial, your team should be aware that I have just received confirmation that Fury’s personal task force is headed toward Fox’s point of origin.

As one, the Hydra leaders turned to stare at him. Gregory Belial took a drink from his glass of water, threw his napkin down, apologized, and left the table. No one noticed that he had left something in his seat.

“I have to say,” Grant Ward shook his head, impressed as he looked over evidence photos of the carnage. “That’s a lot of bodies in a very short amount of time in a very small city. Thirty-six in one year!”

Skye bit her tongue to keep from smarting off. Everyone kept forgetting that she hadn’t gone through the academy. “I’m still trying to figure out exactly what a Red Event is.”

Ward tapped the pictures of the animal attacks which were in the copies of the police reports that Skye had been pouring over. “Red Events are crimes, solved or unsolved, that have drawn our attention but don’t yet merit investigation. We’ve got the whole world to cover; we can’t investigate every incident that seems a little bit out of the ordinary. On the other hand, completely disregarding them would be really, really stupid. So, SHIELD maintains an indexed catalog of them just in case one could have a clue to an active investigation.”

Coulson stood across the room, hands clasped behind his back, reading an FBI interview of Arthur Kincade. He had been a bodyguard of Iehisu Katashi, a retired Yakuza leader and a victim in the fifth event. “Go over the details of the first event again. It’s got to be more important than the others, simply because it’s the first.”

“In 2006, a prominent family burned to death in their home,” May began from memory, as she had gone over each file before the briefing. “It drew SHIELD’s attention because the Hales had not only helped found Beacon Hills but they were also influential in both local and state politics. Originally thought an accident, it was later ruled to be homicide.”

“I don’t follow.” Fitz looked over May’s shoulder at the pictures of the burned down home. “What made it suspicious enough for SHIELD to notice?”

Ward brought up a picture of the burned-down mansion. “A fire like this is too complex for a spur-of-the-moment crime. This was done by professionals; if it was mistaken for an accident for so long, they were pretty talented. Something this big and this well done is nine times out of ten not a crime of passion. It could have been a politically motivated assassination.”

May continued. “At the time, fourteen family members lived in Beacon Hills. One adult, Peter Hale, survived with third degree burns over fifty percent of his body. He was comatose for six years.”

“He’s lucky to be alive. Burns that severe have a forty-three percent mortality rate,” Simmons stated while looking over the file.

“Cora Hale was presumed to be dead, but she somehow escaped the house when the others didn’t. She found refuge with friends of the family in Argentina. She was eleven years old.”

Simmons turned to May. “How does an eleven-year-old make it to Argentina?”

“No one knows. Two other survivors, Laura and Derek Hale, were not at home at the time of the fire.”

Coulson snapped his fingers. He pushed the Hale Fire to the side and then expanded another folder. “There’s not five Red Events, there’s four. The first victim of the animal killings in January of 2012 was Laura Hale. The second was the insurance adjuster for the fire. The next three victims all had prior convictions for arson.”

“Someone was covering their tracks.” Ward nodded in approval.

“Or pursuing revenge.” May continued. “The last victim of the first Event was Kate Argent, who was reputed to be the mastermind behind the fire.”

Skye blinked. “You said Argent?” She jumped to her own file, eager to impress the others. With a flourish, Skye pulled up an Instagram account. Scott McCall had pictures of Allison Argent, obviously his girlfriend. “McCall has a connection to the first two events: his girlfriend was Kate Argent’s niece. How much do you want to bet that there are more connections if we keep looking?”

The team immediately began combing through the files, looking for connections. Skye allowed herself a small smile when they responded to her suggestion. It had almost felt like normal.

The first victim of the third Red Event was the father of Scott McCall’s foster brother. The last victim was his co-captain on the lacrosse team, who survived. Scott McCall was at a party from where the first victim of the fourth Red Event was taken. He was the last person to see the fourth victim, one Kyle Trautmann, who disappeared outside the clinic where Scott works after school. His chemistry teacher was the sixth victim. His foster brother, Isaac Lahey, was seriously injured during the fifth and final Red Event.

“Well, this looks like just a bit more than a coincidence,” Coulson concluded wryly.

“It’s convenient that Mr. Belial had to leave,” Von Strucker said, not bothering to conceal his disdain. “I think that we need to take this opportunity to discuss the elephant in the room. The Department of Occult Armaments has been, for a long time, a minor part of our overall operations, mostly because of their failure to produce anything substantial that wasn’t completely beyond their control. However, as the events of the last twenty-four hours indicate, the possibilities inherent in supernatural resources could be a real advantage.”

Gideon Malick leaned back in his chair and lit a cigar. “It’s only modern leadership that has minimized the importance of the supernatural. Hydra has always known of the supernatural’s existence and importance.”

“I’m not interested in history. I’m interested in the future.” The Baron leaned forward. “I’m interested in Hydra’s triumph, and during the brief time that Fox has been with us, he has shown more ability to produce results from the Department than the last twenty years under Belial.”

“Truth be told, if it weren’t for Greg’s fuckups, I wouldn’t even have been aware that the DOA was still in existence,” Garrett snorted. “Do you know how many men I lost covering up that goddamn Bloodstorm incident? Fucking vampires.”

The general disdain that memory elicited varied among the people sitting at the table from frowns to grimaces to eye rolls.

- The casualties we sustained and resources we expended keeping the Department’s artificial vampires rebellion off SHIELD’s radar set back our plans by two and one quarter years. Zola’s disdain was quite clear. He may be proficient in the mystic arts, for all the use they are in the real world, but he is not an efficient manager.

“I have to concur,” Malick puffed on his cigar. “He lacks the vision of a true leader; he’s fascinated by power for its own sake.”

“Now this Fox. He has some potential.” Garrett poured himself another drink. “Quick on his feet. Knows how to keep his head down. And his plans have spunk.”

“They’ve gotten many of our assets killed.” Malick protested. “He has no regard for the resources he employs.”

“As I said, spunk.”

Pierce had been quiet at the head of the table. “Are you suggesting, Wolfgang, that we consider replacing Belial as head of the DOA?”

“Eventually, everyone bears the consequences of their failures.” Von Strucker took a grape from the fruit tray. “We’re coming to a crisis point in our plans, and I think it makes sense to have the most effective leader in charge of what may turn into be a crucial division.”

Pierce steepled his hands. “I foresee one problem. We can’t insure Fox’s loyalty.”

“Let’s be honest; can we insure Belial’s loyalty?” Von Strucker challenged, popping the grape into his mouth while his words sunk home. “There are many reasons for someone to become disloyal, and ambition is only one of them. Fear is another. If the sorcerer thinks he might be … retired … he could bolt to that organization based in Tibet.”

Garrett grinned around his wine glass. “You could smell the stench of his panic when he came in. He predicted this conversation.”

- It is irrelevant what that charlatan predicted. Fox is too young to be entrusted with the management of a division.

“I read his full file, Dr. Zola. In a way, he’s older than any one of us here.” Malick observed. “We’ve seen his skill in planning and personnel development. Project Vargulf will shore up one of the few weaknesses in our overall strategy — dealing with those who practice mysticism.”

- It is a mistake to overestimate Fox’s suitability for leadership. While the Scepter merged two similar personalities, the dimensional parasite was at its heart a profoundly selfish creature. The good of humanity was inconsequential to its motivations.

“But his other half was human, Zola.”

- His other half was an eighteen-year-old boy who had yet to develop a core belief structure separate from the emotional travails of adolescence. It is unknown if the bonding process has interfered with his psychological development. He is a useful asset, but to assume that he deserves a seat at this table is premature.

“I have to agree with Zola.” Pierce made it sound final. “For the time being, Belial will keep his spot as director of his department. If we have to, we’ll revisit the issue at future meetings. On the other hand, it might be wise to develop Fox so he has the ability to lead the department should it be required. Garrett, I know you’re good with developing young talent.”

“I am at that.”

“If you have time, see what you can do.”

Skye walked over to Simmons, who was busy looking over a medical report. “Do you need any help?”

Jemma looked up from the file, and Skye watched as the very edges of her mouth turned down in a barely perceptible frown. “Oh. Oh, no. This is all very technical, I’m afraid.”

Skye kept the smile plastered on her face. She could push, but she felt Coulson’s eyes on the back of her head. “No problem. Just thought I’d ask. You can only look over police reports so many times before you need a pair of fresh eyes.”

The biochemist nodded placidly, probably completely unaware of the message her body language had sent. “We should take a break.”

Unfortunately, Coulson wasn’t in the mood for a break. With a gesture, he closed the police reports on the holographic screen. “Simmons, what’s the story on the 0-8-4?”

“He’s a medical patient named Gerard Argent.”

“There’s that name again,” Skye muttered.

Jemma favored Skye with a smile. “He’s a Caucasian male, age 64. Born May 5, 1949 in Lozère, France, though he holds both United States and French citizenship. He moved to Beacon Hills most recently in February of 2012. Former president of Argent Arms.”

“I knew I recognized that name!” Ward snapped his fingers. “Argent Arms supplies firearms and weapons to nearly forty percent of all police departments in the United States. Very reliable.”

May nodded in agreement.

“Was Kate Argent related to him?” Coulson asked. He was still focused on linking all the information together.

“According to this, she was his daughter.”

“How is he an 0-8-4?” Coulson asked.

“In October 2011 he was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. That’s as terminal as cancers get. I need to take my time and study his medical records more in depth, but for him to still be alive two years later? That’s remarkable, to say the least. Usually, the only thing that you can do at that point is pain management and end-of-life care, which is exactly what his doctors prescribed.”

“Yet, he’s still alive.”

“Well, that’s remarkable but not impossible. What’s unbelievable is that his cancer has nearly disappeared without any reasonable medical treatment. He was in hospice. Instead, his body is producing black mucus that according to this report …” Jemma double checked the wording. “… drips from every available orifice.”

Fitz and Skye murmured “Ewwwwww” in unison. Fitz looked at Skye in delight and then remembered he should be mad at her and looked away.

Even Ward looked a little disgusted. “So, he took some black market medication that worked but has some pretty nauseating side effects.”

“Blood work shows no such medications,” Jemma replied. “And even with such severe side effects, a drug that could cure Stage IV Pancreatic cancer? I’d have heard about it. That’s close to being able to raise someone from the dead.”

Coulson looked away suddenly.

“It gets better. They were trying to figure out where the mucus was coming from. Analysis of the expectorant indicates that it is composed of a material similar to … wood ash.”

The boss chuckled. “I think that qualifies as an event of unknown origin. This didn’t happen to occur in 2012?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why wasn’t this investigated by SHIELD?”

“Mr. Argent refused to cooperate with SHIELD.” Jemma noted in disappointment. “He wasn’t directly involved with any of the Red Events, or any other crime for that matter, so SHIELD didn’t have the legal basis to insist on an investigation.”

Coulson looked at the picture of an old man in a wheelchair. “Any other agencies involved?”

Simmons checked. “No. He refused treatment from anyone but his own doctors and the staff of the retirement home at which he is staying. It’s his right.”

“I’m beginning to think that we’ve stumbled upon something bigger than we expected.”

Gregory Belial sat down in the back of the limousine as the driver held the door for him. “Take me to the airport.” It was a brusque command, but he did not need to be polite with the man. He had enchanted him earlier that day; why pay for help when you could command?

Without even bothering to wait to see if his instructions were being followed, he continued to listen in on the other members of Hydra. When Zola had told him of the threat to his operations, he had left immediately, but none of them had bothered to notice the small wooden orb, intricately carved to resemble an eye and covered with gnostic symbols that he had left on the chair behind him.

Not that those fools would recognize a Hag’s Eye if they saw it.

He had listened to their conversation all the way down the elevator and out to the car. He wasn’t particularly angry. He had been expecting this for some time. Part of him had been afraid that he would attend this meeting and not leave alive. It was true that the Department of Occult Armaments had not been very productive over the years he had commanded it, if you thought about things in the way the bureaucratically-bound members of Hydra’s leadership did.

Of course they didn’t understand. Science had the advantage of standing on the backs of giants and yet standing apart from those same giants. Science found the objective facts, laid them out cold and bare. A poor fisherman in Vietnam and a rich banker in Brussels obeyed — and could use — the same laws of thermodynamics.

Sorcery was different. Magic was subjective, dependent on the person through which it was focused, dependent on the task it was being set to. That’s why it was more powerful, but that was also why it was infinitely more difficult to learn and even more difficult to harness effectively. Each sorcerer had to relearn each spell for themselves, essentially recreating magic from scratch. When he had studied under the Ancient One, they had described the necessity to relearn magic from its base as the distortion of the self.

The lycanthropes had another way of putting it: The shape you take reflects the person that you are.

So it was understandable that the leadership couldn’t understand the difference between what he had learned over his longer-than-normal but still reasonable lifespan, and what the nogitsune had learned over a thousand years. If the Ancient One and her doddering band of overly moral killjoys hadn’t banned him from the great libraries the Masters of the Mystic Arts protected, who knows how advanced his magic could have been by the present day?

Instead, he had had to hunt for scraps until he was recruited by Hydra. It was certainly better than nothing, but he would never get those decades of practice and study back. And he was going to introduce the next idiot who badmouthed the Bloodstorm Project into what he had learned about death magic through it. They couldn’t even get the details right — it hadn’t been an attempt to create artificial vampires; it had been an attempt to recreate the spell that created the first vampire.

Fools.

But there was a threat he couldn’t ignore. They were going to try to groom Fox to replace him as head of the DOA. He wasn’t going to be tolerate that. What he needed to do was get rid of Fox without making it look like he was behind it. He had all he needed to continue Project Vargulf even if the void kitsune had met its end.

He picked up the phone, still listening with one ear to the conversation at the Watergate, and dialed Dr. Ranefer. He was suspicious of her as well. Fox was personable and funny and sympathetic to her stories about dead parents. In this case, it was going to come in handy.

“Doctor, I’m going to be delayed in returning.”

“Everything okay?” the researcher asked, absently.

“No. Things are afoot in Fox’s hometown. I need to go there and see to things personally.”

“Should I alert him?” Dr. Ranefer was nothing if not predictable.

“His presence may exacerbate the situation. I will leave it up to your discretion, but my gut feeling would be that we should keep this between us.”

Ranefer grunted her acceptance.

“I will see you when I get back.”

Belial hung up the phone. He was about to demonstrate how much spunk his plans could have.

“Okay, Skye, Fitzsimmons, I’m going to need you to clear the room.” Coulson turned to them regretfully.

“What?” Skye demanded.

May took Skye by the arm. “Black Flags are classified at level six and above.”

Skye made an exasperated sound and shrugged out of May’s grip. “When?”

FitzSimmons noticed this and stopped their exit as well. Skye knew them. They were probably just as curious as they were.

“What do you mean, when?” Coulson replied.

“When was it set as a Black Flag?”

May glanced at the file. “1949. One of the first thing Peggy Carter did after SHIELD was found was set up a process for recognizing and addressing threats, including those that had passed.”

Skye swallowed. “That’s what I mean. This was classified forty years before I was born.”

“Yes.” Coulson put his hands on his hips. “And?”

“And over sixty years before the Battle of New York. You classify things because you don’t want the truth to get out, but look at what we did in this room for the last hour? We found connections because we had access to all the information. This is what we do.”

May scowled at her, eyes dropping to the bracelet.

Skye sighted and pointed at Fitzsimmons. “This is what they do.” She then stood up. “No, this is what we do. I know I screwed up, but I also know that the one thing I bring to this team is a different point of view, a way of looking at the material that isn’t taught at the SHIELD Academy. I can’t help if I’m not given access.”

“It’s not up to us,” May responded.

“Actually,” Coulson said slowly, “I do have the authority to declassify materials in certain situations.”

May twisted her said to the side. “Subject to review.”

“How bad is it?” Ward walked over to the table.

“It’s bad.”

Skye had locked eyes with Coulson. She wasn’t going to plead. She wanted him to see the wisdom of letting them help.

“Go on, May.” Coulson relented. “You three can stay. I’m trusting you.”

May’s frown could freeze ice cubs, but she accepted the order. “In 1943, a temporary relocation camp had been set up to handle Japanese internees resulting from Roosevelt issuing Executive Order 9066 at Oak Creek, a neighborhood in Beacon Hills. It made use of a currently existing hospital, a mental health facility called Eichen House.”

Skye grimaced. Japanese interment was bad enough.

“Apparently, the camp physician employed some enlisted men assigned to the center as guards in a scheme to sell medical supplies on the black market. Medical supplies intended for the internees.” May summarized dispassionately.

Coulson let his head drop in disgust, while behind him, Ward rolled his eyes. Coulson gestured for her to continue. “I’m sure that I don’t want to know where this is going.”

May started putting up photographs and reports. “According to the records, there was an outbreak of pneumonia among the inmates, and as a consequence to the smuggling ring, there simply wasn’t enough medicine to combat it. Ten Japanese-Americans died in the outbreak, including a child. The internees must have discovered the doctor’s scheme and there was a riot.”

“How many died?” Simmons covered her mouth at the photographs of the dead.

“Guards opened fired on the internees. Twenty-five were killed. A half-dozen guards and nurses were also killed during the riots.”

“Welcome to the United States,” Ward smirked, “the world’s largest criminal conspiracy two centuries running.”

Coulson rewarded the agent with another glare. “I can understand why the U.S. government wanted to keep this covered up. Why did SHIELD?”

“Because of what happened the next night.” May brought up more pictures of casualties, spread throughout the camp and the neighboring mental health facility. “Someone — or something — killed every single member of the camp staff and at least a third of the internees in a single eight-hour period.”

Looking at the pictures, Ward didn’t have anything funny to say. Coulson studied the gruesome prints.

“I don’t see any sign of gunfire or weapons on the bodies.” Jemma peered at the pictures.

“That’s because whoever killed two-hundred and fifty-seven people in one night did it with their bare hands.” May brought up hastily compiled coroner reports. “According to all the forensics of the time, it had to be someone or something possessing superhuman strength.”

“Okay. That’s disturbing.”

“The S.S.R. was in the middle of prepping Steve Rogers for transformation into Captain America. They didn’t have the resources to investigate, so the military simply covered it up. They couldn’t afford the scandal of the internee deaths or the panic if the public discovered there was a monster loose in Northern California.”

Coulson stepped back. “Could this have any bearing on what happened in Beacon Hills last year?”

“I don’t think we can rule it out.”

The man in charge turned to Skye. “You wanted access, you have access. I want you to be able to connect this massacre to what’s happening now, or I want you to tell me there’s no connection.”

Skye nodded and turned to a laptop. One of her search programs had come up with an interesting bit of information. The others had begun talking about Oak Creek, so she had to get their attention. “Uhm. In the interest of full disclosure and to make sure you don’t get even angrier with me …”

Everyone in the room turned to look at her.

Skye smiled widely in an attempt to defuse the situation. “I did a search for people of interest connect to Scott McCall with information that isn’t in SHIELD’s files. I got a hit on one of Scott McCall’s teammates on the lacrosse team.” She looked for permission and Coulson nodded. “His name is Daniel Mahealani. He’s a senior.”

“Why is that relevant?” Fitz prodded.

“He’s one of the founding members of the Rising Tide.”

Ward grimaced. “Great.”

“He was out, though!” Skye protested. “He got caught hacking the FBI five years ago, so he had to quit.”

Jemma did the math. “One of the founders of your hacktivist collective was a 13-year-old boy?”

Skye nodded. “He’s really good. I was thinking …” She trailed off.

“He might have some insight on what’s going on.” Coulson concluded for her. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll meet with McCall’s father and talk to him. Ward, I want you and Simmons to visit Gerard Argent and see what you can make out of his story. May I’ll need you to visit this mental health facility and see if anyone has been poking around about Oak Creek. Skye and Fitz, talk to Skye’s contact.”

May checked the time. “We’ll be wheels down in Beacon Hills in three hours.”

Chapter Text

October 14, 2013 (Continued)

Phil Coulson had encountered people like Rafael McCall many times during his career. McCall was, by all accounts, a decent agent for the Bureau: conscientious, dedicated, and accommodating. The worst thing that Coulson had found in McCall’s personnel file was a reprimand for not taking enough vacation. McCall had never been described as a brilliant agent, but he understood the requirements of the job and carried them out to the best of his abilities. Unlike what some television shows might lead its audience to believe, it wasn’t the rebellious mavericks or quirky geniuses who made institutions work; it was agents like McCall who were the backbone of any law enforcement agency.

However, Rafael McCall’s competence as an agent wasn’t Coulson’s primary concern. It had more to do with what he had been able to read between the lines of the personnel file. McCall hadn’t taken a significant amount of time off in three years. It had been noted that McCall was willing to be on call during weekends and most federal holidays. There were no requests for leave that coincided with graduations or sports championships. Given this information and the rather significant three-hour drive between San Francisco and Beacon Hills, Coulson suspected that while the man might be a steadfast agent, he might not be all that much of a father.

Their conversation during the seven-minute ride from Beacon Hills Airport to 821 Williamson Road did nothing to dispel Coulson’s concerns. Coulson had informed McCall that his son had violated national security and asked some general questions about the young man. McCall’s answers were generic and defensive, yet without any real indication that the FBI agent was hiding anything. Rafael McCall really didn’t know his son that well.

The suburban two-story home which was their destination blended perfectly well in the neighborhood, except for the half-dozen vehicles dominating the parking out front. The esoteric mix, including a Shelby Cobra, a Camaro, two Toyotas, and two motorcycles, forced Coulson to park a little way down the block. It looked like the younger McCall might be having a meeting of his own. Coulson memorized their license plates; it was a knack he had.

In the driver’s seat of his SUV, Rafael McCall frowned at the sight, but he didn’t seem to have anything to add as they approached the front door.

Coulson had barely finished knocking when Scott McCall stepped out of the house, quickly closing the door behind him before either Coulson or his father could see inside. “Hey, Dad.”

It was the same voice from the secure line, though Coulson noted his tone was a lot less friendly when he spoke to his own father than it had been during the original call.

“Scott.” Rafael tried to draw himself up into some semblance of authority. “We need to talk to you—”

“Who’s we?”

“I’m Agent Coulson with SHIELD. I’m sure you recognize the name. You called me, and I felt that our conversation last time wasn’t long enough, so I thought I’d pay you a visit.” He watched the young man’s face shift from irritation with his father to something a little more anxious. “May we come in?”

“No.” The anxiety was immediately replaced with determination. “We can talk out here.”

“Look, Scott, it’s probably better if we do this inside.”

“I said no.”

Rafael McCall gritted his teeth. “This isn’t the time to be stubborn.”

Scott McCall shook his head. “No, but it is time for you to produce a warrant, because without one, neither of you are coming into my house.”

“I’m your father.”

Scott cocked his head to the side, as if listening to something far away. “Which now means absolutely nothing. I turned eighteen eight days ago -- not that you remembered -- which means you no longer have the right to speak for me in legal situations.”

Rafael McCall let out a long, frustrated sigh.

“Look, Scott … may I call you Scott?”

The young man nodded.

Coulson glanced back at the cars. “It looks like we’re interrupting something.”

“Maybe you are and maybe you aren't. Unless you can magic up a warrant or present probable cause that a law is being broken right this instant, you’re not going to find out.” Scott crossed his arms and stood right in front of the door, but his eyes were fixed on his father’s. “I find I’m not very interested in talking to either one of you, so you can go.”

“I’m afraid that I’m not going to be able to do that, Scott,” Coulson tried to sound as conciliatory as he could be. He tried to imagine a way to exclude the father, who was obviously becoming an obstacle. “Honestly, you and I really need to talk about your phone call.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Not yet. I’d rather not.”

Rafael McCall wasn’t a total failure as a father, as his posture shifted to one of alarm.

Scott’s eyes were still drifting, as if he were listening to something Coulson couldn’t hear. “If you were to arrest me, what would I be charged with?”

“Disclosure of Classified Information, which can be punished with fines and imprisonment of up to ten years in a federal facility.” Coulson thought honesty would be the best course of action. “I don’t want to take that action over something that could very well be a mistake.”

“Your phone number is classified?”

Coulson nodded. “The one you called certainly is.”

“I …” Scott looked at a loss. “I did not know that.”

“So, if you don’t want me or your father to come in, maybe you could come with me to someplace where we could sit down and talk this out.”

The young man stood there, not quite glaring, but frowning slightly, a look of concentration and irritation crossing his face. “Enough! It’s my decision.”

“Excuse me?” Coulson glanced over at Rafael McCall who looked just as confused.

“I’ll go with you on one condition.” Scott pointed at his father. “He doesn’t go with us.”

“Scott!”

Coulson didn’t mind the request, but it would be a bad strategy to let a suspect set such an arbitrary term. “That puts me into a very delicate position. Your father is an FBI agent.”

Scott stuck out his slightly misshapen jaw. “If you want me to be cooperative – which trust me, you do – that’s how it’s going to be.”

“Scott!” Rafael spoke in a rushed voice. “I know you’re mad, but you should let me help.”

“I asked for your help when Stiles was kidnapped, but you were too busy conducting impeachment proceedings against his father! You only wanted to talk to me after they were finished, so right now you can Fuck. Off.”

The FBI agent took a step back.

“You want to help? Go talk to Mom at work and tell her what’s happening. And don’t try to go inside, because we had the locks changed, and if you break in, I’ll have you arrested.”

Rafael McCall looked like he was going to argue, but Coulson put his hand on his arm consolingly. “Your son seems pretty determined, so it’s probably a good idea to do what he wants. It shows we can be reasonable.” Coulson offered his best smile to them both. “I’m not really interested in getting anyone in trouble.”

Scott had been staring at him with his head slightly cocked to the side. “I know this coffee house within walking distance. You don’t mind walking?”

“Not at all.”

They waited until Rafael McCall drove off in his SUV before they began the walk.

Coulson studied it. “I guess I should apologize.”

The young man was startled. “For what?”

“I brought your father along so you would feel comfortable. It seemed to have an effect opposite of what I intended.”

“You couldn’t have known.” The young man relaxed as Coulson had planned. “You could have just arrested me, I suppose, so I appreciate the effort. I’ll apologize in advance, too.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m probably not going to tell you all you want to know.”

Coulson smiled, good-naturedly. “Maybe. I’m told I can be pretty persuasive.”

They reached the coffee shop. Surprisingly, it was not a Starbucks or any other chain. Scott held the door for him; the place was all wood with mismatched chairs. There was only one bored barista and a single hipster staring at his laptop in frustrated creativity.

“Sit where you want,” Scott offered. Coulson noticed that Scott wasn’t intimidated by the difference in their ages or by his occupation. “Do you like coffee?”

“Sure.”

In a moment, Scott sat down across from Coulson. “I’ve been stalling.”

Coulson nodded. “I can tell. I am a professional.”

“Would you believe me when I told you that I didn’t know the phone number was classified information?”

“I would.”

Scott relaxed, but only a little bit. “I can’t tell you who I got it from. Well, I could, but I won’t.”

“Well, that is a problem.”

“Maybe if I tell you why? They have some information I need. If I tell you who they are and they get in trouble, they won’t be able to give it to me.”

Coulson sipped his coffee, slowly and deliberately, to indicate that he was considering the young man’s problem. “I can see your problem, but that’s not enough. I’m going to need more information.”

Scott frowned at his own untouched cup. “Last year, my best friend was committed to a mental health facility. While he was there, someone kidnapped him. Whoever did it killed three orderlies and stole an ambulance. You are law enforcement, I’m sure you could get access to a file that confirms what I’m saying.”

“Most likely.”

“No one’s found him.” Scott didn’t lift his eyes from the coffee cup. “The police can’t find him. The FBI couldn’t find him, once they were convinced to start looking. Everyone …”

The young man fell silent. Coulson had seen the same emotions play over the faces of the loved ones of many abductees.

“Your source says he knows where to find your friend.”

“Yeah. I … demanded proof that he was for real. He gave me your number and told me to ask you that question.”

Coulson repeated the question Scott has asked him. “How did the girl in the flower dress escape?”

Scott nodded.

“And something I told you convinced you that this individual had real knowledge about what had happened.”

Scott nodded again.

“Well, I’m not sure I can leave it like this. You and your friend are obviously involved in something big. You might be in over your head.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Scott muttered.

Coulson contemplated the boy before him. That sounded way too world-weary for a kid this age, but he’d seen worse. The files were full of teenagers that should be at school or preparing for prom, becoming victims of schemes greater than themselves. The files! He remembered something in the Red Event files about a power outage affecting the whole town of Beacon Hills. He hadn’t made the connection before.

“So,” Scott finally said. “Are you going to arrest me?”

Taking a big sip of his coffee, Coulson shook his head. “Not today. I might want to talk to you tomorrow, if that’s okay?”

“Sure. Need my phone number?”

“I already have it.” Coulson stood up. “I believe you didn’t know what you were doing was wrong, and I believe you think you’re doing the right thing now. I’m not so sure. Tomorrow I’ll do my best to convince you to give me that name, but for now, I’m going to have to ask you not to leave the city.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Thanks for the coffee.”

Coulson left the coffee shop, but he waited until he was out of earshot until he dialed Agent May. “When you reach Eichen House, see if a Stiles Stilinski was a patient. He was reportedly kidnapped from there. Something is definitely going on here. I think Centipede’s been active in Beacon Hills. Be careful.”

When he ended the call, he turned around. Scott McCall was staring at him from the window of the coffee shop.

“Well, this is most certainly depressing.” Jemma Simmons’ lips curled in disgust as the agents walked down the hallway of the retirement home. The patterned carpet was threadbare, the wallpaper faded, and the lighting dimmer than it should have been. The numbers on the doors were small and hard to read.

“Welcome to getting old,” Ward deadpanned as he watched Simmons study her surroundings. “Tapioca and Vick’s vapor rub, all day, every day.”

Jemma chuckled. “You don’t really believe that.”

“I do.”

“I doubt your parents live this way.”

A shade of something unknowable passed over Ward’s face. “No.” He shrugged the awkwardness away. “They’re rich and influential. They’ll never have to live in a place like this.”

“Honestly, that’s exactly what’s been bothering me.” Jemma, seeing Ward’s discomfort, changed the subject as quickly as she could. “We’ve identified him as one of the owners of Argent Arms, which you’ve indicated supplies forty percent of the police forces in the United States with firearms and ammunition. Why would he be living in a facility like this?”

“He may be listed as one of the primary stockholders and sits on the board of directors, but from what I learned, he doesn’t spend a lot of time selling weapons. One of the weird things about the company is that they market themselves specifically to rural police forces, especially those west of the Mississippi. SHIELD and federal agencies don’t use the company nor do most urban police forces, but Argent Arms doesn’t seem interested in trying to get them to.”

Jemma stopped and turned to face the specialist with a look of disbelief.

“Simmons, I’ve listened to you list of the taxonomy of every bush in a thicket before. You like trees; I like guns.”

“Fair enough.” She returned to walking down the hallway. “When first diagnosed, Mr. Argent made contact with all the top-of-the-line cancer treatment programs: the Mayo Clinic, private Swiss doctors, the best of the best. I simply find it odd that once he’s the beneficiary of a medical miracle, his family decides to seclude him in this frankly … unpleasant … care home. It makes me wonder if there is more going on than simple estrangement. Could they be punishing him?”

Ward pursed his lips. “Let’s find out.” He knocked on the door.

An irritable voice called out from behind the door. “Who is it?”

“Mr. Argent, we’re agents from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. We’d like to talk to you if you have a moment.” Ward announced through the door. “May we come in?”

There was a pause before the man spoke again. “Come on in. The door’s open.”

Ward and Simmons entered the dingy apartment just in time to see a wheelchair-bound Gerard Argent place a .45 pistol on his dining room table. The room was even dimmer than the hallway outside, and it was ripe with a sour scent, like someone had thrown old milk into a lit fireplace. Jemma, as a scientist, had encountered far worse smells than that before, while Ward remained professional as always.

The specialist immediately eyed the pistol, sliding easily in front of Jemma. “I’m Agent Grant Ward and this is Agent Jemma Simmons. Thank you for talking to us.”

“Whether I’m actually going to be doing any talking remains to be seen, and it depends entirely upon the subject.” The old man wiped at his mouth with a tissue, cleaning away the disgusting black gunk which had gathered there.

The garbage cans in the room were filled with soaked tissues, some so full their rancid contents spilled out over the floor. Along with the dinginess, their presence gave the apartment an unhealthy aura. However, Jemma saw that Mr. Argent was not destitute; the computer on his desk was from the high-end of the commercial spectrum and a significant portion of the library that covered the walls were from the eighteenth century or earlier.

“Good morning, Mr. Argent. I’m with SHIELD’s scientific division. We hoped that you might have changed your mind about talking to us about your medical condition.”

The man grunted and glanced away, irritated.

“All the reports we’ve received tell us that your cancer is in full remission but offer no explanation for the troubling biological phenomenon you’re experiencing. As a biochemist, I thought that if you would permit me to administer some tests, I might be able to get to the bottom of whatever is happening to you. With some effort, we might be able to find a cure.”

Gerard gave her a venomous look; his already prickly demeanor descended into something outright hostile. “I’ll tell you what I told the last time SHIELD sent lab jockeys to poke at me; I’m not interested in your attempts at a cure. You’ve come a long way for nothing.”

Jemma was taken aback not only by his unfriendly tone, but also by the sentiment expressed. She looked to Ward, but Ward was completed focused on the old man. As if he had confirmed something, Ward nodded to himself.

She couldn’t help herself. “Agent?”

“He already knows what’s happening to him,” Ward accused. “Yet for some reason he doesn’t want our help.”

With a ghastly, black-stained smile, the old man glared at the specialist. “You’re smarter than the ones they sent last time.”

“Mr. Argent,” Jemma tried her most diplomatic voice, “surely you don’t want to continue living like this if we can help you.”

“Don’t be stupid,” the man grumbled. “I’m not living like this because I enjoy it, but this conversation is over until you tell me why you’re really here.”

“Mr. Argent—”

“Young lady, you may be a doctor, but I can tell that this young man here is a trained killer.” Gerard’s eyes glittered with intelligence. “It takes one to know one. They wouldn’t send someone like him on a routine checkup, now would they?”

Ward didn’t betray any surprise in his posture. “You’re right.”

“You want to know what I know, then you’ll tell me what triggered this little follow-up visit.”

Jemma hesitated. It wasn’t proper protocol to reveal information about an ongoing investigation to a possible witness. Ward turned to face her, making sure that his face was obscured from Mr. Argent’s, and he winked where the old man couldn’t see.

“He probably knows anything we could possibly tell him.”

Jemma nodded as confidently as she could. Obviously, Ward had an angle he wanted to play.

The specialist turned back to the old man in a wheelchair. “Let me tell you what I think is happening. Your family’s rich enough to put you in a home much nicer than this, but they – or you – chose this place for other reasons. I think you’re not in a better-quality facility because that is exactly where your enemies would be looking for you. We happened to find you because SHIELD can access medical records if it concerns matters of national security; most law enforcement agencies can’t do that without a court order. This means no one who knew about your family’s wealth would ever think of looking for you here. I, personally, think you wanted to remain in Beacon County, close to all the action.”

“Action?” Gerard snorted around his dripping goo. “What type of action would an old man like me be involved in?”

“Last year, this county experienced a pretty high body count when it came to violent crime, including your daughter and your daughter-in-law.”

Jemma almost gasped at Ward’s impersonal delivery of that information.

“Yes.” Gerard gruesomely sneered. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. Boring me isn’t going to get my cooperation.”

“What would?”

“I already told you. Tell me why you – and you specifically – are here now.”

Ward glanced at Jemma who understood what the specialist was trying to ask. How far did they want to take this? Jemma bit her lip as her concern about protocol warred with her natural curiosity. “Do you know anything about Scott McCall?”

“Agent Ward. Agent Simmons. I know everything about Scott McCall.” The man chuckled. “He’s the boy that poisoned me.”

“Poisoned?”

Ward was less shocked than Jemma had been. “Why would a high-school senior do that?”

“Why do you think?” Gerard Argent rolled over to get a new tissue. “Because he considers me an enemy.”

Jemma narrowed her eyes, frustrated. “I’m afraid that I’m very bad at guessing games, Mr. Argent. We’re trying to help you. Do you know what he poisoned you with?”

The old man’s eyes glittered. “Mountain ash.”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite follow.”

“Sorbus californica, I suspect.” The old man wiped at his eyes, where black liquid was coming out of his tear ducts. “Kids today are all about local sourcing, aren't they?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know that poison.”

Ward cut in. “I’m wondering why you didn’t go to the police if he did this to you.”

The old man snorted. “Do you know who Scott McCall’s childhood friend is? No? It’s Mieczyslaw Stilinski. And the sheriff of Beacon County is …”

“Noah Stilinski.”

“I suspect you’ve already met both young men’s fathers, and you did mention the deaths last year. Tell me that you didn’t find anything … missing … in the police reports?”

Ward and Simmons looked at each other. The entire team had noticed some discrepancies, which had only fueled the boss’s desire to get to the bottom of the situation.

“I see that you have. When you get finished digging, you’ll find that all those bodies lead back to one person.”

Jemma conquered the urge to call Coulson right away.

“You’re telling me a high-school senior is responsible for all this death?” Ward scoffed.

The old man raised both hands to demonstrate his sincerity. “You’ll find that monsters come in all sizes, shapes, and ages. Keep at it and come back when you’ve opened your eyes.”

Melinda May had, in her career, toured a lot of different facilities. No matter what type of criminal enterprise, deep-cover conspiracy, or enemy program she was investigating, the bad guys tended to have an actual physical location as a central meeting point. Some insurgencies could get away with a cell structure, but that always limited the scope of what they could accomplish. The larger and more established a conspiracy was, the more a location to serve as a nexus for logistics, training, and command became absolutely necessary.

Furthermore, if an organization had a secret facility, it either had to be built out in the middle of nowhere so none of their enemies could find it, or it had to have an appropriate cover. If some suburban housewife could see your assault squads leaving the building behind her daycare, they were going to call 911.

Thus, one of the key skills a field operative had to master was how to case a building under the guise of a visit. The skills necessary were the same if they were visiting undercover or openly as an agent.

How did the staff act? What did they want to show the visitor? What did they not want to show the visitor? How easily did they talk about their procedures? Was a particular door too heavy for its stated purpose? Was there tightened security in one wing of the building and not another? You could tell a lot about a place by a thorough, professional evaluation.

Melinda May had completed a very professional evaluation of Eichen House and found it disturbing as fuck.

She possessed instincts honed by years as a SHIELD agent, and every single one of those instincts lit up the moment she stepped into this mental health facility. She had no idea how this place even maintained a license, let alone had any patients. In the sullen and dingy interior, the patients seemed uniformly emotionally exhausted; the orderlies and other staff members seemed to have had hostility and general creepiness ground into their skin.

May was led to the office of the Director, a seemingly pleasant man named Fenris, by an orderly whose name tag read Schrader. The orderly stared at her for so long she had to beat down the urge to punch the man in the throat.

She listened to Dr. Fenris’ welcome, noting what he didn’t say. Eichen House wasn’t a place where you sent people to get better. It was a place where you sent people to forget about them. She had seen other places like this before, all over the world.

“What can you tell me about the Oak Creek camp?”

“Oak Creek? You mean the old military base out back?”

“That would be the one.”

“It’s been abandoned since the Second World War. I think the land is still owned by the federal government, but it’s not affiliated with Eichen House in any way.” The man seemed confused by the question.

“I was told that it was administered from Eichen House back then.”

Without any evidence of a lie on his face, Dr. Fenris looked baffled. “I’ve never heard of any connection between the two. Well, other than the rumors …”

“Rumors?”

“Supposedly some of the tunnels in the basement levels actually lead to what remains of the camp. I’ve never looked into it, and the chief orderlies have always made sure that the lesser used part of the basement and the subbasements are sealed off. If we are linked to Oak Creek, no one in this building has ever used those tunnels.”

“Would it be possible for me to get a tour?”

“Of course,” Dr. Fenris replied. “I will take you on a tour myself.”

To be fair, his tour was exhaustive, from the top floor of the five-story building down to the basement. The doctor kept her on the main staircases and in the more brightly lit areas. Patients seemed a little more active when they reached the personal floors, and Dr. Fenris explained that they tried to give those patients deemed harmless as much freedom as they could handle, but the place hadn’t been designed with ideas about the proper supervision of common areas in mind.

When they entered the administration wing of the facility, May heard a noise that had to have been a suppressed pistol firing. Contrary to popular belief, silence shots weren’t totally silent, and she had heard her fair share of them.

“What was that?” She demanded.

“What was what?”

“I swore I heard gunfire.” May opened the door marked Head Orderly only to find it empty, even of furniture.

Dr. Fenris looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t hear anything.”

“Who uses this office?”

“Our previous head orderly … passed away last year. I’ve divided his duties up among the administrative staff.”

The room bothered her. Its emptiness seemed deliberate.

“Eichen House has strange acoustics.”

May whirled. Someone had actually sneaked up behind her without her knowing about it. Dr. Fenris seemed to have been startled as well.

“Marin, I wish you wouldn’t do that. Agent May, this is Ms. Marin Morrell, one of our counselors. Marin, this is Agent Melinda May of SHIELD.”

This new woman carried herself with a cool and smooth composure. May couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being analyzed as thoroughly as she was analyzing the woman in return.

“My pleasure. It’s best to not to pay too much attention to what you hear when you’re in this hospital, Agent May. The way it was built creates a strange audial effect.”

“Does it?”

“Yes,” Morrell smiled. “Everything echoes. That’s why they call it Echo House.”

Dr. Fenris frowned. “You know I’ve discouraged the use of that name.”

“That’s fascinating.” May studied the hallway. “Was it on purpose?”

“You know,” Morrell tilted her head to the side. “I’m not sure how to answer that.”

“I’d try yes or no.”

Dr. Fenris looked between the two women, at a loss.

“Conrad, how about I finish Agent May’s tour?” Ms. Morrell offered the man a slightly insincere smile. “I’m fascinated by the mentality of people who go into law enforcement.”

“I’m not a psychologist,” May replied, “but I heard psychopaths gravitate towards the occupation.”

“It’s a bit more complex than that. Come with me.” Ms. Morrell started down the corridor. May followed. Dr. Fenris looked after them in amazement as he realized he had been ditched.

The counselor led her up to the fifth floor.

“Dr. Fenris showed me this level.”

“Yes.” Ms. Morrell unlocked the door. The room was empty. “You can see what you’re interested in from here.”

The window revealed the over-grown lot and decrepit buildings of what must have been Oak Creek.

“How did you know I was asking about that place?”

Mr. Morrell calmly crossed her arms. “I told you. Here, everything echoes. I heard you talking about it in Fenris’ office.”

May narrowed her eyes. She doubted that. “He didn’t know anything about the connection between Oak Creek and Eichen House. Do you?”

The woman turned to look her directly in the face. “Yes.”

Before the agent could press the issue, her phone rang. It was Coulson. She stepped back, but she never took her eyes off of Ms. Morrell. “Got it. I’ll see you back at the Bus soon.” She hung up and slid the phone back in her pocket.

“Interesting news?” The counselor sounded as if they were old friends, and they were at lunch.

“Do you see all the patients here, counselor?”

“I run group therapy, and I see specific patients that fall within my area of expertise.”

“Did you have a patient named Stiles Stilinski?”

She wasn’t expecting a reaction from the counselor, and she didn’t get one. This woman was very competent in keeping her emotions in check.

“I did.”

“What happened to him?”

“He was kidnapped from the hospital. Several orderlies were killed to facilitate it.”

“Kidnapped?” May asked. “Did they ask for ransom?”

Only the slightest twitch in her eye revealed that Ms. Morrell may have made a mistake. “There was no ransom. Perhaps abducted would have been a better word.”

“Do you know who was responsible?”

“I have no idea. If I did, the police would know. But the sheriff never found out and neither did the FBI.”

“I see. Do you have an idea why they kidnapped this particular patient?”

The counselor smiled. “A much better question. Stiles Stilinski is a very special young man.”

“How so?”

“If you check his school records, his medical records, and the files for the police investigation into his abduction, you’ll find that he was a normal seventeen-year-old with natural intelligence, ADHD, and maybe the beginnings of some emotional problems, but nothing out of the ordinary.”

“That doesn’t sound particularly special.”

Ms. Morrell grinned. “Which is why they’re worthless. I am not at liberty to discuss the details, and frankly, you may find it hard to believe what I have to say.”

May jutted out her jaw. “Try me.”

“I believe that Stiles Stilinski may have been gifted with electrokinesis.”

Both of May’s eyebrows lifted to her hairline.

“I told you that you wouldn’t believe me. Not many people would, which is why I won’t repeat that to anyone else, even under threat of penalty. But if you’re interested in what happened to him and to Oak Creek, you’ll bear that in mind.”

“So, why are you telling me now?”

“Two years ago, I wouldn’t have, but I know that SHIELD has connections with enhanced individuals.”

May studied the woman carefully. She got the feeling that Morrell knew more, but she wasn’t going to say anything. The counselor had said just enough to direct May’s interest in a direction that the counselor wanted it to go.

“You’ve been very helpful.”

Marin Morrell smiled. “I try to be.”

Chapter Text

October 14, 2013 (Continued)

For a town in Northern California, Beacon Hills didn’t have many places to buy an espresso. It weirded Skye out.

“I don’t get it,” Skye grimaced at her companion. “You’re acting like you’ve never been to a coffee shop.”

“I have!” Fitz objected. “But never on a mission though.”

Skye chuckled. “This isn’t undercover work. We’re meeting a contact, and the biggest danger we’ll be facing is the chance that the coffee’s really bad.” She pulled open the door for him, yet he stopped on the threshold.

“I appreciate what you did.”

She glanced around in confusion. “I’m holding the door.”

“No, I appreciate what you said to Coulson about us needing information in order to do our jobs. It might seem a little thing, but I’m glad someone recognizes what we can contribute.”

“No problem, Fitz. I’m sure he sees it, too.”

The cafe where they had been directed wasn’t part of a chain, so the tables and chairs were mismatched and a few looked more than a little rickety, but the atmosphere was homey. This was a good thing, as Skye wouldn’t really be able to tell the difference between chain coffee-shop coffee and non-chain coffee-shop coffee. For someone like her, caffeine was as vital as air and who cared from whence it came?

A good-sized crowd of young adults filled the place with their buzzing conversations. Fitz looked around, tonguing his cheek. “Do you know what he looks like?”

“No. Most of the founders never even told me their names. We were all shocked when we found out how old Danny was.”

“How are we going to find him?”

Skye raised her hand and waved it about. “Danny, you in here?”

“Skye?” The call came from the back corner. “Over here!”

As they made their way to the back of the shop, they got a better look at their contact and his friend. Skye whistled softly. “Well, that’s surprising.”

Fitz whispered. “What is?”

“He’s hot.” Skye pulled out a chair. “Hey. Glad you could meet me. I was just telling my friend here that you’re not what I expected.”

“That makes two of us. I didn’t expect you, of all people, to be working for SHIELD.”

“She’s just a consultant,” Fitz added, trying to be helpful.

“This is Leo Fitz,” Skye settled in her chair. “He’s with SHIELD’s Sci-Tech Division. I wasn’t sure you’d meet with me, given it’s been six years since I last talked to you and that was right after you got caught.”

“Thats's old news. My juvenile record is sealed, and I don’t hack anymore.” Danny gestured to the muscular man sitting next to him. “This is my boyfriend, Ethan. I have to say I'm curious about what you did expect.”

Skye shrugged. “Honestly? A hygiene-challenged edgelord who lives in his mother’s basement.”

The boyfriend sat up straight, clearly offended. Fitz looked at Skye, shocked.

She shrugged. “One of the reasons I was with Miles was because I thought he had his shit together compared to most of the other people I knew.”

The boyfriend leaned and whispered into Danny’s ear, but the man’s smile never vanished.

“No, Ethan, she’s right. Hacking often appeals to boys without physical talents or social skills; they use it as a means to generate some self-esteem. I didn't need to generate anything. On the other hand, you've never seen me play lacrosse, so I might be an edgelord.”

“I don’t even know what that is,” Ethan said sourly.

“I’ve heard the term, but I couldn’t identify one.” Fitz was definitely trying to be hip.

Danny waited until the agents were both seated and had ordered drinks. “Honestly, you aren’t what I expected either.”

Skye smirked. “And what did you expect? Braces at twenty-four?”

“A rebel.”

Skye’s smirk died. There was an edge to Danny's tone.

“I guess everyone sells out eventually, Skye. What can I do for you today?”

Skye took a sip of her coffee to gather her thoughts, as Ward had taught her when teaching about undercover work. She didn’t want to press too hard, too quickly. Danny had been cautious even when he was thirteen, often the first to ditch a hack at any sign of trouble.

“We came here to investigate a breach in SHIELD security, but we think we may have stumbled on something more,” Skye finally said, opting for the truth.

“Is that why you wanted to talk to me? You think I hacked SHIELD?” Danny asked, neither irritated nor afraid. “I can assure you I didn’t.”

“It wasn’t a hack.” Skye shook his head. “We traced the breach back to someone in Beacon Hills. On our way here, we did a basic background check, and we’ve found a lot of very strange things happened here. Things you used to be very interested in.”

Danny became more alert, and his boyfriend failed to look disinterested. “I’ve heard some things.”

Fitz got out his smart phone. “We’re trying to find a pattern that links different events that happened both last year and earlier. They seem to center around a group of people who are about your age. They’re probably in school with you.”

Danny hummed as if thinking, but Skye watched his face carefully. She suspected he was thinking of strategies to avoid answering her questions. If she didn't act fast, they were going to lose him. “Do you know a Scott McCall?”

The name brought only a flicker of eyelids to Danny, but Ethan started coughing into his hand.

“He’s a friend. We played on the lacrosse team together.”

“What do you think of him?”

Danny was noticeably cooler than before; her tactic hadn't paid off. “Scott’s a good guy. Had a rough time.”

“We noticed.”

“He’s not the only one,” Ethan suggested. “I only caught the tail end of everything when I moved to town last year, but a lot of people here have had to deal with a lot of bad shit.”

“Scott’s a bit of a good Samaritan,” Danny leaned forward conspiratorially. “He likes helping people, and when bad things happen, he tends to want to get involved.”

“You were like that too.”

“Oh no!” Danny shrugged. “I was just curious, Skye. I wanted to know things. Getting too involved means doing things.”

“So do you know how he could have gotten wind of classified SHIELD data?”

“ I don’t know. Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

Fitz’s mouth dropped open, but Skye sighed. “SHIELD is only trying to help people.”

“I’m sure it does try,” Danny said, “but it also has a habit of locking away things that are even the least bit dangerous. I know about a lot of strange things in Beacon Hills, but I learned enough when I was with the Rising Tide to remember that the people you work for think nothing of vanishing anything it finds new and strange.”

“You’re okay with all the people who have died and disappeared?”

“No, Skye,” Danny shook his head. “I most certainly am not. They were horrible, terrible times, but they’re over. We haven’t had a murder for close to a year. The sheriff, and people like the sheriff, have worked hard to protect us. We don’t need SHIELD here.”

Fitz shook his head. “Accessing classified data is a pretty serious crime. If you know something …”

Ethan slapped his hand on the table, hard. Everyone in the cafe looked over at the four of them. “That sounded like a threat. I hope you’re not trying to intimidate my boyfriend.”

“No,” Fitz shook his head. “But …”

“That’s good.”

Danny patted Ethan’s arm. “You want me to believe you're here to protect us, but I'm actually beginning to think you're here to protect SHIELD? Skye, you and I used to spend our nights fighting against the very concept of classified material.”

“This …” Skye hesitated. “I’ve met people in SHIELD who are exactly who they say are. I’ve helped them struggle against people who use and manipulate others.”

“You trust them?”

“I do.”

“And I’ve found people I can trust here, who work to help others.”

Skye and Fitz looked at each other.

“You should try the Danish.” Danny lifted his coffee in salute. “And then you should go home. You’re not going to get anything from me.”

Stiles stared at the video screen in the operator bay of the quinjet, surprising himself at how calmly he was taking the news. His only visible reaction was a cock of his head to the side as he digested the information he had just received; he didn’t destroy anything in a rage. “Thank you, Ayla.”

“There’s no reason to thank me. I simply thought you should know.”

“None-the-less, this could be seen as choosing a side.”

“Belial wanted me to draw you there, while maintaining his own plausible deniability. I don’t know what he has planned, but I don’t like being manipulated by people whom I consider my colleagues. Intra-departmental power games interfere with my research.”

“Games are sort of my thing, Ayla.”

The scientist clucked her tongue. “You have a good excuse; you need to play such games. Gregory’s just being a dick. If you want to pay me back, then settle this between you two, once and for all. Ranefer out.”

Stiles sat back slowly in the chair. Beacon Hills was now in play, and his sorcerer-slash-boss was heading there as was Director Fury’s personal task force. It was everything he hadn’t wanted.

When he had been human and only human, Stiles might have panicked for a bit before settling down and focusing on what needed to be done. Luckily, the nogitsune had centuries of practice in reacting to things going wrong. That knowledge, that poise, had served him well in Hydra.

“Sir?” The pilot approached him.

“Mmm?”

“We’re due back in D.C. We need to take off in the next few minutes to make the next check. Are you ready to go?”

Stiles stood up. “I won’t be coming with you. Return to base.”

“Yes, sir.”

He grumbled as he grabbed an action bag -- a generic kit prepared for spontaneous missions. He didn’t want to do this. He had worked very hard to stay away from Beacon Hills, to avoid the people he loved.

Stiles stalked down the ramp and away, pausing only long enough to watch quinjet take off successfully. On the street, he found a sporty red 2012 Ford Mustang. He hadn’t been a fan of the design, but he needed to get to Beacon Hills as quickly as he could, and Mustangs had power. If he ignored enough traffic laws, he could get there within twenty-four hours.

“Ugh.” The owner of the car was a smoker. Stiles took a moment to dump the ashtray’s contents out the window. He resolved to stop by a gas station and get an air freshener for his sensitive nose. Otherwise, the car appeared to be very well cared for. It wasn’t as satisfying to steal things no one valued.

He pulled out and took the back way out of the airport, which was just outside the security envelope of Havenworth Federal Penitentiary. It’d take him two hours to reach Interstate 80 driving as fast as he could down the back roads of Kansas.

Seriously, he was amazed at his own composure. He was taking the bad news with far too little violence, and that surprised him. Stiles alone would have been tied up in worried knots about what was going to happen to his friends. The nogitsune alone would have been offended and full of rage that Belial had the nerve to try to manipulate it.

Yet, while he was determined, he remained calm. Did he no longer care about them? Did he no longer have any pride?

Neither was true. Neither would ever be true. He cared about his dad, about Scott, about Lydia, and about Derek as much as he ever did. He cared about Isaac and Allison only slightly less, and Peter and the twins a lot less. They were his family, his friends, his pack, even though he didn’t see any way he could be with them anymore. The lack of panic, the lack of emotional upheaval, didn’t indicate an absence of care, but a confidence that his caring wouldn’t be pointless.

He was going to try to avoid contacting them, because even if he was emotionally capable of handling it, he was sure that it would end with them being vulnerable to manipulation by the sorcerer. Gregory Belial wasn’t going to walk around Beacon Hills hurling lightning bolts and fireballs any time soon, but he had a host of other magics at his command, and what he couldn’t do personally he could order agents to do for him. The worst-case scenario would be if Belial learned that Scott was the True Alpha and thus the key to his restraining torc; Belial would definitely try to kill Scott then.

Stiles would be hard pressed to protect Scott by himself. The restraining torc was still in place, so he couldn’t even scheme to hurt Belial in return. He had to play very carefully at the edges of the rules.

He needed to start moving pieces sooner rather than later. He needed to run interference, and he couldn’t do that from Kansas.

Stiles smiled as that thought led to an idea.

At the next stop sign, Stiles dug out his phone and started looking up web sites. Enhanced reflexes allowed him to do it while driving with only a minimum of risk. It took him maybe fifteen minutes of digging to get what he needed. Activating the SHIELD voice changer application, he dialed a number he knew by heart.

“Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital.”

“Hello, may I speak to Melissa McCall?”

“Hold please. Who may I ask is calling?”

“Adrian Fosdyck, Assistant Dean of Admissions for Kansas State University.”

He was placed on hold which treated him to the Musak version of “My Sharona” by The Knack. Stiles couldn’t be sure which evil demigod of irony had thought this was a good idea. The prairie countryside sped past his window.

“Hello, this is Melissa McCall. You’re … Mr. Fosdyck?”

“Yes, Mrs. McCall. Your son Scott gave us this number as part of his contact information. I’ve been trying to get a hold of him, but he isn’t answering his phone.”

The voice changer could only work with Melissa, Stiles had decided. Werewolf hearing might pick up some distortion.

“Well, Scott is a little busy nowadays. What can I do for you Mr. Fosdyck?”

“Your son indicated that he might be interested in attending Kansas State with an eye to eventually enrolling in our College of Veterinary Medicine. We’re planning to have a barbecue, a workshop, and an open house this weekend for prospective students. Given your son’s interest, I wanted to call and ask him if it would be possible for him to come visit us.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful.” Melissa’s voice sounded almost deliriously happy. Stiles had been confident that she wouldn’t have changed all that much in only a year; she would be overjoyed to deal with something in Scott’s life remotely similar to other high school seniors. “But I really don’t know if he can afford to go out there …”

“It’s not a problem. If he can get to Manhattan, we’ll put him up in a dorm and his meals will be free.”

Stiles could hear the reluctance in Melissa’s voice to turn down the offer. “Well, that’s so far to go, and he has class.”

“I’m sure Beacon Hills High School gives seniors some days off to visit colleges. If he left tomorrow morning, or even tomorrow afternoon, he wouldn’t be missing that much class. We’d really like to show him what he’d experience here at Kansas State.”

There was a pause. Stiles could imagine the look on Melissa face, motherly concern warring with determination to make sure Scott got the opportunities that he deserved. He bullshitted his way through any of her other questions until she had to go back to work, as he knew she would eventually have to.

“Tell you what, Mrs. McCall, we’ll leave a spot open in the dorms and in the programs. We’d love it if Scott would be able to attend. If he manages to get here, have him look me up at the admissions office.”

“Okay. Thank you for calling, Mr. Fosdyck.”

Stiles hung up and tossed the phone to the seat. If Scott and Melissa fell for it, Scott would be out of town for at least three days — long enough for Stiles to find Belial and make him leave his family alone.

Coulson paid the cab driver off as he got back to the airfield; Special Agent McCall had been the one to drive him to the house. Cab fare was a small price to pay to get his interview with the suspect back on the right track.

Coulson had always appreciated the smaller, less busy cities, and Beacon Hills certainly could pull off the appearance of a sleepy Northern California town. Off the tarmac, a gentle breeze stirred the grass, and cicadas sung their plainsong in the September afternoon.

Unfortunately, it was an illusion. Something dangerous was happening here.

He pulled out his phone as he headed toward their plane. He had already been contacted on the way back by both May and Ward. Their brief summaries had confirmed what he believed, but he had stopped them from giving the full report. He wanted the team to be fully reassembled before going into detail. His instincts screamed that this wasn’t going to be an obvious answer. He dialed Skye’s number.

“Yeah, boss?”

“Skye, did you find your contact?”

“I did. I didn’t realize he knew the suspect personally. While I didn’t come up empty handed, I didn’t get much.”

“Any particular problem?”

Skye’s voice was wry. “Turns out the anti-establishment hacker is still a little anti-establishment.”

“I see. Regrettable, but you win some, you lose some. Get back to the Bus as soon as possible.”

“On our way.”

Coulson closed the phone as he started up the ramp to the interior of the plane. He’d do some work before the others returned, identifying the license plates of the cars and motorcycles gathered at the McCall house.

He paused at the top of the ramp, when it occurred to him that he didn’t remember lowering the ramp. He turned around, puzzled, only to see — or thought he saw — a figure standing at the bottom. It was only a glimpse of what might have been a masked man, dressed in a heavy coat over a jaunty vest and carrying a cane. The image was so alarming that Coulson pulled his gun.

No one was actually there. Coulson hit the security alert on the Bus and then sprinted down the ramp. He couldn't see anyone; there was no place for anyone to hide nearby. If there had been someone at the foot of the ramp, they must have vanished into thin air. He frowned, having trouble recalling the exact image of the person he had seen.

He went back and checked the security protocols. According to the digital records, no one had boarded the Bus since they had split up earlier in the day, but there was a yellow alert indicating a recent power surge through the systems. Surges could possibly be used to cover up an intrusion. He would have Fitz check it out.

Putting the strangeness aside, he typed in the license plates from the gathering outside the McCall House. Recognizable names spilled out over the screen. Scott McCall owned the dirt bike, which wasn’t surprising as this was his house. But the other names were enlightening as well: Peter Hale, Derek Hale, Aiden Steiner, Allison Argent, and Lydia Martin. All five of which had been tied to the unsolved murders which had plagued this town.

Association was not guilt, however. Coulson rubbed his jaw in thought. The senior McCall wasn’t going to be much help, and the junior McCall obviously had secrets he was intending to keep.

One of those secrets might have led him to become involved with Centipede’s plans in Hong Kong.

Ward and Simmons pulled up outside according to the exterior cameras. Jemma seemed to be pouring over her tablet, while Ward looked decidedly thoughtful.

“Tell me what you have.”

“Gerard Argent is more than just an elderly man in a rest home.” Ward leaned up against a wall of the lab. “He’s ruthless, and he has a grudge against the suspect.”

Jemma looked up at him in surprise. “You got all that from one interview?”

“You learn about people like him in the field. He was more interested in pointing us at McCall than about the possibility of finding a cure for his illness. By the way, sir, he accused McCall of poisoning him, which is the source of the 084.”

“Interesting.” Coulson looked back at his own information. “We’ll need to follow up on that, because it seems that Argent’s granddaughter still associates with McCall, at least enough to be at his house when I visited.”

“It wouldn’t be the first family to have internal problems of a lethal variety.” Ward pursed his lips, but only for a second, and then turned to Jemma. “Find anything interesting yet?”

“Mr. Argent claimed he was poisoned by Sorbus Californica, the Californian Mountain Ash.” The biochemist's forehead creased with perplexity. “Now, while its uncooked berries, stems and leaves contain parasorbic acid, it certainly wouldn’t produce the symptoms we’re seeing. The most he’d receive is nausea and indigestion.”

“So, Mr. Argent is mistaken or lying.”

Jemma looked up, puzzled. “I find that truly hard to believe, sir. If he was going to lie about being poisoned, he would have had plenty of time to discover something that I couldn’t disprove in fifteen minutes. And if he wanted to point us at our suspect, there were other things he could have said that would have been far more damning.”

Ward shook his head. “He’s not senile. Could have it been some sort of message?”

“Why not simply come out and tell us?”

“Jemma, put what you know about California Mountain Ash up on the screen.”

SHIELD information files were better than Wikipedia. Sometimes. It was a running joke throughout the Mission Prep division that they stole most of their mundane information from the website, choosing to spice it up with Agent-speak.

“Another name for mountain ash is rowan.” Coulson observed. “That could be significant.”

“Why?” Jemma turned from the screen.

“Rowan is connected with witchcraft, specifically white witchcraft. It was said to ward off evil.”

The scientist smiled, shyly. “I’ve heard myths about that, but I wasn’t giving it any credit.”

“Perhaps you should. In the field, I’ve taken to cross-checking unusual events with hearth wisdom and the occult. Experience has proved a good teacher in that regard.” Coulson winked. “After all, I’ve met Loki. He demonstrated a lot of abilities that looked like magic.”

“Fair enough,” Ward said. “So maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way. Maybe it’s not the mountain ash, maybe it’s something unique to that old man.”

“What?” Jemma’s eyes light up. “You’re brilliant, Ward!”

“I am?” The specialist turned to her. “Oh, yeah, right.”

“We’ve been looking at this with the idea that Centipede has been active in Beacon Hills. We’ve been looking for evidence to confirm it. I think we have evidence.” Jemma grew excited. “Let’s assume that there is some sort of Centipede program going on, then all the things that don’t make sense suddenly make a great deal more, including medical experimentation that could, possibly, cure pancreatic cancer.”

Coulson pursed his lips, bringing up the other screen. “But the deaths weren’t due to experimentation. Arson deaths, animal attacks, a serial killer, strange accidents.”

“Or possibly they were made to look like those. I need to get a sample of Gerard Argent’s blood.”

Ward took a wadded-up tissue out of his pocket. “Like this?”

“Then might work.” She paused. “When did you pick that up?”

“When he was focused on you.”

“If Gerard Argent was healed of his cancer through some Centipede experiment, the parasorbic acid could be reacting in ways common medical practice wouldn’t even imagine.”

“Good job, Simmons. Follow that up. While Ward and I wait for the others come back, we’ll be working out why Scott McCall might want to poison an old man.”

Gregory Belial felt it the moment he stepped off his private plane. The ley lines running through the earth knotted below this town, a hidden source of power for those who knew how to tap it. It was like someone standing on the roof of a power plant and feeling the dynamos hum through their legs.

“Interesting.”

He put that revelation to the side. It might come in handy later, but his first task was to ascertain what had already happened with the SHIELD agents.

It didn’t take him long to locate SHIELD’s air transport. There was only one airport within a hundred miles which could handle a plane like that easily, even given its VTOL capabilities. The plane seemed deserted, but he decided not to bother trying to break in. The magic that he possessed was very finicky when it was applied to technology. Science and magic weren’t opposites but mixing them was often like trying to run a motor built to use direct current with an alternating current. A sorcerer had to master both the spell they intended to cast and fully comprehend the technology targeted in order to create a sort of ad hoc adapter.

He had heard of techno-sorcerers as well; they specialized in bridging that very gulf between science and magic. It appeared to be a valid and intriguing area of study, but to him it seemed that too much time would have to be spent reinventing the wheel. What few techno-sorcerers he had met were also very strange.

In the end, the point was moot. Belial didn’t need to get into the vehicle; all he needed to know that SHIELD was here and had started its investigation.

He had a simple plan; point the agents in directions where they would discover Fox’s connection to this city. Pohlman had been the only other Hydra asset who had ever been in Beacon Hills, and he had been here less than a week. The SHIELD agents would start drawing conclusions, and when Fox finally arrived, he would have to make a few crucial decisions. Stilinski could cover his tracks by eliminating those people who knew him, he could eliminate the SHIELD team, or he could simply do nothing and let the investigation continue.

None of those choices were good choices for Fox. All the psychological profiles of the human half of Fox indicated a fierce and possessive love for the people he had left behind. Those same profiles had tried to suggest that the inhuman half of Fox would see those same people as fodder, easily dispensed with if it threatened his existence. It could tear Fox apart or at least cause a psychotic break. This would hamper his rise within Hydra’s ranks.

Killing the SHIELD team would undoubtedly draw the attention of Director Fury, who had gone to such great lengths to bring Coulson back from the dead. Fox would become a liability too close to the launch of Project Insight. The other leaders of Hydra would be displeased by that particular choice, and Fox’s influence would wane.

Doing nothing could avoid both extremes, but more likely it would make sure both of them happened. Either way, Fox wouldn’t be scheming for Belial’s position anymore.

Belial didn’t hold Fox any ill will. If he was in the same position, he would have acted similarly. Belial simply wasn’t willing to give up what being the head of the DOA gave him in terms of resources and access, which meant that Fox’s popularity with the other leaders of Hydra had to be curtailed. If the situation deteriorated too much, Belial would personally step in to help his colleague out.

Fox would be coming soon, but even with his great abilities, he couldn’t get here faster than a day or two. With a little effort on Belial's part, the situation in Beacon Hills would be close to being out of control by then.

The rest of the pack had fled the moment Melissa raised her voice. Even now, standing in the living room of her house with both hands on her hips, few would dare cross her. “Scott McCall, I’m going to have to put my foot down. See?” She raised her left leg and put it down. “It has been put down. You’re going to go to Kansas.”

“Mom, I can’t.”

“You know, I’ve been thinking recently. I’ve been talking to the people, and I think I have to apologize to you.” She stood over her puzzled son seated on the good couch. “There was easy out for me, and I took advantage of that.”

Scott’s brow creased. “I’m not following.”

“It was easier for me to let you be a werewolf than to play the role that I’m supposed to be playing — a mother to a teenage son. I’ve accepted all these strange people in my house, which includes grown men, looking to you for guidance. I’ve accepted the guns and the monsters and the staying out all night.”

“Mom.”

“But the time has come for me to put my foot down.”

“You already said that.”

“You’re an eighteen-year-old boy. You have a dream beyond all this horror and violence, and it’s my duty to push you in that direction. The assistant dean called me, Scott, because they couldn’t reach you.”

“I don’t even remember applying,” Scott said reluctantly.

“See! See! Can you even tell me which colleges you’ve expressed an interest in who have gotten back to you?”

Scott looked around the room, but there was no one else there. Where was his pack when he needed them? “Uhm.”

“Uhm? Is Uhm a college?”

“Mom. No. I don’t recall …”

“So, you haven’t actually thought that much about college at all. I thought you wanted to be a veterinarian.”

“I do!”

“That takes eight years of school, Scott. Eight years. Not a single one of which is going to happen by itself. You have to make it happen.”

“I know, I do—”

Melissa took a deep breath before sitting down next to Scott. “You never wanted to be what you are, yet you’ve accepted it. You never wanted to become a leader, but you did because it was the right thing to do. I know it might seem that going to school and getting your degree is selfish, but sometimes the real right thing to do is the right thing to do for you. You deserve more than to be an alpha; you also deserve to get at least part of the life you want.”

“But, Mom, I’ve done some things—”

She put a finger to his lips. “Stiles was not your fault. Everyone’s told you this, and I’ve told you this, and I will keep telling you this until the day it sinks in. Things are going to happen to people, that’s just how the world is, and it doesn’t do any good to throw your life away because of it.”

“I’m not …” Scott took hold of her hand gently. “I mean, yes, I do blame myself for what happened to Stiles, but that’s not the reason I can’t go to Kansas this weekend. I may have gotten in trouble with some … federal agents.”

Melissa’s eyes bulged. “Federal agents.”

“Yeah, Dad and this agent of SHIELD …” Scott trailed off as he saw the look of concern transform into rage appear in Melissa’s eyes. She dug out her phone. “Uh. Mom.”

His mother didn’t answer him but instead hit a contact, who picked up almost immediately. “Hello. Get your ass to this house right now. We have to talk about your son.”

Scott grimaced. “Oh, boy.”

Chapter Text

October 14, 2013 (Continued)

Driving slowly down the country road, Gregory Belial spotted the home-security-company's sign in the bushes by the front door . The house was on the outskirts of Beacon Hills, on the edges of what the map describes as a preserve. The house was dark and there was no vehicle in sight, so he guessed that no one was home. It didn't matter in the end, because, while he didn't like field work, he could get his hands dirty when it was needed.

Belial pulled his generic rental car into the empty driveway. He had picked up the Ford Escort using false identification which Hydra supplied for operations just like this. It wouldn’t be able to be traced back to anyone. He knocked on the front door sharply and then pressed the doorbell for good measure. No immediate answer.

He studied the ominous forest surrounding the yard as he waited for a response; he could feel the power there. With a gesture, he reached out and touched the telluric currents, so much easier to do now that he was closer to this area’s primary locus. They would make what he had to do in this October twilight easier.

When he was confident no one was going to answer the door, he kicked it in. As expected, the alarm went off. He entered the place quickly, where a cat watched him with disinterest. Ignoring the animal, he made his way straight for the master bathroom. Rooting through the cabinets, he selected a hand mirror, a box of cotton swabs and an eyebrow pencil.

Next, he headed toward the kitchen. Setting the mirror and the swabs to one side on the counter, he chose a sizable carving knife from its rack between the sink and the stove and began tracing symbols on its blade with the pencil. It wasn’t easy to shape the necessary runes on the blade with the waxy make-up, but he had had plenty of practice with this particular runic structure. He chanted while drawing, while keeping one ear open for the expected arrival.

The blare of a police siren shattered the calm of the rapidly darkening evening. Blue and red lights flashed through the house, throwing colored shadows onto the walls of the living room he could see through the open door.

“That was fast.” Belial cocked back his hand, ready to throw the knife.

“Beacon County Sheriff’s Department!” A deputy cried from the living room. “If there’s anyone in here, come out with your hands up!”

He hurled the knife towards the door into the living room, throwing it as hard as he could while focusing on the man’s voice. The angle should have made a hit impossible, but the knife curved in mid-air, tracking its target’s location. There was a cry of surprise and then the sound of metal burying itself in flesh. Picking up the mirror and the swabs, Belial stuck his head around the corner to make sure that the deputy had been alone.

Kneeling beside the body, he positioned it to make sure no blood would get on the uniform. Then he pulled the knife out, so it ran freely. He dipped the swab in the cooling crimson pool that formed around the deputy’s face. Studying himself in the mirror, he painted symbols on his forehead and his cheeks, feeling the power flow through his own body.

When he finished, he studied his new face in the mirror. The spell would last until dawn, but he still quickly dressed himself in the deputy’s clothes, gathered the deputy’s equipment, put his own clothes in his rental, and then drove the police cruiser back towards the town. Coolly and deliberately, he called in with the radio to report a false alarm.

When the got to the police station, he noticed it had been fully repaired from the damage that it had suffered almost a year ago when the nogitsune had planted a bomb there, killing several officers. Belial could sense an aura around the place, the lingering stench of souls cut down in their prime. Such energy would wear at the people here, an exhausting burden. The city should have torn the place down and relocated the station elsewhere, but everything was based on science nowadays. While science shared some of the same truths with magic – energy could neither be created nor destroyed – most people raised on science alone had little imagination when it came to conceiving what that could really mean.

Death had seeped into the walls and floors of this building. It would take decades for its influence to evaporate on its own, but that wasn’t Belial’s concern this night.

“Haigh!”

The sorcerer startled until he remembered the name of the face he was wearing. It had been on the I.D. in his pocket. “Yes?”

An extraordinarily good-looking deputy was frowning at him from over by the dispatch. “Aren’t you supposed to be on patrol?”

“I was. I mean, I am.”

The deputy, whose name tag read Parrish, gestured at him in frustration.

Belial did not gain any insight into his victim’s relationships with this spell, so he tried to keep his act simple. “I need to talk to the Sheriff.”

“Then go talk to him.” Parrish turned away, but out of the corner of the sorcerer’s eye, he saw other deputies watching the person they thought was Haigh. He flipped the deputy off, guessing it would seem more in character before knocking on the door to the sheriff's personal office.

Noah Stilinski looked up. “Come in.”

“You’ve got a moment?”

The sheriff gestured him in after instructing him to shut the door behind him. “I wish you and Parrish would settle this stupid rivalry.”

“Trust me, it’s completely settled on my end.” Belial shrugged with Haigh’s shoulders. Unlike the other members of the BHPD, he knew all about Sheriff Stilinski. “On patrol, I saw something very strange. You got any calls from the airport?”

Sheriff Stilinski shook his head. Belial wondered if there was a particular reason Coulson’s squad hadn’t contacted the local police first, as it was standard procedure.

“There’s a jet parked there. A SHIELD jet.”

That got Noah Stilinski’s attention. “How did it land?” It was a serious question, but it was also a stalling tactic, as the man tried to figure out what that may mean. The sheriff knew about the supernatural’s presence within his city, and he had to be wondering if the agency was here about that.

“I’m not sure; it’s a pretty big plane.” A deputy wouldn’t know about the vehicles VTOL capabilities. Belial feigned hesitation. “That’s not the strangest part though.”

The sheriff grimaced. “Well, spit it out, Haigh!”

“I’m sorry … they were asking about your son.”

While the sheriff didn’t leap out of his seat and drive to the airport right away, it seemed like a close thing. Pretending disinterest — badly — he dismissed Belial-as-Haigh to go back on patrol with a thank you. The last thing that Belial saw was the sheriff dialing a number on his phone with a determined look on his face.

Belial got back into the police cruiser and drove out of the parking lot. Everything was going to plan so far. All he needed was the cooperation of one member of Phil Coulson’s crew, and then Fox would arrive to quite a mess.

Isaac came out of Derek’s kitchen with an armload of cans. “Okay, I forgot who wanted what. Who wanted the blackberry soda?”

Derek raised a hand, which made everyone in the room look at him. He raised both eyebrows in defiance and caught the soda out of mid-air.

They had gathered in Derek’s loft, given that agents from a federal law enforcement agency would possibly be watching the McCall house. They had all approached the building from different angles, making sure they weren’t followed. They were as safe as they could be.

In addition to the pack, Chris Argent and Alan Deaton had arrived to offer their expertise on this problem. Scott would check his phone from time to time to get updates from his mother, who was presently 'kicking his father’s ass all over the living room,' or so she said.

Isaac finished distributing the drinks. He threw a can of root beer as hard as he could at Ethan. Ethan caught it, and Danny glared at him.

“So. Suggestions?” Scott opened up the meeting from where he stood in the middle of the room. “We can start with how much trouble I’m in.”

“Not much,” said Argent from his position sitting on the steps leading to the front door at the exact same moment as Peter Hale, sitting on the spiral staircase, said “None at all.”

The werewolf hunter and the werewolf glared at each other until Chris shrugged and let Peter continue.

“The truth is that they can’t prove anything,” Peter began. “Yes, you called a phone number and asked about details of a SHIELD operation, but they have no idea how you got either the number or the details. They can talk all they want about charging you with espionage, but no prosecutor in the world would make it stick.”

“The worst — the absolute worst-case scenario — is that they might try to disappear you to a SHIELD facility and hold you until you give up how you got it,” Argent suggested.

“You mean something like a black site,” Cora demanded. She, it turned out, had a taste for left-wing political activism. The older Argent nodded.

“Well, we shouldn’t let that happen,” Malia said, sitting on the floor by the bed where Cora was reclining.

“I don’t think anyone here wants that to happen,” Allison said, diplomatically. “But how do we stop it?”

“Kick their asses if they try it?” Aiden suggested from where he sat on the couch.

Scott shook his head. “I won’t hurt them. They don’t deserve it. Agent Coulson wasn’t being deceptive or hostile. I also don't want to risk exposing the supernatural to SHIELD.”

“Most likely, they already have some idea,” Deaton had claimed one of the folding wooden chairs that Derek had pulled out from a closet which Scott hadn’t even known existed. “About the supernatural that is. The revelation of SHIELD was a shock to everyone, but it also answered some very serious questions that I and my colleagues have been pondering for a long time about artifacts being claimed by governments and then being mysteriously lost.”

“Still, it wouldn’t be smart to just assume they know,” Argent countered. “We—”

“When you say we, you mean everyone but you and your daughter,” snapped Cora.

“I mean all of us.” Argent’s reply was cool and calm. “We’re all at risk. SHIELD would undoubtedly look at my families' activities as a threat to national security.”

“Well, that’s wonderful,” Isaac griped. “Why can’t we just give them Valack, let them deal with him?”

“Valack has no reason not to give them all of our names, especially if he possesses clairvoyance, retrocognition, and precognition,” Lydia said crossly. Everyone turned to her at her definition. “I read. In this case, I’ve been reading everything that I could get my hands on by Gabriel Valack. He was once well-regarded until he began to delve into what others dismissed as pseudo-science.”

“I’m afraid that Lydia is most likely right.” Deaton apologized. “Gabriel Valack is a very disturbed individual with few ethics. Considering his past actions, I wouldn’t put it past him to try to manipulate us and SHIELD to achieve his goal.”

Derek crossed his arms, his brows coming together with dark memories. “Destroying these Dread Doctors.”

“And that’s another reason I don’t want to give him up. Well, another two reasons. First, from what I’ve learned from Peter and from Theo, these Dread Doctors should be stopped anyway. What they’ve done is terrible and … well, even Theo didn’t know why they had done it.”

“And the second?” Ethan spoke up.

“He’s my only lead to Stiles’s location.”

A general susurrus of discontent filtered around the room. Scott scowled. “Look, I’m your alpha, and I’m taking that seriously, but you don’t own every part of me. One of those parts is Stiles. It’s always going to be Stiles. I’m going to keep looking for him, and now I have a lead.”

“A lead that brought this problem here to us,” Danny spoke up. “I’m not trying to undermine you or say you have to stop, but the number of dangers your pack are facing is increasing and they’re all because of your … obsession with finding Stiles.”

“The pack is the reason that my obsession, as you put it, hasn’t hurt me anymore than it should have. It was Allison and Isaac who noticed I was pulling away, Derek who stopped me from driving people too hard, Peter who gave me the information I needed about the Doctors.” All the Hales in the room stirred at the mention. “I didn’t take only my own counsel, I relied on you, and I’m going to keep doing that.”

“But beyond any of that,” Scott said firmly, “Stiles is part of this pack. Yes, he’s my oldest friend, but he’s also known to every one of you. He has fought with us. He has bled with us. He’s now in trouble and he has been for a long time. I will never give up on any member of my pack — not a single one of you.” There was a cough. “Even you, Peter. So I’m not giving up on him. The Doctors are too dangerous to use; Valack is in custody.”

“You’re overlooking someone, Scott,” Allison piped up.

“Huh?”

“SHIELD. You insisted Valack prove that he could tell you about Stiles, but you’re so used to thinking of the supernatural world as separate from the mundane world, that you forget that SHIELD deals with alien invasions and Norse demigods, too. Especially after this, the nogitsune is going to be on SHIELD’s radar. They can help you find him.”

Scott blinked at his ex-girlfriend. He looked at the others who considered Allison’s words and nodded.

“It’s an alternative,” Chris added. “Especially since they’ve already been close to us recently.”

“How do you mean?” Derek asked in a serious voice.

“Agents from SHIELD paid a visit to my father the summer before last. They tend to investigate unexplainable events, and he did start throwing up black liquid constantly. The people I’ve paid to watch him told me two agents paid another visit today. I’m going to visit him tonight and find out what they wanted to talk about.”

Scott grimaced, but he didn’t say he was sorry.

“I’ll go with you.” Allison volunteered. “He always seems more willing to talk to me.” Isaac frowned from where she couldn’t see him.

“Okay. Agent Coulson is probably going to want to meet with me tomorrow. I have to admit — part of me wants to stick with Valack because he’s easier to control, being locked in Eichen House. So I’m going to put it to a vote.”

They talked about it for a while, and then they voted. While people were leery of Scott becoming more involved with SHIELD, they weren’t interested in being Valack’s instruments of revenge against the Doctors, either.

Phil Coulson made sure the Sheriff of Beacon County was comfortable as they sat down in his private office on the Bus. He used the couch instead sitting at his desk because he didn’t want to come across as ignoring the other man's authority. Coulson and SHIELD had clear jurisdiction over certain matters but there were still lines he shouldn't cross. Anyway, he had always found that honey worked a lot better than vinegar. It was going to be even more important in this case.

According to his files, Noah Stilinski was an army veteran, having served as a stateside MP during the Gulf War. After the war, he had married a Claudia Gajos and then had a son, Mieczyslaw. His wife had died in 2005 while his son had been abducted in 2012. As sheriff, he had presided over a city that had seen a ridiculous spike in the number of murders for its size over the last decade. Coulson had no desire to add anything to this man’s already significant burdens.

“I’m sure you’re interested to know why we came here, Sheriff.”

“I’ve actually got an idea about that. Right now, I’m more interested in why you came here and didn’t inform the local authorities.”

“Which would be you.”

“Which would be me.”

“We did consult with the Federal Bureau of Investigation first on the matter, considering the suspect’s relationship with an agent of the Bureau. It isn’t yet a criminal investigation, so we saw no reason to alert you.”

“You landed a jet airplane at the local grass-strip airport.”

Coulson shrugged with a small smile. “It saved time.”

Noah grimaced in derision. “What could save me some time right now is if you tell me why you’re interested in Scott.”

Very carefully, Coulson outlined what the sheriff could be told about their investigation, while leaving out SHIELD sensitive operations. He chose not to hide that he already knew that the sheriff was familiar with the suspect. The sheriff tried to play it cool, but as Coulson explained the nature of the incident and its relation to the situation in Hong Kong, the sheriff’s face grew grimmer and grimmer.

“I was afraid something like this was going to happen.”

“You were?”

“Scott McCall was my son’s best friend. He blames himself for Stiles’ abduction when there was nothing he could have done to prevent it. You see, he was opposed to Stiles committing himself to Eichen House. I would have hoped he would have moved on from that guilt by now, but it’s obvious he hasn’t.”

“Guilt can be a powerful thing.” Coulson studied the man’s face. “If you don’t mind me saying so, you seem to have adjusted well.”

“Have I? I’m not eighteen anymore. I’ve been a law enforcement officer for nineteen years. My son was abducted nearly a year ago. Contrary to what you see on television, most abductions that aren’t resolved in the first 48 hours only end when you find the body.”

Coulson nodded. It was an unfortunate fact.

“But adjusted? Let me tell you, Agent, that I am nowhere near adjusted. This is my son, and it tears me apart, but I’ve gotten very good at separating what I do during work from what I do during the long hours I spend at home alone. I’m a professional.”

“I didn’t mean …”

The sheriff didn’t let him off the hook. “Let’s get back to the situation at hand. I know Scott. He’s a very good kid, especially when you consider everything that’s happened to him.”

“Well, he’s gotten himself into a bit of trouble. I’m a professional as well, and I need to know how he learned of that classified information.”

“I understand, though I’m hoping we can work this out without any formal proceedings. I know that Scott wouldn’t have violated any laws on purpose, even if it was to find my son. That’s not who he is.”

“Are you sure about that?”

The sheriff thought about it. “Would he pursue any lead, no matter how dangerous to find his best friend? Yes. But he would never endanger others, and the reason that this information is classified is because it would endanger others. Right?”

“I’m not at liberty—”

“Right?”

“Yes. This sensitive information does pertain to innocent lives.”

“Then you and I tomorrow will go visit Scott, and I’ll get him to tell you what you need to know. That sound like a good plan?”

“Yes, Sheriff.” Despite Noah Stilinski’s attempt to bulldoze him, Coulson liked the man. He also expected that there would be another shoe to drop.

“Now, what aren’t you telling me about my son?”

“I had my team searching your city today, and we came across some very strange things.”

“Beacon Hills has its secrets, like every other town or city. But are those secrets worth investigating?”

“SHIELD was formed to protect people from events which surpass the capabilities of local law enforcement. Last year you had not one but four serial killers, three of which went unsolved, and all of them were outside the bounds of normal behavior, including a killer employing an unidentified animal and another killer employing ancient religious practices.”

Noah threw up his hands sarcastically. “That was last year. This year, we’ve had nothing so far.”

“There was no arrest made in any of those killing sprees, Sheriff Stilinski.”

“Yes.” The man leaned back. “But they ended.”

“And that’s good enough for you?”

“Tell me, Agent Coulson, in which federal facility is Loki Laufeyson residing?”

They stared at each other, a silent understanding forming between them.

“I’ll admit, agent, there are details to last year’s cases that are pretty hard to believe, but no harder than watching aliens invade New York City on my television. SHIELD isn’t the only protectors out there who’ve kept a low profile for important reasons.”

Coulson leaned back and considered what he just said. “Is Scott McCall part of these protectors?”

Noah leaned forward. “Maybe.”

“I see. Perhaps I can persuade you in a different way. We flew here to Beacon Hills from Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, we investigated a secret, illegal laboratory run by an organization known only as Centipede.”

The sheriff scratched his nose but didn’t respond.

“This organization is attempting to create super soldiers for a purpose we have yet to discover.”

“Super soldiers, like Captain America?”

“Exactly. But unlike Project Rebirth, their actions demonstrate no regard for the lives of the people they use. In Hong Kong, we attempted to rescue an individual who exhibited spontaneously occurring enhanced powers. They experimented on him, and it resulted in his death.”

Noah’s face remained steady.

“Mr. McCall’s phone call revealed that he had access to information he could not possibly have. We came here and found several biomedical oddities as well as evidence of possible enhancement. It was reported to me that your son could fall into that category as an electro-kinetic.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Noah said wryly. “You think that these Centipede people might be behind Stiles’ abduction.”

“Yes.”

“If you think that there’s a good chance of it, you’ll have more than my full cooperation, and you’ll probably have Scott’s cooperation as well, if you tell him you can help him find Stiles.”

“I plan to, but at the end of the day, I need to know the truth.”

“It’s not my truth to share — I know he’s my son, but I can’t risk other people’s secrets.” The sheriff looked at his hands. “You’re going to meet with Scott tomorrow, right?”

“Yes.”

“Let me talk to him tonight. He’s probably going over it with his people already, but—”

There was a chime, and Coulson hit the intercom. “Yes?”

“Sorry to interrupt, sir, I know you’re busy, but we were going to order something for dinner.”

Coulson smiled it off as if it were embarrassing, but this was a prearranged interruption. It was the team’s way of checking if he needed any back up information or a way to handle guests. “Sorry about this. Anything will do, Fitz.”

“We exhausted our stores over the Pacific. I drew the short straw and I’m going to run into town for pizza.”

Sheriff Stilinski interrupted. “We’re pretty much done here, until tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll give your man the name of the best pizza place in the city. They don’t deliver this far out, but he can follow me back into town.”

“That’s kind of you, sheriff. Did you hear that Fitz?”

“Yes, sir.”

The sheriff stood up. “It’s no trouble at all, Agent Coulson. We’re on the same side, aren’t we?”

Coulson stood up with him. “Yes, we are. I hope this works out.” He extended his hand. The sheriff shook it.

“I hope it does, too.”

At that same moment, Stiles was driving at a comfortable ninety miles per hour when he passed near the outskirts of Julesburg, Colorado. It marked the end of the first leg of the long journey home. The radio in the Mustang was defiantly blaring the Offspring — or some band like it, he wasn’t absolutely sure — as the concrete flowed under his tires like water. He still had thirteen hours until he reached Beacon Hills at this speed, meaning he’d arrive there mid-morning.

Stiles looked into the mirror only to see a speck of blood on his cheek, which he wiped away. The Nebraskan state trooper had only been doing his job when he tried to pull him over, but it was a mostly deserted stretch of I-80 a little after sundown. Stiles couldn’t afford to get bogged down with the law, since he was an abducted mental patient driving a stolen car. Foxfire had fried every camera and the laptop that the trooper had been using to get the license plate numbers.

The people he cared about were in danger from Belial’s meddling. Every other consideration would take a back seat for the duration.

Scott rubbed at his temples. Apparently, there was a limit to the size of a stress headache that werewolf healing, even alpha healing, could handle. They had the beginnings of a plan, but most of the time everyone seemed to be intent at picking apart everyone else’s plans.

Allison, Isaak, and Deaton – though the veterinarian had reservations – supported throwing Valack under the bus in order to get help from SHIELD and Agent Coulson in finding Stiles. They argued that not only did the organization have far greater resources than a deranged psychologist with a third eye, but also Valack had already proven himself a dangerous criminal. They worked on concocting a story that would keep the secrets of the supernatural from getting in the way.

That’s why Chris, Cora, Danny, and Lydia had made an unlikely alliance. They weren’t willing to trust Valack outside of his own jail cell, but neither were they willing to see SHIELD possibly discover that werewolves existed. The agency could be benevolent, or they could possibly build relocation camps. Truth to be told, it was something of which Scott himself was afraid.

Peter, Derek, and the twins defaulted to working for Valack. He was under control, and the pack would make it clear that the doctor would remain safely in custody in Eichen House no matter what happened. It would mean fighting the Doctors, but as Peter pointed out, their gambit with Theo meant the Doctors were already here.

Malia had dozed off. Scott envied her.

The sheriff drove down the rural road that formed a direct line between the airport and the town. In his rear view mirror, the SUV from the plane — that must be nice, being able to bring your own vehicle with you everywhere you went — followed in the darkness. Driving it was a nice young man named Leo Fitz. He was supposedly a technical genius who worked in the agency’s science investigation division.

It hurt Noah to look at him. This was the person he had hoped whom Stiles would one day turn into — a bright young man who used his skills to help other. He could have easily saw Stiles becoming an expert in forensics or a real police detective, using that sharp brain and sharper tongue to corral those who would hurt others. Noah had never said any of that to Stiles. He wouldn’t ever push Stiles into something he didn’t want to be.

And then came the fox.

In his darkest moment, Noah sometimes wished it had actually been frontotemporal dementia. As terrible as it had been for Claudia, it had had an end. He had badgered Deaton without letting any of the others know for all the druid-slash-veterinarian-slash-whatever the hell he was could find out about nogitsune possession. Apparently, it was permanent; Stiles could be that thing’s prisoner for the rest of his life.

He hoped that tomorrow he and Scott could make the right decision.

His eye was caught by blue and red lights up ahead. One of his deputy’s cruisers was parked perpendicular to the road, blocking traffic as if it were a roadblock, but the driver’s side door had been left wide open. That was definitely not procedure. He pulled over to the side of the road; the agent behind him did the same.

Noah pulled his gun and got out of the car. He heard Fitz get out of the SUV. “Wait here.”

“I’m a federal agent, sheriff. Let me back you up.”

Fitz didn’t seem that much of a field agent, but he had a weapon and a badge, so Noah wasn’t going to argue. He approached the vehicle carefully and noted the patrol car number. “Haigh?” He reached for his radio. “Dispatch, did Haigh say he was in distress?”

The dispatcher said that as far as they knew, the deputy was still on patrol.

They reached the cruiser. There was no sign of blood. No sign of violence. And no sign of Haigh.

Fitz peered at the vehicle. “It looked like he parked this way on purpose. There are no skid marks that I can see? Why would he park like this?”

“I don’t know.” Noah cautioned.

“I parked that way because I wanted a hostage,” Haigh said, appearing behind both of them. “To give my plan added spunk, and look, two for the price of one.”

Both of them turned to face the deputy, only to receive a cloud of strange dust in their faces. The last thing Noah remembered was Haigh laughing, but it didn’t sound like Haigh at all.

Alarms rang through the Operating Theater. Even if they hadn’t been doing so, the random eruptions of chemical steam and the showers of sparks from equipment designed to handle nearly imaginable amounts of power would have revealed that something was wrong. The three Doctors moved through the laboratory as quickly as they were able, triggering emergency buffers and seeking to tamp down the surges that threatened to undo years of work.

The Surgeon stood near the vat containing Der Soldat. The Nazi lowenmensch was the most valuable specimen they had and the key to their continued existence. As long as Douglas remained viable, any setback could be overcome. He felt the queries from the Pathologist and the Geneticist, who were busy with their own attempts to preserve the treasures of this particular amphitheater. More often than not, the trio communicated empathically through electro-magnetic emissions rather than pushing words through their ancient, dusty throats.

“The Nemeton has been activated.”

The Pathologist was always the most sensitive to the telluric currents, being the youngest of the three. “Destabilized.”

The Geneticist stopped what she was doing and approached the surgeon. “Not accidental.”

The three of them were in agreement. They continued to secure the laboratory; soon, they would have to split off and visit the two other Operating Theaters they had set up in Beacon Hills in order to secure them as well.

The Geneticist was the most practical of the trio; she lacked the Surgeon’s flights of fancy. “Our time is limited.”

“Acknowledged.” Marcel didn’t like to think about that.

“The window closes.”

“Acknowledged.” No one but the other two doctors would have been able to detect the spite in mid-band electro-magnetism that meant the Surgeon was furious.

“The obstacle has not been removed.”

The Pathologist secured the last capacitor. “Theo Raeken has failed.”

His cane sat on the worktable near him. The Surgeon went over and picked it up. “Most likely. Multiple obstacles now present.”

“The McCall Pack.” The Pathologist had always proposed an all-out assault rather than a decapitation strategy. He was by nature the least subtle of them, preferring the surety of overwhelming force.

“Valack.” The Geneticist allowed a faint echo of regret into her aura. She had benefited the most from their interaction and had argued against the termination of the disgraced academic.

“SHIELD.” It was the first time that they had spoken of this. Their agendas had always been constructed with the goal of remaining invisible to the semi-mundane authorities. They didn’t know if the agency knew of their existence, but their mobile headquarters was parked in Beacon County and that was problematic in itself.

“Unknown party.” The Surgeon was sure of it now. The other two Doctors turned their head slowly to face him, demanding an explanation.

“Only two individuals could initiate current Nemeton flux event: Deaton and Morrell. Neither have motivation. Thus, indication of third, unknown party.”

“Darach?” asked the Pathologist.

“Unknown.”

“Our time is limited,” insisted the Geneticist.

Marcel slammed the tip of the cane into the ground that the concrete cracked. “We must act.” His anger while constrained was not abated. They had to act, but their enemies had multiplied. He had to think of a way to get the situation under control so they could initiate their experiments. Tracy Stewart would soon be ready for her run.

“Priority?” The Pathologist consistently defaulted to the Surgeon’s leadership.

The Surgeon gripped the head of the cane so tightly the leather in his gloves creaked. “SHIELD.”

The Pathologist turned away to see to another theater while stating his agreement. “SHIELD.”

The Geneticist turned the other way to the last theater, similarly. “SHIELD.”

Their words echoed throughout the gloomy laboratory.

Chapter Text

October 14, 2013 (Continued)

It took the team thirty-four minutes to realize that Fitz had been abducted.

Through sheer luck, Skye noticed it first. She had been sitting at her computer in the laboratory, combing through an archive of the Beacon Hills High School announcements and meticulously linking them to police reports.

“Man, that library’s seen some craziness.” She tagged a particular page on nothing but sheer instinct when her stomach rumbled. “What’s taking Fitz so long to get pizza?”

Simmons didn’t look up from the display on which she was studying all known information on Sorbus californica. She glanced at the clock at the corner of the screen. “It’s only been a half hour. They probably haven’t finished cooking it yet.”

“I wonder if it’s too late to ask for some bread sticks.”

Simmons sighed. Finally, the other woman turned away from the monitor, put both hands on her hips, and studied Skye with mock disapproval. “Mmm,” she finally said, nodding her head decisively. “Bread sticks. You should call him.”

Hopping up out of her chair, Skye crossed the room to use the Bus’s outside line instead of using her own cell phone. It wasn’t technically proper procedure to use official SHIELD communication equipment for personal calls, but Skye would argue, if caught, that this was not a personal call. He was on a mission for the whole team: saving them from hunger.

The call went to voice mail.

Skye looked at the phone and frowned. There was no way that Fitz could know that the phone call was her requesting extra food, and he would never let a call from the Bus itself go to voice mail, not even if he was off duty. None of them would.

Hanging up the phone, she alerted Coulson in his office to her concern. Operational safety had been drilled into her during her brief training with Ward.

Ten minutes later, the team spread out at a site five miles down the road from the airport. Three empty vehicles occupied the shoulder of the rural pike. Their headlights were still on, and the flashers of the police cruisers threw weird shadows across the ground.

“It has to be a professional abduction,” May said, standing up, from where she was studying the spot on the ground where she found Fitz’s side arm. “Nicely done, too.”

Ward pointed at the first deputy’s car as he walked them through the scenario. “This cruiser parked first across the road in order to make the sheriff and Fitz stop. They get out of their vehicles, weapons drawn.” The police cruiser’s flashers highlighting his face threw the operative’s detachment into sharp relief. “They’re attacked about here, quickly and efficiently. Whoever did it is careful to leave their guns, including Fitz’s prototype weapon.”

“No sign of blood,” Simmons said, maintaining a professional demeanor, after she had finished searching the ground with a UV light and Luminol. “We can assume that they’re not badly hurt.”

“We can assume nothing,” Coulson said, anger creeping into his voice. “For this to work, the assailants had to know that the sheriff had come to talk to us in order to know what road he would take back. This may not be the most traveled road in Beacon County, but it’s not a backwater dirt path. We need to find both of them and quickly.”

Skye poked her head out from the SUV where she had been looking for clues. “Boss, Fitz’s phone is gone. If he still has it …”

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Ward and I will go to the police department, tell them what happened, and then mobilize the deputies. May, take Simmons and Skye back to the Bus and get a location for Fitz’s cellphone.”

May immediately went to the SUV that Fitz was driving. Skye watched her. “Isn’t that a crime scene?”

“Yes,” Coulson admitted. “But it’s our crime scene. We’re no longer guests here. This is our case.”

It took twenty minutes for Coulson and Ward to reach the sheriff’s station from the abduction site. They were met at the front desk by Jordan Parrish, Stilinski’s senior deputy and right-hand man, even though he looked like he could be a sophomore in college. They summarized what they knew.

“I’ll put out an APB right away on the sheriff, your man, and Deputy Haigh.” Parrish recognized the second cruiser’s license plate number.

“You do that.” Coulson’s tone was clipped and aggressive. “Right now, I need to know everything about the abduction of Stiles Stilinski, and that includes everything that the sheriff may not have told me.”

Parrish unconsciously slipped into attention, echoes of military training. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

Coulson considered him. “Deputy Parrish, I find it hard to believe that you’re unaware of certain peculiarities about this case.”

“I am aware, but I can’t possibly know what the sheriff might have told you about it or what he would want you to know. He handled the investigation and the evidence personally. It’s unorthodox, but everyone was cleaning up after a bomb explosion, so things were … unorthodox around here.”

“He conducted an entire investigation by himself? I don’t find that plausible, deputy, not with the FBI looking over his shoulder.”

“The FBI was more interested in getting him fired.” The deputy worked his jaw in irritation. “The sheriff handled all the paperwork and kept any of his theories about the crime to himself.”

“Would his case notes be in his office?” Coulson jerked a thumb over his shoulder to the sheriff’s personal office.

“I believe so.”

Without another word, Coulson pivoted towards the door. With an exclamation of dismay, Parrish tried to intercept only for Ward to stop him with a hand on the shoulder.

“Let go. He can’t go in there.”

Ward nodded. “Oh, I think he can, since this is now a SHIELD investigation.”

“Jurisdiction exists, even for the feds.”

“You’ll find that SHIELD investigations are treated differently. Relax, deputy, we’re not the enemy here.”

Inside the office, Coulson moved quickly to avoid any more interference, even though he was confident that Ward would prevent any more. He systematically opened every filing cabinet drawer. All of them were unlocked, so he went to desk. He had only talked to Sheriff Stilinski for a half hour, but Coulson suspected that there would be no way that the sheriff would keep important files on his son's disappearance where anyone could get at them. His eye caught briefly on the moon-phase chart hanging on the wall behind the desk. Coulson wondered why a sheriff would have something like that in the middle of his crime board. Putting the strangeness of it to the side, he sat down in the Sheriff’s chair, making himself comfortable.

“If I possessed sensitive information about my son’s kidnapping, where would I keep it?” The sheriff was right handed, so Coulson turned to look at the lower left-hand drawer. As suspected, it was locked. People kept things that were important yet painful to remember nearby, but they’d subconsciously put those things where they would be less apt to stumble across them. A right-handed person would looked to the right.

Coulson dug into his pocket for his electric lock pick, pressing the end to the keyhole in the drawer. While he had been trained to use manual picks, this one was quicker. He had no trouble getting the drawer open.

It took nearly forty-five minutes to find Fitz’s cell phone, because some sort of strange electromagnetic interference plagued the Bus's system. May's intimidating attitude towards Simmons and Skye didn't help matters.

Melinda May was a patient person. She could wait — she had waited on stakeouts many times— for hours without taking any impulsive action. She had trained some of the best field agents in SHIELD in how to do that. She blamed their reaction because she felt she had allowed her reputation as “The Cavalry” to grow unchecked. Her habit of detachment meant her co-workers couldn’t tell the difference in her demeanor between ‘take your time and do it right’ and ‘if it’s not done in thirty seconds, I’m kicking your ass.’

“This would be easier if Fitz were here!” Jenna Simmons explained from the main console in the command center. “He would understand where all this interference is coming from.”

“I didn’t say anything,” May replied, annoyed. She wasn’t pushing.

“We’re doing the best we can!” Skye looked ready to punch the machine. “Just a few more moments.”

“I didn’t say anything.” May repeated with exasperation.

Both of them redoubled their efforts in the face of May’s patience. She crossed her arms and blew a stray hair out of her face.

“Got it!” Skye cried. “I have a lock. I had to filter this thing like a dozen times.”

Simmons peered at the location. “That’s odd. According to this, it’s in an abandoned lot, but it’s underground”

Melinda was about to pick up the phone and call Coulson when she felt a chill run down her spine. “Where?” She turned to the screen where Simmons was studying it.

The map projection didn’t have a name for the underground location, but it wouldn’t, would it. The name of this location was classified, even to most SHIELD agents.

“Oak Creek,” she breathed. “We’re going now. Skye, break out sidearms for you and Simmons but pick up the assault rifle for me. Simmons, bring your medical kit.” She then finished dialing Coulson.

As the two others scrambled to get her order, she got into the driver’s seat of the SUV. “Fitz’s phone is at Oak Creek; we’re on our way.”

The line is filled with static. “I can’t wait until tomorrow to confront McCall. Ward and I are on our way to his house. If you have the slightest hunch that Oak Creek’s a trap, you retreat and call me.”

“Communications are compromised; we may not be able to reach you.”

“Don’t let yourself be isolated. Something is going on here, May, and I’m not losing another person because no one wants to talk.”

May hung up. “Come on, ladies. We’re burning night.”

It had taken five hours for everyone at the loft to be satisfied with their preparations for the next day. Afterward, the alpha had dragged himself home and immediately taken a hot shower.

Staring into the mirror, Scott rubbed his head with a towel. His hair was getting long again, long enough that he would have to wait for it to dry before he went to bed. He had usually wore his hair shorter than he had when he was first bit, not because he preferred it that way, but because there was something about the sound of a blow dryer that drove him crazy. He had never, ever told Stiles this, because the dog jokes would have increased exponentially in their duration and intensity.

Looking in the bathroom mirror, he made a solemn promise. “I will tell him the first time I see him after he’s safe.”

He pulled on one of his favorite shirts and a pair of basketball shorts before turning down the bed. He wasn’t physically tired — it took a truly incredible amount of physical activity to wear him down now — but he was mentally and emotionally exhausted. He had thought that when they had settled on a plan his mind would calm down, but he still felt anxious and fidgety. He needed a good night’s sleep so he would be able to face both his father and SHIELD the next afternoon.

The hot shower had done nothing to calm him. A quarter of an hour after turning out the lights, he was still studying the cracks in the ceiling in frustration when the doorbell rang. On some level relieved, he sat up and sharpened his ears. As expected, there were no other heartbeats in the house; his mom had taken the night shift at work while Isaac still hadn’t returned yet from dropping off Allison at home.

As he came down the stairs, the doorbell rang once again, impatiently. “Coming!” He called out to his visitors. He wasn’t worried, even though this was Beacon Hills. Enemy werewolves and renegade hunters didn’t stop to think about ringing doorbells. In any event, as he reached the foyer, he recognized the Agent Coulson’s from this afternoon. He figured that something important must have happened in the meantime.

Scott opened the front door to find a Smith & Wesson M&P pointed in his face. “Uh, excuse me?”

“Back up and get down on your knees.” Scott had never seen the man holding the gun before, but in his other hand, he wielded a SHIELD badge. “Do it right now.”

A stoic Coulson stood a few steps behind the man, still on the front stoop. “I’d do as Agent Ward says, son.”

The alpha took a few steps back, but he didn’t kneel. His earlier disquiet shifted into aggrieved irritation. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“You don’t get to ask questions right now.” Ward kept the gun trained on Scott, even as he dropped the badge and brought both hands to the gun. “You get to do as you’re told. On the ground.”

Scott didn’t know what was going on. He certainly wasn’t aware of anything big happening since he had spoken to Coulson in the afternoon. That something must have happened was obvious, and it pissed him off to think that whatever happened had made five hours of arguing with the pack — and all that entailed, from Lydia’s dry wit to the twins’ level of comfort with violence to Peter’s endless barbs — a waste of time. Under his skin, he could feel the anger building. After so much work, he was suddenly close to losing the only real lead he had had to Stiles in almost a year.

Everyone has a line that they drew for themselves past which they would not be pushed. Scott’s line was much harder to reach than Derek’s, yet he still had one. One of the easiest ways to do it, Scott had found, was to try to order him around with random applications of brute force.

“You know?” The teenager said as lightly as he could manage. “I don’t think I will. You want to talk, we can talk.”

Neither SHIELD agent dropped their guard, they weren’t expecting that reaction. Few people, Scott guessed, was so blasé’ about a pistol in his face. He watched Agent Ward shift position slightly, trying to reclaim an advantage he had.

“You’re not in charge.”

Werewolves possessed far better senses than humans did. If Ward fired off a shot the way he was holding the gun now, it wouldn’t hit Scott in the head or the neck, so it wouldn’t be instantly fatal. Scott could hear their steady heart rates; the agents still believed they had the upper hand. Similarly, werewolves were far stronger than human beings; Scott had no doubt he could take both of them in a close quarters fight. Finally, werewolves had quicker reflexes than human beings, even trained agents. Scott wasn’t a simple werewolf, either; he was an alpha with a large and powerful pack. When he chose to move at his full speed, humans had always seemed to him to be reacting in slow motion.

So he had all the time in the world to grab Ward’s gun with one hand and force it upwards; with his other hand, Scott pushed the man against the hallway wall, pinning Ward there. He was very careful; Agent Ward would only have a bruise at the most, but he wasn’t going to be moving until Scott let him. He had also avoided any of his mother’s pictures on purpose.

Scott pulse hadn’t even quickened, yet the release of aggression hadn’t brought him any relief from the irritating knot of pain forming behind his eyes. “Are you sure about that?”

Coulson hadn’t had his weapon drawn when Scott opened the door, but it was drawn now. “Let him go.”

“I thought we were meeting tomorrow. That’s what you said.” Scott gritted out; he tried to sound casual but failed. Ward tried to shift his position slightly, but Scott simply pressed harder, making it a little difficult for the man to breathe. “What’s with the Gestapo tactics?”

“Things changed. Let him go, or I’ll have to make you let him go.” Coulson cocked his gun, slowly and visibly, trying to intimidate him.

“Not with a pistol, you won’t.”

The retort of the pistol filled the house, and the neighbors were no doubt calling the police. Scott glanced down at the meat of his thigh where the bullet had struck him; he cocked his head to the side. “Don’t do that again.” He was so tired of people using violence to try to force him to obey — so very tired. If that’s how they wanted to play it, then that’s how they would play it. He let his claws grow from his fingers, his fangs drop from his mouth, and his eyes glowed baleful scarlet.

To his credit, Coulson recalculated quickly. “Okay.” With a show, Coulson holstered his pistol, probably recognizing that his lack of firepower was a problem. “That’s interesting. Even more interesting than what I found in the sheriff’s filing cabinet.”

“What were you doing in Sheriff’s Stilinski’s files?” Scott demanded around his fangs. He knew of the drawer in the office desk. He glanced at Ward. “If I let you go, you going to put that gun away?”

Ward, similarly, was completely cool. “Well, obviously.”

Scott stepped away. “I don’t appreciate getting guns shoved in my face.”

Ward stepped back and clear. He did put the gun away.

“Crises require decisive responses.” Coulson replied coolly. “One of my people has been taken, along with your county sheriff. I need answers, and I need them right now. I don’t have time to play games with you.”

“The sheriff’s been taken?” Scott felt the ground shift under his feet. “But … by whom? Why?”

“No idea.” Coulson snapped. “As I said, I need answers and so far, only you and Gerard Argent seem to have any.”

“Oh, fuck. You’ve been talking to Gerard. Okay.” He rubbed at his hair, leaving it a mess. “What do you need?”

Ward glanced between them. “Let’s start off with … what are you?”

“Uh.” Scott thought it must have been obvious, but he had been exposed to the supernatural for so long, he must have gotten used to it. “I’m a werewolf, dude.”

Ward turned to Coulson, who nodded calmly in response. At Ward’s incredulous reaction, the task force leader shrugged. “Once you see Banner change into the Hulk, things like this stop freaking you out as much. Scott, this has something to do with your friend’s kidnapping and Project Centipede. It can’t wait until tomorrow.”

“Fine.” Scott could apply part of the plan now. “We don’t know who kidnapped Stiles, but we do know why he was kidnapped. He’s very powerful.”

Coulson nodded. “We figured that out. He was behind the black out on October 30th of last year.”

“Not … exactly. It’s a complicated story and reveals a lot of secrets people like me don’t want anyone like you to know about.” Scott grimaced. “The people who took him might have kept an eye on us. They might want to make sure you don’t find out the truth.”

Ward rolled his eyes. “No shit.”

“I can help you find your agent and the sheriff, but you have to let me make a phone call and then take me to where they were taken.” Scott promised. “But you’re not going to know everything. I won’t be forced into giving up other people’s secrets.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. You’ve got five minutes, Scott.”

Noah Stilinski woke up groggily in utter darkness. He felt as if he had drank too much and passed out, only there was neither any taste or smell of alcohol on him. Only four times in the last eleven months had he drank to the point of oblivion: Christmas, his anniversary, the date Claudia had died, and on Stiles’ birthday. Other people might have been concerned, but he counted it as a significant victory that he hadn’t crawled into a bottle and disappeared completely.

He hadn’t tried to stop drinking for two reasons. The first was that there was no reason for him to do so. He wasn’t an alcoholic. He could go — and he had gone — for weeks without taking a drink. When he did drink, it hadn’t impacted his job as sheriff nor the obligations he had to Beacon Hills. While it was probably bad for his health, he found he didn’t much care about that. There was little reason for him to stick around, so he figured that any time to go would be as good as any other time.

The second reason, of course, was that he found it easier to be alone with the aid of a good finger of scotch. Some nights, the silence of the house became a weight threatening to drown him. The first couple of times the endless nothing of empty rooms had become too much, he had gone for a drive. It had become a habit. Once, he wound up all the way in San Francisco. Yet he couldn’t simply leave the county every time he was emotionally fraught.

Three to four times a week, a single drink would dispel the gloom. It would have to do for the rest of his life.

But he hadn’t been drunk this evening; he’d been working. He remembered finding Haigh’s cruiser. Woozily, he sat up, but while doing so he tried to move his leg. It was attached to something. His movement disturbed the other occupant of the room.

“Who’s there?” A man’s voice, sounding just as groggy as Noah was, demanded.

“Agent … Fitz? Is that you?”

“Certainly. Where are we?”

“I’m not quite sure.” Noah slid his hand down his leg to find out to what it had been secured. “But I’ve been secured by my own handcuffs to some sort of column. Can you move?”

The smaller SHIELD agent made less noise as he moved, but Noah could still hear him. “It seems I’m quite chained up as well.”

Noah followed the cuffs to the pole where he was chained. It seemed sturdy, far sturdier than the hook in the holding cell from which he had freed himself the last time someone had bound him with his own handcuffs. Noah was haunted by the idea that he should recognize where they were.

Instead of dwelling on it, he checked his belt and his pants pockets, for his jacket was gone. He had no phone. He had no gun. They had even taken his pepper spray and his Taser. “You wouldn’t happen to have any type of light source on you, would you?”

In a minute, the younger man replied in a voice which sounded full of mild disappointment. “Can’t say that I have.”

Wherever they were, there was no source of light. Not even a crack under a door. It would certainly make escape very difficult.

“It looks like we’re going to have to wait for a while,” the sheriff joked. “This isn’t my first time at this particular rodeo, so may I call you something other than Agent?”

“Everyone calls me Fitz.”

“Everyone calls me Sheriff.”

“Sheriff, do you know why we were kidnapped?”

Noah chuckled. “It’s Beacon Hills. The reason will come out eventually. If I had to take a wild guess, someone didn’t like the idea of SHIELD agents poking around their sinister plans and decided to distract your team.”

“Distract us?”

“Oh, yeah.” Fitz couldn’t see it, but Noah nodded vigorously. “Whoever it is needed time to make their move. From what I could tell about your Mr. Coulson, his first priority will have become you, just as my people’s first priority will be to find me.”

“I must say, you’re being awfully calm and confident about this!”

Noah realized he was being calm about it. He searched his feelings; he had no doubt that Scott and the pack would track him down. What that might mean for them, he couldn’t guess, but he had watched Scott McCall grow up, and he knew it wouldn’t matter to the alpha. He had watched Scott McCall turn from his son’s asthmatic tag-a-long into a real leader. “I guess I am.”

The sheriff heard the young agent move around, though he couldn’t see what Fitz was doing. Perhaps he was panicking. “Are you doing okay?”

“I’m fine. Is your watch analog?”

“Huh?”

The agent’s Scottish accent became easier to hear when he was excited. “Is your watch analog? Do you wind it? Mine was digital, so whoever kidnapped us took it.”

“Yes, it’s analog.”

“Please, give it to me.”

The agent sounded so serious and insistent, so Noah complied. “My wife gave me this watch.” Due to this talk, he had a good idea how far Fitz was away from him, so he scooted closer until they were able to fumblingly exchange the timepiece in the dark.

“A pity that,” Fitz said after a moment, and then the sound of the watch shattering filled the silence.

Noah’s jaw dropped. “What are you doing?”

“Watch parts are made of quality metal,” Fitz explained. “Either the crown or the ratchet crick will allow me to pick the lock on the handcuffs.”

“In the dark?”

In a conversational tone, the Scotsman narrated what he was doing. “Once you get the pick into the lock, you really don’t need to use your eyes. It’s a matter of feeling the locks. I can do this, especially if I can concentrate.”

Noah bit his tongue. Perhaps he could have the watch repaired.

Coulson pulled Lola onto the shoulder of the road at the crime scene they had left earlier that evening. From the number of police cruisers there, Deputy Parrish had made good on his threat to perform his own parallel investigation of the kidnapping of Sheriff Stilinski and Leo Fitz. Even though he didn’t think they’d find much, Coulson hadn’t protested. In the end, there was the possibility they could find something that his team had missed. While Coulson wasn’t beyond pulling rank, it might go a long way to smoothing over the ruffled feathers of the local department if he didn’t interfere.

The sky had cleared up and the waxing gibbous moon hung low and indifferent in the sky. A brisk breeze came up the great valley and clawed its way up the Sierra Nevada. Beacon Hills fit neatly within a box valley at their foot. Coulson glanced to his left, where Scott McCall leaned forward, eager for the car to stop. An agitated Ward sat pensive in the back seat. The kid — no, the werewolf — had gotten the drop at him back at the house, and that wasn’t sitting well with the operative. Coulson guessed he wouldn’t be caught unawares like that again anytime soon.

“What do we tell him?” Coulson asked McCall. “I mean Deputy Parrish.”

“He’s used to this by now.” Scott answered, getting out of the car. “Sometimes the sheriff calls us in to make sure that certain crimes are just mundane, normal crimes.”

“You get a lot of non-mundane crimes?” Ward said sarcastically.

The werewolf stopped and nodded. “You read the sheriff’s files, so you know all of what happened was caused by a single crime.”

“I take it you mean the Hale Fire,” Coulson replied. “We did our homework, but I suspect that you’re thinking about something else.”

McCall leveled a pointed look at him. “You could be right.”

“Why did you want to come here?”

“I might be able to tell you who kidnapped your agent.” Scott promised. “If they left by foot, then I might be able to track them.”

“How?”

“My sense of smell is a lot better than yours.” Scott walked up to Deputy Parrish. “Hey there.”

“Scott, good to see you.” Parrish sent a quick glare toward Coulson and Ward. “We’re working as hard as we can to find the Sheriff. And that other guy.”

Ward frowned, unwilling to let it pass. “Good to know.”

Scott rolled his shoulders. “Parrish, they’re worried. I am, too. Did you find anything?”

“Nothing yet.” Parrish shrugged. “The only thing I can tell you is that there is a good chance they didn’t leave by car.”

Coulson perked up. “How do you know that?”

“The sheriff and whoever parked Deputy Haigh’s car both left their dash cameras running. The kidnapping itself is off camera, but unless the kidnapper could drive across country without leaving tire tracks, they went by foot.”

“They could have marched them across the fields to another waiting vehicle.” Ward pointed out. “That’s what I’d do.”

Scott McCall had left them and gone to the sheriff’s car. Coulson was watching him closely while Ward and the deputy discussed what the evidence could mean. Sure enough, Coulson saw the young man sniffing the air. The boy turned to the fields and started to move off the road.

“Find something?”

“The trail leads this way.” Scott responded. “There’s only one kidnapper. How could he possibly carry two people?”

“Could he be like you?”

“I’m strong enough to carry two people at a time but not strong enough to do it without leaving a trail. Don’t worry, we’ll find them.” The werewolf turned away from them and spoke to the night. “Find the sheriff. Call me when you do.”

Coulson immediately looked to the forest. “They out there?”

“Yeah.” Scott folded his arms over his chest, even more wary.

“SHIELD is not a danger to your people. We care about what people do, not what they are.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it, but you are right — SHIELD isn’t a danger to my pack.” Scott turned away from the deputies. “What do you guys think?”

The night was split open wide by the howls of what sounded like dozens of wolves in the rural countryside around them

October 15, 2013

It took Melinda May two seconds to ask herself: “How did I get here?”

The last thing she remembered was parking outside of Oak Creek with Simmons and Skye. She was a believer in harsh reality. She had seen war and terror; she didn’t have any truck with emanations or hauntings or anything like that. Yet every instinct she had told her that Oak Creek was bad news.

And then she woke up in this place. This cell, actually.

Simmons and Skye were in the same cell, so she quickly bent down and checked them. Unconscious, but seemingly unharmed except for some bruises. She could feel bruises as well — one on her cheek and one along her ribs. She had no idea how she got them.

She checked herself. She was unarmed. She had her cell phone, but it was simply not functioning.

She checked the surroundings outside of the cage. It looked like an underground laboratory, but unlike any other she had ever seen. It was unbearable filthy and dimly lit. Vats bubbled with obscene greenish liquid, and grimy looking equipment sparked ominously. It looked like some sort of steam punk nightmare.

“Where the hell are we?”

Chapter Text

October 15, 2013 (Continued)

Stiles had stopped for coffee at the Oroville Starbucks a little past nine in the morning. Puffy white clouds chased the sun around the sky, and other than a few chilly gusts descending from the Sierra Nevada, it was going to be a beautiful fall day.

He had purchased a simple Columbian blend, the kind you could get at any coffee store, without cream or sugar. Strangely enough, it tasted better to Stiles than any other coffee he had had in any other Starbucks he had visited. The feeling made zero sense to him. Yet there were many things in the world that didn’t make sense, and part of him had learned over the years to take those things and enjoyed them when you could.

With his purloined Mustang parked on the shoulder of the road, he finished off his coffee standing near the Beacon Hills city line. If he moved one foot an inch in the direction he was pointing, he would be officially back. It had been almost a year since he had been there, but it felt like it had been decades.

Another blast of wind roared from the north north-east, pushing a squadron of dead leaves in front of it. As they whirled around his feet, he caught the scent of the Preserve – blue oak and gray pine.

Stiles glanced sourly into his cup. Without another sip, he dumped it out on the ground.

“No more stalling.”

In a few minutes, the Mustang prowled along the quiet streets of Beacon Hills, tinted windows concealing Stiles from the gaze of those who might recognize him. He didn’t wander the streets aimlessly; he knew exactly where he had to go first. There were things he needed.

He had to go home.

Stiles parked two blocks north of the house on Woodbine Lane. Wagering that the neighborhood’s routine hadn’t changed much since last October, Stiles moved quickly but steadily through yards rather than on the front sidewalk, until he reached his own backyard. Realistically, it was now only his father’s backyard.

In the flower bed which hadn’t been well-tended for almost a decade, Stiles retrieved the spare key from under one of the ceramic figurines. Claudia, when she had been in her right mind, had had a taste for the weird, the grotesque and the tacky. Over time, she had bought six garden gnomes, each more comical and colorful than the first. The gnome under which the key was kept sat squatting on a toilet, his naughty bits tastefully concealed by the newspaper he was reading.

His father, in a fit of nostalgia perhaps, hadn’t changed the locks on the back door of the garage. Also as expected, his Jeep had been parked inside; someone had cared enough to cover it with a tarp. With a different spare key, he retrieved from its hiding place on the tool bench, Stiles carefully folded the tarp back. Fishing under the driver’s seat, he found what he was looking for: his stash of illegally obtained keys and key cards. These were going to be very useful.

Shutting the door of his Jeep, he returned to the tool bench to put the spare key back exactly where it should be, yet he hesitated, glancing over his shoulder to where the door into the house stood, inviting him. Finally, he walked over to it, hands clenching and unclenching, but he couldn’t bring himself to put his hand on the door. His fingers hovered over the knob.

He closed his eyes in order to force himself away. Every moment he lingered here was another moment he could be spotted, and the neighbors wouldn’t have forgotten him so quickly. He patted the gnome on the top of the head, as he placed the house key back where it belonged.

He didn’t look back.

Strangely enough, infiltrating the sheriff’s station put him in less danger than he had been when he had broken into his own home. As at least two previous situations had proved, this sheriff’s station hadn’t been built to withstand supernatural assault. Someone with superhuman abilities could infiltrate it easily. Someone with superhuman abilities and a thorough knowledge of its inner workings could infiltrate it very easily.

It wasn’t meant to be a fortress. The most it could be was a jail.

Covering his face with a clear plastic mask designed to distort his image enough to thwart facial recognition software, Stiles slipped in through the service entrance, which he noted seemed to be as unused as it had been when he had helped Scott and Kira break in. He paused just inside the door, listening. While not as sharp as a wolf’s ears, he could still hear better than the average human. He counted at least six different people in the building: it was a full house. He didn’t know if the sheriff was present, but if his father were there, he would most likely be in his office. That would leave at least one person on the front desk, so there would be four to five people in the bullpen.

He checked the holding cells to find they were empty. Stiles had noticed years ago that the deputies gravitated to the front areas when they didn’t have any prisoners to keep an eye on.

Hitting the locked supply room in the basement, he snagged a shoulder radio and an extra laptop. Then he hit the armory and stole a combat shotgun, an extra sidearm, and enough ammunition to last for at least a day. He would use as little of his official Hydra gear as possible. He wanted to minimize the attention both SHIELD and Hydra would pay to Beacon Hills after these events.

After getting what he needed, he moved back to the service entrance but stopped, on his way, at the corner of the hallway nearest to the front. He could hear the voice of Ramirez, one of his father’s oldest remaining deputies. He paused, listening to what he was saying and hoping for some answer. He didn’t hear one; Ramirez probably wasn’t talking to his father anyway.

Stiles retreated out of the station with no one the wiser. Considering turnover, the lack of vigilance wasn’t the new deputies' fault.

Putting some distance between him and the station, he drove down to Beacon Hills High School, parking in the far lot which was usually only filled up during lacrosse games. The tinted windows of the Mustang would keep his identity protected. He turned on the radio to the dispatch channel, listening to the chatter of the deputies on patrol. He also booted up the laptop.

The high school hadn’t changed the password for its Wi-Fi, and his father hadn’t changed his password for the police network. He began to scroll over the recent cases, searching for any connections with the SHIELD team only to find the worst possible connection.

His father had been kidnapped.

Stiles pursed his lips. If someone had asked him about this scenario the day before yesterday, he would have told them they should expect a display of violence, a volcanic fury digging its way up from the center of his chest, furious and terrified at the same time. Yet, that wasn't what he was experiencing. Instead, he let out a slow breath and continued reading, his mind beginning to work at lightning speed, focused on possibilities. Maybe he would freak out later, but it seemed he was cooler under pressure than he had been before as someone merely human.

Something about where the abduction happened triggered a memory. He thought about it in the silence in the car; he turned it over and over in his head. Then the memory came back at full force, from Danny Mahealani’s abortive science project.

“Telluric currents.”

It made a certain amount of sense. Jennifer had harnessed their power by creating synchronization between them here. His other half had been imprisoned at the most powerful nexus of currents in the area. At certain intensities, their presence would make casting sorcery easier. Belial would be stronger at these locations, and one of the few things Stiles admired about Belial was his dedication to stacking the deck in his favor.

Stiles would bet his life — actually, he would bet his father’s life — that Belial would keep his father and this extraneous SHIELD agent in another similar location. He looked up at the school. The school itself was the third strongest nexus of telluric currents. The Nemeton, of course, was the first, but the second would be …

“Eichen House. Son of a bitch.”

He ran a tongue over his teeth. There could be at least two to four werewolves present in that school who would know him by scent, let alone the possibility of running into a banshee and a hunter. It was too risky, so he put the car into reverse and pulled out. He needed to return to the scene of the crime.

Grant Ward caught glimpses of their destination through the trees. Even from this distance, the buildings looked to be in terrible shape, when by all accounts they shouldn’t be. They were driving through a quiet, suburban neighborhood, not the decrepit heart of one of Beacon Hill’s industrial sectors. The property would be prime land to be sought after for development, even if it was close to a mental health facility. Yet, the rest of the city seemed to have completely forgotten about the existence of the old base.

“I don’t know why we always come to these types of places at night,” Scott complained to the two SHIELD agents as they pulled into the weed-choked parking lot. “Well, I do know, but I wish we didn’t. It’s simply so much less intimidating with the sun out.”

“Werewolves get intimidated?” Ward couldn’t help but smirk from where he sat in Lola’s cramped back seat. “You and your pack have been pretty impressive so far, not that I’ve seen any of them but you.”

“Thank you.”

“You could be even more impressive if you’d allow us to coordinate with your search.” Coulson added, only a little bit prickly. “My agent is still missing.”

Scott looked down at his hands, and Ward had figured out by now that this boy wasn’t used to defying law enforcement. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to reveal their identities to you. You’re going to have to trust me that we’ll do everything we can to find both the sheriff and your man.”

Coulson nodded, but Ward could tell that boss was reaching his limit. Fitz had been missing for twelve hours, and May’s team hadn’t contacted them in eight. He gave Coulson maybe another hour before he called Washington and requested a full SHIELD intervention.

Ward could only assume that Coulson was holding back so far due to the complex situation that they had found here. Standard procedure would be to alert Fury and let him make the determination about McCall and his pack. Yet for all the interest in a supernatural race inhabiting a quiet Californian city, Centipede remained a higher priority. Until McCall could be persuaded to give the name of his source information about Centipede’s activities in Hong Kong, Coulson would play his hand very carefully. Beacon Hill’s Black Flag status gave the agent room to maneuver. It didn’t hurt that, other than his secrecy about the supernatural, McCall seemed eager to help them.

Two SUVs were parked before the ivy-covered gate to the old camp. May, Simmons, and Skye had brought their black Lexus here. Anyone could see the logo that marked it as an official SHIELD. Ward thought that it might have been May standing next to the Toyota Highlander by her posture, but it turned out to be a younger Caucasian woman.

“Who’s that?”

“Allison.”

Coulson parked Lola but he didn’t get out. “Allison Argent? Gerard Argent’s granddaughter?”

“Yeah, they’re nothing alike though.”

“So, you won’t poison her?” Ward’s poke was probably a little cruel; Coulson glanced back at him from the front seat with only the slightest bit of reproof.

Scott sighed. “Did he tell you that? Look, one thing you have to keep in mind is even confined to a wheelchair, Gerard’s probably one of the most dangerous people in this entire town.”

“Compared to werewolves?”

“Especially compared to werewolves.” Scott said grimly. “You’ve heard the stories about silver bullets?”

Ward had made plans to get some the moment McCall had revealed what he was.

“It’s a myth. It’s not the metal that kills werewolves; it’s the family. The Argents are the oldest and most prestigious clan of hunters in the world. They’ve been killing us since the French and Indian War.”

Coulson finally opened his car door. “What is she doing here tonight?”

In response, Scott got out of Lola and walked up to the young lady. Ward followed him; he was curious as to that answer himself. The operative could tell by the way she held herself and by the array of weapons he identified on her body that she had been trained, had been trained well, and was fully willing to use that training.

“Scott, I’ve got news.” She glanced at the two agents. “According to your emissary, someone is messing with it again. The currents are in flux, and the site of the abduction was on a current.”

“Okay.” Scott closed his eyes to calm himself. “I’m assuming someone has already thought of checking the other sites.”

“Doing it as we speak.”

“Mind filling us in here?” Coulson demanded.

“Beacon Hills is situated on a confluence of geomagnetic currents. They’re real enough to science, but to the supernatural, they’re far more important. The sheriff and your agent were kidnapped while on a current. That means they’re most likely being kept on one as well. Luckily, we’ve mapped out all the major currents in town.”

“Why?” Ward felt their reactions were a little less happy than they should be for their first solid lead.

“Why what?”

“Why are you confident that they’ll be found there?”

Scott clenched his teeth, but Allison Argent looked him straight in eyes. “Because that’s where we found them the last time.”

“Something like this has happened before.” Coulson put it together as quickly as Ward did. “Do I want to know the worst-case scenario?”

“Probably not,” Scott offered him a thin smile. He stuck his head into the SHIELD SUV; its door had been left unlocked.

“We don’t have time for games,” Allison reached into her own SUV and grabbed a bow, a quiver, and some other equipment. “Your involvement has forced our hand, so you’ll have to deal with the unvarnished truth. The worst-case scenario, as you put it, is human sacrifice by someone intending to harness the power of these currents. We’ll need as much manpower as we can get to check all the locations, so I’m here to help you find your other agents. Any possible scenario puts your man and our sheriff at increasing risk as every moment passes, so maybe you should stop demanding a play-by-play and get to work.”

Allison aggressively handed the two of them flashlights and headed toward the main gate, Scott following after.

Ward turned to Coulson. “Did we just get scolded?”

“She’s not wrong. I can’t help but feel we’re running out of time.”

Even in broad daylight, something about this place triggered all of Ward’s instincts for caution. The iron gate and the fencing had rusted to brittleness long ago; he would be able to find similar graffiti on almost any abandoned building in any city. Yet, the rust and the paint took on a sinister cast here, helping some unidentifiable presence claw its way under Ward’s skin. He dismissed it as his imagination, spawned by the gruesome report of a wartime massacre.

“I’ve got them.” Scott announced, confidently. “This way.”

“You picked up their scent?”

The werewolf nodded and sprinted off toward an entrance that led to an underground part of the complex. The tunnels were filled with moisture-stained concrete and corroded 40s-era electrical fixtures. The anxious feeling playing on Ward’s nerves intensified, and he could see similar feelings reflected in the faces of the people with him.

The werewolf finally came to a stop in a round cistern-like chamber; it was dank and musty. Out of habit, Ward marked three exits, one to the north, one to the south, and one to the east, each with a rusted iron gate hanging open. A single lone light bulb shone fitfully above the entrance they had come in. Scott paused in the middle of the room, cocking his head so much like a hunting dog who had lost the trail that Ward had to bite his tongue.

“Why a bow?” Coulson asked Allison while they waited.

She looked over at him and frowned, while Scott circled the room.

“I asked the same question of Hawkeye.”

“What did he say?”

“He picked it up as a teenager, and he’s a better shot with it than a gun.”

“My parents got me interested in archery as a child. I competed nationally, but I found out later that it had really been a cover for training.”

Ward heard the echoes of his own life in her voice. “Training for what?”

“Bows are better for hunting werewolves than guns, especially if you want to capture them.” At Coulson’s and Ward’s interested stares, Allison continued. “Werewolves heal fast. Bullets tend to either go all the way through or get pushed out of the wound by the healing.”

“They have to dig the arrow out first in order to heal.” Ward nodded. “Practical.”

They were interrupted by a frustrated growl from Scott. “Their scents end here. I don’t know how that’s possible. It’s like they vanished.”

The Argent woman didn’t complain but immediately started to study the ground, searching for tracks. Ward noted that she could have been another agent. Scott, on the other hand, actually fell to his hands and knees, trying to find the scent again; once more he had shifted into something that seemed completely inhuman.

Coulson didn’t panic either, studying the room and pulling out his cell phone. “Where do you think?”

Ward pointed at the blank west wall. It was the only thing that stood out as odd for him.

Typing in a number, Coulson pointed it in the general direction of the blank wall. The phone's screen lit up.

Scott clasped his ears. “Yow! What was that?”

“Hypersonic scanning.” Coulson explained while approaching the blank wall. “Very useful in finding secret doors.” While he flashed the screen of his phone to all three of them, which showed the room beyond but no obvious ways to open it, he was really waiting for his operative’s opinion.

“Bombs?” Ward queried.

Coulson smiled. “Bombs.”

It took little less than a minute to place the charges. Coulson herded the teenagers down the corridor, while Ward readied himself to take point. The blast would not only alert anyone in the facility but anyone near it as well. The wall fell inward.

Ward stormed first through the breach, gun at the ready. If the team was in there, they had been taken, and someone capable of doing that was not someone to underestimate. “SHIELD Agents! Come out with your hands up!” He shouted, partially to draw out any enemies and notify any friends.

“Ward!” May’s voice drew his attention to an alcove to his left. Ward glanced back to make sure the others were close enough to follow him, before he moved forward. They were being kept in what seemed to be some sort of scientific laboratory, although a relatively filthy one. Ward couldn’t recognize anything’s purpose, the equipment seeming both antique and beyond him at the same time. Actinic lights started to make his eyes lose their focus if he looked at them too long.

Ward found the three missing agents together, pissed off and waiting in a cell. Ward sauntered up to the door. “You aren’t out yet?”

May frowned at him. “Very funny.”

“Everyone okay?”

“We’re fine,” a grumpy Skye replied. “Now get us out of here.”

“That would be excellent, thank you,” Simmons joined in. “Have you rescued Fitz?”

Ward turned his back to the cell, keeping an eye on their strange surroundings, as Coulson and the two Beacon Hills natives joined them at the gate.

“Who took you three?”

“We don’t remember.” May sounded savagely disappointed.

“How is that possible?”

Scott and Allison looked at each other in alarm. “Theo said that they were coming. Maybe they’re already here?”

“Who’s already here?” Coulson had bent to look at the lock more closely. “I don’t understand this lock at all. I’ll have to blow it.”

“Here, let me.” Scott stepped forward and took hold of the cell; all three of the agents in the cell took a step back. “They’re called the Dread Doctors.”

“You really call them that?” Ward asked in disbelief.

Allison watched while Scott began to try to pull open the cell door with brute strength. “They’re scientists who became obsessed with the supernatural. What you need to know right now is that they’re brilliant, ruthless, and resourceful. They have learned to command electromagnetic forces and, most importantly, they can make you forget you ever saw them.”

“Induced amnesia.”

“Electroconvulsive therapy has been shown to cause short-term memory loss. Theoretically, you could use electromagnetism to duplicate the effects.” Simmons volunteered. “And none of us remember how we got in here.”

Ward had been about to scoff when movement caught his eye. He had only a moment to wonder how this person — if he could be called that — had gotten so close without Ward sensing it. The figure was tall, dressed in heavy gray clothing and walking with a lurching gait, but it was the mask that drew his eye. It was smooth metal, but with circular holes for eyes and only a grate for a mouth.

Aiming for the figure's center of mass, Ward ordered them to stay where they were.

Coulson and Allison turned his way. There was a shocked breath from the woman as she knocked an arrow, while Coulson drew his own pistol.

The figure raised one hand. There were some sort of emitters at the fingertips that glowed with St. Elmo’s fire. While the man’s gait was slow and deliberate, he also didn’t look like he was slowing down.

The figure was unarmed, even with the grotesque mask, so Ward tried to put a round into his leg. The bullet stopped in mid flight, the air itself distorting around it. Coulson and Argent fired but their shots were deflected as well.

Coulson pursed his lips. “This would be a Dread Doctor?”

Scott was sweating as the metal groaned under his hands. “It’s … the … Pathologist.” With that, he broke the door open.

“Charming.” Coulson nudged Ward. “We’ll flank. Scott, Allison, get my agents out of here.”

Perhaps this Doctor hadn’t dealt with a trained tactical team before, because simply splitting apart in two different directions caused the Pathologist to stop. Ward guessed that the whatever-it-was had to focus on manipulating magnetic fields along particular planes. On the other hand, as slow as he had seemed, the Doctor was fast enough to keep either of them from getting a good shot.

Ward had only the briefest flash of warning before he was grabbed by the throat. One of these masked people had managed to walk right up behind him. Ward had seen this creep, who had the body shape of a woman and whose mask had more hoses and some sort of bellows pump on it, in his peripheral vision, but his mind kept failing to register her as a threat until the last moment.

The female Doctor forced him to his knees with a painful grip, her other hand bringing to bear a large gun-like syringe. Ward definitely didn’t want to find out what was in it. He punched her in the kidney, once, twice, but it seemed to have little effect. She was far stronger than he was and possibly insensible to pain. The needle inched closer to his neck.

Suddenly the female Doctor was ripped off of him by a blur of motion. Scott had used sheer speed and strength to knock the Doctor off of him, but his claws weren’t having much effect on the woman.

Ward pulled himself to his feet, finding the other enemy. Coulson and May weren’t faring any better, though May’s skill with martial arts was at least keeping the Pathologist at bay. Skye, Simmons, and the Argent girl were nowhere to be seen.

“How many of these things are there?”

“One more.” Scott grunted as he got pushed back by the woman Doctor. At least, he had ripped the sinister needle gun out of her hand. “Their leader.”

Coulson must have overheard. “Anyone got eyes on another one?”

“No!” Ward didn’t see anyone, but he couldn’t be sure in this environment and with the Doctors’ frustrating ability to influence perceptions.

“We’re retreating. Now!” Coulson pulled a frustrated May back from where she was trying to beat the Pathologist’s mask off his face with her foot.

So, retreat Ward did. He thought he might have to insist that McCall retreat with them, but it turned out he didn’t have to. The werewolf covered his back as the squad retreated the way they had entered.

Sometime during the harrowing retreat either the Doctors stopped pursuing them or they lost them. They met up with the Argent girl, Simmons and Skye in the parking lot.

“Whatever the hell those people are, we’re going to need heavier weapons,” Coulson said. He turned to the locals. “We’ll find them back on the Bus. You should come with us.”

Scott looked at Allison, and she indicate that it was a good idea. “Thanks to your trip into Theo’s memories, you know more than any of us.”

May had returned to her frequent state of icy rage. “Are they the ones that have Fitz?”

“I …” Scott looked back at the Oak Creek ruins. “I don’t know. I don’t know why they’d take him. I thought they’d want to avoid you at all costs.”

“Well, that was their failure,” Coulson announced. “Let’s move people.”

“What are we doing here?” Aiden complained as he got off his bike and pulled his helmet off his head.

“I don’t know, and I didn’t miraculously find out in the last ten minutes.”

“It was a rhetorical question!”

Ethan looked up at the foreboding presence of the still empty Beacon Hills First National Bank. His nervousness mirrored his twin’s. While Scott had worked hard to smooth over the bad history between the former alphas and the rest of the pack, and while Ethan thought that at least some of them might have forgiven them, he was absolutely sure no one had forgotten what they had done while under Deucalion’s control.

It didn’t help his anxiety that a very terse Derek Hale was the one who had called them and asked them to come to this location of all places.

Ethan realized he was standing on the sidewalk. “We should go in.” Yet he didn’t move. He glanced over to where Aiden was staring down the road. “What is it?”

“For a moment, I thought … nah, it couldn’t be.”

“We should go in.”

“You said that. After you.”

The door had already been forced open, yet another padlock and chain had been opened the werewolf way. They stepped inside, trying to dodge the memories of what had happened here. What they had allowed to happen. What they had done.

“Over here.” Derek’s voice cut through the reminiscing and drew them to the vault.

“Of course,” griped Ethan.

Derek wasn’t alone inside. Leaning up against the wall was his Uncle Peter, one of Ethan’s least favorite pack members. The man took great pride in playing with people’s emotions, in manipulating pack dynamics to certain ends, and in always leaving you wondering when he was going to slide a knife into your back. Peter had all of Deucalion’s cunning, quite a bit of their mentor’s emotional intelligence, some of the Demon Wolf’s strategic savvy, and none of the Alpha of Alphas’ vision.

“We were wondering if whether either of you two strapping young men had the combination to the vault,” Peter leered.

“Wait a minute.” His brother glanced around in confusion. “The sheriff’s station had the door to the vault removed after …”

Derek caught his eye and raised both eyebrows in a ‘go on’ gesture.

Aiden fell silent.

“Butch Twin has a point.” Peter got up and put his hand on the hinges. “The door was removed as a safety hazard.”

“Someone must have put it back up. If they did that, they might have changed the combination,” Ethan reasons.

Wordlessly, Derek gestured to the lock.

“Okay.” He wasn’t going to argue with Derek, not here. Yet, someone taking the time to put the vault door back up had to mean something. He breathed normally and easily for the first time since he had entered the bank, trying to remember the old combination. When doing so, he caught a scent — the sheriff had been here and recently.

The code had not been changed, which was a very good thing. Without that, you’d need the entire pack to pull the door off its lock, or they’d need to get the state police involved and SHIELD was already causing incredible amounts of trouble as it was.

Ethan had, after putting in the code, pulled the vault door open without thinking. He had done it dozens and dozens of times before. This time, the door opened to give him a fist to the face. The punch knocked him on his ass, ex-alpha or not.

“Sheriff!” Derek called out rapidly. “Sheriff! It’s us!”

Aiden bent down to help him to his feet. Ethan watched as a disheveled Sheriff Stilinski and Agent Fitz stumbled out of the pitch-black bank vault and into the dim light of the bank lobby.

“I’m going to have the county tear this place to the ground,” the sheriff swore.

“Who are these people?” The agent seemed only a little worse for wear. He smoothed out his jacket.

“We’re here to rescue you,” Peter supplied happily. “We’re heroes.”

The Sheriff, Derek, and Aiden all glared at him.

“Oh.” Fitz slid his eyes back and forth. “Would one of you heroes have a phone so I could call my team?”

Derek pulled out a phone and handed it to the man. “You’ll get better reception outside.”

“How did you guys find us?” The sheriff asked once the SHIELD Agent was on his way out.

Ethan muttered. “The telluric currents. You were abducted on one of them.”

“Who took you, Sheriff?”

“It looked like Haigh, but it certainly didn’t act like him,” the sheriff remarked. “Possibly another shapeshifter. Has there been a ransom call?”

“No,” Derek said firmly.

Noah Stilinski shook his head. “Either they were amateurs who didn’t know what they were doing, but were able to take down a cop and a federal agent while hiding us for what, a day?”

“Twelve hours,” Ethan supplied. “Give or take some minutes.”

The sheriff shook his head in disbelief. "Or were they professionals with some goal in mind we can't fathom."

Peter supplied the rest. “Oh, I think it's easy to fathom. That young lad out there talking to his superior officer in a global peacekeeping agency is all that I need to deduce their goal. Derek, Sheriff, miscreants, I think someone wants to expose us.”

They stared at each other. No one had any way to argue.

Chapter Text

October 15, 2013 (Continued)

Stiles would say it was luck, but it was more than that. It was destiny. He had been parked outside of Eichen House, working up the courage to go inside, when it happened.

He couldn’t admit to anyone in Hydra that this place frightened him. First rule of the organization was that you never admitted weakness. But he still had them; Stiles the human had always had a bone-deep fear of madness, ever since he, as a child, had his mother lose her rationality, her identity, and then her life in that order. This building reminded him of how close it had come to happening to him.

The fox, by coincidence, also had an uncomfortable relationship with the place. After all, the corpse of its previous host was interred somewhere within these walls. He had also used it as a source of weak-willed individuals who could be manipulated into willing servants. William Barrow had been one of them. Even now, a mild-mannered patient named Oliver waited inside to serve any role Stiles might need him to fulfill.

Eichen House itself was fraught with risk. Its construction was singular and intentional, using a conjunction of telluric currents, Masonic architectural secrets, and the presence of a singular entity in its basement to do more than house the mentally incapacitated. Certain supernatural creatures once imprisoned would find it hard to escape, and certain supernatural creatures who might want to enter would find that even harder.

These misgivings gave Stiles more than enough reasons to dawdle outside. In the end, it had to be destiny, because as he was sitting there pondering his next move, he looked into his rear-view mirror and saw Scott McCall drive past in a cherry red 1962 Chevrolet Convertible with people whom his debriefing file had told him were Agent Phil Coulson and Agent Grant Ward.

“Fan-fucking-tastic.”

In a split second, he made up his mind. Scott was no doubt trying to track down his father; that much would not have changed in eleven months. He pulled the Mustang out of the parking lot and began to follow the car at a distance. It was a risk. SHIELD agents weren’t chumps, and while he was no longer a chump either, the longer he followed them the greater the chance the agents would spot their tail.

It turned out that he didn’t have to worry for long. They pulled into the parking lot of Oak Creek. Stiles smiled — good times, good times — and parked far enough away so he wouldn't draw attention. He watched them meet with Allison Argent and then head into the abandoned base. He waited one minute after he saw the last of them enter the underground before he got out of his car. He had to make sure that Scott wouldn’t be able to pick up on his presence.

He loaded the shotgun. He didn’t want to have to use it, but he had to be prepared. Carefully, he crept into the parking lot and towards the convertible. He could sense there was a lot more power in it than a simple car required. His goal was to find a spare communication device. Not finding anything in his first sweep, he headed towards the SHIELD SUV. Professional agents might not leave sensitive equipment in an open vehicle but maybe they would in a locked one.

Stiles bent down to work his magic on the door locks. As expected, they were much more sophisticated than what you’d get from a Lexus dealership in San Francisco, but they weren’t beyond his ability.

Centuries of practice had made him wary though, and he kept an eye, an ear, and a nose open for bystanders or returning agents. It was the only thing that saved him. In the reflection of the mirror he saw a dark blurry shape. Instinctually, he rolled away to his side as the car window shattered from the blow of a hammer.

He sprung up from his maneuver several feet away with the shotgun at the ready. It would have been hard for him to miss at this distance, but his assailant, moving quickly, pulled the shotgun’s mouth down to point at the ground. The slug buried itself in the asphalt.

Stiles took a few steps back after his missed shot. His opponent was something out of a Mary Shelley’s snazzily-dressed nightmare. The man’s face was covered by a mask, and the right eye had a series of colored lenses. He didn’t move fast, but somehow, he changed positions faster than Stiles could follow. It took Stiles a few more dodges to realize that the cane-wielding enemy was moving through more dimensions than just space.

He had no choice. To distract the man, he made his aura tangible, nine tails of negative space, swirling around him in what even he had to admit was a pretty impressive display. His opponent stopped, perhaps to recalculate, and Stiles put the butt of the shotgun square into his masked face. One of the lenses cracked under the blow, yet, with a shimmer, the man appeared across the parking lot.

Stiles shook his head as he struggled to remember what he was doing. A lesser person would have immediately forgotten what had just occurred, but he had too much control over electromagnetism for the strange man’s power to overwhelm his memories so easily.

For a moment, he thought of Scott down in the tunnels below. The True Alpha that he longed to see again and that he hated to see again. Suddenly, he had an idea. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The opponent said nothing but switched the lenses in his eyepiece.

“Somehow, I don’t think you’re a member of SHIELD, and you’re certainly not a member of the McCall pack. Neither am I.” Stiles felt a small but sharp pang of regret in that statement, but it was true. He wasn’t part of the pack anymore. How could he be? To signal an end to his aggression, pointed his shotgun up at the sky. “I think you recognize what I am.”

“Nogitsune.” His opponent’s voice was all base and reverb.

“You were up to something here in Beacon Hills, and honestly, I don’t much care what it is, but SHIELD is here now. I’m pretty sure you didn’t show up here for me, so you came here to take care of them.”

The masked man said nothing, only vibrated in and out of reality.

“Look. I’m here trying to keep my past from fucking up my present, and I’m failing. I suspect you’ve got a goal that you are similarly failing to reach. I can’t imagine that SHIELD team’s presence is helping you achieve it.”

“No.”

This person wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Fair enough, Stiles could talk for both of them. It had always been his gift in both lives. “So, take a risk and tell me what your plans for the SHIELD team are? Remember what I am, and what I need.”

“Ambush.”

“Killing them will buy you forty-eight at the most before this place is swarmed by a full division. Can you get what you need done in two days? That man in there is the right hand of the Director of SHIELD. If you need more time than that in Beacon Hills, you’ve already lost.”

Whatever this masked man was, he didn't show his emotions easily. If Stiles didn’t have the supernatural ability to sense the potential for chaos and strife, he would think that the switching of the lenses was mere recalculation and not cold fury.

“Suggestions?”

“I’m not a finicky man. I want to salvage as much as I can from this fiasco. I think you do as well. What I have is far more information about SHIELD and the McCall pack than you will ever have, and I have no small talent for planning. You have some really nifty powers, including, I suspect, memory manipulation. What I propose is that you scratch my back, and then I’ll scratch yours. To do that, you call off your ambush, and we will go someplace neutral, and I’ll tell you what exactly brought these people here to piss in your Wheaties. Deal?”

“Acceptable.” The whole body vibrated at a pitch so high that Stiles only caught the first part off. It was a signal to others.

Coulson led his convoy to the sheriff’s station in Lola. Skye sat with him and gave her rather colorful though not particularly exact report on their adventures beneath Oak Creek. There was a great deal of exclamations, flailing, and general freaking out. Coulson allowed it; she was still very new to all of this.

At the station, Allison Argent dropped Scott McCall off from the SUV, and he moved quickly to join them. Now, the werewolf looked remarkably human, like a high schooler he was being called to the principal’s office. When they walked in the door, they saw Fitz with a cup of coffee standing and talking to the sheriff. Simmons and Skye immediately rushed to see if Fitz was okay, while Scott ran to the sheriff and gripped him by the arms. Coulson, who had been studying the boy since he discovered what he was, caught the boy sniffing at the older man, checking him for injury.

“I’m fine, Scott.” The sheriff patted the young man awkwardly on the shoulder.

“Okay.” His relief was palpable.

Coulson cleared his throat. “As glad as I am to get our people back, we still have a few matters to resolve.”

The werewolf’s face hardened as he turned around. “We do.”

“Why don’t we use my office?” The sheriff offered, sensing the room. “We’ll have privacy there.”

Coulson took temperature of the room. While Simmons and Skye were still focused on talking with Fitz, May and Ward were watching him. When he signaled for them to stay out here, Ward’s blasé shrug and May’s tightly crossed arms told him they did not like the decision. Usually he would want his entire team in the room, but given the secrets that McCall obviously wanted to protect and his close relationship with the sheriff, he would handle this by himself.

The sheriff’s deputies seemed less than enthusiastic about the presence of federal agents, yet they weren’t put off by being kept out of the room. Coulson wasn’t sure if they didn’t know what the sheriff knew about the presence of supernatural creatures in their city and were completely willing to let Noah Stilinski handle the mysterious cases, or if they did know the truth and simply had enough trust that their leader to resolve the situation positively.

Scott McCall, for his part, had a by-the-finger-nails grip on the situation, which you would you expect someone who had no idea what to do but was pretty much convinced he had to do something. Every movement was intended to display strength without being overly aggressive, but the very precision of the movements belied the troubled kid underneath. Experienced leaders didn’t need to try so hard.

“Why don’t we sit down?”

“Sure, Sheriff.” Coulson pulled up a chair so he could keep both the werewolf and Stilinski in his field of vision. “I gave you until this afternoon, Scott, to come to the right decision. I know you didn’t have much time to think, but it doesn’t change my priorities. I need to know that name.”

“I know.” Scott sighed and looked down at the floor of the office.

“If it would be easier for you, we could bring your father or mother here.”

The sheriff’s face dropped into a frown.

“No thanks. I think my dad would only make this more difficult.” McCall sat down heavily on the couch.

“As you wish. I need to know who gave you my phone number. Was it one of these Doctors?” Coulson didn’t have the luxury to ease the boy into telling him, and he didn’t think it was necessary anyway. While not the most experienced leader, he had raw talent.

“No. It wasn’t them.”

“Scott, I know you want to find Stiles, but there are times when you can keep a secret and times when you can’t. People are now in danger.”

“I know, sheriff. First let me tell you what I do know about the Doctors.”

Coulson listened carefully. While their motives were obscured and their ultimate goal unknown, they were people that he would absolutely put on SHIELD’s watch list. People willing to use dangerous technology to harness the supernatural without regard for the lives of the people they experimented on? It sounded more and more that these Dread Doctors might be rivals to Centipede. They had to be stopped.

“I learned about your phone number from an inmate at Eichen House, Dr. Gabriel Valack.”

Coulson wrote the name down. “What do you know about him?”

“He used to run the place, but he was imprisoned after performing lethal experiments on patients. He has psychic powers. I’m not sure if they were given to him by the Doctors or if he developed them himself using their techniques, but it doesn’t really matter. He holds the Doctors responsible for the failure of his career, and he was willing to give me Stiles’ location if I thwarted them for him.”

SHIELD had never identified anyone with such abilities. “Psychic powers. Such as?”

“He claims he has the ability to see the past and the future, including the ability to see far distances.” Scott shrugged. “He has a third eye.”

“A what?”

Scott tapped his forehead. “Right there. Third eye. So gross.”

“He gave you the number, but he didn’t tell you who you were calling. How did he know what to look for?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if he knew whose number he gave me.”

The sheriff leaned forward. “What do you think of Dr. Valack’s assertion, agent?”

“Hmmm?”

“Could there be a connection between the Dread Doctors and Project Centipede? They both seem to be interested in giving people powers.”

Coulson saw not the sheriff, but a man desperate for word of his son. “To be honest, there could be. But we are in the first stages of our investigation. Can you arrange for me to visit this Dr. Valack with my team?”

The sheriff nodded. “I’ll put in a call to Eichen's director immediately. It’ll probably be tomorrow morning.”

“Not ideal, but since I don’t really know much about what it takes to run a supernatural prison, I’ll restrain myself from throwing my weight around.”

“Good call.” Noah Stilinski nodded. It was a calculated ploy. Local police liked to be told they knew what they were doing, and his team needed to rest before interviewing Valack. “So now what?”

“I’ll take my team back to the Bus. We need to figure out a way to neutralize the Doctors’ powers. I can reach either one of you if I need it?”

“Yeah,” Scott stated. “My pack will help you as much as we can. I want the Doctors gone. And you’ll — if Stiles was taken by these Centipede people, you’ll be able to find them and bring them back, right?”

Coulson stood up. “That’s why SHIELD exists.” He wanted to get back to the plane as quickly as possible. While he sincerely doubted that the Doctors were going anywhere in the near future, he didn’t want them to slip through his fingers.

October 16, 2013

When Stiles walked into the front door of Eichen House at a little past one in the morning, he was relieved to see only one person on front desk duty. It would be a lot easier this way.

The man was bored and didn’t look up. “Visiting hours are far past over.”

“Well,” Stiles quipped. “That’s a relief.”

Then he pulled the trigger on the shotgun. It was a good shot, center of mass. Stiles leaned over the counter to check. The man — whose name tag labeled him as Schraeder — wasn’t going to be raising the alarm even if he were still breathing. The key in operations like this was timing. The smoother everything went, the less collateral damage there would be.

He remembered the layout of the place very well, having been here during two separate lives. He immediately hit the stairwell and descended at a good clip. At this time of night he might run into an orderly or two, if they were very unlucky and decided to use the stairs, but most patrolled on a single assigned floor. No one would be on the sixth floor without a specific reason and there would be no patrol, due to the nature of the patients there.

Something about this place set his senses on edge. Knowing its secrets explained the feeling, but it didn’t mitigate it. Stiles burst through the doorway into the supernatural award and immediately his nerves began to burn.

The pain was nothing he hadn’t managed before, and instead of trying to restrain its intensity, he pushed it. While a thunder kitsune would have been much more useful in disrupting the electromagnetic defenses of Echo House, one wasn’t currently available. He was sure he was just powerful enough to do the job.

“Hey!” An orderly must have heard his descent down the stairs. “What are you …?” He saw the gun and trailed off.

“Sucks to be you. In your next life, try not being so conscientious.” Another shot, another hit. His aim was improving.

Suddenly, a wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm him. He had killed two people in a little under five minutes, and the part of him that was supposed to be eighteen trembled at the realization. He was a murderer.

“I had to do it,” he whispered to himself. It was a matter of self-defense. It was a matter of defending his family and the people he loved. Belial’s and Valack’s manipulations were poised to create an extended four-way fight between Scott’s pack, SHIELD, the Dread Doctors, and Hydra. His exposure and loss of influence would be the least problematic consequence of that fight. The worst would be the death of his father and the death and imprisonment of those he considered friends. SHIELD’s pursuit of Centipede would put all of those people in the spotlight, and eventually SHIELD would have too much data for even the Doctors to erase. If too much attention were drawn to Centipede and the Department of Occult Armaments, Hydra might decide to cut his ties for him.

A few dead bodies were nothing compared to making sure his father reached retirement age.

Willfully, he immersed himself in the memories of a thousand terrible things he had done over a thousand years. That part of him hadn’t reacted negatively to them; some of them he had even enjoyed. He drowned the human’s conscience in the surety of a monster’s experience. He’d save his breakdown for later.

Anyway, something exciting was happening. St. Elmo’s fire was running down the outside of his skin; lighting fixtures were exploding with foxfire. If he had been a very young kitsune, he might have been overwhelmed. He was not very young. He stooped and picked up the orderly’s key card.

Stiles kept the shotgun raised; he must have been quite a sight, lightning dancing across his skin and down the barrel. Those inmates who came to their door to see what was happening immediately backed off. One of them held his gaze for a moment too long; he was a good looking kid about Stiles’ age. He fit the description his makeshift allies had given him.

“Oh, hello. Enjoying your new home?”

There was a blink and a recalculation before the teenager offered him an easy smile. “You’re Stiles Stilinski.”

“To a point. And you’re Theo Raeken. I haven’t seen you since fourth grade. You’ve gone through a lot of changes; The Surgeon told me all about his pride and joy.”

At the mention of the Dread Doctor, Theo’s cunning mask cracked. He was clearly terrified of his creators.

“Now, they’re coming, and I’m pretty sure they’re disappointed in your conduct. You can do quite a bit to get back in their good graces by helping me out. What do you say?”

Theo hesitated, licking his lips.

“Theo. Can I call you that? You don’t really know me anymore, but I want to make this clear — your options are 'with us' or 'dead.' Did someone promise you otherwise?”

The chimera’s face fell.

“Scott did. Of course he did.” Stiles smiled and nodded to himself. “He’d try, but he doesn’t even know we’re doing this. So do I let you out or do you wanna wait to talk with your psycho paternal figure?”

Stiles knew what the answer would be even before he asked. The Surgeon had described Theo as survival-oriented. “Let me out.”

“Peaches.” He ran the keycard. “Stay behind me. Try anything funny and you’ll get spanked.”

“You’re a nogitsune covered in foxfire and wielding a shotgun. There’s nothing funny about this.”

“Can you tell me where Valack is?”

Theo nodded. “Some of the inmates like to talk. This way.” He led him down the hallway and around a corner.

Gabriel Valack was standing at the doorway to his cell. He seemed defiant, but Stiles could tell it was in the face of fear.

“You,” the disgraced scholar hissed. “You unlocked the door for them.”

“Guilty!” Stiles sing-songed.

“You have no idea who you’re working with.”

“Probably, but they’re not the ones sticking their nose into my business. If you could see enough to tell Scott what you told him, you probably saw enough to know that I didn’t want them finding me. You’ve been very naughty.”

Valack glared at him, the bandage still wrapped around his forehead. His composure cracked when he heard the whirring of gears.

“They don’t have to do this. You don’t have to do this. I can be very helpful.”

Stiles cocked his head to the side, the St. Elmo’s fire dying down finally as the defenses of Eichen House were permanently disrupted.

“I can!” Valack cried.

At the end of the hallway, all three of the Dread Doctors appeared. Theo drew back to the side, out of their way. He probably still wasn’t sure that they weren’t going to express their displeasure in a painful and possibly permanent fashion.

“Don’t convince me, dude.” Stiles winked.

The Doctors appeared. Valack began to bang on the glass in order to get someone’s attention. It did not stop the Pathologist who waved his hand over the lock and opened the cell. Valack tried to reason with them. Tried to plead with them. It was no use. With a handy tool the Surgeon had brought for just such an occasion and plucked the man’s third eye right out of his head.

“Yikes.” Stiles turned to Theo. “That had to sting.”

The nervous chimera nodded past his anxiety. Task accomplished the Doctors emerged from the cell. The Surgeon gestured to Stiles, giving him permission to do what had to be done. Stiles walked in. This would be his third corpse tonight, but this one, even the human side of him didn’t feel that bad. This was to protect himself. Valack had endangered people far more powerful than him.

Bleeding from his forehead hole, the man rolled over and saw the danger he was in. “Why would you?”

“Not that this is going to make any sense to you, but … Hail Hydra?”

The shotgun blast echoed throughout the sixth floor’s closed ward.

“What are we looking at here?” Coulson asked, biting down on a smart remark as he stood before the cell.

“He was killed with a shotgun blast to the chest,” Jemma Simmons explained in her best clinical voice. “I will have to conduct a proper autopsy, but I think some tissue was removed from his forehead, premortem.”

“His third eye.”

“Excuse me?” Jemma looked up at him in surprise. “His what?”

“Gabriel Valack had a third eye. I know, really, really gross.” His voice held none of the humor. “I want a full report. May?”

“Two dead orderlies and according to the administrator, a missing patient.”

“Who?”

“Theo Raeken. Affiliated with the Doctors.”

Coulson could have guessed that, but he preferred to get confirmation. He got on the radio. “Skye? Fitz? What about the security?”

He could hear the exasperation in Skye’s voice. “Everything’s fried. They cooked the footage on the way out and scrambled the security system. I’m going to take the footage back to the Bus …”

“You’ll wait for all of us. No one goes anywhere alone.”

“Ward’s alone!”

“Ward’s has a bit more combat training than you do. He’s on deep recon. Get what you need, but don’t leave this building without another team member. Where’s Fitz?”

“He’s muttering something about the lighting fixtures.”

“Go help him.” Coulson hung up the phone.

May was studying him from across the room. “Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

“Someone got caught with their pants down by Victorian Nightmare Cosplayers.” Coulson shook his head. “And two innocent people are dead for it.”

“We’re treading in unknown waters here, Phil. You can’t blame yourself.”

“That’s not actually true, May.”

Coulson walked away from Valack’s cell and down the hallway. His second-in-command followed after him.

“You followed procedures. You followed your instincts. Your team responded as they were trained to respond.”

He stopped then and looked back, confused. “Oh, I meant the other thing. We are not actually treading in unknown waters.”

It was May’s turn to look pole-axed. “What are you talking about?”

“I called Fury for insight on what to do about werewolves. He already knew about them.”

May’s mouth thinned into a very taut line of disapproval and disbelief.

“It seems that technically, SHIELD has no jurisdiction over — and I quote — ‘established human sub-races.’ Established means, in this case, dating back before the Common Era.”

“Why haven’t I heard anything about this?”

“Because only Level Nine agents and above get the brief. Everyone else learns about the Namor Protocols on a need-to-know basis.”

They reached the main floor and went out to the courtyard. Coulson wanted to get some air.

“So, am I need-to-know enough for you to tell me that this isn’t completely crazy?”

“Sure. Apparently in 1968, Chester Phillips, Howard Stark, and Peggy Carter pushed through a secret treaty between various governments, SHIELD, and the Kingdom of Atlantis.”

May did not fluster easily, but this flustered her.

“King Namor didn’t like the idea of submarines prowling through Atlantean Territory — the Atlantic Ocean — armed with nuclear weapons. However, he agreed to stop capturing them in return for assurances that we’d help keep Atlantis’ existence, the existence of his race, and the existence of other established human sub-races – including the descendants of Lycaon – from the general knowledge of the public. Only SHIELD and the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council know of its existence.”

“Wow.” May looked stunned. “So what does this mean for Beacon Hills?”

“The only reason we came here was to find out who leaked classified material. We did that. My only concern now is finding the Doctors. I don’t care if they’re experimenting on werewolves or humans, we’ll find them and take them down. Speaking of which …” He used his phone to send a text to Ward, as they had scheduled. Ward called him back by voice.

“What’s down there?”

“They’re gone. They’ve left equipment here, but it’s obvious they took the important stuff and left.”

Coulson fought the urge to curse. “Where in the world did they go?”

October 17, 2013

Gregory Belial came out of the bathroom of the Huntington Hotel’s Passion Suite. Lights sparkled outside in the waters of San Francisco Bay. He liked traveling in style; it certainly beat the abject poverty of his childhood in Cold-War East Germany. He would return to Samana Cay tomorrow, though he wasn’t looking forward to it. He’d probably get the cold shoulder from Dr. Ranefer, and he would probably get glared at by Fox for weeks.

He snickered. He was looking forward to rubbing it into Stiles’s face.

Without bothering to get dressed, Belial sat on a chair so he could enjoy the view. In a few days, Coulson’s report would make its rounds at SHIELD headquarters, and Fox would be going from a competitor for his position to a loose cannon in the eyes of the leadership. He would send his own memorandum, carefully wording it to look like he was supporting his subordinate, but he would instead be throwing the operative under the bus.

Life was good. It would be better if his dinner arrived more promptly.

As if answering his irritation, there was a knock on the door. A man’s voice announced room service, so Belial got up and went to the door. Checking the peep hole, he saw a young man — maybe a high-schooler or a freshman in college -- with what looked like his dinner on a cart. He opened the door.

“Put it over there by the window.”

The young man rolled the cart in, but he was immediately followed by Fox, who must have been standing out of sight of the peep hole. Belial watched him enter the room.

“Well, come in.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Fox walked over and flopped down on the bed. “Ritzy place. It’s sad that you’re too much of a dick to truly enjoy it.”

“I’m enjoying it just fine.” He closed the door behind him. “Never mind him, just set the food up and go.” He told that to the hotel employee. “Did you come here to ruin my dinner?”

“Yes. I have every intention of ruining your dinner, as you had every intention of ruining my relationship with my family, my friends, and our employers with your little stunt.”

“It wasn’t me who drew the attention of our competitors to Beacon Hills. I had to do something.”

Stiles sat straight up on the bed. “You chose to do something that hurt me quite a bit. My dad survived your accommodations by the way.”

“You didn’t talk to your father.”

“No.” Fox’s face grew mean, and his voice grew cold. “I didn’t get to talk to my dad.”

Belial laughed in his face, with only a glance at the waiter, who had finished setting things up. “Am I supposed to be intimidated? You and I both know you can’t do a thing against me directly.” Belial tapped his own neck, indicating the silver torc peeking out from under Fox’s collar. “You shouldn’t have tried to undermine me.”

“I didn’t try to undermine you. I know you don’t believe that, but you’re a fool. You’re an even bigger fool if you thought I would take this stunt lying down. You hurt the people I love.” Stiles got up off the bed. “By the way, you’ll be glad to know that we won’t come away from this fiasco empty handed.”

Belial crossed his arms. “What do you mean?”

The waiter nodded to both of them, went to the door and opened it. Instead of going through, the young man just stood there.

“I’ve hired some sub-contractors. A little unorthodox in their style, but they have excellent credentials. They also have need of a new position, since your shenanigans ruined all their presently ongoing projects.” Stiles winked. “They did indicate to me that they wanted to have several words with you about that.”

“What …” Belial turned and gaped as three masked individuals slow-walked their way into his suite. The waiter, his eyes glowing yellow, his teeth lengthening into fangs and his nails into claws, shut the door behind them.

“Don’t worry, Greg, I won’t lay a finger on you.” Behind Stiles’ eyes lay a thousand years of malice. “They, on the other hand, are not yet employed by my Department of Occult Armaments. They won’t start on the payroll until Monday. Once you’re finished here, Doctors, please clean up. Oh, and welcome to Hydra.”

Chapter Text

October 30, 2013

“Why do I have to be here, and they don’t?” Cora Hale snarled, slamming her locker closed.

“Yeah!” Malia echoed. “Why?”

“Because the twins are twenty and last year’s monumental death toll has made school officials a little more rigorous about paperwork, which is a good thing,” Lydia explained, with the air of someone who had already explained the topic several times. “Don’t worry, I’m making them get their GEDs.”

“I could get my GED.”

Lydia tossed her hair. “I suppose you could, but your brother wants you to enjoy the full high school experience, and I agree. Many studies show that socialization is as important as grades. As an added bonus, you get to be a member of the most important clique in the school.”

Malia squinted her eyes. “We do?”

“Of course. After all, I’m in it. Isn’t that right, Scott?”

Scott had been listening with only half an ear as he walked with the knot of girls down the hallway toward the athletic fields. He had been thinking about the past. “Lydia is always right.”

“See?” Lydia patted Scott on the shoulder. “The alpha has spoken.”

Cora imitated the noise of a cracking whip.

“I don’t know, Cora, Lydia’s pretty scary. I wouldn’t want to cross her.”

Lydia beamed at Malia as all of them arrived at the lacrosse field. It was a cool fall afternoon, yet the day was still warm enough to eat outside. The late October sun filtered through the trees, and the frequent gusts of wind showered them with brilliant leaves. Isaac and Allison had already claimed spots on the bleachers.

Scott took a seat on the lowest bleacher while the others got settled. His mother had packed his lunch today, something she tried to do whenever she had the day off. It was chicken salad. He sniffed at it, and while it didn’t smell terrible, he decided he simply wasn’t hungry. He went to toss the sandwich back in the brown paper sack.

Someone cuffed him on the back of the head. He turned around to see Isaac glaring at him.

“Eat it.”

“Sure, Mom.”

“Melissa made it for you. You should eat it.” Isaac sounded cross. “You know she doesn’t have the chance to do this for you the way she wants to very often.”

Scott studied him, shrugged, took the sandwich out of the bag, and tore a bite off of it – a big bite which was nearly a quarter of the sandwich. He chewed with noisy exaggeration. “Happy?” he asked around a mouthful of food.

“Ecstatic.”

The conversation flowed around him as he kept eating. He heard the words, but he didn’t process the meaning. Instead, he forced himself to swallow his lunch, for as much as Isaac was being pushy, he was also right. His mother didn’t get to make him lunch. The least he could do was finish it.

“Scott, are you listening?” Malia shook him by the shoulder.

“Huh. What?”

“You think it’s a good idea, don’t you?”

“I … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

By the looks on their faces, he had disappointed all of them. Lydia harrumphed at him. “We were talking about the full moon in December.”

“What about it?”

Almost everyone sighed; Cora crossed her eyes in exasperation. He felt guilty; he had been zoning out more and more often during the last two weeks.

“I was going to hit up Derek to let us rent a cabin in the wilderness.” Cora repeated. “We’ll be out of school so the entire pack can go up there and do pack things without worrying about nosy neighbors.”

“But …”

“The last day of school is the 17th. We could have an entire week to ourselves and still be back for Christmas with our families.” Lydia pointed out.

“You.” Scott allowed himself to smile. “You, Lydia Martin, want to go camping?”

“I want to go skiing. I also want to spend as little time over Christmas vacation with my father as humanly possible.” She turned to the other girls. “He’s trying to impress his new arm candy with what a good father he is by parading me about as if I were some sort of achievement award. I need to minimize my exposure to all that. And, after all, wouldn’t it be nice to do something fun after …” She trailed off.

Scott blinked at her. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t know what she had been about to say. “Sure. Don’t pressure Derek too hard.”

“My money’s in a trust until I turn eighteen or I’d be renting it myself,” Cora assured him. “Derek’s scarcely touches his cash, but if I present it as a pack thing …”

“You’re terrible,” Allison chuckled. “If I said anything remotely like wanting to camp in the woods, Dad would turn it into some deep winter forest survival training.”

“Sounds like a blast,” Isaac deadpanned.

Scott drifted off again as they continued to plan their Winter Recess getaway. The discussion once again faded into pleasant background noise for him. He didn’t feel impelled to being involved, but the very presence of his pack took the edge of whatever else he was feeling.

Soon enough, lunch came to an end. The others got up and headed back toward the main building, though Scott didn’t notice their departure until he heard Allison tell Isaac, “You go ahead, I’m going to talk to Scott.”

Scott stirred himself. “Aren’t we going to miss class?”

“No,” Allison said as she watched her boyfriend walk away. “It’s not going to kill us to skip. Our grades are fine.”

“Last time we did this …” Scott trailed off. He didn’t want to think about the last time he and Allison skipped school.

“Come on, let’s go.”

She led him past the parking lot and into the Preserve where it butted up against the school grounds.

“Why here?”

“So we can talk without being interrupted. I think Mrs. Finch saw us, but I don’t think she’ll say anything. She seems weirdly taken by you.”

“I don’t know about that; she keeps putting lots of pressure on me in class. I mean, what are we even doing here?”

“Because something is wrong with you, so I’m staging a solo intervention.” Allison gave him a take-no-shit-Argent-matriarch look that reminded Scott unsettlingly of her mother. “You’ve been off ever since the SHIELD task force left. You’re distracted and you’re unhappy. You can talk to me, you know.”

“It’s Mischief Night.”

“What?”

“It’s Mischief Night. Hell Night.” He said slowly. “Last year, it was the night Barrow escaped from the hospital.”

Allison turned her head to the side, figuring out what was going on. “This is about Stiles.”

“Of course!” Scott replied more hotly than he wanted. He looked away. “Yeah. It’s about Stiles … and it’s about me.”

Allison sat down on a fallen tree. She patted the spot next to her. “You’re going to have to come here and explain that.”

“I keep waiting for him, Allison.” Scott said as he sort of squatted in the leaves in front of her instead of sitting. “I keep waiting for him by my locker. I keep expecting him to show up on Saturday afternoon to do things. I woke up last night because I thought I heard my phone go off. Last year at this time, he and I were busily pranking Coach. Every time something like that happens, it’s like I’ve been stabbed. You’d think it all would have faded, but I still feel just as terrible as I did the day after he disappeared.”

“You’re grieving. It’s understandable.”

“He’s not dead!”

Allison shook her head. “But he’s still gone. In a way, and I know how this sounds, it’s probably worse for you that he’s not dead.”

Scott wrinkled up his nose.

“You know the chance of you finding him again are not in your favor, right?” She tried to sound firm without being harsh. “The statistics aren’t good that he’s still alive, especially because I can’t imagine any scenario where Stiles was free to come back, and he didn’t.”

“Because he’s not …” He’s not himself.

“Scott, there are no known cases of someone surviving a nogitsune possession.” Allison said it softly. “I can’t help but think that if you knew he was truly dead, if you could see the body, then you could make peace with it.”

“There is no peace with it,” Scott spat. “I had chances, Allison; that’s what none of you understand. There were multiple decisions that I could have made differently, and if I had, he would be here.”

“You don’t know that.” Allison challenged him.

“I could have stopped him from getting kidnapped.”

“You could have stopped him from checking in to Eichen House? You aren’t his dad, even though I’m sure you had as much influence over him as his father or anyone else. We didn’t have any idea at the time what else we could do. All we had was the letharia vulpina, which would have eventually killed Stiles if we relied upon it to keep the fox in check.”

The gust that kicked up the leaves around him blew hard and cold.

“You get to feel bad, okay?”

“Do I?”

“Yes. But it’s my job — it’s your friends’ jobs — to let you know when you’re also full of shit.”

“I had a lead, and I screwed it up.”

Allison rolled her eyes.

“Valack could have told me where Stiles was.”

“Valack was a user. Do you really think he would have stopped with the destruction of the Doctors? He would have strung you along with just enough information until you became dependent upon him. He would have obviously used you to free himself.”

Scott shook his head. “I wouldn’t have let him to do that.”

“No, you wouldn’t have, so it wasn’t a screw up that you didn’t get the chance to be manipulated by him.”

“I could have made Agent Coulson …”

“Scott.”

“I could’ve—”

“Scott!”

She reached out and took his hand. “You know I trust you. You know I support you. But there are limits to what you can do, and recognizing those limits isn’t screwing up. It’s the opposite.”

“It means saying there are things I can’t do. So, I just give up on him?”

“It’s called letting go.”

“Maybe I don’t want to let go.”

“That’s your right.” Allison said evenly. “I’m not here to give you an ultimatum over your behavior. You haven’t been letting us down, as an alpha or as a friend. I’m only talking to you right now because I’m concerned about you. There’s more to life than being responsible.”

Scott looked away. It did seem that had been all he had been doing recently. Being responsible.

“I hope you never lose another pack member, but one of the things I’ve learned — one of the things I’ve been taught — is that when you’re in a position of authority in a violent world, coping with loss is something you have to do.”

Scott felt unreasonably angry. “Stiles wasn’t a minion! What’d if it had been you?”

“Huh?”

“What if it had been you who I lost? What if you had died?”

“I would hope that eventually you would move on. Just like I have had to move on.”

Tears stung the corner of his eyes. Now he felt like a dick. Allison had lost Kate, no matter how bad a person she had been, and her own mother in the last two years, and here he was yelling at her as if she didn’t understand what it felt like to lose someone you loved.

“I’m not as strong as you are, Allison. If you died, I think I’d break.”

“No, I think you’re stronger than me.”

He scoffed.

“I know you would never forget me, just like you will never forget Stiles. But I would want you to be happy, just like he would. Even if he’s still alive, even if he’s still not in control of his own body, do you think he’d want you to spend your life looking for him?”

“That’s a pointless question.” He shifted in his seat, away from her. “We hadn’t even figured out what we were going to do after high school. Do you really think we’d have discussed how long our friendship was supposed to go on if something happened to one of us? So, I don’t really know if he’d spend his life looking for me. All I know is what I will do.”

“And that is?”

“All I can.”

“And that’s what I’m asking — for you to do only what you’re capable of doing. We’re all doing what we can. My father is using his connections, Deaton and Morrell are using their connections. Even Peter’s helping. You’re an eighteen-year-old high school senior. You’ve done what you can at this point in your life.”

Scott looked back at the school. “I’m still going to be sad.”

“Yes. I just want you to admit that there’s a possibility that one day you won’t be.”

“Okay.” Scott stood up. “We should go to class now.”

“We’re going to get detention anyway.” She checked her watch. “We’ve got some time to kill. Let’s talk about prom.”

“Prom?”

“I’m taking Isaac to prom. You’re going, too.”

Allison spent the rest of their skipped period going over every other girl and a few boys that Scott might want to take to the prom. It was ridiculous, but Scott soon figured out that it was meant to be ridiculous. It was meant to be fun. They settled on Danny.

The rest of the day passed more … brightly. He didn’t stop thinking of Stiles; he doubt he ever would. But walking around in a daze because he remembered Mischief Nights of years past wouldn’t do anything for anyone. Stiles would probably slap him upside the head.

He gave Isaac a lift home from school on his bike. It now felt normal for Isaac to ride back there, even though there was always a carefulness between the two, though apparently not today.

“So, did she talk some sense into you?” Isaac asked as he got off the bike.

“Yeah. I guess.”

“She’s hot when she does that,” Isaac observed out of the blue, and Scott nearly did a double-take.

“Uhhh.”

“Did you want to kiss her?”

“No.” Scott said, like it was a confession. “I guess I didn’t.”

“Good, I’ve been dating her for like a year now. I need to be able to talk to you about it, without you tossing me into a wall.”

Scott sighed. “Sure. Sorry about that.”

Isaac threw up his hands as he walked toward the house. “You shouldn’t be that sorry. You were hallucinating gigantic shadow wolves, while I was trying to get all up on that. I’m lucky I didn’t get the shit pounded out of me.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“But you wanted to.” Isaac checked the mailbox. It was stuffed. “I could tell.”

With a shrug, Scott went to open the door. His mother wasn’t home yet.

“OH, shit.” Isaac’s voice was full of warning. Scott turned to him and his beta handed him a big brown envelope. “This is from SHIELD.”

Scott pulled it open as he entered the living room, Isaac following him. Inside there were forms and brochures and a personal note from Agent Coulson.

“What is it?” Isaac asked.

“It’s an application to an academy.” Scott looked up. “Coulson wants me to join SHIELD after I graduate.”

November 3, 2013

“I don’t see what you’re upset about,” Stiles yelled at the makeshift videoconferencing setup. The Chinook’s twin rotors made a lot of noise, even inside the insulated cabin.

“Gregory Belial headed the Department of Occult Armaments for thirty years, and now he’s dead,” Pierce reproved him from the screen. Though he could only see his head, Stiles easily imagined the man wagging his finger at him. “You can see why that is a matter of concern.”

Stiles turned to Dr. Ranefer and rolled his eyes in a mock plea for sympathy. She shrugged lightly, indicating her disinterest.

“We simply want to make sure that the resources we’ve spent on the department aren’t going to be squandered due to infighting.”

“In the end, that’s exactly what this was about: squandering resources.” Stiles flailed in a very human gesture in front of the camera. “Come on, admit it, guys. Almost every single time I’ve eavesdropped on one of you, you’ve been making fun of Belial’s poor grasp of management or his even poorer grasp of leadership. The only reason you haven’t got rid of him before is because you didn’t have anyone who could replace him. Most sorcerers who reach his level won’t have anything to do with Hydra or are indentured servants to extra-dimensional entities. In the present department, Dr. Ranefer may have the clout, but she has neither the skills nor the interest to assume a leadership position — no offense, doctor.”

Dr. Ranefer looked up from the research she was reading. “None taken.”

On another screen, Von Strucker pretended to be put out. “You imagine yourself as his replacement.”

“I do.” Stiles nodded, enthusiastically. He raised his hand so they could all it and then counted off on his fingers. “I’ve got the experience, I’ve got the knowledge, I’ve got the raw power, I’ve got the temperament, and I have an agenda that doesn’t conflict with any single one of yours. Do you have any other occult specialists on tap?”

“I don’t think it’s a matter of your credentials,” Garrett drawled. “I think that we’re worried you’ve figured out a way around that little doohickey on your neck.”

“I did.” Stiles smirked. “And I didn’t.”

That is not an answer, complained Zola.

“I did not harm Gregory Belial. I simply introduced my new sub-contractors to him at their request. I had no clear understanding of the Doctors’ capabilities or their intention; it was entirely possible that Gregory was more than their match or that he could reach a diplomatic solution. The torc can’t hold me responsible for what I don’t know.”

The five other council heads of Hydra didn’t find the workaround as funny as Stiles did.

“Seriously though. I was able to arrange Belial’s exit from the stage for the exact reason you were contemplating removing him permanently. He focused so exclusively on his own goals — namely neutralizing any political threat such as the one I represented — that he didn’t even consider that there might be supernatural forces present in Beacon Hills of which he had no knowledge. Did you really want someone so inept leading a department? Especially one in which my presence and my projects are making more and more relevant every day?”

“We’ll have to discuss it,” Pierce concluded. “We’ll be in touch.” The five screens went dark.

Dr. Ranefer tsked out loud and turned the page on her screen.

Stiles looked over at her. “You have something to say, Ayla?”

“Nothing that needs to be said.” She pushed up her reading glasses.

“Come on. I think you have something you want to say?”

“I truly despise bureaucratic posturing.” She sighed and put her tablet to the side. “They’re going to spend hours, maybe days, debating this when there’s really no other option to be considered. The D.O.A. has been the red-headed stepchild of Hydra’s departments for decades; no senior administrator wants to be put in charge of the dead-end squad. On the other hand, of the three projects we’ve undertaken in the last two years, you are responsible for the success of two of them. Take the results of this last incident. I’ve been reviewing the scant information known about the Dread Doctors and comparing it to your reports on their abilities. The possibilities are sizable and tangible. For instance, if we can duplicate their ability to suppress short-term memory alone, that would be a huge advantage. Beyond them, Project Vargulf actually gives us a chance against the Masters of the Mystic Arts should they seek to interfere, and it’s only bearing fruit because of your insight.”

“You say the nicest things.”

“Not really.” She picked her table back up. “I say the truth because it wastes less time.”

“Don’t get too lost in your reading. We’re almost there.” Stiles smiled at her. He did enjoy showing off.

As if on cue, a town appeared below and to the west of the helicopter. It was barely more than a village, but from a distance its lights sparkled like diamonds on black sand.

“And there would be?”

“Puente Antiguo.”

Ayla pursed her lips. “Something tells me I should know that name, but I can’t recall its significance.”

“Almost two-and-a-half years ago, a temporary SHIELD base was set up a few miles outside of town. The situation has long since been resolved, but you know as well as I do that cleanup takes time. It was reduced to a skeleton crew and designated to be shut down this next spring. That paperwork will get itself lost.”

“Do I care why?”

“Our new employees have very specific requirements for their Operating Theaters. They’ve designed their equipment to work by tapping into the telluric currents, geo-magnetic flows of power beneath the earth. Beacon Hills has a major confluence of those currents.”

“I’ve read theories that supernatural creatures are drawn to such places.” Dr. Ranefer sighed at the realization. “Your hometown is a beacon.”

“Yeah. It’s a fucking hilarious joke once you think about it. Obviously, they couldn’t remain there, and this particular confluence outside of Puente Antiguo was already under SHIELD’s control It will now be our merry trio of Doctors’ new home.”

“SHIELD is investigating confluences?”

“Oh, no, they came here for a much sexier reason. I don’t know if Odin Borson intended to throw an arcane-technological warhammer at a confluence of telluric currents, if the confluence drew the uru metal here, or if Mjolnir’s impact tied them together, but the confluence remains.”

Dr. Ranefer gasped. “It’s perfect. It’s already a secure facility so new activity won’t draw attention.”

“I thought so, too.”

The facility seemed to be in good shape as the helicopter landed. Stiles and Dr. Ranefer disembarked as agents moved to unload the equipment. They entered through the containment corridors, the white halls making Ayla blink after the darkness of the night outside. All the people at the base were D.O.A. agents, members of SHIELD’s Science and Technology Division who were fascinated by the intersection of para-science and magic.

One of the Doctors was waiting for them at the top of a spiral staircase. He stood there at parade rest, his hands resting on the top of an ornate walking stick. It was the first time Dr. Ranefer had met one of them. She shuddered involuntarily.

“Hello!” Stiles chirped at him, completely at ease in the mad scientist’s presence. “How’re the digs?”

“Conditions are within acceptable parameters.” The Doctor turned to Ayla, his lenses switching out.

“Dr. Ranefer, this is The Surgeon. This is Dr. Ayla Ranefer, one of the leaders of the D.O.A. and a specialist in xenobiology and cryptid zoology.”

As a reflexive bad habit, Ayla held out her hand. The Surgeon simply looked at it and did not return the gesture.

Stiles intervened in the awkward situation, though he had to bite his tongue to keep from chuckling. He pulled out another table. “Here is what I promised you: a list of all genetic chimeras under the age of twenty within three hundred miles of this location. You’re lucky SHIELD doesn’t need a court order to access medical records. When you’ve made your selections, Mr. Pohlman is our best retrieval expert. He’ll get you what you need.”

One gauntleted hand scraped across the screen. Stiles imagined he’d have to up the budget to replace tablets. Without any waste of motion or any small talk, the Surgeon scanned the files. “Acceptable.”

Without another word, the Doctor turned and headed back down the spiral staircase. Ayla looked at Stiles. “Fox, what do they need that list for?”

“Experimental subjects.” Stiles shrugged. “I’m just guessing. We didn’t discuss their ultimate goal, and I don’t much care. Besides, he’s not much of a ‘people person’, if you couldn’t tell.” He made air quotes.

“You’re not curious?”

“Not really. My goal in this was to protect the people I care about. Belial endangered them, so I found a way to prevent him from ever doing that again. If the Doctors weren’t here, they would still be terrorizing Beacon Hills, where my family and my friends live.”

“So, you don’t know what they’re going to do with those subjects.”

“I don't. You can’t forget, because I can never forget, that I’m a creature which feeds off of chaos, strife and pain. It suits me at this time to minimize the amount of those things I generate, but I can never escape that need. This means I’m not in a position to judge other people's needs.”

Dr. Ranefer hesitated.

“We all have to prioritize, Ayla. You’re working for a fascist organization because it’s the best way to cure your ailment. Speaking of which, follow me.”

“Where are we going?”

“To see the Geneticist.”

“Don’t they have real names?”

Stiles laughed. “If they do, they might not remember them. In any event, they aren’t going to tell us. Science prefers precise descriptions, but one of the keys to magic is identity.”

As expected, Ayla was instantly curious. Stiles continued to talk as they entered the Operating Theater.

“Belial wasn’t born with the name Belial. The Doctors wear their masks to hide their faces while replacing their human names with generic titles. The leader of the Masters of the Mystic Arts is someone known only as the Ancient One. The abandonment of identity can lead the way to power in mysticism.”

“It seems counter-intuitive.”

“Does it? I think it makes absolute sense. Mundanely, people assume false names all the time to avoid the consequences of their actions. Authors take noms de plume. Criminals create aliases. Superheroes take code names. I’m Fox because if I called myself Stiles Stilinski in the field, the ‘good guys’ would be able to make trouble for me. Abandoning an identity can free you to act.”

“You’ve implied it’s somehow more significant for the supernatural.”

“I’ve talked to you before about how important internal psychology can be with werewolves and other shapeshifters. There’s a myth that you can cure a werewolf by calling out its Christian name. Like all myths, this one has a grain of truth in it. Our identities form the foundation of our individual personalities. I once saw someone revert a kanima to human form by reminding them of who they actually were.”

“That easily?”

“It wasn’t easy.” Stiles pushed the pain of that particular memory away. He was building up to his point, for he wanted Ayla to understand him. “The woman in question had been involved in an intense romantic relationship with the subject and her voice had certain potent supernatural qualities, yet the principle remains. The subject reverted to human because it was induced to remember who it was as a human.”

“Fascinating.”

“I really think that part of the Doctors’ power is not only the techniques they used to build those masks, but also by the very act of donning them. By abandoning their human identities, they abandon humanity, and so they have become more than human.”

Ayla had a habit that impressed Stiles a lot. She would ask a question that forced him to examine his own arguments. It was the sign of a powerful mind. “What name do you want to be called by?”

“Fox? Nogitsune? Stiles?” He shook his head. “Frankly, I’m not sure yet. Each one of them will mean something different, and I haven’t made a final decision about what I want. Fox is one of Hydra’s premier agents. The Nogitsune is an ancient terror that feeds on the people around it. Stiles Stilinski has a father and friends for which he would do anything. I’m still working on it. Oh, here we go.”

They were in a bay of the Operating Theater. Unlike the one in Beacon Hills, it was newly built and still complied with some standards of medical hygiene. A Doctor — the female one — waited inside as they approached.

“Dr. Ranefer, this is the Geneticist. She’s going to need your cooperation. When I negotiated their employment, I insisted that they had to see if their knowledge could be used to help you with your condition.”

Ayla was startled. “You did that?” Stiles studied the play of emotion on her face. “I don’t know what to say. There wasn’t any benefit to you in doing that.”

The Geneticist, her bellows pump breathing apparatus working slowly, gestured to the examination table. It was obvious she was also not a talker.

“Don’t be too happy quite yet.” Stiles winked at her. “No offense, but I doubt that this lady doctor has much of a bedside manner. It could hurt.”

“I hurt all the time,” Ayla reminded him as she got up on the examination table. “Why would you do this?”

“I told you, Ayla. There’s a part of me that really likes having friends. I’ll be waiting upstairs when you get done.” He waved at her in mock dismissal and turned to leave.

“Thank you, Stiles.”

Stiles paused at the mouth of the bay long enough to indicate that he had heard her, but without turning around, he started moving again. He didn’t stop until he was outside of the facility, standing in the New Mexican desert staring at the sky.

He did like Ayla; she’d help him as much as she was able, but he wasn’t going to be able to trust her with all of his secrets. Part of him didn’t care about the Doctors’ endgame, but part of him most certainly did. This base had been designed to study and possibly contain an alien threat. If that threat proved to be something too dangerous to contain, the base — as all bases like it — had a final failsafe option. Buried below the facility, deeper than the Operating Theater, was a shielded tactical nuclear weapon. Stiles felt the detonator in his pocket. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.

Chapter Text

November 9, 2013 – The Convergence Begins

Stiles sat up straight in his bed. His breath came in great heaving gasps, and his heart pounded in his chest. There was no danger in the dark room that he could sense.

In the dream from which he had just awoken, he had gamboled about, bodiless yet bodied, in a vast dark forest somewhere far, far away from Earth. In these woods, there had been no days, no years, no meaningful passage of time at all. The foxes in those darkened thickets played endless games under the light of stars yet to be born. It was pleasant enough until one made the mistake of staring into a vertiginous eternity and seeing nothing but emptiness. Tricks without end, played mostly upon themselves.

Covered in a cold sweat, Stiles stumbled to his private washroom. Splashing icy water on his face calmed his pulse; carefully dying himself with a towel allowed him to slow his breathing. When he looked into the mirror, he recognized the person staring back at him, but only barely. After that experience, he hadn’t been expecting an eighteen-year-old boy with hair that hadn’t been this long since his mother was alive and eyes ringed in shadow, looking completely lost. He had expected a fox, black and sleek.

Stiles closed his eyes, counted to ten, and then opened them again. “Okay,” he muttered.

Nightmares hadn’t been part of his nocturnal routine since he had had himself committed to Eichen House. After the two had become one, he had slept easily. He had even dreamed, once in a while, but the dreams had always been from the human part of their memories, of Stiles's life. The nogitsune only slept when it had a host.

This had been his first dream which arose from the fox’s memories.

Tossing the towel to the side, he contemplated going back to bed when the intercom chimed. Given the time, it had to be important. “Yes, Ayla?” No one else would dare to call him. The trick he had played on the last minion who had done so had gone a long way in discouraging any similar action from others.

“We need you in the command center.”

Since her voice didn’t give the impression that there had been an invasion or some other immediate danger, he decided he could take the time to dress. “Be there in ten.”

An emergency was unlikely. Hydra sprawled, an enormous beast, across the world’s military-industrial complex, nesting and hidden within SHIELD but with many tendrils spreading out to other security agencies and military organizations, yet, for all that, the Department of Occult Armaments had always been its smallest component. The simple truth was that, while most supernatural creatures tended to clump together with their own kind — a traditional means of survival — sorcerers and psychics could be found working solo. Unfortunately, those that were worth the effort to recruit were few and far between. To master anything more than parlor tricks, these talents required equal parts training and determination. Especially the last one, for most often those who showed raw talent grew isolated from society and developed significant and hampering psychological defects because of that. Josef Pohlman stood among Hydra’s most reliable psychics, and he had enough disordered behavior to keep a team of psychiatrists busy. In addition, even if you found a sorcerer who fulfilled all the requirements, like the late, lamented Gregory, they would most likely have been snatched up by the Ancient One’s recruiters long before Hydra was even aware of them.

So, of the two hundred or so agents in the Department of Occult Armaments, approximately eighty percent were completely mundane, though well-trained. Most of those operatives were like Stiles had once been, human witnesses and/or unwilling participants in supernatural events. The rest were transfers from other parts of Hydra where they had been deemed unreliable.

Of the three dozen members who were more than the average person, they were split equally between dabblers in magic who had served as Belial’s ritual backups, psychic oddballs who would probably be more useful shooting a pistol than harnessing the power of their minds, and a small group of advanced, hard-core researchers, led by Dr. Ranefer. Stiles hadn’t lied to the other department heads when he told them that his successful takeover — including adding the Doctors to their roster — had significantly increased their punching power.

“What’s going on?”

Dr. Ranefer shushed the technician to whom she had been speaking to address him. “Usually, when one of our sensitives has an extra-sensory experience, we follow set procedures for isolating and evaluating it. It seldom merits immediate action, but this situation is unique.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“All of them felt something stir in their perception … at the same time.”

“That definitely doesn’t sound good.” Stiles walked over to a console. “Give me the rundown of what you’ve got so far up on the board.”

“Not much of anything yet, but here it is.” She put up some information on the screen.

Stiles studied the reports the sensitives gave him. They were subjective, as most psychic impressions tended to be. There might be a pattern though, something he could figure out if he studied it enough. After all, he was the one who always figured it out.

The whole affair might have waited until morning, but his interests were piqued especially because of his nightmare. The time indicated that it could have been part of the same event that triggered the psychics, and that could be a clue to its origins. He didn’t think it was a coincidence that he had been woken up at the same time.

“Can you narrow down exactly when they started having these feelings?” He demanded of Ayla.

“We can certainly try. Do you think the timing is important?”

“Yes. I’ve read the files on all out psychics, and one of my friends is a pretty powerful banshee, so I know that they most likely would interpret the same causal event in different ways. For all of them to react at once? I think that the timing is going to be crucially important. Do we have an astronomer on the payroll?”

Dr. Ranefer looked off into space and then nodded. “Qiao is fluent in both astronomy and astrology.”

Stiles squinted at her.

“Gideon Malick has a personal project unaffiliated with the D.O.A. based on the idea that earth was visited by extra-terrestrials during pre-historic times. He insisted that we keep a liaison between us and that project on the staff.”

“Lucky for us.”

By the time Qiao arrived, Stiles, Ayla, and the sensitives had narrowed down the time the feelings started to the minute. Stiles was sure that a connection had to be there — his dream had not only happened at approximately the same time the Hydra psychics had experienced their visions, but the 'tone' of it matched. He just couldn’t figure out what it could mean.

Qiao folded his hands behind him, resembling more a broker for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange than a rogue astronomer looking for visitors from the stars. After he had been briefed, to which he paid scrupulous attention, he finally asked politely, “I assume you called me here because you think the cause might be extra-terrestrial?”

“Not exactly,” Stiles hedged. “Elements of my dream reference not another planet, but another dimension. A different realm.”

Qiao frowned, about ready to politely demure, but then he paused.

“Thought of something?”

“Perhaps. One of my less orthodox colleagues mentioned something about realms the other day. If you would permit me, I will follow up on it.”

“You do that.” Stiles turned to the communications officer. “Could you patch me through to the Puente Antiguo? Let’s find out if our good Doctors felt anything.”

November 12, 2013

Gerard Argent had never been very good at typing, though he had never been worried about that lack of skill. When he had been a child in the sixties, only girls took typing classes. The life of an Argent had left him little time to learn something that unimportant, so the best he could manage at the present was hunt-and-peck. It could be frustrating when he was reduced to managing his contacts through e-mail, but he would endure. What else would he do with his time? Finishing his most recent message, he pushed the send button and then reached for a tissue, as he felt a line of black gunk run down his cheek.

“One day,” he promised himself, as he had promised himself so many times since he had been imprisoned in this dank little hole, since that wretched boy had poisoned him. Nineteen months of pain, wallowing among disgusting effluvia. It would all be paid back.

As we wiped at his chin, he heard footsteps coming down the hallway. He had timed how long the average pace would take to reach his door soon after he had moved in. He shut the laptop quickly; if it was his no-good son, nothing would be served by the traitor discovering his most recent plan.

Chris Argent opened the door without knocking, as expected, while carrying a briefcase. The person who followed behind him was not expected at all.

“What’s he doing here?”

Casually, Chris glanced back over his shoulder at Derek Hale. “He’s here as a representative of the pack. There’s a matter we need to discuss.”

Gerard wheeled himself away from the desk and over to the table, underneath which he kept a gun with wolf’s bane bullets. He tried to distract them by wiping at his mouth again. “What makes you think that I want to hear anything that a member of the McCall Pack has to say?”

Derek snorted at that, setting the metal case he was carrying on the floor. He planted himself next to the door, back to the wall, as if he were sickened by the room and didn’t want to go any deeper into it than he had to. The door to the hallway was left cracked open.

“It’s the Hale Pack. Scott changed the name to honor their legacy. This discussion will go a lot easier if you recognize the weakness in your position,” Chris scolded him. “I gave you a second chance, and you threw it away.”

Gerard narrowed his eyes. “I don’t recall doing anything of the sort. What makes you say that?”

“You sent SHIELD agents against Scott McCall. You supplied them with information which could have put the entire pack in danger. In doing so, you violated our family’s practices again. Since when have we ever given information about the supernatural to law enforcement above the local level? We only do that when we can be sure of the local authorities’ cooperation.”

The old man chuckled and shook his head in denial. “You don’t have to tell me how my family operates, son. They asked me questions, and I answered them.”

“Spare us,” Derek finally spoke. “You’re telling me you can’t lie to law enforcement? You’ve been doing it your entire life.”

“You should remember that if you choose to escalate the situation, if you involve federal law enforcement in your petty grudges, then our family will be vulnerable as well. The cops don’t care about our Code, and there is no statute of limitations on murder. How many deaths are you personally responsible for?”

“At least eight,” Gerard smirked.

Derek charged at him, snarling, and Chris was barely in time to get between them. “Derek! Don’t let him provoke you! Derek!”

The werewolf snapped his jaws once at Gerard, before Chris managed to calm Derek down. Derek then took a step back to his original position, as if nothing had happened.

“Do you have a death wish?” Chris yelled at his father.

“You might have abandoned our family’s purpose, but I don’t think you’d let him hurt me.”

“Of course.” Chris shook his head in disdain. “On the other hand, do you think I’ll be able to stop one of the other hunting families that you might have put on SHIELD’s radar with this stunt? What do you think would have happened if Scott had been arrested, had lost control or had hurt one of the agents? What if he had been interrogated by someone without the sensitivity that this particular team possessed? Can you imagine the consequences, not just for us, but for our entire world?”

“I guess we’ll never know, will we?” Gerard loved winding these people up. It was one of the few pleasures left to him.

Chris threw up his hands. “We were lucky.” He pointed at his father. “You were lucky. One of the things you always taught me is that you shouldn’t count on luck helping you out twice.”

His son put the briefcase on the table. Opening it up, he pulled out several legal-looking documents and placed them before Gerard.

“What are those?”

“These? These represent a choice. You’re going to sign this document which sells your interest in Argent Arms to me for a very reasonable sum. And this document? This is an affidavit saying that your medical issues were corrected by a radical and experimental treatment, and that your claims of having been poisoned were malicious and untrue.”

Gerard made a show of leafing through the pages, but he assumed that Chris wasn’t lying. “Why would I even think about signing these?”

Chris glanced at Derek, who picked up the other case and handed it to the hunter. With a sigh, his son opened this case and brought out a stalk of wolf’s bane. Gerard snarled; this breed was rare and incredibly expensive, and for him it meant everything. It didn’t kill the werewolf who ingested it, instead suppressing all their abilities until an antidote — just as rare as the flower itself — could be procured. It would make the person who consumed it, for all intents and purposes, human.

“How long have you had that?”

“That’s not important.” Chris said seriously. “You sign those papers, and I give you this. If you don’t, we’ll be moving you to a different facility. One in the Sonora state of Mexico.”

Gerard pursed his lips in concern. He wasn’t someone who was often afraid, and he would never admit it to these two. “You’d hand me over to the Calaveras?”

Derek smiled at him. It wasn’t a pleasant smile.

“No, I would be placing you within their jurisdiction; to be safe, you would simply have to be very careful you didn’t draw too much attention to yourself.” Chris’s pronouncement was bitter.

“And if I agree to these terms, you’d give me that wolf’s bane and let me go free?”

Chris’s jaw clenched, but it was Derek who answered. “You shouldn’t think of it as being free. You should think of it as having a head start. One month.”

Gerard lifted his jaw. “One month and then what?”

The door that had been left slightly ajar opened wide. The bastard Peter Hale must have been waiting in the hall for an appropriately dramatic entrance. “Hi.”

One look at his son told Gerard that he had used up his second chances.

“It’s your choice,” Chris Argent said. “Either way, you get to face the consequences you should have long before today.”

Gerard studied the three men. Contrary to what they may think, he wasn’t done yet. “Give me a pen.”

November 15, 2013

“What are we doing here?” Theo complained as he picked up the second piece of luggage from the baggage claim conveyor in Heathrow Airport.

“Because the only flight from Miami to London City Airport had five layovers. I would have spent more time waiting on the ground than in the air.” Stiles replied and then pointed at another bag. “Oh, that’s mine, too.”

Rolling his eyes, Theo grabbed that bag as well. Stiles had made no movement to take it. “I meant what are we doing here.”

“According to our sensitives, Dr. Qiao’s insights, readings from satellite-based gravimeters, and a lot of math that I am intelligent enough to understand but can’t really be bothered to learn, the focal point of the dimensional Convergence is located in Greenwich.” He pointed, heedless as to whether anyone overheard him. “There’s the subway! Oh, no, I mean underground! When in Rome, you know. Hurry up, Theo. Stop dawdling.”

Theo was strong enough that the suitcases weren’t particularly heavy for him, but they were large enough to make carrying them awkward. He hurried after Stiles.

“Now, my personal theory is that knowledge about previous Convergences has been kept by the Freemasons.”

“The Freemasons?” Theo asked in spite of himself as they reached the subway platform.

“Uh-huh. What do you know about Greenwich?”

“It’s zero longitude, and it’s where we set our clocks.”

“That’s not a coincidence. Greenwich was once the site of the Royal Observatory, established by Charles II, but it was designed and its location chosen by Sir Christopher Wren. Not only was he one of the premier architects of his time, but he was also one of the founders of the Royal Society and a Freemason. I’m thinking Wren had enough knowledge about previous Convergences to predict where it would happen next and set up an observatory to study it.”

“Okay.” Theo was more interested in fitting the luggage through the underground’s doors.

“Does that answer your question?”

“Not really. I understand that there’s some possible benefit in the Convergence.”

“Yup,” Stiles took a seat without helping Theo at all.

“I don’t understand is why it’s you and me doing the investigating.”

The underground jolted into motion and then hurtled along, whisking them beneath London. It wasn’t the busiest time of the day as they were between rush hours, but the vast and diverse population of the metropolis still used these subterranean arteries enough to allow Theo to people watch.

Stiles remained silent for a while, but he suddenly began to speak in a tone that Theo might have described as homesick. “Scott and I had a plan. We would travel the world after we graduated high school but before we started college. We’d go to Africa, to Japan, to China, to Australia, and I always insisted we would have to come here. I guess the younger me thought that it would be the intellectual thing to do, and I’ve always been proud of my smarts. We’d talk about it for hours at night.”

Theo felt his own frustration well up at the story. He had been denied any memories like that. “Was this before or after you dragged him out into the woods?”

Stiles froze; Theo winced as he felt the tenor of this conversation shift.

“The only result of you reminding me of how I got to this point will be the rapid shortening of your lifespan. Understood?”

Theo nodded sharply.

“Anyway,” Stiles went on as he hadn’t just threatened Theo’s life. “There’s part of me that wants to recapture that feeling, and there’s another part of me that has been all over the world, and worlds beyond, yet the fox has never been to London-town.”

“But why bring me?”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Because a teenage boy surrounded by armed security guards draws attention. Two American bros on a trip to London to see the sights and act like assholes … doesn’t.”

Theo shrugged. “I’m not your bro.”

With a sharp gesture, which only a few people on the train noticed, Stiles’ hand zipped out and snagged Theo’s chin. “True,” the fox hissed, “but since I’m going to pretend to be an average American teenage boy, you get to pretend to be my dear childhood friend. That’s what you’re good at, isn’t it? Pretending?”

The chimera tried to pull his jaw away, but Stiles had put too much strength in the grip.

“So, pretend as if your life depends on it.”

It took two and a half hours to get from Heathrow to Greenwich, switching from the Underground to the Docklands Light Rail system. By the time they reached their destination, Stiles’s mood had improved. He started to talk about Greenwich landmarks he recognized from his reading. He even threw an arm around Theo’s shoulders. The chimera squashed his shudder and smiled like he was having the time of his life. After all, he was indeed good at pretending.

As they neared the old Royal Naval College, Stiles looked up from where he was checking his cell phone and into the sky. “Do you see that?”

Theo followed his eyes. Above them was a distortion, a circle in the sky, like someone had punched a hole through it to reveal what was behind it. “Are those what I think they are?”

“Dimensional breaches. We’ve hit the jackpot … oh, wait.” He grabbed Theo’s shoulder, hard. “What’s this? Something's about to happen.”

Out of thin air, a large object appeared out of nothing. It plowed into the bank of the Thames, tearing up the ground and the concrete.

“What the hell?” Theo exclaimed as he dropped the luggage.

“That would be an alien spaceship,” Stiles nodded. “Super cool.”

The appearance of an alien craft caused a panic in London. People were running and screaming in ways that Theo had only seen in giant monster or disaster movies. The bottom of the alien ship opened and armed, masked troops came out of it. Their commander strode out in front, unafraid, even though half of his face was clearly burned.

Stiles watched events unfold as if it were Christmas morning. “I’ve never seen anything like them before,” he said in a hushed whisper, brimming with curiosity. Before he could say anything else, there was a crack of thunder, and a demigod landed in front of the alien invaders. “And that would be Thor.”

“We need to find cover!” Theo shouted. He laid hold of Stiles and tried to pull him to the corner of a building where at least they would be a little safe. He wanted nothing to do with this.

“Mind the bags,” Stiles as he let himself be dragged into a corner.

“Are you serious?”

“Theo.” The fox waggled his fingers. “Go get the bags.”

Theo dodged out even as those alien troopers had started firing at everyone, pulling the luggage back to where they were hiding. “We need to get out of here!”

“Nah,” Stiles replied, eyes slitted and dreamy.

With a start, Theo realized what was happening. He could see the explosions out of the corner of his eye, heard the screaming of the crowds. When he put his head around the corner, he could see an Avenger clashing with the alien leader. He was a chimera, and even he was feeling as panicked as a normal Londoner. He was surrounded by strife and chaos. Stiles was feeding.

Finally, the void kitsune snapped out of it. “As fun as this is, I want a souvenir.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nope. Something about the power their leader is putting out calls to me, but it’s unfamiliar.” He opens one of the suitcases and takes out a wrapped object. Inside the protective packing is a crystal container inscribed with runes. “When he exerts its power, he creates those shards of matter. Be a pal and bring me one.”

“Are you insane?”

“Arguably. You just need to be quick enough to get me a shard and back before they dissolve.”

“Me?”

“I’m tough and strong and knowledgeable, but I’m not as fast as you in your coywolf form. Get them clothes off.”

Theo stared at him. “No. I don’t care if you threaten me. I can die to you or the aliens.”

Stiles measured him up. “So, you do have a spine. Tell you what. Do this for me, and you don’t have to go back to Mexico when this is over.”

“You promise?” Theo immediately felt like slapping himself in the face. What good were a fox’s promises?

“I promise. I mean it. It means you’ll work for me directly, but there are trade-offs in any deal.” He glanced over. “Running out of time on this offer, Theo.”

Theo gritted his teeth. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. He pulled his off his jacket.

December 1, 2013

Scott was not just an alpha; he was a True Alpha. He was a powerful werewolf with a powerful pack. He had survived beatings, clawings, stabbings, shootings, poisonings, electrocution, torture, and one experience as a human sacrifice, yet there was something even he could not overcome.

“Scott, I said no.”

“Mo-om!”

Melissa shook her head as if this was her final decision. “This is your last semester in high school. Skipping the first week of class is not the way to start off, especially if I want you to do good.”

“Well.”

His mother narrowed her eyes.

“You want me to do well.”

She threw a couch cushion at him. “You know what I meant!”

“It’s the second semester. Seniors go on trips to colleges all the time.”

His mother walked into the kitchen, leaving him with no choice but to follow her up. “I would agree with you if where you wanted to go was, in fact, a college.”

“It’s an academy!”

“And what would you do if you went to this academy?”

Scott put on his best smile, even though he knew his answer was exactly what was bothering her. “I’d become a SHIELD agent.”

Opening the cabinet, his mother dug out her emergency wine. Bottles like it had first appeared after the kanima situation had been resolved. She would sometimes pour herself a glass whenever they talked about what the supernatural meant for his life. This time, however, she poured out two glasses and put one on the table nearest to him.

Scott’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead.

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

“I can’t really … I thought I told you it doesn’t work on me.”

“I know, honey, that you can’t feel the alcohol as I do, but this way I get to tell you no while still feeling like the Cool Mom.”

“You’ve always been the Cool Mom.”

“Flatterer.” She pushed the glass across the counter towards him and then gestured down at the table. “Do you really want to be an agent? I thought you wanted to be a veterinarian.”

Scott looked at the dining room floor instead of meeting her gaze. “I did. I do. I don’t know.”

“Okay, you need to sit down and tell me how things have changed.”

Scott took his glass and sat down at the kitchen table. “I mean … you know I’ve been having trouble this last year.”

“No,” Melissa said firmly. “You haven’t.”

“Uh?”

“Your grades may not rank you anywhere near valedictorian, but they’re more than fine, especially when you take into account your extra-curricular activities. Dr. Deaton thinks highly of you, both as an employee and a person. You’re not simply cleaning cages for him; he’s training you for a career. And as far as I can tell, you’ve gotten the hang of being the Alpha.”

“I wouldn’t say that—”

“Other people do, though. The rest of it — what you mean when you say you’re having trouble — is coping with loss. Take it from me, I’ve seen a lot of loss in my work. There is no correct way to do it.”

“But I’ve made mistakes.”

“You were going to make mistakes anyway, Scott. That’s part of life. The only thing I ever wanted you to do is make mistakes trying to do the right thing, and you have. So that leaves me with a very important question. Are you considering joining SHIELD in order to make up for something you think you did wrong?”

“No.” Scott thought about it and then said it once again, more firmly. “No. It’s not that.”

“Then tell me why.”

He licked his lips. “When I was first bit, the only thing I could think about was how much I hated what had been done to me. It didn’t make me hate being a werewolf any less when everybody tried to tell me what I was supposed to become. None of those things were what I had wanted, so I fought really hard not to let them make me into what they thought I had to be. I fought really hard not to change.”

His mother nodded. “That was your right.”

He glanced in her eyes, to make sure she was serious. She nodded and then grabbed his hand. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t have the right to choose your own future. I would say I’d kick the ass of anyone who tried, but you can kick their ass just fine.”

“Then, after Peter was beaten, I thought it was over, that I wouldn’t have to fight for what I wanted anymore, but Gerard came to town and Jackson turned into the kanima and there was a war, and I …”

He took a big gulp of his wine. “This stuff tastes really bad.”

Melissa shrugged. “People learn to like it.”

“I couldn’t sit by. I couldn’t, as much as I wanted to. People were going to get hurt, and I could help. All it cost me was Allison.”

“I know, and I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t anyone’s fault but Gerard’s.” He sighed. “Then came the Alpha Pack and Deucalion and my ascension to True Alpha. Somewhere along the line, I stopped … I stopped thinking of myself in the same way that I had before the Bite.”

“You stopped thinking about yourself as human.”

“I am human!” Scott said a little loudly. “I mean I know I’m not really human anymore, but I try to feel and act human. I’ve kept that part of me. That’s not what I meant, though. I stopped thinking of myself as a Scott McCall whom someone had done something to do, and I started thinking of myself as … this.”

He displayed his long alpha claws. He turned his hand back and forth. “They don’t freak me out anymore. They seem … “

“They’re part of you.”

“Yeah.”

Scott pulled them back in. “Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want this, and I’ll never really forgive Peter for taking the choice away from me and then acting like he gave me some huge gift. But … I’m okay with being this way, I think.”

“What has that to do with SHIELD?”

“I love working with Deaton, and I love working with animals; I always have. I think I’m pretty good at it, but … I’m also pretty good at this other stuff, too. Gerard was a tactical genius and a ruthless hunter, and I stopped his plan. Deucalion and his pack were all stronger than us and no strangers to violence, and Jennifer was crazy and could do real magic, and I helped stopped them.”

“Okay.” Melissa nodded along, following his train of thought.

“I didn’t enjoy it while I was going through it, but, afterward, saving people’s lives made me feel that everything I had done and suffered was worth it. Maybe I’ve changed. Just like I grew into the lycanthropy, maybe I could try helping other people by stopping bad guys, especially if it’s not something I’m forced to do.”

Melissa bit her lower lip.

“I’m not sure about it, which is why I want to go on this trip. They have this whole itinerary planned out for me.”

“Why join SHIELD, why not the FBI?”

Scott grimaced. “Dad, for one.”

His mother nodded sadly. “He’d try to make himself a part of it.”

“And, honestly, they’ll know what I am. I won’t be flashing it around at anyone, but I won’t be as afraid if it gets revealed. Obviously, they don’t have a problem with it, if they sent me that packet.”

“How much time will you need?”

Scott pulled out his phone and pulled up the January calendar. “I’ll fly out on the 2nd and spend a week or so at the academy, but then they want me to spend a couple of days at their big new headquarters in D.C.” He flipped over to show pictures of the Triskelion.

“Is that a normal part of the tour?”

“No. I think it’s just for me.” He shrugged. “I don’t think it’s a trap or anything. They know where I live if they wanted to get me. I’ll just miss the first week of school and I’ll work really hard to catch up.”

Melissa tilted her head to the side, considering. Scott smiled broadly; he had won.

Chapter Text

December 6, 2013

The chime on the front door rang as Mrs. Francone left the clinic with her beloved Chippy. Dr. Deaton had warned her that she should really not feed Chippy from the dining-room table anymore, but from the way that the shih-tzu obviously wore the pants in their relationship, Scott doubted that Mrs. Francone would be able to stop. Grinning, he turned back into the examination room.

“So, what do you think?”

Deaton finished washing his hands in the sink and reached for a towel. “I expect that we’ll be seeing both of them again soon enough.”

Scott sighed as he started to clean up the examination table. “That’s not really what I was talking about.”

“I know.” His boss gave him an enigmatic smile.

“Is there some reason you don’t want to talk to me about it? You’ve been avoiding my questions all day.”

Emissary and Alpha locked eyes over the autoclave.

“I’m going to turn the sign on the front door to ‘Closed.’ This discussion might become a little involved, Scott, and I would prefer that we didn’t get interrupted.”

Scott emptied the trash while he waited for Deaton to return, mostly to keep from second-guessing himself. He had started the day wanting nothing else but to hear Deaton’s opinion, yet now he was suddenly nervous about what Alan might say.

Deaton, without preamble, began talking when he returned. “I have been described, by many people including members of the pack on certain occasions, as cryptic.”

“That was mostly Stiles. I’ve never heard any of the Hales describe you in that way.”

“Never-the-less, I think it sometimes has been a fair description.”

Scott frowned. “Well, yeah, but your advice has also saved our asses a lot, too.”

“Thank you, I appreciate that. I must admit, however, that on those occasions where I have been circumspect or reluctant to speak, I never choose to explain why.”

“And you don’t have to. You don’t work for me.”

“What’s the task of an Emissary, Scott?”

They had talked that before, when Deaton, at Scott’ request, had begun to each him the deeper lore of the supernatural world. “Emissaries give advice, provide resources, and perform tasks -- such as handling mountain -- ash that packs can’t do for themselves.”

Deaton gestured to Scott that he should go on.

“Ultimately, their primarily goal is to keep the pack balanced, helping them master the wolf while keeping them tethered to humanity.”

“To achieve that goal, an Emissary such as I have to put his pack’s well-being in front of his own desires. For example, I can’t pretend that I have all the answers when I don’t, even though I might wish to pretend otherwise. An Emissary must be truthful, so I must admit when I am not completely sure about what I know or what I can do. It also means that there will be times I can’t fulfill your requests for information in full or at all, because the Balance sometimes requires that the pack work the answers out for themselves. Above all, I must avoid a pitfall that is unfortunately common to advisers.”

“Pitfall?”

“When bonds of trust are formed, like the way you trust me, advice and guidance can drift ever so subtly into control. When I suggest what is best for you, I could actually be advising what is best for myself.”

Scott shook his head. “You would never do that.”

“Wouldn’t I? I was Talia Hale’s Emissary.”

“Yeah.”

Deaton’s voice grew sad. “The tragedy of her and her family’s death still weighs heavily upon me. I often ask myself, what if I had advised her differently? Or what if I had advised Deucalion differently? I am very fond of you, Scott, so fond that I sometimes regret the necessity that forced our relationship to evolve to what it is now. It remains a temptation for me to use that trust to protect you from the dangers of this world rather than advise you without bias on how to reach your own goals.”

“Doc, this isn’t the same thing as trying to stop rampaging monsters. I’m just asking for your opinion about my trip to the academy.”

“You don’t think that I might have a personal bias when it comes to your future?”

A smile spread across Scott’s face. In addition to tutoring him in the supernatural, Deaton had taken the time to teach him the basics of being a vet. He admitted it had probably stung the doctor a little to hear the Scott was thinking about other careers. He wasn’t happy that he might have hurt his boss, but Alan’s confession that Scott was that important to him did make him feel warm inside.

“You’re allowed to want things, Doc. I won’t ask you if you want me to go. All I need to know is whether becoming an agent is something I could consider. Would it be wrong if I did go? Will I hurt the pack? I trust you tell me the truth as best you know it.”

“The truth is rarely simple. Perhaps the pack deserves to be hurt.”

“I don’t understand.”

Deaton put a hand on Scott’s shoulder. “Scott, you were Bitten against your will. You became an Alpha without seeking it. You accepted these changes and embraced them in order to protect others. This is laudable, but it is not the same as if you were someone who had been expected to become Alpha or even wanted to become one. Incidents outside your control should not deny you the right to your own future.”

“The time when I could walk away from this is long over. I’m not going to stop being what they need, so it is a simple question: could I be a good alpha and an agent at the same time?”

“It’s possible.” Deaton finally admitted. “Pack bonds aren’t constrained by distance. They’re relationships. If you joined SHIELD, would you stop talking to Derek or Isaac or Ethan?”

“No.”

“Then you could still be the alpha they need. Too many people believe that alphas have to serve as a combination of therapist and squad leader, solving every problem for their pack, external or internal. That’s not a good model to follow. It’s certainly not a model that Talia used or a model that my friend Satomi uses. The way they approached the vocation, an alpha provides vision, correction, and strategy for their pack, much like any good parent would.”

Scott chuckled, suddenly imagining himself sending Peter to bed without his supper.

“Think of it this way, even if you moved out of your house and went to school in another state, would you stop listening to your mother? Would her words mean less to you?”

“Oh, no.”

“So it could be with an alpha.”

“Alright.” Scott grinned but then, as he watched Deaton’s response, it slowly faded off his face. “You don’t think I can manage it though, do you?”

“That’s not my place —”

“Okay. I understand your need to be objective. But you do have reservations, and I want to hear them.”

Deaton grimaced. “I think it may not be as easy for you as you would want it to be. Think of your battle with the Alpha Pack. One of the reasons you did not go to the police, even your own father, was that they would be unprepared for the sheer power possessed by Deucalion. Another reason was that the less you were involved with law enforcement, the less chance that the supernatural would be exposed to the public at large.”

Scott squinted and then relaxed as the veterinarian’s point became clear. “Oh.”

“You have many talents, but sustained deception is not among them. I am afraid that as an agent, you would most likely be forced into situations where you would have to either betray your superiors in SHIELD or betray the supernatural’s existence to the public.”

With a sickening sensation, Scott realized that Deaton was probably right. “I don’t know why they couldn’t help protect the supernatural. You brought up the Alpha Pack. If other packs had had someone to go to …”

“The supernatural has learned the hard way they must remain hidden from humanity.” Deaton looked apologetic. “There are somethings that can’t change, no matter how much we want them to do so.”

December 16, 2013

The tractor trailer came to a stop on the mainland side of the bridge over the Potomac. One of the most important security innovations for the Triskelion was that all check-in procedures occurred before crossing the bridge to Theodore Roosevelt Island. Security, once inside the building proper, tended to be as unobtrusive as possible: name tags, biometric locks, and passwords.

It gave agents the illusion of belonging. Once someone crossed that bridge, they were home, a place that they could trust and were trusted.

Stiles chuckled at the lie. As falsehoods went, it was better than average.

“May I see your identification?” asked the politely thorough guard. He had bright red hair, buzzed closer than regulation, probably because his fellows probably teased him about it, and hazel eyes. He kept his voice light, but even an amateur could tell he took his job seriously.

“Of course.” Stiles handed his over.

“You look a little young to be an agent.”

“I’ve been told that before. I’m going to appreciate it when I’m fifty, no?” Stiles winked at him.

“And the animal?”

“I may look young, but I’m also anxious. He’s my psychiatric service dog.” He brought the animal close and rubbed the top of its head. “Theo’s a good boy. Aren’t you, buddy?”

The guard listened to the explanation without giving any telltale sign of disbelief or annoyance. It was one of the ways Stiles could spot the difference between SHIELD agents and Hydra subversives. When SHIELD agents talked about diversity, tolerance, freedom, and justice, he could see that they believed in it, the way this guard accepted that someone could be an agent and have an anxiety disorder. When a member of Hydra parroted the same type of lines to him, there was always the faintest hint of a sneer, too slight for normal humans to catch, but to a nogitsune it was as if they were written in neon.

The fox chuckled once again. Humans were so funny.

The truck rumbled over the bridge and followed the preset path to the loading docks. Even though SHIELD had agents and stations all over the world coordinated through this building, 2:13 a.m. still saw few people on duty in this part of the Triskelion. Stiles got out, followed by Theo, and opened up the back of the truck.

“Uniform’s right there. Get dressed.”

After transforming, Theo started to bitch as he pulled his pants on. “Why was that necessary?”

“Because you look as young as I do.”

“And?”

“One agent looking like he skipped out on lacrosse practice engenders curiosity. Two agents like that engenders suspicion.”

“Then why am I getting dressed now?”

“Because you haven’t learned to talk when you’re fully shifted.” Stiles paused to wait until Theo had pulled a t-shirt over his head. “Unless you have when I wasn’t looking, which would be awesome, Scooby.”

Theo sighed. “I haven’t learned to talk when I’m a coywolf.”

“It’s a pity. Otherwise, I need your senses.”

“You have supernatural senses, too.” Theo buttoned up his outer shirt.

“I can sense the potential for strife and chaos, which is super useful much of the time, but your senses of smell, hearing, and sight are far better than mine or any other agent I employ.”

“So, what will I be looking for?”

“Trouble.”

Theo bent over to tie his shoes. “I thought you were a big shot.”

Stiles yanked Theo’s head up by his hair. He didn’t make it hurt this time. “I am a big shot, but we’re in a building that houses two of the most powerful organizations on earth. One of which would try to capture me — and you — on principle, and the other happens to be the one in which I staged a coup less than two months ago. I’m reasonably confident that I’m safe, but I would like to be completely confident.”

Jerking his head out of Stiles’ grasps, Theo smirked. “You trust me to keep you safe?”

“I do. Mostly because as much as you might dislike the leash I keep you on, I'm sure this last month beats your endless internship with the Dread Doctors by a mile.”

Theo didn’t reply, just turned away and made a show of gathering up his gear.

Tilting his head to the side, Stiles felt like twisting the knife. “I know, I’d rather be with Scott, too.”

The chimera froze and then turned around with his flawless false face glued on. “Why aren’t you?”

“Cause just like you, I’m something cobbled together for someone else’s purpose. I don’t belong there any more than you do.”

Before they could continue the discussion, the D.O.A. team appeared at the truck. They had arrived earlier that day and were ready to get to work. Everyone helped load the carts and took them to a service elevator.

“Project Insight, please. Override Schmidt-22.” Stiles said into the voice-control panel.

“Access granted.” The computer voice reassured them.

Stiles smiled as everyone in his unit were significantly awed by their first sight of the Insight helicarriers. They were, after all, meant to be very impressive. The area supervisor, whose name Stiles barely remembered, approached him angrily. He was a jumped-up little martinet who acted obnoxious as hell but was skilled at management and security, and it was his job to be very careful. Even though every person in the hangar was Hydra on graveyard shift, it wouldn’t do to get complacent, especially since this time was when all the little extras Hydra planned for their new weapons system were put in.

“What the fuck are those?” Theo breathed.

“Depends on who you ask. If you asked Nick Fury, he would say they’re the next step in protecting innocent people from terrorist organizations. If you asked the leaders of Hydra, they would say the final step in their plan to guide humanity into a golden age.”

“I asked you.” His pet chimera challenged.

“More chaos, strife and pain than even I could imagine, and that’s a lot. Never forget, Theo — humans are the worst monsters. And speaking of petty, grasping monsters,” Stiles took a few steps out to meet the man. “Area Supervisor Franklin, how are you tonight?”

“You were supposed to be here thirty minutes ago.”

“You know how espionage works, Mr. Franklin, often things get held up.”

“We are very close to deployment,” Franklin scolded him needlessly. The supervisor always wore a hat, so Stiles suspected he was bald. He had met people like this before: anxious bureaucrats worried that they had wasted their lives and so exercised any little sliver of power they possessed as often as they could. “You weren’t even part of the original schedule.”

“That’s because the previous head of the department was a selfish, unimaginative oaf who didn’t care about Insight’s success. I’m an improvement.”

Franklin looked over the supplies that his men were bringing. “What is this?”

“32 spools of wire.” Stiles picked one up. “Very expensive wire, which we will be laying in every corner of three separate locations on each helicarrier: the command center, the computer core, and the engine room.”

“The power supply has already been calibrated.”

“Well, good for you!” Stiles chirped. “But we won’t be connecting it to the grid.”

“Then why?”

“Because these helicarriers cost like 50 billion dollars each, and you don’t want the Ancient One to astrally project themself onto the bridge and conjure up the Flames of the Faltine.” Stiles goggled eyes at him, exaggeratedly. “Duh.”

“I don’t understand.”

Stiles waved the wire under his nose. “This is argentium sterling silver alloy wrapped around a flexible core, consisting of mountain ash powder, cold iron shards, ground crocodile teeth and protective prayers micro-inscribed on stone fragments from a holy mountain. It was a bitch and a half to make, but given someone present with sufficient belief, this should keep any supernatural creatures far away from crucial operating systems.”

Franklin looked like he was going to bust out laughing until he realized that Stiles wasn’t laughing.

“Do I have to go over your head, area supervisor?”

“No.”

Stiles gave him his best unimpressed glare. “Then get out of my way. I have work to do.”

December 20, 2013

Lydia watched Derek, Scott, Cora, and Malia march away into the grove of pine trees like an illustration in some 19th century children’s novel, the picturesque scene framed by the frost on the corners of the window. Freshly fallen snow and morning sunlight made the copse look like it had been plucked from a Christmas fairy tale. Inwardly, she congratulated herself; her idea of the pack having a retreat during winter recess had turned out, so far, to be a complete success. They could see Mount Shasta from the front porch, they were miles from anyone else, yet they still had a kitchen, running water, and blessed, blessed heat.

“So, they’re off on their great adventure out in the frozen wild.”

“We could have gone with them,” Aiden said from his place on the couch.

“Yes, we could have, but I’m fine where I am right now. I enjoy looking at scenic vistas, not shivering to death with snow in my boots. But, that’s me. You could have gone with them.”

“I could have, but I prefer the company here.”

Lydia walked back to the couch and sat down next to him. “Good answer.”

Aiden beamed at her answer, and she smiled back. It was nice, but she was struck suddenly by an epiphany, and she had to work to keep it off her face. It must have been easy for Deucalion to own Aiden and his brother. All the Alpha of Alphas had had to do was acknowledge them, to give them the chance to be more than bitch omegas, and they willingly did whatever he wanted. On the other hand, the same stimulus had also led to their rebellion, because she and Danny had been able to give the twins a purer form of what the Demon Wolf could only grudgingly supply.

Love and respect.

She might have found this attitude cloying if Aiden wasn’t so adamant about keeping it hidden in all but their most intimate moments. It made her slightly sad that she had recently come to the conclusion that they weren’t going to last. She was destined for Cambridge, and she had no interest in the hard work of maintaining a long-term relationship nor did she see herself dragging him across the country behind her. Still, she felt his companionship would be pleasant while it lasted.

“I notice that the couples all remained behind,” Danny came out of the kitchen with hot cocoa and his boyfriend. “Allison and Isaac are still upstairs.”

“Sleepyheads,” chirped Ethan.

Lydia rolled her eyes. “They could show a bit of restraint.” She had a right to be grumpy; Aiden had demurred the previous night.

“Oh, no,” Aiden corrected. “They’re talking. There won’t be much sex here this week.”

“Yeah, this building doesn’t have soundproofed rooms. There’s no way anyone can get it on without the rest of the house knowing, and we’re close but we’re not that close.”

Danny takes a seat on the hearth. “Maybe we should be.”

All eyes went to the human being.

“Minds out of the gutter please. I’m not talking about orgies; I’m talking about being adults. It’s part of life. We’re not going to be high schoolers for much longer. Some of us aren’t already.”

“I said I was sorry!” Ethan protested. Danny didn’t mind dating older people, but he did mind when Ethan had concealed the twins’ birthday from him. “Adjusting to being comfortable with other’s … intimacy is going to be hard for Aiden and me. Our original alpha was sort of a pig about it. He wouldn’t let anyone else … until he got some first.”

Lydia wrinkled her nose.

“Then we should take it slow,” Danny reasoned. “Or maybe we should ask Derek how the Hale pack did it.”

“They were a family.”

“I know that, Aiden, since they all have the same last name.” Danny could be as sarcastic as Stiles. The memory made Lydia’s grin dim a bit. “But I don’t think that Mr. And Mrs. Hale stopped having sex because their family could hear it. On the other hand, Isaac and Scott are bitten wolves, Malia lived in the woods for eight years, and you two were raised in an abusive environment. Maybe we should find out how mature, adult werewolves live.”

Lydia felt laughter return, bubbling up from her gut. “Okay, Danny, you’re the one who gets to ask Derek about Talia Hale’s sex life.”

They all joined her merriment.

She turned to her present boyfriend. “Speaking of being adults, what are you planning to be when you grow up?”

A momentary glimpse of shame crossed Aiden’s face and then it was gone. “I don’t think I’ll ever grow up.”

From across the room, Ethan waved off a sip of Danny’s cocoa. “Tell her.”

“Tell me what?”

Aiden sighed. “I’m going to open up a shop. A motorcycle shop.”

“He’s good at taking care of bikes.” Ethan promised.

Lydia turned to her boyfriend and rested her chin on her hand.

“Where are you getting the money?”

“Deucalion.” Aiden swallowed. “He said he’d give me the money to get set up.”

“Did you think you couldn’t tell me?” Lydia asked, carefully keeping her voice light. “Did you think I’d laugh at you?”

“It seems … it kind of seems so trivial after everything that we’ve been though. All of us have been through.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “I couldn’t fix a motorcycle, and most of the people I consider intelligent couldn’t do it. So, it takes skill, and it’s something you obviously enjoy, so I think it is the exact opposite of trivial. On the other hand, it’s not very mobile.”

Aiden paused as if getting ready to confess another huge secret. “I know, babe, but it is what it is. I know you might not want or even be able to come back here after you finish school, but the pack’s here, and I need a pack.”

That response was so mature that, ironically, it made Lydia suddenly revise her assumption that their relationship would eventually end. She made sure that her answering nod was clearly one of acceptance, and Aiden relaxed.

“Will you be part of this pack?” Danny quizzed. “I’m going to UCLA, and I think Ethan’s coming with me. Allison’s going to France with her father to train for a year, and I think Isaac probably will go with them. You’re heading to MIT, and Scott is talking about being a SHIELD agent.”

“This is still their home,” Aiden replied.

“Scott won’t be an agent,” Lydia announced. “So you don’t have to worry about that.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because, frankly, I know Scott better than you — any of you. I know exactly what he’s feeling, but I also know that in many ways, he’s naive to the way the world actually works. If the academy is honest with him in any way, he’ll end up turning them down before he even finishes senior year.”

All three men looked at him with varying levels of comprehension and resistance.

“He’s not thinking of becoming an agent because he wants to run after bad guys. No, he wants to prevent innocents from being ruined, like what happened to him and me and Stiles. Once he realizes that law enforcement has little to do with prevention and far more to do with punishment, it will lose its allure.”

She looks out towards the window. “Scott still has the school-boy respect for people with a badge, but I don’t think it’ll last very long. I don’t think it possibly can.”

December 31, 2013 - New Year’s Eve

Time had always stalked humanity, a starving predator crouched between the trees. It didn’t matter how young a human was, it didn’t matter how old a human was, the claws that tore at their happiness emerged at the end of every clock’s hands.

Like all things that scared these hairless apes, they tried to run from it at first, their flight taking a range of forms from potent alchemies to the latest diet-and-workout program. When that didn’t work, they tried to fight it, battles embodied in both ancient pyramids and charitable donations. When that didn’t work either, humanity did the thing that set it above the base animals — they celebrated it.

There was still an hour left before the ball dropped in Times Square and inside the nightclub, people managed to turn the death of another year into a chance to meet someone that would soothe the pain of being finite. Stiles knew what that was like, but he also knew what it was like to ignore the twisting treachery of passing minutes. It got too much for him, so he had to leave the club.

No one else was on the outside balcony when Stiles stepped onto it, revealing the scenic vista of downtown Washington. He couldn’t imagine why he was out here alone compared to how packed and frankly stuffy the club inside had become. It was chilly, admittedly, the temperature hovering a few degrees above freezing, but after the furnace of bodies pressed together inside, it felt amazingly refreshing.

He sipped at his drink, a Jack Daniel’s Winter Cider. He pretended there was no particular reason why he had taken to drinking only mixed drinks made with Jack Daniels. It was dangerous to be seen as sentimental.

Luckily, Theo followed him out onto the balcony with a tray of food and what looked like a cup of coffee for himself. As he got closer, though, Stiles could tell it was Irish cream.

“You actually bought wings?” Stiles asked around a smirk.

“I was hungry! I got some for you, too.”

“You know they’re charging you fifteen dollars for a dozen tiny wings and some store-bought ranch. It’s a rip-off.”

Theo put the plate of wings on one of the outside tables. “You’re rich enough to afford it.”

“I am?”

“I don’t have a credit card, so I used your tab.”

Stiles scowled at him and Theo winked back. He was going to have to do something demeaning to the chimera soon. All this chumminess was making him irritable. Regardless, he picked up a buffalo wing and popped it in his mouth.

They ate in silence for a bit until Theo looked a little bit satiated.

“I figured it out, don’t you know?”

“Figured what out, Theo.”

“Why you seem so intent on keeping me around. It’s the thrill of control.”

Stiles raised a sarcastic eyebrow. “My God, you’re a genius.”

The chimera snickered and took a drink.

“You’re being bold tonight, Theo.”

“Not really. One of the first things I learned is how much I could get away with in any given situation. We’re relaxing, and you’re being deliberately obtuse.”

“Oh?”

Theo glanced down to the shadows of the alleys below. “Nogitsune don’t care about control. They don’t seek out fame and influence. They don’t join organizations or recruit minions. They certainly don’t want friends. They feed and they play, and that’s it.”

“Your point?”

“My point, Stiles, is that your participation in Hydra isn’t because you’re being forced. It isn’t even because you think that there’s no other place for you now. You’ve achieved your position because it’s something that you — that Stiles, not the nogitsune — wanted.”

“Is that so?”

“The nogitsune wouldn’t care about developing Project Vargulf or protecting Project Insight. Delayed gratification isn’t its thing. Stiles on the other hand would see the opportunities inherent in them as rewarding and useful for protecting his own ass.”

Stiles smiled at that, but he felt rage building.

“I know what it is like to work for the bad guys because you don’t think you belong anywhere else, Stiles. I also know what it’s like to work for the bad guys because it makes you feel special.”

With a blur of motion, Stiles had Theo by the throat and had pushed him back and over the railing on the balcony. Any farther and Theo would plunge to the ground stories. It probably wouldn’t kill him. Probably. “Are you sure you know how far you can push?”

“Yup.” For his credit, Theo had no fear.

“They kidnapped me!”

“Yes, over a year ago. How many times have you been on your own, free of any restraint but that torc around your neck? You could have been back in Beacon Hills, protecting your father and Scott months ago, but you don’t want them to see you like this. Hydra gives you the means to hide from those you love, protect those you love, but it also lets you be a Bad Ass Motherfucker.”

Stiles constricted his hand to show his displeasure.

Theo face started turning a little red. “The Doctors studied you; they knew you were important to the McCall pack. They told me you’ve always believed that you were secretly wicked. You’ve always secretly wanted to be.”

“That’s a lie!”

“Then call them!” Theo gasped. “Call the Avengers right now and tell them about Hydra. Tell Captain America about Project Insight. Tell Iron Man about the Dread Doctors! Tell Thor about the tortured omegas you’re keeping at the base in the Bahamas! You can let them know everything and you’re still good enough to get away.”

With a sneer, Stiles pulled Theo back and dropped him.

“You like the feeling it gives you.” Theo coughed around the words. “The feeling of control. Of safety. Of belonging. Of not standing in anyone’s shadow.”

The fox took a long sip of his drink and then stared out over the skyline. In time, Theo had returned to normal and rejoined him at the railing.

“You didn’t finish,” Stiles added after a bit.

Theo grunted as if he didn’t understand.

“You said you figured out why I keep you here, and you babbled on about control, but you never said why I specifically chose to bring you with me.”

“I’m useful.”

“Those Doctors really did a number on you. Success or failure, is that it?” Theo wasn’t the only monster who could read someone’s emotions, and Stiles always enjoyed twisting the knife a bit. “You think I brought you on as my personal assistant because you were the best lying killer I could find?”

Stiles laughed in Theo’s shaken face.

“Hydra has dozens of professional wet work specialists -- any one of which I could have recruited -- and most of them don’t look like either Lassie or the newest heartthrob from the CW’s fall lineup. Your skills are very useful, Theo, but that’s not why you’re here.”

“So, why am I here?”

“Because you were my friend, Theo. We were on the same Little League team. When we won, we went out for pizza, and when we lost we went out for ice cream. You, Scott and I played on the monkey bars. You came over to my house a few times, when my mother was in the hospital.”

Theo squinted, confused.

“You’re right. I like it here. It’s infinitely better than my dad or Scott seeing what I’ve become. Hell, it’s better than Lydia, Allison, Derek or even that douche Isaac seeing.” He continued. “It’s comfortable, but I’m also nostalgic.”

“Dr. Ranefer is your friend.”

“She’s my friend, but she’s not Stiles’s friend, not like the pack is. Not like you were.” Stiles finished his drink. “If you are capable of being honest with yourself, Theo, isn’t it nice to have at least one person in your life who knew you before you became someone’s prized experiment?”

Theo stared at him until he had an epiphany. “You want someone who understands, even though you’ve gained so much, what exactly it was you lost.”

“Just as I do you.”

“And what if I don’t want to be that someone?”

“As if you had a choice.” Stiles smiled at him, and it was not completely insincere. “Happy New Year!”

Chapter Text

January 6th, 2014

The Director of the SHIELD Academy of Operations watched snowflakes drift by her office window. The first two weeks of winter hadn’t been particularly rough, and this Monday’s weather could barely be considered a snow shower. On the other hand, it had transformed the landscape into something new and pristine. The white blanket of a new accumulation always made her feel that the world had changed. Unfortunately, it would probably be gone before mid-week at the latest, and the reality of that left her melancholy. She would never tell any of the students at the Academy about these feelings, because they might cease to be afraid of her, and that would not do at all.

A knock on her office door caused her to glance over at the ship’s bell clock on the wall. Today's appointment had arrived promptly.

“Enter.” She poured herself a cup of coffee. She had a secretary, but she refused to make him do stereotypical labor. Richard was a skilled SHIELD agent, and she could spoon out her own damn sugar.

The academy's most recent visitor hesitated only for a moment before coming in. They always did; the director’s office had to be intimidating. At first glance, he didn’t look very different from many of her other students. He possessed a lean, athletic build, closely cropped dark-brown hair — she suspected that this was a new development — and he had been given the visiting uniform. All prospective students were treated as if they were already accepted during their visits. She noted that the collar below his crooked jaw didn’t conform to regulation; she didn't make a fuss this time. Impressing candidates was one thing; scaring them off was quite another.

Of course, scaring them would them could later; the Academy of Operations possessed the highest drop-out rate of all three academies for a reason. Her graduates had to not only master many skills but also to develop the mental toughness to employ those skills in high-pressure situations. Their physical training regimen would compare to those of Olympic athletes; their course load in law, politics, and ethics wouldn’t be out of place at an ivy-league law school; and their practice regularly required fourteen-hour days from its students. The pressure acted as a sieve; if students couldn’t cut at the Academy, they probably wouldn’t be able to handle urgent matters of life and death while in the field.

Yet that also meant that recruitment had to remain a top priority. The director considered it an honor that she had made every quota for graduating students in her ten-year occupation of this office.

“Good afternoon, I’m Director Dugan.”

“Hello, I’m Scott McCall.” He met her eyes without flinching. “I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”

She chuckled. "I meet with every prospective student for the Academy.”

“Oh. They didn’t say anything about that.”

“They wouldn’t. It’s a little bit of a test.”

Gingerly, he took a few more steps further into the office. His eyes caught on the trophy case along the wall. The display housed all the decorations, photographs, and memorabilia about her grandfather, from the Second World War to his retirement. It obviously caught the young man’s interest.

“Go ahead,” she encouraged. “We have time if you want to look closer.”

“This is all Dum-Dum Dugan’s stuff?” Scott McCall moved to stand near the case, though he didn’t touch it.

“Yes. So, you are a history buff.”

“Not really,” the boy answered. “When I was … younger, my best friend Stiles told me all about the Howling Commandos. We’d see something about Captain America on the television and he’d … well, he’d give me a lecture explaining all the trivia he knew about the Howling Commandos and SHIELD.”

“Did he have a favorite commando?”

“Oh, no.” The young man shook his head as he stared at a picture of all the Commandos together, the last one taken before Bucky Barnes died. “Stiles said that you shouldn’t have favorites. They were a team.” He turned back to her. “Are you related to him?”

“My grandfather. I was named after him.”

“Your mom named you Dum-Dum?”

The director burst into laughter in spite of herself. “No. My name is Timothea Aloisia Cadwaller Dugan.”

“Sorry. I’m a little slow sometimes.” He walked away from the case to stand in front of her desk.

“Please sit down.” She took her own seat. “I have to admit that’s an interesting thing to say to someone who has the responsibility of deciding if you belong here.” She paused. “Admitting that you’re a little slow sometimes.”

“It’s the truth.” Scott sat down in the chair across from her.

“I take it you then, that the truth is more important to you.” Director Dugan glanced down at the candidate’s psychological evaluation.

“No. I mean, I don’t like to lie. But I can lie. Anybody can lie.” The candidate sighed. “I learned the hard way that when dealing with people, it’s always better when they know.”

“Considering what I've learned about your life, that’s a significantly radical statement.”

Scott McCall’s eyes widened as he recognized the implications of what she said.

“I have level nine clearance, Mr. McCall. If you think about it, every single field agent, specialist and operative who serves or has ever served in SHIELD in the last 30 years has had to spend at least some time at this Academy, including those operatives who are presently assigned to deep undercover operations. As a result, our alumni files are one of the most highly sought after assets in the world of espionage, so only two people have access to them: Director Fury and me. Agent Coulson suggested your visit and Director Fury agreed, so I was read in on all pertinent information. No one else here at the Academy has been informed.”

The candidate stared at her, listening intently, but to what, she didn't know. “I have to be careful, you understand. When humans learn about … us, it can end badly.”

“I imagine so.”

McCall sat up straighter in the chair. “That sorta leads me to a question I’ve wanted to ask someone since I got here. Why did Coulson recommend me?”

“In other words, why would we want you to be a SHIELD agent?”

He nodded, his silence speaking to his nervousness.

The director picked up a stack of folders on her desk and waved the first one. “Well, let’s see. Here, I have your high-school transcripts.”

Scott winced at that.

“Here I have the results of your psychological evaluation.” She held up each, before putting them down. “Your physical evaluation. Your aptitude tests. Your Black Flag file. Here are the reports from the supervisors of the classes you’ve attended during the last week. What do you think they say about you?”

“Uhm.”

She stacked them back together in a neat little pile, like shuffling cards. “You’re not a genius, by any measurement. You won’t be winning any scholarships. However, you tend to do better on tests when you have time to study and reflect on the material. Which makes me wonder what happened during the second semester of your sophomore year?”

“That was when I got Bit,” Scott admitted. “A lot of things happened really fast. People were dying and I never had time to really study. I should have done better.”

“Mmm-hmm,” the Director said, tapping the files. “According to your instructor, you’ve already learned the basics of hand-to-hand combat from someone who is very good. You demonstrate more-than-rudimentary knowledge of first aid. You’re a good shot with both a pistol and a rifle.”

The candidate coughed.

“You wanted to comment?”

“That’s …” Scott stuttered. At the director’s raised eyebrow, he went on, blushing. “I’d never picked up the gun before, but I sort of have better senses and reflexes then humans do.”

“I see.” She continued, unfazed. “According to the psychologist, you have a high degree of empathy, a strong central core of beliefs about responsibility and the value of human life, and remarkable amount of self-control for an eighteen-year-old. You also have begun to exhibit some symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome.” She made a show of looking in one of the folders. “How many times have you been tortured?”

“Three … no four.” The question had Scott flustered. “I guess it depends on what you consider torture. How … how did you know?”

“We can tell. It’s part of the job,” she said seriously. “Now, you wanted to know why Coulson would recommend you to this Academy?”

“Uh.” The werewolf seemed to be a little in shock. “Yeah.”

“According to this file, as an alpha werewolf, you are a supernatural predator with a heightened aggression response. You’re stronger than any regular human and probably stronger than Captain America. You are faster and have better reflexes than anyone in this complex. You can heal at a phenomenal rate, overcoming bullet wounds within minutes. Apparently, you can also turn other people into your servants with your bite.”

“I … I … they’re not actually servants.”

“From the Black Flag report, I know you’ve seen people die. You have been in combat where your own life and other people’s lives have been on the line. Your best friend in the whole world has been kidnapped, and his location is presently unknown. Most of the students here, who are older than you, won’t encounter those sorts of situations until well after they’ve graduated.”

The candidate didn’t say anything, but he didn’t look away.

“There are thousands of ways you could use your abilities to profit. You could even choose to live a completely normal life if you wanted to. Instead, you flew all the way across the country on the recommendation of a man who threatened to arrest you to see if you might want to help others as a vocation. That’s why he thought you should be recommended to this academy.”

“I … I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m sure that in the time you’ve been here, you discovered few more questions you might want to ask me.” Director Dugan gestured at him. “You should ask them now. This Academy has never been and will never be easy. If you’re considering coming here, I would want you to feel confident that we haven’t misrepresented what we do.”

McCall hesitated as if he were trying to formulate the words. “You mentioned specialists. What kind of specialists?”

“You should be more direct in your questions.”

“Do you train assassins?”

“All the students here are trained in how and when to use lethal force in order to protect themselves and others. But since you value honesty, I’m going to say that we do train wet-work specialists whose job it is to kill individuals that pose an ongoing threat to the peace and security of the world.”

“Isn’t that just … I’m sorry.”

“No, go on.” Director Dugan encouraged him. “That’s a very important concern; something that no one should take lightly.”

“Aren’t those just words? Isn't it just another excuse to kill people you don’t like.”

The director nodded. “You sound very passionate about this.”

“I am.”

“Could you tell me why?”

“The werewolf who Bit me wanted a beta to help him kill people. He tried to force me to kill. Now, some of his targets were the monsters who had burned his family alive, which at a certain level is understandable, but not all of them were. Innocent people died for his revenge. I had to fight a friend who decided to kill what he thought was a rampaging monster in order to save other people’s lives. He couldn’t imagine any other solution, but, in the end, the first person he tried to kill was an innocent, and the second person he tried to kill wasn’t actually aware of what they were doing.”

Director Dugan nodded. “I see. Go on.”

“I’ve fought so many people who felt that they had legitimate reasons to kill others, but, in the end, those reasons turned out to be masks for hatred and fear and greed and madness. There was this woman who killed twelve innocent people in a mystical ritual, all so she could stop a band of murdering werewolves. These werewolves had done terrible things and probably would have done more terrible things if they hadn’t been stopped. They were stopped, eventually.” McCall showed real distress. “That same friend of mine told me that she had this whole speech justifying everything she had done, and, what was worse, that she believed every word she said. But twelve people who had nothing to do with the supernatural were still dead.”

“You don’t believe that make a decision to kill someone in order to prevent their actions can be valid.”

“The world of the supernatural …” Scott hesitated. “My world is a violent world. We’re violent creatures. Another friend of mine, she’s super smart, once put it this way: the problem with living outside the law is that you no longer have its protection.”

“Truman Capote.”

“Yeah, she reads a lot. I’m not — I can’t be what I am and expect never to kill anyone. It’s probably going to happen, but I think it’s very important that I don’t give myself permission to kill someone for what they might do to me or because they’ve hurt me or someone I loved, no matter what I am. I don’t think any single person should have the right to decide what another person’s life is worth.”

Director Dugan stood up. “I think it’s very laudable to feel that way, but I don’t think it precludes you working for us.” She went to the wall and activated the holographic display. “Let me show you how a mission like that would take place. All of this, by the way, is public knowledge.”

She drew up a picture of Coulson and put it on the board. “Each task force, facility, work group, liaison office, has a Field Officer. When a wet-work mission — an assassination — is proposed, it is this field officer …” She tapped the man on the nose. “… or someone like him who begins the process. He files a request to Central Command, based in the Triskelion. I heard you’ll be spending a few days there.”

The candidate nodded as she pulled up a picture of it. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Once there, they take it to TSA, Tactical and Strategic Analysis, who go over the Field Officer’s request and determine if the conclusions drawn have a reasonable chance to be valid, if the Field Officer has the resources to pull the mission off successfully, and if neutralizing the target interferes with any of SHIELD’s long-term goals. Hundreds of people work for TSA.”

“Okay.”

“Once they approve of it, it goes to Legal Affairs.”

“That can’t be legal.”

“The law isn’t as clear as you might think, so Legal Affairs goes over international law and the laws of the country in which the assassination would take place. They craft a report that explores all the legal precedence and ramifications and add on their own recommendations.” She drew a big box for the lawyers and then another box which she labels PA. “This is Political Affairs. Sometimes there are reasons we can’t do something, even if we have a good reason and legal cover, because it would complicate our political efforts in that part of the world. With me so far?”

“How many people …”

“By this point, at least five dozen people have reviewed and studied the proposal, and even if all of them agree, we’re still not done. Director Fury signs off on every single one of those orders, personally. And I know of three times in recent memory when those orders have been countermanded by the World Security Council. When SHIELD does something, it’s different than what you have experienced. No one person is making the call.”

“So, you’re saying that SHIELD doesn’t kill people for the wrong reasons.”

Director Dugan cleared the board. “I wish I could say yes, but if there is one thing I teach each and every student at my academy is that every system has flaws. Every system can be corrupted. What I’m telling you, is that my world? It’s violent, too, and sometimes we are going to have to kill an enemy before they do something terrible, but we don’t give ourselves permission unless we absolutely have to.”

Scott stood up. “Thank you.”

“You have a few days left with us. If you have any more questions, you know where my office is.”

January 8th, 2014

Theo Raeken didn’t like the guest quarters in the Triskelion. His first thought was that the suites, located on two different floors of the Triskelion, were simply ugly. The rooms on the twelfth floor were most often used, and their style reminded Theo of the honeymoon suite on the Love Boat. The quarters on the eighteenth floor were similarly luxurious, but the aesthetic in this case had been lifted instead from the Star Trek Evil Mirror Universe.

He had watched a lot of television while he was being raised by the Doctors, so sue him.

In the end, he decided that what turned his stomach was the blatant, inept, bureaucratic attempt at manipulation. The colors on the twelfth floor were too bright and warm and the furniture far too soft for guests of an international law enforcement agency, and they gave you the same itchy vibe as the phrase “There is no war in Ba Sing Se.” The eighteenth floor stood at the opposite end of the spectrum, so cool in its blue-gray on dark gray color scheme and Brutalist molding that it was intimidating and uncomfortable, which is probably why so few people used it. He suspected that Hydra must have had a hand in its design, a subtle way to minimize the exposure of important VIPs when they were forced to stay overnight.

Am image suddenly appeared in Theo’s mind: Hydra’s Chief Evil Interior Decorator, complete with a monocle and a Dali moustache. He chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” Stiles didn’t look away from the news stream on his personal tablet.

“Oh. Nothing.”

Stiles touched the screen to pause it. His voice was playful, with only a hint of menace. “When you chuckle for no reason, it makes me nervous.”

“I meant to say, sir,” Theo replied lightly, trying to diffuse the situation, “I thought of something stupid and was giggling at it.”

Stiles’s face flickered between irritation and regret at the ‘sir.’ “Okay.”

“I could tell you, if you wanted me to, but you’d probably smack me upside the head.”

“I might do that anyway.” Stiles flashed a mischievous smile at him.

A memory emerged so suddenly that Theo was almost stunned. Stiles was grinning the same way he had in the fourth grade. A prankster’s smile. A troublemaker’s smile. Yet also a smile of a boy who would burst into tears if he realized he had actually hurt your feelings. How could he not share? “Okay, well I was …”

The story was interrupted by the insistent chime of Stiles’s phone. He glanced at it and sighed before answering. “Fox here.”

Theo fell silent as it sounded like an important conversation. He consciously refrained from eavesdropping. Stiles had several times warned him that the other heads of the Hydra could be ruthless when it came to cleaning up loose ends, so it was reflex by now for him to avoid spying on the others.

“What the hell is a Lemurian Star?” Stiles grimaced at the phone. “Now? Right now? I was about to go to dinner.” He rolled his eyes. “All right. I’m on my way.”

“So, we’re not going to dinner.”

“Pierce has a wild hair up his ass. The ship responsible for launching the Insight satellites in the Indian Ocean has been captured by pirates.”

“Pirates?”

“Aye, matey.” Stiles started packing up his stuff. “This close to launch everyone is being very, very careful or paranoid — I can’t tell which. Pierce’s called all department heads for an emergency consultation. You should go ahead to dinner without me.”

“I can wait.” Theo shrugged in indifference.

Stiles turned the tablet off and put it in his briefcase. “You want to wait?”

“It’s better than eating by myself, honestly.”

The void kitsune glanced at the clock. “It may be a while. They do like to talk. I didn’t think becoming an evil mastermind would require so many meetings.” Stiles turned before the elevator doors closes. “Remember. Be cautious. We can’t afford slip ups now.”

Alone in the lounge, Theo felt silence surround him, like being wrapped in a familiar blanket. If he shouted, he had no doubt that he would be able to hear an echo. He hated the feeling. During the years he had worked for the Doctors, he had always looked forward to his missions, because he would get to be around people who liked to talk simply to hear their own voices and enjoy things. Technically, the Doctors were people, but it wasn’t true in any way that would matter to a teenage boy. They didn’t talk about anything but their work, and they had little patience for games or the misbehavior of a bored child.

On missions, for the two to three months they usually lasted, he felt less alone than he usually did. The release was bittersweet, because the people who made him feel noticed and cared for often ended up being the same people he was going to betray to the Doctors in the end. After the first couple of successful missions, Theo learned to separate playing the role from the conclusion. It made it less painful for him when people who had thought they were his friends realized they had been betrayed. It worked, but he sure it did not make him the most reliable guy around.

Theo decided that it was time to work out. As unsettling as the decor was, the eighteenth floor did house a very good gym. The Triskelion, he had learned, had five open gymnasiums and three physical training rooms which were available upon request. While most of the people who worked here had their own homes throughout the D.C. area and probably could use any number of gyms for their physical fitness, they also tended to work twelve-hour days. It made good sense to allow them to get the exercise they needed to stay healthy without having to leave work.

He had certainly taken advantage of the one on this floor. While most of his days he spent following Stiles around as his secretary/bodyguard/consultant/friend, there were times that Stiles had to go places or do things when Theo couldn’t be with him. He spent most of that time in the gym.

His body bore witness to how much effort he put into honing his physical form. While he was stronger and faster than a normal human simply by virtue of being a coyote-wolf chimera, if he kept his body in peak physical condition, he could be so much better.

Though if he had to be honest with himself, there were two more important reasons for working out so much, one healthy and one not-so-healthy.

The healthy reason was that working out regularly to the point of exhaustion helped him claim his body as his. The Doctors had given him his sister’s heart along with his other augmentations, and that means sometimes he felt like a stranger in his own skin. Shaping his body helped convince him that for all they had done, his body was still his.

The other, not-so-healthy reason was that by its very nature, a chimera was never going to be as strong nor as resilient as a real shapeshifter. Modifications, such as being able to turn into a full coywolf, could reduce his physical power. Being in peak physical condition could allow him to be complete with a real beta werewolf. It was a sore spot for his ego.

Reaching the gym, he changed into the SHIELD-issue work-out clothes. They had SHIELD-issue everything here, from the bars of soap in the bathroom, stamped with the agency’s logo, to their own interior Internet streaming channel.

Theo always followed the same routine — twenty minutes on a bike, ten minutes of yoga, twenty minutes with the machines, ten more minutes of yoga, twenty minutes with free weights, and then twenty minutes on the treadmill. Unlike humans, his body recovered fast enough that he didn’t have to separate his works outs into things like ‘leg day.’

Halfway through his three sets of lunges with the free weights, he paused, his head jerking up at an unfamiliar smell. It could have been a person, but the scent was so faint he wasn't sure. He turned completely, scanning the rather large gymnasium, but there wasn’t anyone there. Confused, he resumed his set.

He was working on curls when he caught something on the edge of his hearing. Someone was in the room. He had absolutely heard footsteps. He put the weights down, stood up and really searched, focusing on his hearing.

“Who’s there?” He said out loud, hoping to startle the hidden individual out of their cover. It didn’t work.

Picking up a towel, he pretended to make a leisurely circuit of the room. He opened up all his senses, dismissing the filters that all shifters learned by necessity. The Doctors had subjected him to extreme input on several occasions so he could master it.

There were traces around the room from someone else, someone aside from Theo and Stiles. The scent definitely belonged to a woman, but it was so faint, as if she hadn’t been there for a few days, and he had not detected it before while spending a lot of time in the gymnasium. He could also pick up what sounded like a heartbeat, but it echoed only intermittently . Whomever it belonged to had to be dying.

While he puzzled this out, the heartbeat suddenly emerged loud and clear and the faint scent suddenly surged to normal strength. He whirled around to see a woman in a one-piece bathing suit standing at the Jacuzzi.

“How?” It was dumb to say, but he was surprised.

She didn’t react to his question. She had no reaction at all. She was an attractive woman, probably eight-to-ten years older than Theo. “Hello.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t see you come in.” Theo recovered himself. “You startled me.”

“I can be pretty quiet if I need to be. You’re from 7A.”

She didn’t mean it as a question. “Yeah.” When she looked at him expectantly, he went on. “When did you get here?”

Theo almost punched himself in his chagrin. He was made to infiltrate, and he just sounded like a high school student trying to pick up a hot co-ed in a bar.

“A week ago.” So she knew how to evade a badly phrased question.

“Oh. You …” He faded off in confusion, hoping that she’d fill in the answer if she was polite.

She narrowed her eyes. “I actually stay on the medical complex on level nineteen.”

He had only been here three weeks, so he knew absolutely nothing about the medical level. “I hope you’re feeling better.”

The woman’s left eye twitched almost imperceptibly. It was the only indication that his wish had hit close to home. “It’s not that type of problem.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Are you coming in?” She asked him, clearly intending to change the topic. She had to have seen that he wasn’t wearing anything appropriate for getting wet.

“No. I’ll leave you be.”

Theo returned to the other side of the gym, starting on the treadmill. He liked running because it gave him time to think. Sometimes he would daydream, but today he would think. Stiles had wanted to keep as low a profile as possible, and he didn’t think he had slipped up too much right then. But she had already known what room he was staying in. How did she know that? Was she Hydra?

He was in the cool down phase of his run when he heard another sound which caught his attention. He had stopped focusing his senses on the strange visitor ten minutes before when it became apparent she was only here to take a long soak in the whirlpool, which to tell the truth seemed a pretty good idea to him.

She was gasping. He tried to tell himself it was none of his business, but he couldn’t help it. When he looked over at the whirlpool, he could see her moving around in it, obviously in distress.

“Hey, are you all right?”

The woman in the pool raised her head and, in that moment, Theo was sure of two things: she was in a tremendous amount of pain, and she had endured that pain for much longer than she had been in this gymnasium.

“I’m fine,” she stammered, but she was having trouble climbing out even with the handrail.

“You don’t look fine.” Theo wasn’t doing too fine either. He was close to tell she was giving off chemo signals by the bucketful — agony and exhaustion. It was a familiar scent; one he had encountered with many test subjects. He wanted to run away immediately, but if he did, someone would ask questions. “May I help you?”

She tried one last time to pull herself up out of the whirlpool, but when that didn’t work, she reluctantly nodded. “I stayed in too long. I have to get back to my room.”

Theo bent down and took her by the arms, pulling her out of the pool. And then he nearly dropped her, for — and he was absolutely sure of it — she shifted out of reality for a moment. Recovering, he quickly pulled her out of the pool, holding her awkwardly at arm’s length.

“Who did this to you?” He demanded. He was so frightened at the memories it called up, it just came out.

“It was an accident; it happened,” she gritted through clenched teeth. “I need to get back to the lab.”

He hesitated. This might get him in trouble with Stiles, but he found himself helping her towards the elevator. He had seen people in this much pain before, but he had never been able to help them, even a little bit. This was something new for him.

“My name’s Theo.” He hit the button. “What’s yours?”

“Ava.”

Theo wasn’t sure if he had made a terrible mistake or if he had just made a new friend. The elevator doors rolled open.

Chapter Text

January 9, 2014

Scott had discovered something about himself: while he was being interrogated, he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He couldn’t lay them flat on the table because that felt both super awkward and far too casual for the situation. He couldn’t put them under the table because it felt he would make them think he was hiding something. Though he was hiding things, he didn’t want his interrogator to realize that. Playing a game on his phone would simply be rude. So, without any other option, he clasped them together while resting his elbows on the table. It probably didn’t keep him from looking awkward, but at least it kept him from fidgeting.

His interrogator had paused to look something up on the touch-screen display in front of her. Emily Preston reminded Scott of his second-grade teacher, and she shared with Mrs. Dunigy the ability to make you feel comfortable even while doing unpleasant things like solving word problems or discussing the kidnapping of federal agents. Finally, she looked up from the screen.

“Ma’am?”

“Yes, Mr. McCall?”

“Why are you recording this?”

“It’s standard procedure with SHIELD. Human memory can be a tricky thing, and note-taking can be unreliable. We choose to rely on video testimony because it is much harder to lose the truth.”

“But … I don’t know, my face on that screen makes me nervous, like I’m taking a Voight-Kampf test.” Stiles had made him watch Blade Runner in the eighth grade.

Preston smiled at the reference. “I’m not trying to make you nervous. We want you to be able to see what is being recorded. This is a voluntary interview, Mr. McCall. You don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want to.”

Scott fought to keep the frown off his face. He caught the brief skip in her heartbeat and the slight shift in her scent; she was hiding something from him. “I understand.”

Agent Preston adjusted something on her tablet and then shifted to be more comfortable in her chair. “The next thing I want to talk about are the Dread Doctors. According to the Field Officer’s reports, you were involved in an altercation with them in Beacon Hills.”

“Yeah. They kidnapped the Sheriff and some SHIELD agents. I don’t know why they did that, and I don’t know where they went.”

“That’s okay. Sometimes the answers to the big questions can be found in answers to less important questions. How many of them are there that you know about?”

“Three.”

“What are their names?”

“The Surgeon, the Pathologist, and the Geneticist.”

Preston smiled at him, but Scott noticed her eyes flickered toward a spot over his head. “Those seem more like code names.”

“That’s all I know. Even the person who worked for them called them that.”

“Does this person know where they came from?”

“I guess he had informed guesses. Theo thinks the Surgeon is French, because the Doctor kept with him a dozen or so old handwritten journals, and they were all in that language. Theo thinks the Pathologist might be Russian, from some words he overheard. The Geneticist, I have no idea. She’s the only female doctor, and she’s older than the Pathologist and younger than the Surgeon.”

“Do you have a closer idea to their ages?”

“This is going to sound unbelievable …” Scott began and trailed off helplessly.

“It’s my job to believe you.”

“The Surgeon is over two centuries old.”

Once again, her eyes went to a spot above his head.

“Not the weirdest story I’ve been told.” Agent Preston continued, as affable as ever. “Can you describe their physical appearance?”

Scott tried his best, even as he grew more and more suspicious of the interview. He wouldn’t be able to give a very accurate description of the Doctors, as Theo had never seen them without their masks.

Instead, he began to track Preston’s eyes, trying to figure out what would trigger her glance at that same location. It had seriously begun to bug him.

“I don’t understand,” Stiles said crossly, folding his arms over his chest. “Why don’t you just shoot him in the head?”

Alexander Pierce looked up from where he was reading a report at his desk and frowned at the challenge.

“I’m just saying that it’s the easiest solution.”

“You want me to shoot Captain America in the head.” Pierce began slowly.

“Well, not you personally,” Stiles chuckled. “Though that would be funny. Have Rumlow do it. You don’t really believe he’s going to be on board with your plan once Hydra reveals itself, do you? He’s your enemy, even though he doesn’t know it yet.”

From over by the office door, where he stood at parade rest, Rumlow nodded. “He has a point.”

Alexander Pierce looked at both of them like he was calculating their worth and then went back to his screen.

“You ordered Nick Fury killed without hesitation.” Stiles pushed, confused by the Secretary’s reluctance. “He’s not as telegenic as Captain Rogers, but he had been your friend for how many decades.”

“This isn’t the same situation, and you know it, Fox.”

“No, it’s not the same, and I do understand. You’re afraid of what it might reveal about your own organization. You think that if you have Mr. Rumlow here walk up and put a 10-millimeter slug in his temple, you might discover that not all of your Hydra recruits are as loyal as you hope they are. Fury was not only a prick, but a lot of your recruits are white supremacist trash who disliked taking orders from him, so you were confident that few people would care about shooting that asshole dead. But Captain Apple Pie? Some might begin to doubt the cause.”

Pierce locked eyes with him. “Thank you for that completely unhelpful analysis.”

“In a thousand years, the thing I’ve always been able to rely upon is you monkeys’ ability to lie to yourselves. After all, he’s going into the ground anyway in what … five days?”

“Yup,” Rumlow added.

“The optics aren’t going to be any better if it’s done with a helicarrier-mounted assault cannon rather than a pistol.”

Pierce turned on his chair and looked out the window. Moments passed as the secretary evaluated the situation. “We need to know what, if anything, Fury told him. We need to know if Rogers has contacted anyone about it. I’ll have him come to my office.”

Stiles stifled a sigh. “And if he doesn’t tell you?”

“Then we take him and interrogate him.”

Rumlow nodded. “I’ll put together a plan.”

“I should do it.”

“No,” Pierce interrupted. “Fox, I have something far more important for you to do.”

“Something more important than making sure Captain America doesn’t discover Hydra’s plan for world domination and clock us all upside the noggin with that ridiculous shield of his?”

“I think so. I want a contingency plan in case Rogers contacted the Avengers. I need them distracted until Insight is up and active.”

Stiles cracked his neck and drawled out a sarcastic “Sure.” He liked a challenge, though he immediately began plotting possible escape routes should the situation go south. According to intelligence, Stark and Banner were at Avengers Tower in New York. Thor was in London. Hawkeye had been off the grid since Thanksgiving. The only Avenger in a convenient position to help Rogers was the Black Widow. He didn’t need to worry about the latter two. Pierce didn’t need him to deal with human spies and assassins, no matter how well trained. The Secretary wanted the big guns neutralized: the ones by their very existence broke the rules of the status quo.

That was fine with Stiles; he broke the rules, too.

“Gin.” Theo spread his cards out on the table.

“You’re really good at bluffing, you know,” Ava frowned and started to gather up the cards.

“So, I’ve been told.”

“How did you get so good, so young?” She started to shuffle the cards back together.

“Are you trying to distract me?”

“Perhaps. I want to win at least one game.”

“You aren’t losing because I’m good at bluffing, Ava. You’ve just had bad luck in the draw.”

Ava snorts and then winces. “Yeah.”

Theo sighed. “That’s not … what I meant …”

The elevators opened out to the lounge where she was dealing out the cards. Stiles came out, his mind clearly focused elsewhere, walking into the room without really seeing what was going on.

Ava had finished dealing a brand-new hand, when Fox shook himself out of his reverie.

“We need to get moving, Theo.”

“Now? Where?” Theo didn’t jump up off the seat like he would normally do, and that surprised even himself. Asking questions and dawdling when there was work to be done hadn’t been tolerated by the Doctors.

Stiles turned slowly, finally becoming aware of what Theo had been doing. “No. Next Tuesday. Why would I say we need to get moving if I didn’t mean right away? What’s gotten into you?” His eyes came to rest on Ava. “Who’s this?”

“This is Ava. Ava, this is Stiles.”

“Hello, Stiles.”

Stiles nodded politely, but the grin on his face did not reach his eyes. “Sorry to interrupt your game. Theo, we have to go.”

Theo mumbled an apology to Ava and got up hurriedly, because he could read Stiles’s barely hidden irritation. Stiles had more important things to do, and he wasn’t interested in reading the dynamic of the room. It would be best if Theo went and joined him in the elevator. Stiles stabbed a button, very firmly, and the doors closed.

“Are you mad?” Theo asked, and he immediately hated himself for doing it.

“Why would I be mad? I may be a little disturbed that you have gotten friendly with a complete stranger while we’re trying to keep a low profile in the headquarters of the most powerful law enforcement agency in the world. It seems a strange gambit after a successful infiltration. But I’m not mad, I’m curious.”

Theo’s eyes felt like they bugged out of his head. “You just lied. You lied so badly that I could tell, and I’ve never been able to tell with you before.” While the human Stiles had been an open book, the nogitsune was very experienced in hiding all the signs of deception.

“So?” Stiles’s face flushed an irritated hue.

“Are you … jealous?”

“What? Nonsense.”

“You’re good, but I really was trained to read emotions, and I think you’re jealous. Wow.”

“I’m not jealous.”

Theo put a hand over his mouth in shock. “Sure, you’re not.”

“You’re here to be my friend and assistant, so maybe you should focus on that.” Stiles hit the button for the 30th floor again.

“Okay, buddy.” He couldn’t help poking the fox. “What’s the task?”

“We’re supposed to distract Tony Stark and Bruce Banner for the next couple of days.”

All mirth vanished from Theo; he repeated Stiles' words to be sure he hadn't misheard. “We’re supposed to distract Iron Man and the Hulk for a few days.”

“Thor, too, if he shows up.”

“And how the fuck are we supposed to do that?”

Stiles, relieved to move past the conversation about Ava, smiled widely. “With a trick, of course. We’re going to make up a fake supervillain.”

“How?”

“We’re going to stage a raid on a Stark facility and steal some things that look important. Not even they will be able to stop the …” Stiles glanced down at Theo’s hands. “… the … the Yellow Claw!”

“Okay.” He could see how that would draw the rest of the Avenger’s attention. “Wait a minute. Didn’t someone just do this to Stark? Create a fake villain called The Mandarin?”

“Yeah!” Stiles clapped his hands. “That’s what makes it so funny!”

After three hours of work, Agent Preston, as nice as she was, was beginning to get on Scott’s nerves. On the other hand, thanks to his senses, he was sure that he was getting on her nerves as well.

It couldn’t really be helped. He had made a promise to himself that he would not tell SHIELD anything that would draw attention to anyone within his pack. If they dug hard enough, they could probably discover everyone he knew, but Scott decided he would not confirm anything without being forced. He was the alpha; he felt he had no other choice.

This meant that most of the information he gave about the Dread Doctors and about Stiles’s abduction was, by necessity, patchy and incomplete. His story didn’t make much sense without the Hales, without the Argents, or even without Lydia. Preston clucked her tongue, as she constantly reminded him — and in doing so, reminded herself — that he was here voluntarily.

He couldn’t even clear up the 1943 Beacon Hills Black Flag file for SHIELD, as he didn’t want to draw attention to Noshiko or Satomi.

He had to lie about a 70-year-old massacre, so of course she was frustrated. It didn’t help that she knew he was lying to her. Everything Scott told her was full of holes: history without names and actions without motivations. He also had figured out he was being monitored by some sort of lie detector. When she kept glancing over her head, he caught her looking at a concealed indicator light. He didn’t know how they were doing it, whether by galvanic skin response or vocal stress or some other technique. Stiles had spent a week talking about the different technological techniques during the summer between their sophomore and junior year, once he had figured out how werewolves could detect lies.

“Are you sure you can’t tell me more about why your friend came to be in this facility … Eichen House?”

“Why is that important?”

“If Project Centipede did indeed target him, we can find out a lot about their operations if we discover how we even knew he was there.”

“The Sheriff said someone named Pohlman was hired a few days before the kidnapping.”

“We are looking for him. We have his files and are trying to track him down through his application, but that doesn’t tell us the most important thing. What brought Pohlman to this facility?”

Scott opened his mouth but shut it again. The only reason he could think of was the Nemeton, but he didn’t know how to tell this agent what she needed to know — what SHIELD needed to know — without revealing things he shouldn’t. In the end, he wasn’t Peter, he wasn’t Stiles, and he wasn’t even the Sheriff. He wasn’t good at bending the truth to make it do what he needed it to do.

“I can’t answer that question. I’m sorry, ma’am.”

It looked like Agent Preston nodded so she wouldn’t scream. “You’re doing fine.” He wasn’t doing fine.

Scott suddenly stood up. “Excuse me, I’ve been sitting for a while.”

“That’s fine.” She bent over the terminal, checking her notes.

He walked around the room quickly, acting as if he were stretched, but he was really trying to escape from the epiphany that he had just had. Alan had been right all along. Being an alpha werewolf with a pack and being an Agent of SHIELD would simply be too difficult for him to pull off. He could barely keep all the lies straight for this, his first interview. He didn't have the skills to balance being an agent and being an alpha, which meant one of them had to make precedence.

If he tried to force himself to do both, he would fail. He didn’t want to fail, especially when others would have to pay the price. And since he couldn’t stop being a werewolf, couldn’t stop being alpha, he couldn’t be a SHIELD agent.

He realized that hurt.

When he heard the sound of glass shattering, for a second he thought that he was hallucinating once again, the pain of that admission triggering some hallucination where he shattered his own dreams. But it turned out that this was a real sound, because it came from outside the building. Scott sprang to the window in time to watch a man fall down the side of the Triskelion and through the roof of the portico. But it wasn’t just any man.

It was Captain America.

“So, we’re going to need a costume.”

Theo looked over at him in disbelief. “A costume.”

“Yes, the more elaborate and garish the better.”

“Where would we find something like that today?” Theo sighed when he caught the glee on Stiles’s face. “You’ve already figured out where.”

Stiles made jazz hands: “Broadway!”

They had spent the last few hours raiding the various levels of the Triskelion for the information and equipment Stiles thought they needed. Luckily for Hydra’s plans, it seemed, Stiles could draw on a lot of experience with impromptu, on-the-fly tricks.

First, they had stopped by the Tactical and Strategical Assessment Archives. It didn’t take long for Stiles to find the best target: the Stark Institute for the Study of Expert Systems in St. James, New York. It was an artificial intelligence think tank involved purely in theoretical research; while the work being done there was innovative and important, it wasn’t classified as it hadn’t left the drawing board. It wouldn’t be too heavily defended. Yet, it was definitely important; it was where J.A.R.V.I.S. had been refined from a natural-language user interface into the artificial intelligence it was today. None of its code was stored there, but an assault on that particular facility would definitely draw the interest of the Avengers, as they used J.A.R.V.I.S. for communication, data analysis, and security on Avengers Tower. It couldn’t be ignored.

“As an added bonus, I’ve never been to Long Island!” He added, happily.

Theo had just grunted.

Next, they had gone to the Tertiary Armory, where the outdated but not yet decommissioned weapons were kept. Digging around, Stiles had found a jō with Tasers built into either end. He had significant experience with jōdō, and, as he had said in an aside, it would look very cool.

“What about me?”

“I’ll want you as a coywolf.” Stiles nodded in agreement with his own ideas. “But don’t worry! We’ll get you some badass dog armor and some temporary metallic hair dye, while we’re in New York.”

“Oh.” Theo sounded disappointed.

“You have the world’s best disguise. We should use it.”

Stiles watched the numbers dwindle as they rode the elevator down to the garage. He had decided that the best means of transportation would be to take his own Aston Martin to New York and then steal an appropriate vehicle right before the raid. The less clues that led to SHIELD, the longer they could stymie Stark and Banner.

Stiles took to chance to practice an entirely inappropriate Chinese-accented English on Theo during the descent. “No one can stop the Yellow Claw!”

“You sound like an idiot.”

“Of course. But do I sound like a dangerous idiot?”

Before Theo could answer the elevator doors opened and a flying armored body flew nearly knocked them off their feet. They went down into a tangle of limbs — enhanced strength and reflexes didn’t meant they stilled couldn’t be surprised.

The STRIKE team member groaned as Stiles pushed him off of them with a grunt. Standing right outside of the elevator doors, Captain American disarmed another member SHIELD assault squad and tossed him across the garage and into an SUV. Dropping into a ready stance, the superhero focused on the interior, as if expecting more agents. Instead, he only found what must have looked like two high-school kids. Stiles saw his face soften immediately.

“Are you two okay?”

Stiles stood up. For a moment, he wondered if he should take the target by surprise and bring him down. Especially with Theo backing him up and the possible imminent arrival of more members of the STRIKE team, he could probably win any protracted fight with a minimal expenditure of energy.

On the other hand, Pierce had ignored his warnings about how to handle Rogers. And who was more suited to be petty than the merged personality of a 1000-year-old chaos demon and a teenage boy?

“We’re fine, sir.” He elbowed Theo who nodded.

Captain America turned away and sprinted to a motorcycle. Stiles watched him go, moving around the beaten agent, and heading toward his own car. Rogers roared off on the motorcycle, heading toward the causeway into D.C. proper.

Theo looked at him with a silent question.

“Not yet.” Stiles smirked. “I’m not ready yet.”

Agent Preston hurried Scott to the elevator as alarm klaxons echoed through the building. “I don’t know what’s going on, so why don’t you go back to your room for a little bit?”

Something was definitely going on; agents rushed past them in the hallways. “Okay.”

Scott left her at the elevator and pushed the button for the twelfth floor, where he had been staying for the last day. Until now, he had used the elevator on the outside of the building, because he loved seeing the panorama it gave of Washington D.C. From this elevation on Theodore Roosevelt Island, he could see the roof of the Capitol, the Jefferson Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. He looked forward to seeing them close up; they had scheduled him time to sight-see the city tomorrow. Right now, he couldn’t use that elevator this time — apparently, it was from his favorite elevator that Steve Rogers had leapt.

He blinked, turned his head to the side, and then blinked. The scent couldn’t possibly be correct. As the elevator descended, his brows knitted and he said out loud, “Stiles?”

Scott inhaled once again, with his full chest. There were subtle differences from his memory; he thought for a second that maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. Then, he detected another scent which made even less sense. Theo had been taken from Eichen by the Doctors, something that still haunted his dreams even weeks afterward. The chimera had been a spy, but Scott had promised to keep him safe.

He scanned the narrow confines of the elevator, looking for a sign of the camera that had to be there. He couldn’t find it, and he risked using his eyes, feeling them glow hot in his head. Still no luck. He was better at tracking when he was fully transformed into a werewolf, but he didn’t want to leave video evidence, even if the higher-ups in SHIELD knew his species existed. On the other hand, his nose could be playing tricks on him, and he wanted to be sure. He had to be sure.

Wrapping his arms around his head to cover his ears and keeping his face firmly fixed toward the ground, Scott took his full alpha form. He had become used to the intensification of his senses, but this time he gasped out loud.

Stiles had been in this elevator, as had Theo. They had been in this elevator very recently; thanks to the training that he had received from Deaton and Derek, he knew they had to have been in here within the last ten minutes.

“How is this possible?” he asked around his fangs. Before he could fully process it, the doors slid open to reveal two agents on their way somewhere. With the finely-honed reflexes of a great and powerful alpha werewolf, he turned and shoved his face into the back corner with his ass slightly elevated. He was going to die of mortification.

“Are … are you okay?” They were genuinely concerned.

“Yeah, uh, yeah, yeah,” Scott said desperately, trying to will his transformation away. Stiles’s scent here of all places made it difficult to think clearly, which he needed to do if he was going to calm his heart rate.

“What’s the matter?” said the female agent, kindly.

Scott took a deep breath and stood up, face away from the group. “It’s been a stressful day.”

“Where are you going?”

“Uhm …” Scott really wanted to check every floor and see where Stiles and Theo had gotten on and off. “Guest quarters?”

One of the agents pushed a new button. Scott turned to stare at the door, and he could feel the eyes of both agents on him. He focused on his momentary humiliation, because right now it was better than losing his mind to a set of terrible possibilities. They were here. In the Triskelion! He didn’t need the Argent’s tactical acumen or Peter’s devious mind to point out the obvious conclusion: SHIELD had been involved with Stiles’s kidnapping. Valack’s vision hadn’t simply been pointing to a clue to his disappearance. It had pointed to the people responsible.

He dug his claws into the palms of his hands, something he hadn’t had to do for over a year, in order to keep control.

The elevator opened to the nineteenth floor. Scott’s room was in the other quarters, but he didn’t hesitate to get off. He wanted the agents to forget they met him, so he walked straight toward the individual rooms at what he hoped was a leisurely pace. When the doors shut behind him, he took in a deep breath, and his worse fears were once more confirmed. Theo and Stiles had been staying here for what must have been weeks. Their scents were all over the place.

He closed his eyes and focused on his training. Alone, he could use his full power, and he picked out Stiles’s strongest trail. All the rooms in SHIELD headquarters were locked with individual key cards. On this floor, the doors weren’t designed for maximum security, yet they weren’t cheap wood. Either way, they were less than nothing to a pissed-off Alpha werewolf.

The decor was comfortable but devoid of personality, as most of the guest rooms were, yet Scott could almost picture Stiles in it. There was a familiarity in the way the bed was rumpled and in the clutter on the table, which included copies of the Washington Post.

For a moment he thought about waiting here until Stiles got back. He would simply sit on the bed and lurk until he returned.

But he wasn’t a high-school sophomore anymore. He had responsibilities. He had to think, and he had to think relatively quickly. In the end, he might not be as quick as Stiles or as thorough as Lydia, but even he could see there were only two possibilities. Either the people with whom he had talked with in SHIELD had been lying to him, or not everyone in SHIELD was aware that a nogitsune and a chimera were staying at their international headquarters.

Scott suddenly realized he didn’t know which alternative scared him more.

Finally, he had to go with option two. If SHIELD had always known about Stiles, it would be stupid for them to lie to Scott and then bring him to the very place where they were keeping him. Especially after he had demonstrated not only his enhanced senses but his focus on finding Stiles in front of several agents.

It meant there was part of SHIELD that was behind the kidnapping of his best friend. Which also had to mean that they had an inkling of what they had kidnapped. Which had to mean there was part of SHIELD willing to work with a nogitsune.

Theo was here as well, which meant that this hidden part of SHIELD would cooperate with a chimera and maybe even the Dread Doctors.

He had spent time with Coulson and his team, met with Director Dugan, and talked for over three hours with Agent Preston, and he didn’t believe any of them would consent to the nogitsune’s games or the Doctors’ experiments. Scott McCall had found evidence of a conspiracy within the world’s most powerful organization.

“Oh, shit,” Scott said out loud to the room. “What am I going to do now?”

“You should let me drive sometime.” Theo said crossly from the passenger seat. He sounded petulant to his own ears, but they had been stuck forever in the parking garage while agents had hurriedly cleaned up the wreckage of the quinjet from the bridge over the Potomac. He had overheard the story of how Rogers had staged a spectacular get away and was even now in the wind. Theo would like to have seen it, but instead he had spent almost an hour staring at concrete walls with a void kitsune.

“You?” Stiles pulled onto the Anacostia Freeway. “You want to drive my baby?”

“It’s a sports car; it’s not a baby.”

“Calling an Aston Marten DB9 Volante a sports car,” Stiles’s voice dripped with sarcasm, “is like calling Almas Iranian Beluga caviar a midnight snack.”

Theo gritted his teeth. “You’ve eaten that?”

“Oh, no. I read about it. But seriously, let me enjoy myself. Driving is so much more fun nowadays.”

“Yeah, it has to be improvement over your CJ-5 POS.”

Stiles laughed out loud. “Someone’s cranky. I drove the Jeep because it was my mother’s, but the last sports car I had the pleasure of using before this work of art was a 1930 Ford Model A Sport Coupe. Let’s say that power and comfort were not at comparable levels.”

Shifting in his seat, Theo tried to get comfortable.

“Cheer up, Theo. We’ve got a four-hour drive to New York. It’s going to be uncomfortable for both of us if you’re going to mope the whole way.”

“I’m not moping.”

Stiles glanced over as he shifted lanes. “Sure, you aren’t.”

“I’m … okay.”

The DB9 wove its way around the slower cars. It did handle a lot better than the jeep.

Stiles waggled his fingers at a truck he cut off. “I, for one, am looking forward to this. You should try to enjoy this as well.”

“Enjoy this? Are you serious?”

“Always.”

“We’re driving to New York City because you’ve decided, for once in your life, to follow someone’s orders! Ignoring the fact, that if you do, we are so dead.”

“You’re exaggerating, Theo. All we have to do is distract two jumped-up scientists and an inter-dimensional blowhard.”

“They’re the Avengers, Stiles!”

“I didn’t say it wouldn’t be exciting!”

Theo chuffed and muttered under his breath. “Oh, I bet getting hit with that hammer is exciting. I just bet.”

“Did you say something?”

“No.”

They drove for a while, but Theo could feel his eyes drift over to them.

“I don’t quite get it. For someone who willingly signed up with crazed pseudo-scientists, you seem terrified of what we’re about to do.”

“No, I’m terrified that you’re not terrified of what we’re about to do.”

“The Avengers have power, but they’re still people. We have power, too.”

Theo grimaced. “You don’t get it. You can’t get it.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“Before I met the Doctors the world was … normal, and I was a normal kid. Then I found out there was a world apart from the normal world. Hidden on purpose, hidden by necessity. The Doctors, as powerful as they are, took every precaution not to be discovered. Your people, the kitsune, took every precaution not to be discovered.”

“Yes, true.”

“These … superheroes … don’t. Tony Stark is so rich and has access to technology so powerful that it doesn’t seem that the rules apply to him, yet he walks around on stage like Elvis Presley. Banner is smarter than the Doctors, and if he got angry, he could beat them into the ground without breaking a sweat. Thor is a god, and he doesn’t care who knows it.”

“Not technically, I—”

“The Doctors, the werewolves, even the druids, they had power, but they stayed within the lines. Now, the world has shifted, molded by people who have never heard of the lines; we don’t know what’s going to happen next. Change is frightening to people who haven’t lived for a thousand years.”

Stiles thought about it. “I guess that’s an advantage I have over the rest of you. Neither part of me has ever believed in the lines, as you put it. Follow me, kid. You’ll go far.”

Chapter Text

January 10, 2014

Scott tried to imagine what an innocent and average eighteen-year-old boy would sound like and then tried to mimic it to the best of his ability. “What do you mean, I can’t leave?”

Someone had chosen Agent Corke for this task, because he was very good at being conciliatory. He tried to reassure Scott with charisma alone even as his words seemed at odds with his tone. “A situation has occurred which requires us to lock down the building for at least twenty-four hours. It is nothing to worry about.”

“I have school on Monday. In California.” Scott didn't have to make an effort to sell his anxiety; his mother was going to be furious. “I’ve already missed a week. I don’t want to miss any more days, and I certainly don’t want to miss lacrosse tryouts.”

“I understand that, but we have procedures we have to follow. Especially since we also have questions about some of your recent behavior.”

“Me?”

“The Triskelion is a biometric building.”

Time to play dumb. “I don’t know what that means.”

“When you first came here, we took your fingerprints, and we scanned your retinas. Every time you step on the elevator, every time you open a secure door, it is logged into our computer. Our systems can keep track of when every door opens and every light comes on. Last night, you got off the elevator on the 19th floor and entered someone else’s quarters. The door was damaged.”

“Whose room was it?” Scott asked, pointedly.

“I’m sorry, but that’s classified.”

“So why do you think I went into that room?”

“I don’t know.” The agent said slowly, not following Scott’s reasoning.

“You don’t know. But you're absolutely sure that I, a senior from a high school in Northern California, who was recruited to come here, broke into another person’s room on a different floor of what was essentially the world’s largest police station. Did your computers tell you I stole something?”

The agent was taken aback a little. He had probably expected Scott to be more intimidated or at least worried that he was in trouble. Scott, for his part, didn’t feel intimidated and he didn’t feel worried. He felt angry.

“I don’t know,” the agent repeated himself.

The alpha stepped back from the door. “Feel free to search my room. I mean, if I stole something, I had to put it somewhere. Come on in.”

“That may become necessary later.”

“What other possible reason could I have for being in that room? Unless you think I’m mentally ill, and I do things without a reason.”

It took a moment Agent Corke to reconsider his position. “I’ll look into it. Please remain in your room for the time being.”

“Am I a prisoner?”

“No. But it would be easier for everyone if you remained in your room until the situation resolved itself.”

“Fine.” He offered the agent a bright smile.

When the agent had left, Scott waited three minutes, four at the most, before he began to search his own quarters. There had to be some sort of camera or security scanner in here with him. Most likely, the system would be invisible to the human eye and silent to the human ear, but his eyes and ears were not human. He found two cameras and what looked like some sort of microphone in the ceiling.

He didn’t want them to notice that he had discovered their security, so Scott laid back down on the bed. It would have been better for what he planned if he could fall asleep, but he could barely bring himself to lie still. He could feel the predator scratching at the back of his eyes, the animal demanding that he kick the door down, find a victim, and shake them until they told him where Stiles would be.

At times like these, Scott felt the absence of his pack. He could still feel them in the back of his mind, a phantom presence in his thoughts. They still made him more powerful — more powerful than he’d ever been — and he felt them draw on his power as well. He wasn’t thinking about power. It was a recognition of how they helped him think better, helped him plan better. Allison had a talent for pushing him to make a decision when he dithered over something for too long, and Isaac had unshakable faith in him when he made a snap call. Derek’s pessimism was a good balance for his own optimism; the former alpha always challenged things he took for granted. The twins were far more familiar with violence than he was, more comfortable with its use but also more aware of its costs. Peter could always be relied upon to offer solutions that Scott hated on principle but could never claim weren’t effective. Lydia read extensively and could analyze a situation better than he could, while Malia had very good instincts and no reluctance to share them. Cora — well, Cora was the one who called him a fool when he needed to be called one, a task she had inherited from his best friend.

If he could be sure that he wouldn’t be monitored, he would’ve called other people as well: Deaton, his mother, Mr. Argent, and even the Sheriff. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even risk a text. He had to assume that every communication would somehow be monitored.

Yet, even without the advice of his pack, Scott wasn’t going to sit in this room until he got sent home. Stiles had been in this building the day before, and he had had Theo with him. Those were facts.

He rolled over so he was laying on his hands, concealing emerging claws and glowing eyes from the cameras. He took deep breaths, anchoring himself in his own knowledge of what was right. The last day had been filled with instances of incandescent rage. He couldn’t let the animal win quite so soon.

He didn’t think that the people he knew who were part of SHIELD — Agent Coulson, Director Dugan, or even Agent Preston — would have any knowledge of this. They wouldn’t have kept asking him questions about Stiles if they had. But he couldn’t talk to them about his concerns. It had been made clear to him during the orientation that there was a clear chain of command. They might report any confrontations he had with them to their superiors: people Scott didn’t know.

So, he was on his own. But he wasn’t going to give up.

He would wait until dinner. They probably wouldn’t mind him going out to eat, especially if he spent the afternoon resting. That would be the best time to slip away.

Stiles had once talked to him about the way his body shifted when he transformed. He had wondered if Scott’s fingerprints would change. He had wondered how Scott’s eyes changed. Stiles had measured how his heart rate changed, of course, as did his temperature.

Would it be enough to fool the most advanced biometric security system in the world? Scott was going to find out.

The Aston Martin purred as it crossed the George Washington Bridge.

“Stay awake,” Stile hissed at Theo. “You have to stay awake until we get far enough away.”

Theo didn’t answer him. Instead, the chimera continued to lean up against the window of the car, the wound on his head smearing it with blood. Theo’s breathing was so faint that Stiles couldn’t catch the rise and fall of his chest. He wasn’t dead; Stiles would have sensed that. There is no potential for chaos in the dead.

With one hand, Stiles reached out and punched Theo in the shoulder. “Stay the fuck awake.”

Theo groaned and his eyes flickered open, but they don’t focus on anything.

“If it is the last thing I do, I will fucking murder Tony Stark,” Stiles promised both of them.

Seldom, seldom in a thousand years of mischief and mayhem had one of his plans been so thoroughly trashed as this one had been by Iron Man. It had been a good plan, well thought out, well executed, until Stark had blown it to smithereens within thirty seconds of showing up.

The thing that bothered Stiles the most was the reason why. It hadn’t been Stark’s perceptive abilities that caused the problem. Stiles was pretty sure that the billionaire still had no idea what had really happened even now, an hour after it was all over. It wasn’t Stark’s intelligence or foresight which had led him to install innovative security at the think tank. The security that had been there — including a member of Stark’s Iron Legion — had been well within the parameters of their mission. It wasn’t Stark’s heroic resolve that had forced Stiles and Theo to flee the facility in mortal terror of being caught. It had been, unquestionably, the sheer unadulterated power of Stark’s technology.

When Stiles had kicked in the door of the think tank in appropriately melodramatic fashion, ranting about his genius and with a transformed Theo by his side, J.A.R.V.I.S. had been alerted within thirty seconds. The fight with the Iron Legion puppet had been difficult, but Stiles had been hoping for at least a little bit of a fight. He had needed to draw their attention.

What he hadn’t needed was for Stark himself to show up way too quickly. Stiles had planned the operation using the best information SHIELD had on the maximum flight speed of the Iron Man suit. When he got back to the Triskelion, he was going to take the time to input all this new data on the suit into the database and then shoot the asshole who guaranteed him that all the information was up to date.

“Shoot him right in the face,” gritted Stiles as he drove as fast as he dared.

He was beginning to feel muscles spasm underneath his skin, a sure sign that he had started to tap into his energy reserves. They had left the Hudson River behind them and were well into New Jersey, so he pulled over to the nearest exit. When he was safely parked in some store parking, he checked over Theo’s wounds. They were knitting themselves together, but slowly. It was possible they were healing too slowly.

When Iron Man had arrived back at the facility, The Yellow Claw had been delivering an extemporaneous monologue to the workers at the think tank about how he was going to use the technology there to show the decadent West the true power of whatever. Stiles couldn’t really remember; it was all bullshit anyway. The Avenger had crashed through the ceiling like it had been tissue paper and grabbed Stiles by the arm.

“I didn’t think the circus was in town until next month,” Stark had quipped while reaching up to grab the mask off of Stiles’s face. “Let’s see who you are under this make-up.”

The key difference between his efforts being a distraction and not being a disaster was that under no circumstances would anyone be permitted to trace Stiles back to SHIELD and thus to Hydra. Iron Man was about to turn the whole operation into a disaster. Stiles had grabbed the approaching hand with all his strength, though Iron Man seemed to be significantly stronger than an oni. He had to use more strength than he wanted, revealing to the Avenger that he wasn’t just a kook; he was enhanced. This unfortunate revelation had also not been a part of the plan.

Theo’s loyalty had not been a part of the plan either.

The coywolf had come bounding from where he had been menacing some workers and crashed right into Mr. Stark at full speed. Even with all the weight in the armor, it had sent Iron Man ass over tea kettle, with the extra benefit breaking Stiles free form his grip. Stiles had been about to quip that Theo was going to get a bonus, when the armored avenger had holed the chimera right through the side with a laser beam.

It was lethal force and out of character, but Stark probably thought he was attacking a trained wolf. If he had been a normal animal, Theo would have died instantly.

Stiles was very lucky void kitsune did not have the same aggression problems that werewolves had, because then he would have done something very stupid like try to punch Stark with his bare hands. After all, no one damaged his toys. Instead, he decided to short-circuit every electrical system within a block radius with foxfire, including the high-tech armor.

Stark slumped over, but Stiles couldn’t tell if it would be a few moments or a few hours before the suits internal systems compensated for the foxfire and were back online. He grabbed Theo’s lupine form and retreated as fast as he could.

Theo’s pain was sweet, and it helped charge his depleted batteries; the flow of power was reassuring. “Hey? You still awake or do I have to punch you again?”

The chimera managed a weak nod. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“You need to put some pants on.” He reached into the back seat and pulled Theo’s clothes out. “Not that you aren’t remarkably fit or anything, but if we get pulled over, I won’t be able to explain the laser-shaped hole you got in you.”

“Ha, ha,” Theo drowsily murmured. “How’d we get away?”

“Because for all your cleverness, you are also fundamentally stupid. And we haven’t gotten away yet.” Stiles helped Theo get dressed and suddenly remembered doing the same for Jackson. “I think I’ve switched vehicles enough that Stark’s satellites can’t follow us, but I’ll guess we’ll see.”

Scott’s mother always said that no matter how rich the palace, no matter how tall the skyscraper, they needed someone to replace the light bulbs. The Triskelion, for all its high-tech gadgetry and lofty purpose, was no different. In this case, there had to be someone to repair the doors.

Scott had eaten his dinner — which was pretty good by the way, so much for the stereotype of bland institutional food — in the central lounge on the twelfth floor. He made a great show of being a good guest. He had gone so far as to strike up a meaningless conversation with the two other guests, both of which had been told, like him, that they couldn’t leave because of security matters. He assumed it had something to do with Captain America’s unorthodox way of leaving the building. He had played the part of confused high school student as well as he could, so when he was finished, he could walk slowly toward the elevator and hit the button for the nineteenth floor, as if it were completely innocent and he had not been told to stay in his room.

Alone for a moment, he transformed as fully as he dared to without ripping his clothing. Perhaps this would confuse the biometric sensors long enough for him to poke around. No one got on during the ride up seven flights. It was dinner time, and while there was an evening shift, there were significantly less people in the building than during the middle of the day.

As he had hoped, maintenance was still working on the door that he had torn off the night before. Unfortunately, they seemed to be almost done; the pair of workers were checking the automatic door lock. Taking a deep breath, Scott walked over to them.

“Hey.” He tried to sound as young and as innocent as he could possibly could. Admittedly, it wasn’t that particularly hard to do.

The woman looks up from her scanner; her name tag announced her as Crawford. “Good evening. We’ll be out of your way in a moment.”

Scott smiled and nodded, the way he imagined they would expect him to do. “Oh, this isn’t my room.”

The other man, Graham, looked up at him, quizzically.

“I met the guy who stayed here in the gym the other day. A little taller than me? Black hair? Moles? My age.” Scott found describing Stiles difficult. After all, it was Stiles. It was like describing his own face.

“We haven’t seen anyone today.”

“That’s disappointing. We were supposed to work out together.” Scott held his breath, leaving the unasked question for the others to fill in.

Crawford looked at her work tablet. “Well, according to this, he’s not due back until later tonight. Sorry about that.”

“Okay. Something must have come up. I guess it’s an occupational hazard here. Thanks for your time.” The alpha backed away, keeping his slightly disappointed look on his face. It was hard to maintain, as Stiles would be coming back. Scott fully intended to be there.

He retreated to a good distance while the pair finished the doors, rounding a corner to be out of their line of sight. With his enhanced hearing, he eavesdropped on what they had to say.

“And it’s working out fine.” Crawford announced with satisfaction. “Let’s just program the lock, and we’re done.”

“What’s the security level?”

“Looks like he rates a six.”

“Are you serious? He looks like he should be pledging Theta Chi, not sharing the same clearance as Black Widow!”

“I just know what the work order tells me, and it’s telling me that he’s a six.”

Scott felt his mouth draw out into a thin line. The more he learned, the more apparent that something rotten was definitely going on here. He focused on breathing, remaining patient as they finished up.

“You going home now?”

Crawford sighed. “In a little bit. Whatever happened with Cap has made everyone anxious. I’ve got to finish the paperwork for this before I leave.”

“I can help you with that.”

“No, Buck, you head on out. I’ve got this.”

The workers split up. The man headed toward the elevator, while the woman turned toward the lounge. Scott followed her at a distance, quietly, as quiet as a werewolf could be.

Crawford paused in the middle of the lounge, looking around her like a deer who somehow sensed the approach of a predator. She couldn’t really pinpoint him. She couldn’t hear him. She couldn’t smell him.

Scott wouldn’t admit it, but it did give him a little thrill, the ability to stalk someone like this. He wasn’t going to indulge in that feeling; he was on a mission.

She went into the women’s rest room.

The alpha hesitated for maybe three seconds before moving to the entrance. Unbidden, a memory of fifth grade came back, when Stiles had double-dog dared him to run into the girl’s restroom. He had done it, but he had shut his eyes as he dashed in and dashed out. Luckily, he hadn’t gotten caught by any of the girls or any teacher, though Jackson had called him a pervert.

He pushed the memory away and focused his hearing. When he heard the stall door closed, he walked inside. The risk paid off, for she had set her tool bag on the long counter of sinks and resting on top of it was the work tablet. Quickly, he picked it up, and without making any noise. He estimated he had maybe fifteen to twenty minutes before the theft was reported to the proper authorities and they started tracking the tablet down.

As he had hoped, she was still logged in.

The occupant of the room was called Miguel Fox. Scott would have chuckled if it weren’t too far on the nose for his comfort. Fox was a level six operative currently on assignment but as Crawford had said — he would be back later tonight. Scott just had to wait.

The skyline was aglow with the electric fire of the city; they were within minutes of arriving at the Triskelion. The night sky threatened to storm, yet the District was full of activity and light. Understandable, to a certain extent, that its essence couldn’t be suppressed; it was the heart of the county. It never really slept.

Theo snoozed in the passenger seat. By now, he had healed completely, but it had taken a lot out of him, so he currently looked like a frat boy passed out after a night of drinking too much. Only sharp eyes or a strong nose could note the tell-tale signs of blood.

“All over my goddamn seats,” Stiles complained to the unfeeling night.

The chimera snuffled and woke up. “What? What’s wrong?”

Stiles started to produce a quip, but then he thought better of it. His mouth clicked shut over the words, like a trap catching a ptarmigan. He yanked the Aston Martin across three lanes of traffic, drawing outraged honks from other drives, and pulled off of the interstate. He found himself driving around, aimlessly, while Theo shook himself awake.

“Where are we going?”

He didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure he had an answer. Finally, he pulled into a parking lot and stopped the car, coming to rest in front of the Jefferson Memorial.

“Why are we here?” Theo ventured.

Again, Stiles didn’t answer. Instead, he got out of the car and started walking across the cold, frozen ground. He hadn’t come here on purpose; he was sure of it. Behind him, he heard the door of his car open and close.

The inside of the monument was well lit; in Washington they never closed. Stiles’ footsteps echoed in the emptiness. Wordlessly, Theo entered with him and joined him in looking at the statue. Stiles didn’t even have to look over his shoulder to sense the bemused confusion his companion radiated.

After a few minutes, Theo began to speak: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

“What?”

Theo pointed up. “Inscription.”

“Don’t make something out of it. I simply wanted some place to think that wasn’t that damn car.”

The chimera shrugged. “If you say so.”

Stiles completed a circuit around the statue. It might have seemed as if he were taking in the decor, but he wasn’t. He was just walking. Theo’s invocation of Jefferson’s words bounced around in his head, like an annoying buzzing insect. He finally came to where Theo was leaning up against the outer wall, waiting for him to be finished.

“I do say so.”

Theo smirked. “If that’s the case, why didn’t you kill him?”

“What?”

“Iron Man? You know, the superhero who would make it the prime mission in life to dismantle the organization you work for if he learned of its existence. The superhero that nearly captured us not …” Theo glances at his watch. “Six hours ago?”

“You would prefer that I had killed him rather than save your life?”

“No.” Theo shook his head. “I think you …”

“If he got back up, we were done for. I used a lot of power generating that much foxfire.”

“True. But I’m sure you still had enough power for some super-strength. With his suit offline, you could have peeled it off him like a banana in order to get to the mushy white stuff beneath.”

“I had no idea how long it would take his system to reboot.”

“You didn’t hit him with common electricity. You hit him with foxfire.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “I know what it was.”

“Which is dimensionally charged electricity. His suit could have been down for minutes; it could have been down for hours. Either way, you had plenty of time to try to kill him with minimal risk.”

“Do you have a point in here, somewhere?” Stiles snorted.

“My point is, Stiles, that you could have killed Iron Man. But you didn’t try. Now that I mention it, not six hours before that, we could have killed Captain America. But you didn’t try. Now, when we should be headed back to headquarters, you’re standing here in one of the most prominent landmarks in Washington D.C., having an existential crisis.”

Stiles sprung forward and pushed Theo up against the wall the same way that Derek had once done to him. “I am not …” He said between gritted teeth, “… having an existential crisis.”

“You’re having second thoughts.”

“I made tactical decisions.” Stiles scoffed and let him go. “Neither of them were because I’m growing a conscience. I’ve killed plenty of people.”

“Have you?” Theo stepped away from the wall, dusting himself off. “How many people have you killed since the two of you became one? I’m not talking about plans you designed. I’m talking about killing them with intent and your own hands.”

Stiles opened his mouth and then stopped. “Five.” He listed them.

“You’ve been like you are for nearly a year. But, for a nogitsune, five deaths is an average weekend. In addition, technically, I killed Belial. That leaves four people, all of whom were strangers to you.”

“So?”

“Even as a human, you weren’t very opposed to killing when it was necessary. When it came down to your life and safety or some enemy’s. And I don’t think you have problem with others killing. But personally ending the life of people you know? People you admire? That wasn’t you then and it seems not to be you now. I think that there is more of Stiles Stilinski in there than you let on. And I think that he’s having second thoughts.”

“There is only me here.”

“Exactly. And you—”

“Hush. You don’t know what I know.” Stiles turned away. “You don’t know what I need.”

“Then tell me. I’m your buddy, aren’t I? If you can’t talk to me when you’re unsettled, then what the hell am I doing here?”

Stiles sighed. “I like what being in Hydra gives me. I like the power. I like the recognition of my skills and intelligence. I also like being part of an organization that … accepts me for what I am. What I feed on.”

“You don’t think Scott—”

“No!” Stiles shouted. “Scott would forever see me as his broken best friend. As someone who needs to be fixed. I’m not broken; this is what I am. All the people I care about would see me that way: my father would, Lydia would …” He trailed off.

“You’ve told me this before. It doesn’t explain the hesitation I see in you right now.”

“I haven’t told you about Project Insight. I haven’t told you what it really means.” Stiles nodded. “If you knew that, then you’ll know everything.”

Theo shrugs. “What do I have to lose?”

So, Stiles told him all about Hydra’s plans, about Zola’s algorithm, about what it meant in real time. He watched the growing horror on Theo’s face and found he could finally admit that it matched what he was feeling inside. He could kill to feed. He could kill for freedom. He could kill those who slighted him. He could kill to protect those he loved.

But this was genocide for political reasons, and it didn’t matter how risky it was, it didn’t matter who much he might lose, it didn’t matter how much working for Hydra had made him feel respected and wanted, he wasn’t happy to be a part of it.

“Tell them.”

“Tell who?”

“The Avengers. Nick Fury. The President. Anyone!”

“Theo, I can’t.”

Theo nodded. “Yes, you can. You’re smart enough — we’re powerful enough — to do this and get away with it. We pull the rug out from under Hydra’s feet and make a break for it.”

“And if we fail?”

The chimera shrugged and chewed the inside of his cheek.

“I know that when I get to look at Zola’s algorithm on the launch date, I’m going to see names on there of people I don’t want to see killed. I’m going to see Scott’s name, and I’m going to see my dad’s name, I’m going to see Allison’s and her father’s. I’m going to see Derek’s and maybe even Isaac’s. There’s a chance if I make a phone call to Tony Stark he could help Captain America stop Insight. Maybe -- I don’t know the percentages on that. I do know that Hydra’s been planning this for decades. They are not stupid, and they are very, very ruthless. I also know that the percentages on protecting the people I love if I stick with Hydra is as close to one hundred as I can get. So that’s what I’m going to do … that’s what we’re going to do.”

Theo’s mask fell back into place. “So, what are we doing here in the middle of the night?”

“I’ve already made my decision,” Stiles said grimly. “I’m trying to figure out how to live with it.”

January 11, 2014 – The Battle of Washington D.C.

Scott came out of the bathroom toweling his hair off. He had managed to sleep pretty well for being incredibly tense. He had had about six hours of it by the clock, which read a little after five a.m.

He had waited for as long as he could for Miguel Fox to come back, but he had finally decided to call it a night. The longer he stayed on the nineteenth floor, the more likely he would be spotted. He slid the tablet into a garbage can after making sure to wipe it down and went back to his room.

His plan today was to have breakfast and then walk right up to the room on the nineteenth floor. If he could hear someone inside, if he could smell that Stiles had gone in there, he would rip the brand-new door off its hinges and find out what the hell was going on.

If Stiles wasn’t in there, he would check the floor for either Stiles or Theo’s scents. Then he would track them down.

If he couldn’t find them that way, he would go to the parking garage. He had learned the lot number assigned to Miguel Fox and the make and model of his car. He pulled on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt.

There was a knock on the door. “Just a minute!”

The person didn’t wait, opening the door with a key. Scott turned around, wondering what was going on, when he came face to face with a silenced pistol. The man fired once. Scott’s reflexes were fast enough that it didn’t hit him in the heart, which was the shooters intent, but a few inches to the side. He spun around and feel face first to the ground with the force of the blow. It wasn’t anywhere near fatal; a suppressor killed the velocity of it.

Scott heard the shooter step forward and start to shoot at him again on the ground. The alpha didn’t let him have a chance. Leaping up and spinning around, Scott removed the pistol and the hand that was holding it at the wrist. He didn’t have time to be gentle. He could take a lot of bullets.

There were two other men behind him. Both were bearing STRIKE insignia, but they hadn’t drawn any weapons, which was a mistake. Scott roared and dove at them.

Chapter Text

January 11, 2014 – The Battle of Washington D.C. - Continued

Scott had to force himself to stop staring at his own claws. He didn’t have time to sit and deal with what had happened. Breathing heavily, he scanned the empty office which he had claimed as temporary safe haven. Using his speed, he had slipped in when its previous occupant had left, keeping the door from swinging shut with a hastily positioned toe. He needed a spot to gather his thoughts; he had been chased around the building for hours. He was sure that the only reason he hadn’t been caught yet was that the people pursuing him had seemed just as eager to avoid detection as he had been.

He closed his eyes and slowly fought to calm himself. He needed peace, but not because he was tired; he could keep on going like that for a few more hours. He was healing well. His body had expelled most of the bullets, though one was buried deep into his chest. He could feel where it was lodged in a rib. It twinged when he took a deep breath, but it wasn’t slowing him down. He had to get a grip on his emotions.

His claws, actually his arms, were covered in blood, dyed scarlet up to the elbow. It wasn’t his. He took a moment to pull a bit of flesh and body armor that had wedged itself painfully under one of his talons.

Scott had never before used his claws on a human being like he had done just a few minutes ago.

His pursuers had all wore Strike team uniforms. As far as he could tell, they were all human, but Scott had never fought anyone like these humans before. They had been ruthlessly direct, equally proficient at ranged combat or hand to hand. Scott silently thanked all the training sessions he had done with the pack. If he had been at the same level as he had when his eyes first turned red, he wouldn’t be crouched in an empty office. He would have been captured or dead.

But he wasn’t; he had fought his way through three squads of them. The first team had been relatively easy. The hit squad had entered his room obviously thinking that he was a human teenager they could execute without a problem. Scott, unfortunately, wasn’t unfamiliar with people trying to kill him, either with guns, knives, or their bare hands, so he didn’t fall apart after the battle. But the idea that they were just going to shoot him to death without even talking hadn’t been lost on him. He had immediately asked himself what Peter would do in this situation, discarded the idea of killing them first, and then acted on his second instinct. He had stripped the first team of their weapons, which he had broken, and shoved them into his closet after borrowing both a uniform and a vest.

His attempt at disguise had been a failure. The next squad had started firing at him almost immediately, though Scott had managed to startle them by charging right through the hail of bullets. These squads weren’t used to people who ignored gunfire, but they had adapted quickly enough. In the end, he had had to break a woman’s arm and shatter a guy’s leg before he managed to get away from them.

The third squad had clearly been briefed on his tactics and were ready for him. They had cornered him in a hallway and focused on shooting his legs. A few more hits and he would have been unable to move for a while, and then it would have come down to if he would have stopped healing before they ran out of bullets. He had managed to burst through a door and into an empty conference room before they could immobilize him. They came in after him, ready for a fight, and so he had had to use his claws.

He didn’t think he had killed anyone. Crouching in the office, he unzipped the stolen vest and started digging the remaining bullet out of his chest. He’d make a break for the garage next. He was going to find Stiles even if it killed him.

The PA system blaring into life caught his attention.

“Something’s going on,” Stiles grumbled as he tossed the book to the side. Since the merger, he had been better able to focus, but he couldn’t when his gut instincts were screaming at him like this.

“Do you think …” Theo began his thought and then trailed off.

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

“Were you going to ask about the matters we discussed last night? There’s no way they could possibly know.”

“They could have bugged your car. They could have bugged your room.”

Stiles pursed his lips in mock derision. After Theo had been sufficiently nettled, he explained. “Unless their bugs are powered by steam, that’s not possible.”

Theo looked interested and gestured for him to go on. Stiles closed his eyes and fox fire danced over every surface in the room.

“I may not have the raw power of a thunder kitsune, but I have excellent control.”

“I can see that. What do you think is going on?”

“I don’t know.” Stiles rested his chin on his hand at his desk. “My instructions from Pierce were to remain quietly in my quarters. Now, the World Security Council should be arriving any second, but they wouldn’t know me from a janitor in this building, so it couldn’t be fear of exposure.”

“Could it be Captain America? They haven’t caught him yet.”

“Again, why bench me because of him?”

Theo shrugged but then glanced over his shoulder towards the doorway.

Stiles tapped his fingers on the desk. Theo had done that once too often in the last few hours for it to be a coincidence. “What do you know?”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Theo, now is not the time to be cute.”

“I don’t know anything.”

His fingers paused in their tapping. “Playing word games with me is unhealthy. You are aware of something.”

“Fine. I smell blood. It’s faint, but it’s fresh, so it’s somewhere in the building. That’s all I can tell you without tracking it down.” Theo shrugged. “See, it’s not very useful information.”

“It’s still information I didn’t have five minutes ago. Don’t hide anything like that from me again.”

“As you wish. It just seemed pretty inconsequential.”

“It means there’s a problem other than Steve Rogers’s adamantine morals.” Stiles’s mind was ablaze with possibilities. “Pierce wants me out of the way, so I don’t attract any more attention. My solutions tend to be a little flashy, and he wants as few questions asked as possible.”

“I think you’re wrong.” Theo stated. “Unless he doubts your commitment, he’d want all hands on deck. If everything goes right, by the time the sun sets, he’ll rule the world. Why should he be caring about who asks questions? I think that this might actually have something to do with you.”

Stiles stood up and started to pace. Theo had made some good points. He went over to the intercom and tried to buzz the boss.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Fox, but Secretary Pierce is with the Council.”

“Thank you. Please let him know that I have to speak with him at his earliest convenience.”

He flipped off the intercom in frustration and turned to Theo, who was playing on his phone. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“Wherever the hell I want. Right now, we’re going to use your sniffer to track down whoever is bleeding. The Insight commanders already have instruction to call me when they’re ready to take off.”

With Theo following him, Stiles emerged to find a pair of guards standing in front of his door.

“Can I help you?” Stiles narrowed his eyes. If Pierce was going to back out on the deal, he was going to have another thing coming.

“We were assigned here for your protection, sir.”

“Assigned by whom?”

“Secretary Pierce.”

At the expression on Stiles’s face, the STRIKE guard looked like he had swallowed a hand grenade. When he was fully human, he enjoyed solving mysteries, and he still took pleasure in it even if it wasn’t as challenging as it had been before. Yet, he wasn’t pleased to have a mystery, today of all days. The sudden realization that he wasn’t as in control of things as he thought made him nervous. Worse, it made him feel the same as when they scrambled after the identity of the kanima and its master.

“And what exactly are you guarding me from?”

“You may be in danger from an intruder.” The guard explained.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Your room was broken into while you were on a mission.”

Theo’s face screwed up in disbelief, but he said nothing.

“I’m still free to go about my business, right?”

“Yes, sir. Do you want us to accompany you?”

“That won’t be necessary. Come, Theo.”

The pair of them walked away as if nothing were amiss. Stiles waited until they were in the main lounge of the 19th floor.

“Spill it.”

Theo hesitated for only a moment and then shrugged. “If there were an intruder in your rooms while we were gone, I would have smelled them.”

Stiles paused and thought it through. “Pierce knows about your enhanced senses.”

“He does?”

“Yes. I had to make a case to bring you along, Theo. He would suspect that you could tell if there was someone in my room. Thus, if he didn’t want me to know, he would take steps to clear the air as it were and place guards without my knowledge.” He frowned. “Why wouldn’t he discuss it with me?”

“I know I was playing up the paranoia before, but if you are sure about what you told me earlier—”

“I’m sure.”

“Then maybe he just doesn’t want you distracted on the Big Day. Doesn’t that sound like something he’d do?”

Before he could answer, an announcement came over the intercom. “Attention all SHIELD agents. This is Steve Rogers.”

Stiles felt his shoulders tense up. “He couldn’t wait like … two hours?”

“I guess saving millions of lives was more important to him than your schedule.” Theo turned away, took out his phone and started tapping away on it.

“You’ve heard a lot about me over the last few days,” Captain America’s voice continued over the speaker. “Some of you were even ordered to kill me.”

“What a drama queen,” Stiles muttered. “He’s worse than Peter. Who are you texting?”

“Someone who needs to know about this.” Theo answered.

“Who else do you know like that?” Stiles rounded on the lead guard. “And know about what, exactly?”

“But I think it’s time you know the truth. SHIELD is not what we thought it was; it’s been taken over by Hydra. Alexander Pierce is their leader; the STRIKE and Insight crews are Hydra as well.”

Theo turned off his phone. “Why are you worried about who I’m texting?”

Stiles tilted his head to the side. “Curiosity. Come on, Theo, let’s go.”

“I don’t know how many more, but I know they’re in the building. They could be standing right next to you.”

“Shouldn’t you be a little more worried about what you’re going to do next?”

Stiles nodded while listening. “I know exactly what I should do next.”

“They almost have what they want: absolute control. They shot Nick Fury, and it won’t end there.”

Theo sauntered over to him. “Or you could do nothing.”

“Nothing?” Stiles felt tired. “We talked about this.”

“If you launch those Helicarriers today, Hydra will be able to kill anyone in their way … unless we stop them.”

“It would be ridiculously easy for you to let Captain American stop those flying death platforms.”

“And? What comes next, Theo?”

“I know I’m asking a lot, but the price of freedom is high. And it’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

“Anything you want, everything you want, except helping neo-Nazis start a second Holocaust!”

“You’re one to talk — you were a lab assistant to people who make Mengele look like Julia Child!”

“And if I’m the only one, then so be it. But I’m willing to bet I’m not.”

Both of them stared at each other in the silence left by the end of Rogers’s speech.

“You took me away from that.” Theo once again looked him directly in the eye. “Let me return the favor.”

“I’m not a child!” Stiles spat. “I’m not weak. I know what I’m doing!”

Stiles sidestepped the chimera but took only a few steps away. Irritatingly, he felt the need to explain again. “It’s still a risk. Rogers is here, but I don’t know who he has with him.”

“He’s Captain America!”

“He’s one man!” Stiles shouted. “I’ve been working for Hydra for over a year. I’ve trained in this building. They have hundreds of operatives here. Too many.” He licked his lips. “We’re going to go to Insight-01 and I’m going to review the algorithm, as was promised, and I’m going to delete the names I want to protect.”

“You’re going to let millions of people die but save how many? Six?”

The void kitsune’s voice was so cold that he was surprised his breath didn’t fog up. “You shouldn’t be surprised that I am a monster. I have been for a thousand years, since the first time I strode upon the earth. It’s arguable that I also became a monster eight years ago when my sick mother told me I was. Knowing these things as I know you do, you stand here and want me to have faith in someone else? You want me to trust a member of the Greatest Generation who wears a silly costume?”

“I want you to stop being afraid.”

Stiles shouted angrily. “How would you know if I’m afraid? Stop this, Theo! No more foolishness! Come on, we’ve got a clown to stop!”

“I know you are, because I’ve been afraid all my life,” Theo answered, surging forward to grapple Stiles from behind. “I owe you for freeing me from that fear, which means right now I’ve got to stop you.”

Scott sat cross-legged on the floor of the office, hidden behind the desk and the chair. If someone opened the door to check the room, they wouldn’t automatically see him. He was safe, for now, because he’d hear almost anyone’s approaching the entrance.

Especially after Captain America’s announcement. His words made perfect sense. The people he had been fighting weren’t like Agent Coulson or Director Dugan, the real members of SHIELD. They had been ruthless fascists involved in a conspiracy that was coming to fruition on this day. The revelation should have made him feel better.

It didn’t. As he sat there in the silence after the announcement, Scott drew the only conclusion he could. Hydra had Stiles. And, looking back, didn’t that make all the sense in the world?

He had read about Hydra in history class, though he really didn’t understand what made them different from any other Nazis until Stiles had explained it to him. They had been Hitler’s deep science division, charged with pushing scientific discovery and turning what they found into weapons for the Third Reich. Yet, under their fanatical leader, the Red Skull, they had broken from Germany to become, as Stiles had put it, the world’s first non-state actor of the modern age.

One of their agents probably discovered Stiles when he was put into Eichen House, probably drawn to Beacon Hills by the Nemeton. It’s not strange that a Nazi organization would employ someone who could recognize the potential in a nogitsune. He had learned about Hauptman Douglas in Theo’s memories. This agent had kidnapped him, and now Stiles was here in D.C. at the same time as Hydra was about to do something terrible. He was here with Theo …

“Oh, shit.”

If Theo was here, that meant there was a good chance that Hydra had recruited the Dread Doctors as well. He could see it happening. He wondered if that was how they were controlling Stiles.

Scott stood up. Captain America was going to try to stop Pierce and the other traitors in whatever they were going to do. He didn’t understand the way SHIELD worked enough to help. He didn’t even know what Insight was. But he did know what a nogitsune was. He knew what a chimera was. He understood the Dread Doctors. He would track them down immediately, he would free Stiles from these Nazis, and, while he was at it, he would stop any supernatural creature helping Hydra.

He embraced the transformation into his full alpha form, shredding the ballistic vest with the STRIKE logo on it. He might get real SHIELD agents shooting at him, but he didn’t want them to think he was working with their enemies. They’d be scared enough by his appearance, but he had to risk it. He was a much better tracker when he was fully transformed.

Theo wrapped his left arm around Stiles’ throat, using surprise to get a firmer grip. The right one wrapped itself around Stiles’s torso, trying to keep his arms pinned.

“Now?” Stiles couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity. “You’re going to try something like this now?”

Theo opened his mouth to speak but Stiles took that distraction as an opportunity to fling himself backward. The lounge wall cracked with the force of their impact, but Theo didn’t let go. Stiles could sense the pain spiking through the chimera. He’d broken at least one rib.

“Ouch.” The chimera admitted.

“It’s only going to get worse.” Stiles said, even as he drew the pain into himself. “I’ll feed on you until you’re a husk. Let me go.”

“I won’t.” Theo transformed into the full beta shift and with that added strength, reversed their position, pressing Stiles face first against the wall.

“You know, I don’t see any possible benefit to it, but I feel sorta stupid not to have seen this betrayal coming!” Stiles spat. He could be stronger than the chimera, but it was a trade-off. Any energy he expended here wouldn’t be available when he faced Captain America.

Theo wrapped his left leg around Stiles’s, trying to further immobilize him. “As much as I’d like to quip that I was made for this, it’s not actually a betrayal.”

With an exasperated sigh, Stiles called upon his power, pushing his strength to the level of the alpha. He snapped his head back and cracked Theo square in the face. He felt blood gush from the chimera’s nose, and he felt one of Theo’s fangs cut into his scalp, but the move stunned his opponent long enough to allow him to shake out of the grip.

Stiles whipped around, grabbed Theo by the front of his shirt, and tossed him across the room. “Enlighten me!”

“You don’t want them to succeed.” Theo stood up; wiping the blood off his face, though otherwise he seemed fine. Even as a chimera, he was annoyingly tough. “I just need to get you to admit it.”

“You think I care if lots of strangers die?” Stiles spat. “I’ve been responsible for more death and pain than you can imagine.”

Theo dropped his claws. “No, you’re not. You’re not the nogitsune, just like you’re not Stiles.” He rushed forward.

Stiles dodge the first swipe of the talons. Theo didn’t target any vital points, and he didn’t put his full strength behind them. Theo was trying to incapacitate, not kill. He knew what he was doing.

Yet so did Stiles. The kitsune caught the second swing with his right hand and with sheer overwhelming power twisted the arm up behind the chimera’s back. Tendons creaked and Theo grunted in pain.

“Why are you trying to save me?” Stiles twisted the arm, forcing Theo to his knees. He fed on the pain even as he created it.

“Because no one saved me.”

With a jerk, he snapped Theo’s ulna. “If that’s the case, you should have brought more people.”

“As a matter of fact …” The chimera whispered around his clenched teeth.

Something that he could only describe as an elbow smashed Stiles’ face. Blinking in pain, he glanced around, only to feel like someone kicked him in the solar plexus. With a gasp, he let Theo go and brought his arms up to protect him. No one was there, but he felt someone grab him and perform an excellent throw.

Even though he struggled to get a full breath, he grunted, “What the fuck?”

Above him, a figured shimmered into existence. She wore a futuristic suit of greyish-white armor, a cowl of the same color, and a full white mask with five red sensors arrayed on it instead of a face. Obviously, this woman could turn invisible.

The woman reached down a hand to help Theo up, but the chimera shook it off. “Keep pressure on him. He’s not done yet.”

Stiles kipped up, his eyes dark. “Nope, I’m nowhere near done.” He lunged forward, going for a leg sweep, which the woman jumped nimbly over. She was well trained, too.

She riposted with a kick to his slightly lowered head. He jerked it back just in time or she would have broken his jaw. As it were, she barely grazed his chin, sending him staggering back and up against partition.

Silently and implacably, the woman pursued him, following up with a flat palm strike against his chest. Stiles took the blow, because he could tell that as good as she was, she didn’t have superhuman strength. It stung like a bitch and drove even more air from his lungs, but he managed to grab her arm with both hands. “Gotcha.”

She swung around without a word, planting her feet and trying to twist out of his grip. Stiles was amused. That wasn’t going to make him let go.

At least he hadn’t thought it would, until she literally stepped through the partition. His forward momentum carried him right into it, jamming his hands into the drywall. She just kept right on going, slipping through like a Ghost.

Invisibility and intangibility. Stiles gritted his teeth at the realization. He’d heard of an operative in SHIELD’s (really Hydra’s) arsenal that could do this. He hadn’t been told she was here in D.C.

So focused on calculating his next move against Ghost, he became distracted. It didn’t last long as his entire attention was drawn Theo shredding his right Achilles tendon. Stiles bellowed.

Theo scuttled back, his claw dripping blood across the floor. Stiles could no longer move very effectively, but he managed to stagger far enough to the right to reach a table. Eyes flaring with summoned power he threw it at the chimera, forcing him to roll away.

“Nice shot, dick. It’s not going to stop me.”

Theo rose into a crouch. “As you say, we’re not done yet!” He snarled at Stiles, but the fox caught his eyes shifting to a space above Stiles’ left shoulder.

This woman and Theo were good; Stiles was better. He waited until he felt her hands grasp his shoulders and then he pushed a sizable amount of foxfire into her. The suit shorted out, though not as much as he thought it would. While she was still surprised, he grabbed her and tossed her to the ground next to Theo.

“That’s enough out of you.”

The woman rolled to her feet with a smooth motion and tore off her malfunctioning face mask.

“You okay, Ava?” Theo stood up tall.

“I’m fine. You’re right. He’s stronger than he looks.”

“Damn right.” Stiles pointed at them; he felt like an anime character in a climactic confrontation. “Stay out of my way if you know what’s good for you.”

Theo moved away from the woman, Ava, who once again faded from sight, and started circling him. That was alarming. Stiles had to have short-circuited her armor. He was sure of it, which meant that her abilities weren’t completely based in technology.

Stiles concentrated on healing his ankle, but he still had to slowly back towards a wall as Theo approached. How could this get any worse?

In a trick worthy of, honestly, himself, the universe answered him in the affirmative. There was an earth-shattering roar from the end of the hallway, something so powerful it made the Ghost shift back into visibility.

Standing across the room was Scott McCall.

Stiles first thought shattered into a million pieces at the sight. Intellectually, he recognized who it was — his best friend from another life, from another world. He recognized what it was — an angry alpha werewolf. Those concrete facts were drowned in the flood of emotions that welled up from the different parts of his psyche: anger, fear, remorse, regret.

But Stiles was different now, he was the Fox, and immediately he thought that this whole mess could still be salvageable as long as Theo didn’t mess it up.

“Thank God. Ava, we’ve won.” Theo put up his hands to show that he wasn’t interested in fighting. “How the hell did you get here Scott?”

Ava Starr — he remembered her name now — didn’t look quite convinced, but she didn’t look scared either.

Scott stood up, spine cracking as he became a little less animal. “Nobody move.”

“We’re in the middle of something,” Stiles began, plastering a phantom recreation of his cocky grin over his face. “Can you come back later?”

Scott’s glowing red eyes blinked and his face softened, as he expected it would. He was remembering all the times that Stiles had used humor to disarm the situation, and it was working, giving him time to think of a way out of this.

It didn’t work for long. Scott’s face firmed up; he had grown since Stiles saw him last. “Tell me what you know about what’s going on.”

“We know more than you do, Scott.” Theo said. He took a step forward, motioning for Ghost to remain still. “You’re not going to believe me, but you want to help me stop Stiles.”

“You’re right. I don’t believe you.”

Stiles chuckled. “I told you he wouldn’t fall for it.”

Theo glanced at him and pointed at Scott. “You’re an idiot. This, this, is your way out.” He turned back. “Even if you don’t believe me, Scott, you can’t let Stiles interfere with Captain America.” He spoke urgently. “You can hear what’s happening, can’t you?”

Stiles couldn’t but he could feel the slow rise in pain and chaos in the building. He drew it in, slowly replacing the energy he had spent already.

“Gunshots.”

“It’s a coup.” Ava Starr spoke up. “You don’t know me, but Hydra’s been planning to take over the planet. This is the day it starts. Theo convinced me that we should stop Fox from helping.”

“Fox?”

“I got a codename, Scotty, isn’t that cool?” Stiles stalled. “And the situation’s a lot more complex than how the trained wet work specialist is describing it.”

“It is complex,” Theo stated. “But you need to know that if Stiles doesn’t stay in this room, millions of people are going to die. That’s all that I’m trying to do, Scott.”

“Why?”

Theo laughed. “Because I like Stiles. Not as much as you do, but I do. So just help me. Help me get him away from this building, and we can work it all out.”

Scott hesitated. Even on his monstrous alpha face, Stiles could see the indecision. Theo had betrayed him in Bacon Hills. Ghost, he didn’t know. On the other hand, Stiles might still be possessed by the nogitsune.

“Okay. Follow me. We’re leaving the Triskelion.”

“No!” Stiles shouted in exasperation. “Theo, you are so fucking dead, and your friend is too. Don’t any of you understand that I’m doing this for all of you?”

Before anyone could respond to that or try to end the stalemate, they were interrupted by the elevator. A STRIKE team emerged, weapons ready. They immediately hurled a barrage of grenades at Scott.

“Wait, stop!” Stiles cried.

The explosions knocked them all completely off their feet.

Scott woke up, staring at the ceiling, there was the sound of roaring engines filling his head. His clothes were ruined and bloody. “Where am I?”

“You’re in my quarters,” Stiles loomed over him. He looked pretty rough as well. “Hold still, I almost got all of it out.”

“What out? What happened?” Scott tried to struggle up. “You! What’re you--”

Stiles pushed him back down. “You were hurt, and I’m taking your pain. I was hurt, so I need to take your pain. Don’t worry — no stabbing this time.”

“Are you Stiles?” He heard his voice breaking.

“Yes.” Stiles said, solemnly. “And no.”

He couldn’t help it. He started crying. Stiles blinked as if he were surprised by the reaction. Why should he be surprised? Did he think that Scott wouldn’t feel this way?

“I missed you so much.”

Stiles still had that strange look on his face, as if he couldn’t comprehend it. “You did?”

“I never stopped looking.”

His best friend grunted in acknowledgment.

“It got me in trouble.”

“So, I’ve heard.” Stiles smiled his mischievous smile.

Scott sat up. He’d be fine in a moment, but now all the screams, the gun fire, and a terrible whirling sound, like a gigantic jet engine. “What is that?”

“Oh. Helicarriers. You have terrible timing, Scotty.”

“Was Theo right?”

“Annoyingly so, but you’re going to have to be more specific.”

“Are millions of people going to die?”

Stiles hesitated, but Scott did not hear his heart rate jump. He looks Scott right in the eyes. “I don’t care. The only thing I care about is that you, and my dad, and Lydia, and Melissa, and Derek and all those idiots back in Beacon Hills are safe. Except Peter. Peter can die in a fire and probably will.”

“Stiles!” Scott heard the utter conviction in his voice. It had hurt Stiles to say it; it hurt him to hear it.

“I’m not Stiles.” Stiles turned away, letting his hand fall off. “I’m not just Stiles. I’m the nogitsune too. I’m not possessed anymore; we’re one.”

Scott didn’t understand, but he believed it. “Did Hydra do this to you?”

“Yes. I know, I should be mad, right? But I’m not. This is what I am now, and that means I’m different. I can’t be who I was.”

“No one stays the same.” Scott leapt up. “What matters is that they forced you. They enslaved you. I know what that is like.”

His best friend stood up. “You still care?”

“I’ll always care, Stiles. You cared when I became a werewolf, and I’ll care no matter how anyone changes you.”

“I’m not a good person.”

Scott grabbed him by the shoulders. “I love you, man. That doesn’t go away because you’ve done things I don’t like.”

“Remember you said that.” Stiles heard an explosion at the same time Scott did. It was really loud. “We’ve got to go. I’ve got to go.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“You can’t come with me.”

“You can’t stop me.”

Stiles sighed. “Can you do one thing first?”

“Yes. Anything.”

“Take this off.” He pulled down his collar to reveal a silver torc. “I can’t touch it, but you can.”

Scott didn’t hesitate. He didn’t ask. Maybe it was stupid not to ask, but he was so happy. The torc came off easily, but it made a weird sound, like the ringing of a bell.

“Okay?”

Stiles rubbed his neck. “Some people are going to regret you doing that. But we have to go.”

They indeed have to go, because suddenly the entire building lurched. Scott would find out later that an Insight helicarrier had just crashed into it. Scott and Stiles ran for the emergency exit.

Chapter Text

January 11, 2014 – The Battle of Washington D.C. – Continued

One of the drawbacks of being merged with a thousand-year-old fox spirit turned out to be that Stiles would only to able to experience many firsts as memories. His first time on a sailing ship; his first time climbing a mountain; his first time having a child — all of these things had already happened to the nogitsune. On the other hand, there were plenty of things he might experience for the first time in this form. In this particular case, for the first time, he heard the squeal of steel girders as a skyscraper collapsed. It made a distinct and frightening sound, and he didn’t even have heightened hearing.

The carpeted floor beneath them shook so hard that Scott and Stiles had to grab on to each other in order to stay on their feet. Dust emerged from the elevator shaft, so thick it clogged his nose. Even in his disorientation, Stiles could feel the pleasing tingle as he absorbed the ambient chaos and pain that filled the building like an invisible flood.

“We have to do something!” Scott’s voice brought him back to reality, especially since it was edging to panic. “I can hear them!”

With the awareness that the nineteenth floor wasn’t the safest place to be at that moment, Stiles grabbed his friend’s arm and pulled him toward the staircase. “Hear who?”

Scott stumbled over his own feet as they got near the exit. “I can hear them screaming, Stiles.”

“Who?” Stiles repeated as he kicked the door open.

“People.” The tone of his best friend’s voice wrenched at him, surprisingly. “So many people!”

Stiles hesitated. He easily imagined, with so much pain and chaos roiling through the air invigorating him, the amount of carnage that had to be happening at that moment. The floor bucked like a mad horse once again. The situation required focus and a cool head. “We need to keep moving!”

“We gotta help them.” Scott countered, as he gripped the staircase’s safety rail.

“No, we don’t.” He used a burst of strength to push Scott down a few steps. Only his enhanced reflexes kept the alpha on his feet. There were other people on the staircase, people who worked here, descending as quickly as they could.

“But—”

“Scott, we don’t even know what’s going on!” He pushed Scott hard, once again, and this time Scott did fall on his butt, sliding down to the next landing.

“Stop doing that!”

A trio of analysts rushed past them on the stairs, so Stiles snatched one by the shoulder. “What the hell is happening?”

“The helicarriers are destroying each other. Insight-One crashed into us. The whole building might go down!”

The desk jockey struggled uselessly to break free, so Stiles let him go. “See Scott? We gotta move.”

“Stiles—”

Stiles walked over and picked Scott up off the floor. “Unless you’re strong enough to stop a falling building, we should follow the posted safety procedures, which means we’re going to go down these stairs and take the exit on the ground floor.”

“You read the safety procedures?”

“Of course!”

Incomprehensibly, Scott beamed at him before starting to head down the stairs.

“What are you smiling at, you loon?”

The alpha didn’t respond, and Stiles let it go. At least, he no longer had to push the werewolf down the stairs. Scott moved quickly and willingly, though he did stop twice to help people up who had fallen in their rush to evacuate.

As the premier international law enforcement agency in an era of alien invasions and high-tech terrorism, the Triskelion had been built to survive almost anything. Yet the builders still made sure that in the case of the unthinkable, the emergency staircases had their own ventilation, their own lighting, and their own secure exits on the outside of the building. Scott and Stiles, following the flow of agents reached the outside and the fresh January air.

Above them, the world was ending.

Insight-01 had lodged itself in the Triskelion, between 30th and the 32nd floors. As its engines failed, the weight of the carrier began to tear it apart.

Insight-02 and Insight-03 had both suffered so much damage, they were falling out of the sky. Number Two slowly descended into the Potomac near the Three Sisters, while the pieces of Number Three were showering Arlington National Cemetery with flaming debris.

A long time ago, Theodore Roosevelt Island had been abandoned farmland. In the thirties, the fallow site had been transformed into a forested park, dedicated to the memory of the twenty-sixth president. In 1980, the whole place had been turned over to SHIELD. The agency had told protesters that its mission as a global peace-keeping force more than honored the man who had won a Nobel Prize for resolving the Russo-Japanese War. The honest answer would have been that the location was close to the core of the American government yet also easily secured.

When agency had repurposed the island, their architects had left as much of the park forest as they could, and it became the favorite spots for agents on their lunch break. By silent agreement, Scott and Stiles sprinted toward one of the copses, where they could have at least a little privacy from the gathering evacuees. Scott had stopped balking at their escape altogether, especially when he witnessed SHIELD’s practiced and more-than-adequate response to injuries to its own work force.

“Wait a minute,” Scott finally brought them to a stop, resting his hand on a tree. He sounded surprised, as if he had forgotten something important. “Where’s Theo?”

“Why do you care?” Stiles felt bitterness at the name well up in him.

“Because I told him I’d protect him, and I failed to do that. Like I failed to protect you.” Scott gave Stiles a reproving scowl. “So, I want to know if he’s okay.”

“When the STRIKE team threw those grenades — what did you do to them to make them shoot first and ask questions later? — you took most of the blast. Ava, Theo’s buddy, was completely unharmed, what with her intangibility power, but she wasn’t interested in sticking around. Theo left you with me; he told me he had promised to help her get away. She seems not to be fond of SHIELD, which, after today, seems to be pretty understandable.” Stiles chuckled.

“Then he’s safe? He got away?”

“For the moment. Don’t worry, when I track him down later, I’ll let him know you cared.”

Scott frowned. He got that look on his face when he was trying to figure out if Stiles was joking or not. Instead of confronting him, he craned his neck around the tree at the milling crowd below the disaster.

“I won’t hurt him. Turned out he was right, and I was wrong.”

“About what?”

Stiles sighed. “All this.” He waves his hand in the general direction of the burning helicarriers.

Scott reached out and snagged Stiles by the wrist, and Stiles forced himself to look into Scott’s eyes. They were still the same color they had always been, and they still had the same concern they had always held. Only now, they also demanded answers.

“You figured out who kidnapped me from Eichen, right?”

“Not until today. Hydra.”

“Yup.” Stiles said it casually. “Turns out they’ve known about the supernatural for a long time. They wanted a weapon, and they thought the nogitsune would be a pretty cool one. They were half right.”

Scott didn’t let go of his arm, but the tips of his fingers were nails, not claws.

“The torc you took off? That kept it from killing them, but they couldn’t make it obey. They thought that maybe they could use the human host to get what they wanted. They used … something … to merge Stiles and the nogitsune together.”

The alpha's sigh was almost imperceptible. Stiles had expected it.

“I’m not Stiles anymore, but I’m also not the nogitsune. I’m something new. I’m something unique.”

Scott took in a deep breath and held it. He closed his eyes. “But you’re still Hydra. You worked for them.”

Stiles hesitated, yet he didn’t know why he did so. A million lies were at his fingertips; a million lies that he had practiced when he had imagined this exact scenario. It was a foregone conclusion that he would be able to fool Scott. Of all the people in the universe, Scott was the one person whom Stiles could say that about. Scott would swallow even the clumsiest lie, because he wanted it to be true. He had seen the reality of Scott’s longing in the alpha’s eyes.

“I am. I did.”

Contrary to Stiles’s expectations, Scott didn’t immediately come back with the most obvious question. Instead, Scott let go of his arm and took a few steps over to a concrete bench. Little more than a flat surface, it had been erected for agents to sit on while eating their lunch during good weather.

Stiles hesitated, but echoes of familiarity called to him. He went over sat down next to Scott. Unconsciously, Stiles left enough space between them in order to make a break for it. After realizing what he had done, Stiles stared at that space, but it didn’t make it shrink.

“Scott.”

The alpha responded reluctantly. “How could you work for them?”

“Scott, look over there at those people.”

Scott followed Stiles's gesture to the masses of agents who had gathered in the safe area. Some of them were watching the fall of Project Insight, others were trying to see to the wounded, and some were trying to re-establish a chain of command.

“Now, with your senses, tell me which ones work for Hydra and which ones work for SHIELD.”

“I can’t.”

Stiles smirked. “Most of them can’t either. I’d bet real money that almost every single one of them has followed an order which served Hydra’s goals. Willing or not, all of them have worked to make this day happen.”

Scott worked his jaw. “You’re saying you didn’t have a choice?”

“They kidnapped me, Scott, and it wasn’t weak human me, but the thousand-year-old nine-tailed nogitsune. They imprisoned it mundanely. They imprisoned it mystically. They had enough resources and knowledge to be able to do that. Adding Stiles Stilinski to the mix wasn’t going to give the new me an edge.”

“Are you saying you were scared?”

“I’m saying I was trapped, and I did what I had to in order to survive.”

“You know I know what that’s like. Peter. Derek. Gerard. Deucalion. They all tried to box me into a corner.”

Stiles shook his head. “It’s not the same, Scott. Those were individuals--”

“Yes, it is the same. Someone more powerful than you forced you into serving them.”

The alpha’s insistence had the passion of Scott’s optimism behind it. Stiles was touched and exasperated at the same time. This was the Scott he knew, the person who would forgive him for anything and believe in him no matter what.

As much as he appreciated Scott trying to figure out a way to justify his actions, Stiles felt the need to reject it. “Yes, they tried to force you, to coerce you and you resisted. They tempted me, and I failed.” Stiles shook his head. “I wasn’t their reluctant helpmate, because, in end, I could see I only had two choices. Sit in a cell for the rest of my life or take advantage of the opportunities presented to me.”

“Opportunities? They’re trying to take over the world.”

“To risk ripping off Tears for Fears, everybody wants to rule the world.”

Scott’s face scrunched up in a sure sign of disapproval.

“You have to understand; I now have a different perspective then Stiles used to, then the one you have. I’ve lived for a thousand years, and I’ve lost track of the number of leaders who have reached for power by standing on the bodies of their fellow man while I fed on the pain they caused trying. Yesterday, it was the Tokugawa. Today, it’s Hydra. Tomorrow, it’ll be someone else.”

The alpha’s face smoothed out. Stiles didn’t know what to make of that reaction.

“With these memories, I don’t care much about the …” Stiles shrugged elaborately. “About the world. For every martyr, there’s a tyrant. For every monk, there’s a degenerate. They will all be dust eventually, meaningless to me. I wanted to live. I wanted to be free, so I compromised. It wasn’t difficult at all.”

Scott reached out but Stiles slid his out of reach. “You don’t have to do that anymore.”

“And what do you think will I do instead?”

“You’ll come home.”

Stiles scoffed. “Come home.”

The tone made Scott flinch.

“Will I have to repeat senior year?” Stiles spoke with the sarcasm that he knew Scott would understand. “When I feel a little hungry, and I need to create a little strife and chaos, will you help me set up a car crash?”

“We’ll work something out.” Scott promised. “There has to be a way.”

“I don’t want to work something out, Scott. I don’t want to watch you watch me out of the corner of your eye. I don’t want to sit across from my dad at the kitchen table and pretend he’s not struggling with the truth about what I am. My motives haven’t changed since they captured me. I want to live. I want to be free.”

“You’re my best friend.”

“Yes, I am. Strangely enough, you’re my best friend too, which is odd as nogitsune don’t have friends. I don’t think that what we are to each other will ever change, but I don’t think I can really go to Beacon Hills and live any sort of life with you.”

“You could try.”

“I could try to fly, but I won’t be successful no matter how hard I flap my arms.”

“So … “Scott trailed off, bitterly. He stared out past the tree line at the carnage out there. “You’re planning to go back to Hydra.”

“Yes and no.” It wasn’t a lie. He only had the barest framework of a plan in his mind, but he had some ideas.

It came out of the alpha like a rush; Scott dashed away a tear. “Don’t do this. Don’t talk yourself out of being Stiles, don’t give up on having what you once thought were the most important things in the world. Those things are waiting for you at home.”

“Scott—”

“It always looks bad when it starts out, being changed like we both were. It always looks like you’re going to lose everything that makes you who you are. I remember being that afraid, but it doesn’t have to be like that for you. They took a year from your life. Don’t let them take the rest.” Scott spoke so earnestly Stiles had to look away. “Come back. For your dad. For the pack. For me.”

“Things don’t magically happen because you want them enough!” Stiles snapped. “How much chaos and strife will I cause if I go back home and discover I simply can’t be anything more than what I am? I know me — the person sitting in front of you — better than you do, and I know if I go back, I will hurt so many people.”

Scott rubbed at his eyes, dashing the tears out of them. The sound of sirens could be heard in the distance. Then Scott’s jaw set in that stupid way it did when he had decided something. “You really think that?”

“I do.”

“Then I think you’re just going to have to take me with you.”

Over the last few months, Stiles had thought that his strange desire for a friendship with Theo, which had been unorthodox and weird, was a side effect of the merger. He had dismissed it as a flight of humor, a whim. Maybe, once or twice in the dark of the night, he had thought of it as a way reclaiming the humanity that Hydra had stolen from him. He was wrong though; it turned out he had simply been missing that which he had never felt he could live without.

Stiles blinked fiercely as moisture gathered at the corner of his eyes; a sorcerer would have paid good money for the tears of a fox. Scott must have understood all the ramifications of what the alpha was saying. He would leave Beacon Hills, leave his pack, for him.

For once in his life, Stiles couldn’t think of anything to say.

The alpha stood up. “I think our next step is to get off this island.”

Stiles’s throat worked until he could get new words out. “We could swim for it.”

Scott looked over at the narrow river.

“No.” He pointed at the John F. Kennedy center. “That way.”

“Can you make it?”

“I’m stronger than you, especially right now.”

Scott strode off into the direction, without hesitation. Stile watched him walk away, coming to a decision while following. He typed in a message on his cell phone.

Swimming across the Potomac in January would have killed most people, but not an alpha werewolf and a void kitsune. The exclamations of the people on the shore were amusing, but Stiles would always remember what Scott said next.

“Stronger than me?” Scott called. “Race ya.”

They could have been eighteen. They were eighteen. Of course, they raced each other across the Potomac in the middle of winter while a coup d’état burned behind them. But for a moment, it was just them. The way it always should have been.

Scott won. Stiles didn’t mind.

They climbed up on the other side, soaking wet. It was quieter over there on the Rock Creek Trail.

“Where to now?” Scott asked, smiling.

“There should be a pay phone down here. Shake yourself until you’re dry.”

“Dog jokes.”

“I have a million of them.” Stiles waved him off as he went there and pretended to be making a call. It was a common rendezvous site for Hydra operatives, which was what he was going to use it for. He held the dead phone to this ear and looked back at his best friend. Scott squeezed the extra water out of his shirt, like it was the most normal thing to do in the world.

The SUV pulled up to the side of the road, and Stiles slid into the passenger’s seat. “Go now.”

Stiles watched the rear-view mirror. He had timed it right, as he had intended to. Scott finally noticed what he was doing and watched the departing car with a look of hurt and confusion on his face. As usual, he was slow to grasp all the things of which Stiles was capable.

Scott would understand, eventually. Stiles would never allow Scott to join the Department of Occult Armaments, to do the things that Hydra would require of him. Stiles was a monster, but he wasn’t that big a monster.

January 13, 2014

In the end, the only thing that Danny could say was that he hadn’t meant to cause turmoil.

Danny prided himself on his ability to stay out of trouble. After his brush with the feds when he was thirteen, he had decided that he would keep his head down, study hard, play lacrosse well, date pretty boys, and leave the conspiracy theories and illegal hacking to the professional radicals. He would argue that it wasn’t cowardice. It was self-awareness. Danger didn’t invigorate him; it made him anxious.

And then … werewolves.

As Robert Burns once said, the well-laid plans of mice and men go oft astray — only he said it with a heavy Scottish accent.

It should have been easy to stick to his plan during his junior year. Instead, there were dead bodies in the woods, Scott McCall becoming one hell of a lacrosse player overnight, and Jackson going off the deep end. He had thought the worst was over when Allison’s aunt turned out to be a serial killer. He was wrong again, confronted with another serial killer, Jackson going even further off the deep end, and Scott and Stiles struggling to keep their heads above water.

Danny had figured out most of what was going on by simply observing. Scott had started out with little to no discretion, and while Stiles was more comfortable with lying, that didn’t mean he was any good at it. Ill-equipped when it came to how to conceal their lives from people outside their bubble of two, Danny realized he simply had to be patient, and the clueless duo would give him the clues he needed. To be fair, he had dug a little bit after meeting ‘Miguel.’ Since he wasn’t a dumbass, he had recognized Derek Hale immediately.

He had had enough information when he had confronted Jackson on the way to dropping his best friend off at the airport on his way to London. Instead of being angry, though, Jackson had looked at Danny as if he were hanging from the edge of a cliff by his fingernails. When Danny had stubbornly pressed the issue, Jackson had flashed blue eyes at him and whispered ‘werewolves.’

That had been a big surprise, even though it had filled in the blanks. Danny had resolved to stay out of it completely, and then promptly fell for Ethan.

Like a dumbass.

Danny was aware that fate was conspiring against him, so instead of trying to fruitlessly isolate himself, he had studied the situation and positioned himself where he would be safest. He was part of the pack, but on its outskirts. He was never going to accept the Bite. (He and Ethan had talked about the former-alpha’s overly subtle offer at the motel in Mendocino.) Things had turned out pretty well.

Then the Triskelion fell, and everyone held their breath until Scott contacted them with word he was safe. Danny felt a shiver of fear as the news went over Hydra’s origins as a Nazi science cult and revealed how deep they had infiltrated SHIELD. Every reason for which he had helped found the Rising Tide had turned out to be true: the darkest of dark conspiracies had hidden the truth from the world.

Seeing that Black Widow had dumped all of Hydra’s secret files onto the Internet, Danny could not help himself. He dug through it, partly curious and partly afraid. Later on, he told himself he shouldn’t have done it. It was counter to his plan for safety, but he just couldn’t help himself.

And he paid the price for his curiosity: he discovered the reports on the Department of Occult Armaments. He discovered Project Vargulf.

January 15, 2014

Dr. Ranefer frowned the way she did when someone practiced poor laboratory skills; it put a smirk on Stiles’s face. “I don’t see why he has to be here in this form. It’s unsanitary.”

“He’s being punished, Ayla.” Stiles chuckled as he made small adjustments to his newest project. “Theo has been very naughty.”

Theo, for his part, lay next to Stiles's chair, head in his paws. He grumbled in a way only canines could grumble.

Stiles’s second-in-command turned once again to the reports she had received earlier that day, muttering under her breath about getting punished, too.

“Aw, Ayla. Look at him. He’s so cute this way.” Stiles winked at Theo, who whined a little bit. “It’s only for a month.”

“I’m surprised. From what you told me, he betrayed you.”

“Technically, yes, he did. He had my best interests at heart. Everyone could use a little treachery like that.” He bent his face down toward Theo and mugged at him. “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy? You are.”

It was not possible for a coywolf to roll its eyes, but Theo tried his best. He growled and yipped in derision.

“How ever did you find him?”

“Theo here forgot that his creators work for me. All it took was a phone call.”

The shape shifter put his head down once again, accepting his fate. Stiles was betting Theo would keep his word about not trying to escape, especially since Stiles had promised that Ava would not be harassed by what was left of Hydra.

Dr. Ranefer had spent most of the evening trying to focus on her work. Stiles had been in such a good mood to be back at his own facility that he had kept teasing her. He might have continued doing it for hours, for his own amusement. He was surrounded by his department, who no longer were required to wear uniforms, either SHIELD or Hydra. Finally, his second-in-command finished the last reports.

“Do you have time to go over what I have so far?”

“Absolutely.” Stiles saved the work he had been doing on the holographic imager. He had an eye for detail, and the more convincing the image, the better it would protect their assets from what was definitely going to be coming. “What do you have for me?”

“We’ve secured that property you described in Zhengzhou. I will have initial architectural designs tomorrow, and we can go over them.”

“Good.” Stiles smiled. “The quicker we establish new bases, the safer we will be.”

“Then you will also be glad to know that we’re making headway at the Daklha Oasis. However, our target seems to be owned by a wealthy and reclusive Egyptian businessman who appears unwilling to give it up.”

Stiles shrugged. “I guess we’ll have to convince him.”

Dr. Ranefer sent him the information on his tablet. “I’d prefer you do it. I despise the desert.”

He laughed out loud. “The Zhengzhou nemeton will be our headquarters. I plan on placing the Doctors in Egypt. An old land for old people.” He turned to the agent in charge of monitoring SHIELD’s communication. “How goes the war?”

The agent shook his head. “According to our sources within the armed forces, Colonel Talbot is attacking some facility in northern Ontario. It’s nothing on our list.”

“As long as they’re not coming here, I’m ecstatic. Keep an ear out.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dr. Ranefer was looking at him, eyes filled with concern.

“Yes?”

She clucked her tongue. “You do know they eventually will be coming here. Either the remnants of SHIELD or the Avengers.”

A slow smile spread across Stiles's face. “I know.”

“You seem pleased. That’s a little frightening.”

“In for a penny, in for a pound. I also have plenty of reasons to be optimistic. One!” He held up a finger. “The D.O.A. was the branch of Hydra that used SHIELD resources the least. None of our ongoing projects will be significantly hampered by the ongoing exposure of Hydra to the world.”

“Two! We’ve got more established enhanced individuals than any other department right now. I’m sure Garrett is pushing out more Deathloks as fast as his mad scientists can make them and Von Strucker can suck it with his twins. I’d put our agents against theirs any day. A SHIELD team attacking us or New Mexico will get its ass handed to them.”

“And if the Avengers come?”

“Three!” Stiles winked at her. “If I’m going to play the game, I should go all in. I may have a few tricks up my sleeve for the Avengers.”

January 16, 2014

Sheriff Noah Stilinski looked very old, sitting on his couch. Melissa reached out her hand to touch his shoulder, and he didn’t even feel it.

Across from him, Scott sat on the other couch, back ramrod straight. He had thought about trying to be gentle, trying to be conciliatory, but he realized that wasn’t what Noah needed to hear right now. He needed to hear the truth.

“There’s nothing that can be done?”

“There’s nothing we can do now,” Scott stressed that word strongly. “I contacted Agent Coulson when I got home. The staff that Hydra used to merge Stiles and the nogitsune was alien technology wielded by the Asgardian Loki when he invaded New York. They don’t know how it works, and Hydra still retains control over it.”

“I don’t believe this.” Noah rested his head in his hands. “This is worse than not knowing.”

“I know,” Scott replied sharply, “but you’ll feel better tomorrow.”

The sheriff raised his head and glared at the alpha. Scott took it without flinching.

“I felt better once I got home. Stiles …” He powered through the wince. “This is what he wants. He understands who he is better than I did. All you have to do is look at what Danny found out about him in the Hydra files.”

The sheriff glanced at the printouts on the coffee table.

“As long as he’s like this, he doesn’t want to be here.” The alpha’s voice took on a harsher tone. “And, to be honest, I don’t want him here.”

Noah bristled, “That’s not your call.”

“Actually, it is.” Scott stood up. “If I could somehow overlook the people he killed, if I somehow could overlook how he supported evil humans in a plan that would have killed millions, I still, personally, couldn’t let him live here. He is who he is, what events have made him. I am, who I am, what events have made me, and that means I couldn’t overlook Project Vargulf.”

“Scott—”

“He taught Hydra how to torture omega werewolves into madness and turn them into living weapons. If he comes back here, I’ll have to do … what I have to do.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because he’s dangerous, and I finally understand what that means, what he tried to tell me, and I wouldn’t listen. He’s dangerous to everyone, not just me, and I have to think about that more than what I want.” He glanced at his mother. “If the day comes when we get that staff, and we get the chance to use it to separate Stiles from the nogitsune, I’ll be the first one in line to try. But, until then, he’s my enemy.”

“Get out!” Noah snapped at him. “Get out of my house.”

Scott didn’t protest. The sheriff couldn’t be any angrier with him than he was angry with himself. If Stiles hadn’t been loyal, he’d never have been involved in this. He’d never had followed Scott into this nightmare. He’d be right here with his father.

Hearing a werewolf say that he would be treating his son like an enemy should be too much for any father. It was almost too much for Scott, and he was the one making the statement.

He made it halfway to his bike before he fell to his knees. He hoped no one was watching, but he couldn’t make it any further. He was sure he only started crying uncontrollably because the full moon sailed through the sky.

Someone’s footsteps approached from behind him, but it was who he needed to see.

“I don’t want this.”

“You never wanted it,” Deaton said, putting his hand on his shoulder, “which is why we were so lucky it was you.”

“I don’t want any of it. I don’t want to make these decisions. I want the life I was supposed to have. We were supposed to graduate, and go to college, and travel Europe, and get jobs, and grow old, and I’d name my first kid after him and he’d name his pet turtle after me.”

The veterinarian pulled him up to his feet. “I know.”

“I’m supposed to be some kind of fucking True Alpha, but I couldn’t find the words to make stop. I couldn’t find a way to let him come home.”

“This is the last lesson, and the worst.” Deaton said, as kindly as he could. “You can’t save everyone.”

Scott took in three quick breaths to quiet the sobs. “I always thought that all I had to do was try. But I wanted — I needed — to save him. We don’t even …”

“We can’t know what tomorrow will bring. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. The only way to do that is to live until that day comes.”

Scott sighed.

“It’s a full moon. Your pack is waiting for you in the Preserve.”

Scott nodded. He belonged here, not anywhere else. Right here, with the people he cared for, the people he could still help. The people he could still save. “I can hold on to a little bit of him, right? I’m not breaking any rules, am I?”

“No, Scott. You can keep as much hope for him as you can stand.”

He ran, leaving his mentor behind, ran until he reached the Preserve, ran until he found his pack. But not all of his pack. He locked the last in the tiny corner of his heart, there until he could be with him once again, or that heart stopped beating.

The full moon hung enormous sky, right above the constellation of Gemini. Two brothers, the Sons of Lightning, the Dioscuri.

He howled, long and sad.

Chapter Text

As requested, the sequel to this has begun -- Epigoni