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"Um. Professor Hale?"
The voice is hesitant, shy, one Derek recognizes before he even looks up from the stack of papers he's grading.
"Yes, Ava?" He makes a concerted effort to relax his facial muscles and appear a little more welcoming as he glances to the doorway. Still, he's unsurprised to find his student in the hall, peeking around the doorframe, her emerald eyes shimmering in the sunlight that splashes through his office. Years ago, back in Beacon Hills, he'd been told — repeatedly, by one scrawny teenager with amber eyes and a razor sharp wit — that he suffers from Resting Scowl Face. For some reason that observation sticks with him whenever he deals with the most timid of their students.
His effort seems to pay off, though, because Ava hugs the doorframe to step into his office, a quiet rustle of leaves accompanying her movement like it always does. She's the youngest student they've had at the Academy, the youngest Dryad that Derek has ever met, but right now she appears considerably more youthful than her sixteen years. "Professor McCall asked me to get you? He said to have you meet him in the equipment room in the training center? It's kind of an emergency."
Already on high alert, Derek pushes to his feet, papers forgotten as his wolf claws a little closer to the surface, his eyes flashing an unearthly, electric blue. "Did he say what's wrong?"
Ava just shakes her head, that whisper of a gentle wind through the trees growing even louder. At first, Derek is worried he may have startled her — few of the students have seen him shift, even if they all know what he is — but a soft smile sits easy on her face as he passes her by.
"Thank you, Ava. I'll see you in class this afternoon."
He'd swear the rustle of leaves turns into a titter of laughter as he rushes through the hall, but that's actually not all that uncommon. The halls of the Academy are often filled with laughter and joy, their students finally having a place to fit in as they earn their degrees and learn to control their various powers.
It only takes Derek a few minutes to cross the quad to the Allison Argent Training Center, and then a moment more to move through the halls to the equipment room.
Like all the off-limit areas throughout the University, it's protected not only by a state of the art security system — Derek swipes his badge to quickly override that defence — but also by layers of magical warding.
"Scott?" Usually, the increased warding brushes over Derek's skin with a warm prickle, but as he walks through the door now, the feeling is entirely different. It's almost like he's being sucked through a tube.
He's so distracted by the unusual sensation that he doesn't register the footsteps, or the voice, until they're nearly right in front of him.
"Don't let the door—" but it's too late. "—Close," Stiles sighs as the heavy metal clangs shut. Before Derek can even ask what's happening, Stiles is banging on that metal, shouting baseless threats through the door. "I'm gonna find out which ones of you were in on this and fail you all! Or expel you! Or maybe tell your moms!"
"Stiles," Derek huffs. "What is going on?" He can feel his eyebrows tug down, forming a deep ridge between them, but this time he just can't stop it. It's unfortunate, really, because when Stiles spins around and sags back against the door, his gaze sweeps from Derek's eyebrows to his downturned lips, to where his arms are crossed tightly over his chest.
"Oh god, can you tone down the Resting Scowl Face?"
"I don't know, Stiles, can I? What's happening? Are we locked in?" Derek reaches past Stiles to try the door, not exactly surprised to find it locked, but even when he tries to tug the door open with his supernatural strength, it doesn't budge.
With a low growl, Derek's claws and fangs slip free. In his experience, being locked in a room never leads to good things.
"Calm your tits, big guy. We're not in any danger." With just a light pat to his chest, Stiles somehow manages to quiet Derek's wolf. He also turns his head towards the door and yells over his shoulder, "Unless you count the dangerous stupidity of our meddling students!" But then Stiles stills and looks at Derek in horror. "Oh shit. I sound like Coach. That is not the role model I want to emulate."
And just like that, with the small laugh that spills from Derek's lips, his wolf settles completely, curling back up inside as claws and fangs fully retract. "At least he cared. There are worse shoes to walk in."
"Still." The exaggerated shiver that Stiles gives travels right through the hand that's still resting on Derek's chest. "I'm gonna have to work on that. Once we're no longer trapped in a pocket dimension."
Derek blinks. Then blinks again.
"What."
"Yeah, about that." The hand that had been resting on Derek's chest makes its way to the back of Stiles' own neck. "See. What had happened was, I may have gone on a little tangent with the students in my AP group after spells class last week. We'd been discussing the possibility of traveling between alternate universes and Finnegan said they weren't real, so I sort of demonstrated how pocket universes work as like, 'see, our dimension isn't the only dimension,' but Finnegan is way too damn observant and I think he might have learned the spell I used and now I'm pretty sure they've sent the equipment room to a pocket dimension. So that door? Yeah, it doesn't actually open to anywhere right now."
It's...a lot to unpack. And of course Derek wants to smack Stiles for teaching magic that advanced, even if it was inadvertently, but he settles on blowing out a breath and asking, "Why?"
"Why...what? Sorry dude, I'm gonna need a little more than your typical one word responses here."
"Why would they lock us in a room together in a pocket dimension?"
"Ah. Yeah. About that."
There's a slight flush to Stiles' cheeks as he gestures to the other end of the equipment room.
It's...endearing.
And as Stiles leads him past aisles of weapons, shields, and armour, that blush becomes deeper and Derek hardly even needs to listen in to hear the way his heart speeds up, tripping and stumbling over its beats as they move to the staging area.
It's the only open space in the room, with a rolling metal door that slides up and usually leads into the training arena. But right now, that open floor space is covered with a red and white checkered blanket.
And a picnic basket.
And champagne. And candles.
"What—" Derek starts but immediately stops. Then he tries once more. "What?"
Stiles is rubbing at the back of his neck again, the flush across his cheeks growing impossibly deeper as he looks anywhere but at Derek.
"They, um. My AP magic students. They, uh, they kind of ship us?"
Derek is starting to feel like a broken record, but the only thing he can think to ask is, "What?"
"Shipping? It's like, when you hope for a relationship between two specific people? Or more, I guess. It doesn't have to be just two, it could be three or fou—"
"Stiles!" Derek snaps. Stiles doesn't even flinch — that fact alone warms something inside of Derek — but his jaw does snap closed. "I know what shipping is."
At that, Stiles actually looks up, his expression one of pure shock. "Really? Huh. Who'd'a thunk it?”
A minor glare gets Stiles back on track.
"See. It can be important to give context to some of the spells we discuss in class. So sometimes I'll tell them about the evil creatures we faced off against in Beacon Hills and how a specific spell would have been super helpful if my Spark had been more developed. But, uh. You're in a lot of those stories—"
"You talk about me to our students?"
"—and Ava is pretty intuitive, and Finnegan is too smart for his own good, and Tay is always sticking their tail where it doesn't belong, and the twins seem to think they're living in a teen drama where everyone needs matchmaking, so..."
The sentence trails off but Derek can connect the rest of the dots. Their students decided to set them up. But it still doesn't answer everything, Not when there is so much magic protecting the school that it makes Derek sneeze every morning when he first steps onto the grounds. "How did they even get around the wards to send this to a pocket dimension?"
"Oh, this has Professor X aaaaaall over it."
Derek rolls his eyes. "Scott hates when you call him that."
Not that it stops Stiles from using the nickname. Often.
"Then he shouldn't have started Scott McCall's School for Gifted Youngsters."
"That's...not what it's called."
"Whatever. The point is, Scott's totally in on this."
"Why would Scott..." but this time it's Derek's turn to blush, heat pooling in his cheeks. Scott knows that Stiles and Derek almost started something back in Beacon Hills all those years ago. A something that's followed Derek for years, whispering 'what if' whenever thoughts of Stiles creep into his mind. Which happens far more than Derek cares to admit. "Oh."
"Yeah," Stiles nods. "Mr. Naivety thinks everyone should get a fairy tale ending. I've told him you moved on but he seems to think—"
"I haven't," Derek interrupts hastily. "Moved on."
And for a moment, neither of them says a word.
They stand there in the dim light of the equipment room, next to a beautiful picnic that's been laid out just for them, staring at one another like it's a damn contest.
In the end, Derek blinks first.
"Have you?" He asks quietly. As nervous as he is about the answer, he needs to know. "Moved on?"
But Stiles just shakes his head and suddenly those nerves feel more like butterflies. Especially following the quiet confession that comes next. "No. It's always been you, D."
It's like the air has been sucked from the room, but Derek knows, this time, it has nothing to do with magical wards.
He's not sure which of them moves first, but it doesn't really matter because Stiles is in his arms and their lips are pressed together and it feels like all the what ifs of the last decade are exploding around them like fireworks.
It's perfect.
When they finally pull back, just enough that they still seem to be sharing the same breaths, a small smile has settled on Stiles' lips. Derek vaguely wonders if his own smile is just as dopey and lovestruck.
He's guessing it is.
"Maybe Scott isn't as naive as I thought," Stiles murmurs. "Maybe we do get a happy ending, after all."
And isn't that a nice thought.
Derek knows it's too soon to make that call, but for the time being, he takes Stiles' hand and leads him to the picnic blanket and they both sit down on the frilly little pillows — no doubt borrowed from the meditation centre — and he decides it's good enough to start with a happy now.
So they eat the little snacks from the basket and they drink the champagne and they talk.
Oh, do they talk.
About the past and what they almost had, and what they hope for the future. About the Academy and the students they've grown to love. About everything and anything.
Everything except getting out.
Neither of them are in a hurry for that.
And as the afternoon floats by, languid and serene, Derek realizes that there have been a lot of firsts for him today. The first time a student has pulled one over on him. The first time when being locked in a room turned out to be a good thing. His first picnic. The first time he's been in a pocket dimension.
But it's not the 'first' that leaves Derek feeling lighter than he has in years. It's the 'second'. A second chance with Stiles.
A second chance at love.
And Derek intends to seize it with both hands.