Archive of Our Own

Stiles is the last person Danny expects to see, resting against his fifteen-year-old Toyota on the parking lot of the cheap, half-abandoned building on the outskirts of town. Danny would ask what Stiles was doing, but there's only one thing Stiles asks every time they see each other in the years since they left high school, and almost immediately he starts shaking his head.

"Oh no--"

"You don't even know what I came here for!"

"I don't need to know, Stiles. It's been the same thing in the last-- what, ten years?"

Stiles gives him a look like a wounded puppy. It's practiced, rehearsed, except it looks so much like Stiles's actual wounded puppy look that sometimes Danny has trouble telling the difference. "I can't just come by and see how my good buddy is doing?"

"Since when were we good buddies, Stiles?" Danny asks. There is no anger in his voice-- there doesn't need to be. They played on the same lacrosse team, yes, and there was that party at Jackson's, but they didn't hang out in the same circles, didn't talk outside of when they were lab partners for a project or complaining to each other because Finstock ran one of his suicides again. Once, Danny showed Stiles how to get into the county's records, just to see if they could dig any dirt on Mr. Harris (there was nothing), but that was it.

"You wound me, Danny, you really do," Stiles says, moving out of the way to let Danny open his car door but shamelessly slipping into the passenger seat right after, ignoring the look on Danny's face. "I was in town, I just wanted to see how you were doing. Heard from dad you were starting a company up. Mahealani Software?"

Instinctively Danny turns to look at the fourth floor of the building. "Yeah. Your dad told you about that?"

"He says you've started to do some work for him; I thought it was a great idea." Stiles glances at the key in Danny's ignition. "Aren't we leaving?"

Danny gives him a look. "I'm leaving," he tells him. "But you're not coming with me."

"But I have no ride and we're in the middle of nowhere," Stiles points out. "Actually, less the middle of nowhere and more on the edge of the middle of nowhere. At least drop me off where I can get a cab."

"How did you even get here?" Danny asks, irritated because leave it to Stiles to figure out how to get twenty minutes of his time without his permission, damn him. He'd really needed to be alone for the drive home, to run his head through that day, figure out how many projects they could take with Sarah almost due and their maternity leave policy still waiting for approval in HR. (Or Katherine, as Danny likes to call their one-woman operations department.) Losing Sarah would be a big blow; he'd assured her she could take as long a time as needed before returning, because three months was the standard of decency, even though technically they couldn't really afford it. Even though she was the lead in two of their biggest projects. Even though he was nowhere near finding a remotely capable replacement. Even though he'd have to eat up the hours himself.

"Hello? Earth to Danny, you still there?" Stiles snaps his fingers in front of Danny's face-- rude, Danny thinks-- and shrinks back when Danny just glares, realizing he'd completely missed whatever long-winded and obviously false excuse Stiles might have concocted about how he found himself at Danny's place of business.

Sighing, Danny starts up his car. "I'm giving you twenty minutes to get whatever it is out of your system, and then you can't bother me again, okay? Ever." Before Stiles can protest, Danny shoots him a look. "I mean it, Stiles. This is close to harassment."

Stiles looks like he's about to say something back, but he chews on his lips instead. "Fine," he says finally. "How are you doing financially with Mahealani Software?"

"Sorry, what?"

"How long until you start losing money?"

Danny almost slams on his brakes and tells Stiles to get out. "Little bit of a personal question, don't you think?" he asks, teeth gritted and grip tight on his steering wheel, just as they hit the exit and get on the freeway.

"Three months? Two?" Stiles asks. "Doesn't look like you're shelling money out on the office, which is smart, but it's a personnel-intensive business, isn't it? When's Sarah due?"

"How do you even know that?" Danny's not easy to rile up, but Stiles is getting damn close. "Stiles, I don't--"

"A hundred grand, Danny," Stiles says quietly. "Think that'll give you a little bit of time, tide you over til you get more business in?"

The only reason Danny doesn't drive off the highway despite his shock is because whatever survival instinct he has takes over, keeping his hands on the wheel and his feet on the gas as he processes what Stiles just said. "A hundred fucking grand?" he breathes, eventually.

"You could hire another lead off that for a few months," Stiles says. "Let you put some money in the bank for a rainy day, don't you think? It can come in as an investment or a consulting fee; it's all over the table, I got connec--"

"What the hell have you gotten yourself into?" Danny asks, glancing at Stiles with wide eyes. He'd known Stiles was involved in some sketchy things, the extent of which he'd never bothered to ask, telling him only that he was done with that, can Stiles just please never bring up his juvy record from when he was twelve, god. But he'd never been offered this much before. "Jesus, Stiles, that's--"

"It's fine, we have ways of staying safe. You don't need to know how," Stiles tells him. "But we need you, Danny, or this job doesn't go at all."

"Stiles--"

"A hundred grand. Think about it."

Danny shakes his head. Sarah would kill him if she knew, but they'll manage. They have so far. "I can't. I won't. I-- It's not worth it, Stiles, I'm sorry."

"Danny--"

"Stiles, the answer is final." Danny looks straight ahead, drives up to the corner of a busy intersection, unlocking the doors from where he sits. "You can grab a cab from here."

Stiles says nothing for a long time, like he's trying to figure out what else to say to change Danny's mind, but eventually he sighs and nods. "Fine. Have a good life, Danny."

"You too, Stiles," Danny says, long after Stiles has left. It isn't until he's well on his way home and he happens to glance on the seat Stiles vacated that he realizes Stiles left his business card there.

The fucker just doesn't know how to take no for an answer, does he?

He chucks the business card in his glove compartment and drives home. It's another twenty minutes to get to the other side of town, where his apartment is.

"You were supposed to be back half an hour ago," Ethan says as soon as he opens the door.

"Honey, I'm home," Danny mumbles. "Good to see you too."

"Did you at least get dinner?"

Danny frowns. "Isn't it your turn tonight?"

"They gave me a killer dose at the lab this morning, babe. I'm just very tired, okay?"

Danny bites his lips to keep from talking. Ethan started out as a supe test subject in college, where they'd met when Danny took Supernatural Biochemistry to fulfill his science requirements, but he hadn't expected Ethan to parlay that into a career as a professional guinea pig. Ethan spends his days looking at the paper for ads on new research studies and signing up for them, and while the money was tight when he wasn't on any study, Danny has to admit the pay was generous for all that Ethan had to lie in a bed and be observed hours at a time.

"I guess we can order takeout tonight," Danny sighs, sitting on the couch beside Ethan. They order takeout every other night. He runs his head through the last couple they've gotten: Indian, Mexican, Thai, pseudo-Supe, pizza, Chinese. They don't mean to, but Danny's pretty sure there's a rotation of restaurants they go through. "What did they give you this time? I thought they were doing boosters."

"They still are. But they had me running laps around the track for five hours-- they haven't done that before, but new management, you know, they're really on top of them apparently. Anyway, I'm gonna have to tell them the side effects aren't worth it," Ethan replies, pulling his shirt up to show Danny the little metallic strips taped over his heart, and over his other vital organs. "Not that they wouldn't know by now. Can we get Indian?"

"Chinese would be cheaper," Danny says, running his hands through the bumps where the scientists have injected little chips inside Ethan. "Babe, you know what I think?"

"Your boyfriend looks really sexy with all this equipment on?"

Danny chuckles. "That too. No, I mean-- I talked to Ennis this morning. He says Alpha Security's looking for more supes. I think maybe you should talk to him and think about applying."

"Danny--"

"You've heard about the biter attacks. Sounds like there's more of them lately and people are getting worried," Danny adds. Personally he doesn't know that they're not just speculation-- at least half came from eyewitness accounts and the other half from circumstantial evidence. It's probably one of those anti-supe groups drumming up fear again, but he'll say whatever he can to get Ethan to pick up a real job. "I just think maybe you should consider it. They've got benefits covered, training, vacation days--"

"Did anyone ever tell you how sexy you sound when you talk business like that?" Ethan asks, cutting him off with a hungry kiss to his lips, his hands slipping beneath Danny's shirt to run against his chest, the hint of a sharp nail scraping against his nipple.

Danny groans. He's never been able to say no to Ethan when he was like this. He bares his neck to him, letting Ethan nose his neck; Ethan's fangs run light and dangerously close to his veins, but the growl that comes out of his throat isn't tinged with lust, and the grip on his hips feels almost-- Danny's eyes fly wide open and he backs away, because when Ethan's eyes glow like that he knows something's wrong.

"Who is he?" Ethan growls, his voice layered with the wolf and layered with anger.

"Who--"

"It's a new smell on you, Danny, who the fuck is he?" Ethan roars, and Danny wants to shrink back but Ethan has never hurt him before, and he never will, and it is with this confidence that he digs out the small vial he keeps hanging on a chain around his neck and uncorks it. Just enough for Ethan to get a whiff of the wolfsbane inside.

"Ethan, calm down," Danny says, well used to the hazards of living with a were by now. "It was just a friend. He came by with a business proposal and I dropped him off before coming back here."

Ethan narrows his eyes, but he's back to his human form in a minute. "I don't like him," he declares. "He's got the stink of want all over you."

Danny feels the back of his neck grow warm, but he shakes his head in response. Ethan would have been right about the smell, even though Danny didn't notice anything different with Stiles when he was with him. But then again, it isn't like Stiles wouldn't have had the stink of want around anyone-- Danny knows Stiles just appreciates good-looking people a whole lot, and while Danny likes to think of himself as modest, he also knows he's relatively attractive. "You're just going to have to trust me on this, okay? I told him I wasn't interested in the business, anyway, so this is the last you're going to hear of him."

"Do you promise?" Ethan asks, and he sounds calm enough again that Danny feels it safe to put the stopper back on the vial again. He isn't sure sometimes if Ethan is just naturally that jealous, or if his years being a test subject have affected him some. That scares him more than he'd like to admit.

"I promise," he says, leaning forward to kiss him. "Now can we get some dinner, please?"

It goes downhill from there.

It doesn't start that way-- no, it does, but Danny doesn't realize it until later. It definitely doesn't feel that way, is what he means. The next day, Katherine comes back with the approved maternity policy in place, Sarah tells him that Beacon Hills Library wants to talk about the new system they've been working on, and he fills out the paperwork for a loan.

The day after, Sarah says she only really wants to take two months' leave, because she adores Danny and she loves that he wants to give her time, but in all honesty she thinks she'll go stir crazy. They have a spirited discussion over California wraps and eventually settle on giving Sarah a small project or two in her third month of maternity leave, but she'll have to work from home and she can't clock more than twenty hours a week. Sarah agrees and though Danny tries to come across as stern and concerned for her well-being, inside he's elated and relieved. Twenty hours a week for a month would help a lot and Sarah's one of the best. He returns to his office and there's a promising resume sitting on his desk, with a note from Katherine saying he should look into it for a temp hire.

There are no tests to run for Ethan, so they spend the entire weekend in bed, alternating between sex, ordering food in, and marathoning whatever episodes of The Real Vampires of Orange County is on. Danny's never been as thankful for werewolf stamina as he is that weekend, and Ethan promises to talk to Ennis as soon as the current study ends.

The Monday after is when things take a turn for the worst.

"What do you mean, we're overrun?" Danny wants to know, because fuck's sake he told Kevin to let him know as soon as they were in trouble. "I thought--"

"We've been running on fumes this entire month, Danny," Kevin says. "And that last client never paid up. They're still in collections. We'll have to hire someone to make them pay up because we've tried, believe me, but they're not taking any of our calls."

"I told you they need to pay a deposit before we start any work, are you kidding me?" Danny asks, incensed but not panicking just yet. "Fuck. Okay. We'll track them down, try to get them to pay if we can. We-- I have some money saved, we can cover payroll with that until the loan comes through, okay? Put a hold on company purchases until then." He doesn't really have enough money saved, but he can talk to his parents about it. Maybe.

On Tuesday the Library tells them they're on the last week of the job. Samantha looks sorry, but there's nothing she can do-- her superiors decided they need the software to run compatible with the rest of their public libraries state-wide, now, and Mahealani Software just isn't big enough to cover that and digitalizing their inventory like they want to do.

On Wednesday Danny personally interviews the candidate Katherine recommended. Stephanie is perfect-- clever and smart and everything he needs, but she isn't cheap and she wants a full-time job. He tells her to think on it.

On Thursday she calls to let him know that she received an offer from another company, and she wants to work for Danny so if he wants to counter then she'll consider it. He asks her what she was offered and Danny nearly drops the phone when he hears it-- there's no way they can take that on as well. Can she wait until Monday, he asks, and she tells him she will.

On Friday the bank rejects their loan, and as Danny heads out to the parking lot to grab lunch he contemplates the merits of carpooling with Kevin. His car's a piece of junk, but it'll maybe get him a few thousand dollars still. Maybe. It won't be enough to cover payroll for everyone longer than two more months-- that'll have to come from his parents if it has to, if they let him take out a loan against them-- but he's going to have to forego his own salary and he'll need the money to pay rent on his apartment and maybe the car would get him enough to last a bit. He doesn't even know when the last time his car got looked at; it had fallen to the last of his priorities with the startup and everything involved in trying to get this one thing in his life working again, but he'll need to spruce it up and make sure it's in good condition to get a better price, right?

He opens the glove compartment to find all his paperwork, registration information, insurance, last oil checks, when something falls out and flutters to the ground.

He frowns and picks it up-- it's a plain black textured cardstock, blank on both sides except for a ten-digit number embossed in silver right smack in the middle of one side and block letters printed right above it.

STILINSKI, it says.

Danny doesn't know what to expect-- well, that's a lie. He had an expectation, yes, but he just doesn't think his expectation would match up so closely with the reality of the situation.

They're in an unassuming gray building somewhere in San Francisco, Danny having been picked up earlier that day in Stiles's ratty old Jeep. Stiles had talked Danny's ear off, naturally, in that way he's so excellently skilled at where he manages to talk about everything under the sun but avoids the one thing they should be talking about. As it is, Danny arrives with no less information than he had when he left Beacon Hills.

"Welcome to ground zero," Stiles says, sliding open the heavy, rusted metal door to what looks like Brian Kinney's loft. There's black and gray and cream-colored Mies van der Rohe furniture, hardwood floors and twenty-foot ceilings, exposed pipes and picture glass windows overlooking the bay. Two small work stations of simple charcoal desks, littered with humming servers and mounted monitors, cluster in one corner while a makeshift… gym? fills out a good chunk of the space. There are mats laid down in a large square where two weres were sparring in front of an audience of two, a punching bag is positioned to one side, two of those all-in-one exercise equipment to the other, and at the end of one corner, a board specifically for target practice. It has a gaping hole right in the middle, rimmed in red. Danny guesses whoever used that has never missed. A section of the space is enclosed by reinforced glass walls-- inside, it looks like a fully functioning lab has been set up. In the middle of all this, against the far end of the room from where Danny stands, is a single black desk with the comfiest-looking chair in the world. There's nothing on the desk except a touch-screen monitor. "What do you think?"

The corner of Danny's lips lift into a half-smile. "You're an ass," he tells Stiles. "You've seen my office. What do you think I think?"

Stiles just grins back at him. "Hey," he calls out, clapping his hands to grab everyone else's attention. "We have a visitor, folks. Come say hi to Danny."

"Danny?" one of the weres asks, dropping both hands and ducking just in time to avoid the flying kick the other sparrer had lobbed his way. His face returns to normal and Danny almost has a heart attack.

"Scott?" he asks, heading over to shake his hand.

"We didn't think he'd manage to convince you at all," Scott says, grinning as he takes Danny's hand and shakes it heartily. Danny has to stop from wincing, which is easier said than done. Supe strength is incredible, and he wonders if Scott hasn't figured out yet how to hold back.

"Thanks a lot, Mahealani; now I owe him a hundred bucks," someone says behind him, and when Danny turns, there's Erica Reyes grinning at him too.

"That is no way to welcome him, Reyes," Lydia says, pushing past her and Isaac Lahey and giving him a smirk. Her hair's in a severe bun and she's wearing black horn-rimmed glasses and business formal, which is why Danny didn't recognize her earlier when her back was turned to him, but her lips are bright red and she still looks like the bombshell she'd been in high school.

"Holy shit-- Lydia!" Danny says, and he laughs as she comes up to give him a warm hug. "Jesus, Stiles, you didn't tell me this was going to be a fucking reunion."

"Why do you think we wanted you so much?" Stiles asks.

"I dunno," Danny says with a shrug. "Didn't you start doing this at Berkeley?"

"I did, but I didn't trust anybody there," Stiles says. "Only thing we've struggled for is someone like you."

"At one point, we had Greenberg," Isaac supplies. "Tells you how bad it was."

Danny laughs. "Okay, that's-- yeah." He glances around. "So what's the deal here?"

"Lydia's our strategist," Stiles explains. "She comes up with a plan--"

"Stiles and I come up with a plan," Lydia corrects him, the slight half-smile on her face a little new considering the Lydia that Danny knew in high school.

"Sometimes I try to do your magic to help out," Stiles says, "but I'm nowhere near what you can do. The rest of the team carry it out. Scott's our best decoy-- no one ever suspects him of anything--"

"Except my mother."

"--Except his mother. Erica and Isaac are our heavy lifters. Vernon's our eyes on the inside."

"The best part is this is all legitimate," Lydia pipes up, knowing Danny well enough to know what his next question would have been. "We're incorporated as SM Consulting-- Stilinski and Martin."

"Yeah, we get W2s and have to file our damn taxes every year," Erica grumbles.

"So we'll be officially getting you on as a software consultant, and you don't need to worry about figuring out where to say your money came from." Stiles beams. "All above-board."

"Mostly," Danny corrects him. He looks around the office-- they've definitely done well for themselves, and if this thing started in college, then they know what they're doing. "What's the lab for?"

"I get bored between projects," Lydia explains with a serene smile, tapping her temple with a finger. "Gotta keep the brain working."

"Right." Danny turns to Stiles. "So what am I getting hired for, exactly?"

"You don't waste any time, do you?"

"I took a half day from work and it'll still be a few hours before I get back home," he says. "What are we looking at, really?"

"Fair enough," Stiles says, nodding at everyone else. Erica, Scott, and Isaac resume sparring while Lydia heads off to one of the work stations. Stiles signals for Danny to follow him to the center desk, pulling up a chair along the way and gesturing for Danny to take a seat. He presses his fingers to the touch screen, which springs to life as soon as Stiles slides his fingers across in an intricate pattern that can only be a password.

"They can cut my finger off to get the biometrics right but they'll still need to know the code to break in," Stiles confides proudly.

"That's creepy," is what Danny tells him.

"To-may-toe, to-mah-toe," Stiles murmurs, pulling up a file and drumming his fingers on the desk until it loads. It's a Powerpoint presentation, because of course it fucking is, and the logo for Argent Industries flashes on the screen. "How much have you been keeping up with the news lately?"

"Some here, some there," Danny says. "But I know they entered pharmaceuticals recently." They just bought the research company that funds Ethan's professional career as a lab rat, he almost adds, but that seems a little too personal to share on his first day at work.

"Odd track for a security company to take, don't you think?"

"Everyone's diversifying these days, aren't they?"

"They could be, but our client wants to know what they're up to," Stiles says, and the company logo dissolves to make way for an org chart, with a few key members highlighted. "They haven't released many details about the acquisition, but word is they're having Victoria Argent herself head up the new division." The next slide is an image of a large, flat campus nestled somewhere in what looks like the heart of Silicon Valley. "Argent Health is setting up shop here. We need to get in and get out with the information our client needs. The good news is they built it from the ground up and Jackson's father was the lead architect on it. Lydia already got the plans from him-- if we need to physically get in and out, consider it done. The bad news is we've tried breaking into Argent territory before, and Danny, their network is nowhere near anything I've ever seen before. We've only had to back out of a contract once and it was one taken out against the Argents."

Danny's heard that about the Argent infrastructure, actually. It's the stuff of legend back at MIT. They give software engineers a full year of paid training after they're hired, and the idea of mastering the system fast enough to hack it gives Danny a sort of weird, unsettling feeling at the pit of his stomach, but he'd be lying if he didn't admit the idea was just as exciting. "Why didn't you just back out of this one then?"

"We would have if we hadn't gotten you." Stiles grins. "And our client was insistent."

"Your client," Danny repeats. "Do we know who it is?"

"Castle Services," Stiles says, shutting down the presentation and pulling up an email from one of his other folders. "Incorporated this year in the Cayman Islands."

"So we don't know who it is. May I?" Danny asks, and Stiles lets him click around until he pulls up the sending IP address from the email. "Clever."

"It's standard practice by now," Stiles says. "We wouldn't take clients on if they were stupid enough not to cover their tracks."

"And how do we know for sure it isn't entrapment?"

Stiles smiles, and Danny wonders if it's too early to want to punch the smug look on his face. He leans over Danny's shoulder and pulls up a file. It's a national network map, lit up in places where cellular activity seems to be active. "We give them points for effort in trying to cover their tracks, but we aren't that careless either about covering our own asses. They send us text messages from time to time," he says, keying in a few codes that let the file zoom in to the Bay Area. "The number they're using is registered to one of those prepaid services, but the number they're texting goes to this program here and forwards to my phone. It lets us tap onto the network and track where the messages are sent from, so we can triangulate a general approximation of their location."

"What's in that area?" Danny asks, the screen zooming close around a mile-radius of San Francisco's financial district.

"A couple of offices, but our best bet is Winchester & Winchester." Stiles points to the northeast spot of an intersection within the area. "They have a satellite office for customer support here."

Danny nods. It makes the most sense too, out of the number of companies who would stand to profit from it. Too much sense, almost, but W&W are the Argents' biggest rival in the market of providing human security in a supernatural world. "Alright," he says. "Where do we start?"

Stiles gives him an advance-- fifteen grand, holy fuck-- and he acts like he doesn't notice the look Danny gives him.

"Don't tell me I never do you any favors," is all he says, patting him on the arm and then telling him to wait for his call.

It arrives as he's driving out to lunch the next Tuesday, and after talking with Sarah about covering for his afternoon meetings and receiving Stephanie's acceptance of his offer-- he gives her some vague excuse about a potential new client-- he shows up in the San Francisco office fresh and ready to do some hacking magic.

Instead he comes face to face with monitors surveying the outside of Argent Industries.

"That's as far as we got," Stiles admits, gesturing Danny over to his side of the office. The second seat he'd pulled up last time Danny visited is still there, so Danny takes it and rolls forward, watching Stiles type in an address that opens up what looks like the Argent Industries intranet. He turns to Danny with the look of a proud child looking for approval.

"You found their portal," Danny deadpans.

"Can you get us in?"

Danny licks his lips, pretends he doesn't see the way Stiles's gaze dart quickly down for a heartbeat of a second. He cocks his head and gets Stiles to move over, cracking his knuckles and pulling up the source page. He reads for a few seconds, eyes skimming the familiar code to find what he's looking for. "You think it's just a username and password, don't you?"

"It says username and password right there," Stiles tells him. "Isn't it?"

"And how would I find a username and password to break through their security?"

Stiles makes a half-flailing, half-shrugging motion with the entirety of his body. "I mean-- shouldn't you know? Don't you have some sort of thing you can plug in and it'll decode the password we need? Username admin, that's bound to be common, yeah?"

Danny just rolls his eyes. "You could buy one of those easy, if you know where to look," he says. "The Argent system's going to need to be a little more sophisticated than that if no one's managed to get inside so far, don't you think?"

"Okay, so they've hired supergeniuses in there," Stiles concedes. "You're not telling me you don't know how to break in now, though, are you?"

"Of course not." Danny scoffs. "I haven't even seen it yet. I talked to a couple of my friends from college-- Argent operates their own network. Their own protocols, their own servers-- they only have access if they're within the network, and they can only get within the network if they're in Argent. That's your security for you-- everything's in-house. It's not standard by any means, but that's how they lock things down. They've even created their own operating system to work off of, which means every employee's computer must be working off the same OS."

"Following so far."

"This portal that you found? I have no idea how it'll talk to what they have. My hunch is the reason they need a year-long training program for their new recruits is that none of the software they use can actually talk to anything outside of their network. I wouldn't be surprised if all this did was fish IP addresses, figure out who's interested."

"Are you serious?"

"Almost positive. We'll need an employee computer to make sure. That, or a bug to tap into the system from the inside, but if that's the case, there's no guarantee we'll be able to read what they say either. I'm guessing whatever system they're using, it encrypts information out and there's no other way to read it unless you're working from Argent tech. It's fucking brilliant, is what it is, and probably incredibly expensive as well, but they must have things worth keeping to go through the trouble, you know?"

"So what you're saying is we need a computer," Stiles says. It's only one of the things Danny told him, but it happens to be the crux of it, so he just nods.

"Just for starters, to see how it operates, yeah. But if we want to access their network, we'll have to stay within the general area to really do the work. Is that possible?"

Stiles's brow is furrowed deep in thought, and he's chewing on his lip like he used to when he was trying to concentrate really hard.

"We can't have a computer go missing or we risk getting our cover blown," Danny says, because he's trying to help. By stating the obvious. Stiles just nods and hums, though at least there's no sarcasm lobbed his way.

"We'll figure this out," he tells Danny, glancing up at him and grinning sheepishly. "But it looks like I called you up here for nothing."

Danny shrugs. "If you don't care, I can just finish off my work from here and drive back home. It's no big deal."

"I don't mind," Stiles says. "Erica and Isaac are doing recon anyway, Vernon's at Argent, Lydia's lecturing at UCSF, and Scott's not going to get back until later."

"Another job?"

"Coffee date with his mother."

"Oh, that makes sense. Mind if I snag one of those tables?" he asks, nodding toward the workstations.

"Lydia's protective of those; I wouldn't touch them just yet," Stiles tells him, scooting over so Danny's got most of the surface of his desk to work with. "You can work here."

"What about--"

"I only answer calls and do a little planning," Stiles says with a grin. He points at the wall on the east side of the building, where what looks like a layered blueprint of Argent Health is tacked to a corkboard. "There's coffee and coke in the kitchenette, some protein bars if you need any of those too-- holler if you need anything."

"I will," Danny says, pulling up his laptop and powering it up as Stiles heads over to the blueprint, ball of red string on hand.

It's half-past five when Danny hears Stiles rooting around the mini-fridge, the sound of clanging bottles and ice filling the surprising quiet that had filled the air between them since they started working.

"Figured it was time for a Makers Mark break," Stiles says, holding up a bottle of the whisky and bringing two glasses over to the table.

"No, it's okay, I should be heading out soon." If Danny's lucky he'll be home in time for dinner-- though he doubts Ethan's going to like how late his idea of dinner might be. "And I'll be driving, so."

"One drink," Stiles bargains. "Or a coke. Either way you're not getting home with the rush hour. Might as well stay here the extra half hour. You'll still be home at the same time than if you took off now."

Danny opens his mouth to protest but Stiles beats him to it.

"Trust me. You do not want your car out in that traffic."

Danny figures what the hell, so he fires up a quick text message to Ethan. Gonna be home late. Sorry. He tucks the phone in his back pocket and takes the glass from Stiles.

"On the rocks, just like you like it."

"How did you--"

"Remember when we ran into Jungle that Thanksgiving?" Stiles asks. "You were at the bar nursing the drink--"

Danny cringes at the memory. "Nursing a break-up."

Stiles makes a disapproving sound, settling in beside him and takes a drink of his own. "Who was the asshole?"

"Ethan, actually," he says with a half-smile. At Stiles's curious look, he clarifies. "My boyfriend."

Stiles's eyebrow goes up a notch, but then he nods. "Of course."

"You look like you don't check Facebook," Danny teases him. He's sure he's got Stiles on there somewhere. Doesn't he?

"I don't, actually," Stiles admits. "I kind of just keep track of people the old-fashioned way."

"Physically stalking them?"

Stiles laughs. "Worked, didn't it?" he asks, flashing Danny a bright smile that has Danny desperate for a more sobering subject.

"So, Scott," he says, swallowing the last of his drink. "And Erica and Isaac too. When did they--"

It does the trick, so much that Danny almost regrets asking. Stiles's face darkens all at once, his jaw sets and Danny sees the white in his knuckles from gripping onto his glass a little too tightly. "Vernon's one too," he says.

"All at once?"

Stiles shakes his head. "There was a-- Scott was the first one," he says. "He was working late at Deaton's one night. I was supposed to pick him up but my Jeep broke down. He said it was fine. That he'd walk home himself."

"A biter?" Danny asks.

"They never found out who," Stiles says. "We were lucky it was an alpha, I guess, but he nearly didn't take to it, you know."

"Hey." Danny's hand finds its way to Stiles's knee. It's a gesture of comfort and Stiles, who looks like he's about to start crying, gives him a grateful look. "He's okay now. The others, were they--"

"Not quite," Stiles says, shaking his head. "One of the Hales came to town-- not Talia, just one of her sons. Derek?"

"Yeah?"

"Started offering the bite to anyone who wanted it. Claimed he'd get anyone who took him up on the offer into the Hale pack. It was at a party-- Scott tried to stop it, but the three of them had already been bit." Stiles takes Danny's empty glass away. "Let me top that off for you."

"He couldn't have, though, could he?" Danny frowns, watching Stiles focus extremely hard on keeping his anger in check and thinking, not once has he seen Stiles this restrained. "Talia was the alpha."

"He was on A at the time," Stiles says. "My dad says there's a huge ring operating close to Beacon Hills. The fucker wanted to test it out, I guess. Gave the three of them the bite before Scott could tell them only real alpha bites could get them into a pack."

"So they turned into omegas?" Were biters are rarely Turners, so the bitten often died; omegas are rare because an alpha usually bites with the intent to grow the pack. Any vamp can Turn, but covens are strict about who is Turned, and then there's that line between consent and being mesmerized-- a headache Congress is still trying to define. The world's taken some strides since the Hale pack revealed themselves nearly fifty years ago, but it's still got a ways to go. As Ethan likes griping about, Why does the world care about Louis and Lestat's latest lover's spat but not even consider legislation for making buildings more vamp-accessible during the day?

"The bite nearly killed all three of them too." Stiles's fingers brush against his briefly, when he hands Danny his drink. Danny takes a huge gulp of the whisky.

"Thanks," he mumbles, letting Stiles continue his story.

"Scott brought them to Deaton, helped them through it. They've been close since," Stiles says with a soft smile. "It's kind of like their own little pack, you know?"

"What happened to Derek?" Danny doesn't remember any news of that party coming out of Beacon Hills.

"They brought a class action lawsuit against them, but they never even got to court. The Hale pack claimed the whole thing was voluntary-- they were going to argue they had been misled, but the Reyes, Lahey, and Boyd families agreed to settle. Derek's record remains clean as a fucking whistle. I remember meeting one of them-- I was at Scott's, because he'd been telling them to fight it, you know? So Peter Hale came over to talk to him."

"To ask him to stop?"

"Something like that, I guess. The man-- look, I hear what they say about Talia Hale, even Laura. But the men in that pack are something else. Peter Hale looked at Scott like he was--" Stiles shakes his head. "I don't even know."

"I'm sorry."

"Dude, you had nothing to do with it, so don't be," Stiles says. "Besides, they've all done pretty well for themselves, so you know, things happen for a reason."

"I guess so."

"Still wouldn't mind giving it to the Hales though." Stiles grins at Danny, and just like that, he's back to the Stiles that Danny is used to seeing. "Hey, traffic should be up by now. Want me to drive you home?"

"Stiles, I'm not gonna leave my car--"

"I'll drive your car. You've been drinking, and I stopped with my first glass half an hour ago."

"What about--"

"You still live close to your old place?"

"Hell no, moved out as soon as I could. I'm by Elm Grove now."

"So you're even closer to my dad's, yeah? I'll walk over to his and stay the night; I was going to check anyway, make sure his fridge is stocked up with veggies and heart-healthy things. He'll hate it, but we both know it's for his own good. We can drive back here tomorrow. Hell, we can even use the carpool lane!"

Well, there's no arguing with that logic. With a sigh, Danny sets the glass down and gets to his feet. "Sure, why not."

As it turns out, the answer is because Ethan is a supremely jealous boyfriend. He jumps Danny almost as soon as he steps into their unit, teeth bared and the wolf fully on display.

"You told me that was the last time you'd see him," he growls, pressed up in Danny's space in an unpleasant way. "I can smell him all over you."

"Will you cut it out?" Danny snaps. Lord knows nothing turns him on faster than when Ethan plays feral, but they've talked about threatening behavior and Ethan knows it's not okay. "Not much I could have done with the company going the way it was. I had no choice, okay?"

"You didn't think I deserved to know? I told you I didn't like him."

Danny shifts uncomfortably. Ethan's sense of smell can be uncannily accurate, and that had been at the back of his mind too, but Danny also likes to think he knows when he's being hit on and Stiles hasn't done anything close to that. Not that Danny would have entertained it. He isn't an asshole like a few of his exes had been.

"The issue here is that you don't trust me not to fuck around. He's an old friend and I actually honest to God need his help," he says, his annoyance growing by the second. That afternoon's one of the bright spots of his shitty week and he can't help feeling defensive. "It's bad enough you've had Ennis' number for the past week and haven't called him-- and I asked-- but if it were just the two of us then fine, let's subsist on ramen and move back into the shitty studio I had right out of college. But in case you haven't noticed-- and let's not make any pretensions here because you have been about as interested in my work as you are in finding an actual job like a real fucking adult-- I have more than a few other human beings depending on me for their livelihood too. So I'm sorry if I refuse to let something like an old high school crush get in the way of clearing paychecks for the next month."

Ethan's back to human form and there's something unusual in his expression. Danny doesn't realize he's been yelling or that his pulse is racing, but when he stops the silence feels heavier, more suffocating, than Ethan's wolf form had been.

"Is that what you think?" Ethan asks, and Danny tries to quell the pang in his gut.

"Ethan, I didn't mean--"

"Don't bother," Ethan says, turning around and heading for the door. "I'm going to Aiden's."

He doesn't say 'for the night', and he doesn't tell Danny when he's coming back. If he's coming back.

Danny can't find the words to ask.

"What's the matter with you?" The way Stiles asks, Danny almost misses it. One minute he's giving Scott some last-minute instructions, telling him not to fiddle with his earpiece too much and for the love of god will he please stop blinking because they can't get any of the visuals steady, and the next minute he's muting the mic, popping open a bag of chips, and swiveling in his chair to face Danny.

They're sitting in a hollowed out van full of monitors and equipment that's the stuff of spy thriller movies-- Stiles calls it their Mystery Machine with absolutely no hint of irony whatsoever and Danny suspects that if it didn't defeat the purpose of a surveillance van, it would have been painted in psychedelic green and purple too. It's broad daylight and they're parked a half mile from Argent Health, the furthest they can go.

"Shouldn't we be keeping an eye on Scott?" Danny asks. The camera's a little jumpy, but he can see that Scott's been brought up to sit in someone's office. He's looking around a little too much-- wide, sweeping scans of the interior of Argent Health, which no doubt Stiles is recording in case the information comes in handy-- but his cover is as a job candidate, so Danny hopes that doesn't ping anyone's attention overly much. Vernon's helpful on the inside, but he's the ace in their sleeve; the more he lays low, the better for them. As it stands, they only still have vague ideas for switching out an Argent laptop and replacing it with a fake one, and they're moving too slow. The client's getting antsy, judging from how often Stiles exchanges texts with him.

The interview process takes course over multiple meetings, though, which is perfect for helping them get the lay of the land. Stiles and Danny are both there to coach Scott through the process-- Lord knows he's smart as they come, but Stiles has a Masters in Bullshittery and Danny the technical knowledge to pull Scott through to the next round.

"Scott? Scott will be fine for a few more minutes," Stiles says. His phone beeps with the tone of a received text message and he grumbles, but he picks it up and replies. "For fuck's sake, he wants another update. What's going on with you?"

Danny's about to deny anything is going on when Stiles gives him a look, so instead he shifts in his seat, tries to deflect. "What do we do if Scott doesn't make it past this round?"

"Leave the back-up plans to me," Stiles tells him. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Danny just scowls. He's helping Stiles out, and yeah, he likes hanging out with old classmates, but his personal life is-- they are not those friends. And even if they were, this is not the place to talk about how Ethan still hasn't returned, how Aiden wouldn't tell him where he was. How this small, hateful, repugnant part of him is actually relieved, and how his thoughts have revolved between weighing how guilty he should be, how sad he should be, and how guilty and sad he actually is.

"I'm fine." He isn't. He's a terrible person. He's selfish and self-centered and he shouldn't be okay with how abruptly he's gone from attached to single, but he can't stop wondering if maybe it's too soon to send Aiden what's left of Ethan's things from their apartment. From his apartment, now.

God, when did he turn into the jerk he always dated?

"Right, that's exactly how fine people act," Stiles says, shrugging. Danny doesn't know if he plans to say more, because the screen jolts with Scott standing up to greet his interviewer, and Stiles immediately leans over to press the mute button. "Scott, say 'pleasure to meet you' if you can hear us."

Scott's confirmation comes through the speakers, somewhat muffled and breaking at points, but relatively clear.

"Oh, shit."

"What?" Danny asks, shooting Stiles a worried look.

Stiles is whispering instructions in Scott's ear before he can tell Danny anything. "Scott, that's Allison Argent. Be extra careful." He puts his finger on mute again and looks at Danny. "She heads up the ammunitions testing program. I didn't know she'd be involved this early, or in this division at all."

"I'm not sure why that's a problem." Danny's keeping an eye on the screen, vaguely listening to the conversation in case he needs to jump in to help. Allison's smile is bright and genuinely sweet; she looks nothing like Danny imagines Argents would look like. He'd seen Chris Argent on the Argent Industries commercials; once they were even on the SupeBowl-- football with the SFL was seriously something else. Chris Argent looked every bit the hunter; rough and serious and a quick draw, as befits the hunter's blood that runs through his family line. Allison, meanwhile, looks like the brunette version of Ivanka Trump, the heiress of a business empire built on the Argent legacy, the one that had to evolve when supes became public knowledge and support for supe interests overshadowed fear for what they can do.

Obviously they haven't done too badly. Even when he lived with a were-- he cringes at how easily thinking of it in the past tense came to him-- Danny bought his wolfsbane from an Argent retail shop, and his apartment was installed with the latest in Argent Security Systems.

"It isn't, not yet," Stiles says. "Just need to be careful, that's all."

"Doesn't look like Scott's doing too bad," Danny whispers. Allison's smiling as she explains how they haven't yet hired an equivalent for her position within Argent Health, but they'd be looking for a base set of skills and that's what the initial interview is for. She even tucks her hair behind her ears and laughs when Scott fumbles over one of the things they rehearsed.

"I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous," Scott explains over the speakers. It's off-script, but Stiles just shrugs.

"He's good at improv," is all he tells Danny, the corner of his lips lifting into a smirk. "More authentic that way. Besides, it's charming the Argent."

It is. She's returned to business formal, but the ghost of a smile plays on her face regardless, even as she asks Scott about his work at Sunnydale Pharma and his experience in running research tests there.

"It says here you're a supernatural, Mr. McCall," Allison says, reviewing his file.

"A were, yeah. Omega."

Allison pauses mid-shuffle, and Danny doesn't blame her. He's actually surprised Scott volunteers the information. There are a lot of awkward questions around being bitten, none of them really apt for the corporate setting. Most weres don't have a pack, ultimately, because they would have been cast out or rejected by an alpha. Rare was the were who chooses not to seek out a pack-- even Ethan had tried, at one point or another. Though legally no hiring decision can be made based on that alone, human-run companies prefer hiring weres who came from a pack; it lowers insurance rates for everyone, knowing the were in question would have had training and support to control their baser urges. It doesn't help that all incarcerated biters were omegas, either.

"I see," she finally settles on, just as Stiles gives a low whistle.

"Now she's going to have to ask him back for a second interview," he tells Danny. "Whether or not he's suitable to the job, it'll look bad if they cut him after this one. They'll have to prove they gave him all the chances in the world to earn the job before rejecting him on reasons other than that."

"Guess that makes sense."

There are more job-related questions after that, things that sometimes Stiles helps answer, sometimes Danny chimes in with, but for the most part Scott shows a good grasp of what's being asked of him. Stiles must have caught the look on his face because he leans in, finger over the mute button, and whispers in Danny's ear. "He picks up on a lot pretty quickly, our Scott."

Danny shakes off the creeping flush up his neck with a hollow laugh. "Right," he says, just as the interview ends. Allison asks Scott if he has any more questions and seems to buy his gushing fanboying of the company, so she sends him over to an office admin for a tour of the place.

"Perfect," Stiles says, pulling up the blueprints and following along with the walkthrough. Danny watches him mark down spots where he sees surveillance cameras positioned.

"What if you miss one?" he asks, not to mention they can't possibly cover the whole building.

"There'd be enough to find a pattern," Stiles explains. "All we need is a piece of it to solve the rest."

Danny chuckles. "Since when were you so smart?" he asks.

Stiles gives him a guileless grin. "I was always smart." Danny believes that too, and he wouldn't have gotten where he was if he hadn't been. Scott taps back into the comm when the tour ends and he's heading back to the van.

"Bugs are in, Stiles," he says.

Danny raises an eyebrow. "Bugs?"

Stiles's smile goes back to smug. "You wouldn't have seen it, since we were looking at things from Scott's perspective, but we needed more than temporary eyes in that building."

The bugs Scott planted are Stiles-designed, Lydia-developed, and altogether heaven-sent. Through the next few days they manage to pull in consistent patterns of operation within Argent Health, including a regular drop of IT repairs on Thursday afternoons. Vernon confirms as much: every Thursday around four pm, malfunctioning electronics are picked up at Loading Dock 4 and sent to Argent Industries' IT facilities a mile down the road.

"They'll have a log of what gets sent out," Vernon explains, "but they won't expect those to return for another week."

"Think we can crack their system in a week?" Stiles asks. He's still on the phone, but he's looking at Danny.

"Sure," Danny lies. He has no idea until he sees it, but this is what he's getting paid for, and he'll figure it out if it kills him.

Scott is called in for a second interview, which is perfect even though it's clear he's not going through to the next round, because at the end of it he maybe-not-entirely-accidentally spills coffee on Allison's keyboard when he reaches over to shake her hand and thank her for her time.

"Oh my god, I am so sorry!" Scott says with all sincerity, dabbing at the computer with his own handkerchief. Allison looks irritated, but she assures him it's fine. She buzzes her assistant in to send the laptop down to repairs and get a replacement. Stiles gives Danny a high five and Scott asks Allison out to dinner, to apologize.

"I mean, since I'm pretty sure otherwise this is the last time I'll be seeing you…" Scott says sheepishly.

"Is he allowed to do that?" Danny asks.

Stiles speaks into the mic. "Hey, buddy, no need to go the extra mile--"

Even Allison looks surprised, but then she smiles and they set a date. A friendly one, she's sure to clarify. Danny watches as Stiles purses his lips. "Yeah, he's definitely not supposed to do that."

"Is he going to be okay? I mean, what if he lets it slip--"

"He won't," Stiles says, but there's a pause before he speaks again. "Scott's a big boy. He can take care of himself. I'm sure he's just trying to get more intel out of the Argents."

Danny's not sure that's what Scott is doing anymore, exactly, but he doesn't say anything.

On Thursday, Erica and Isaac get to work. There's a mile of highway in between the loading dock and the repair facilities and just a short window of time to do anything, but a well-placed tack and a blown-out tire later, Isaac's pulling up beside the van in a rusty pick-up truck, contact lens camera and mic in place.

"Looks like you need help there, buddy," he drawls.

"I'm fine, thanks," the driver says gruffly. "Got a spare tire in the back, buddy."

"Yeah, tools too?" Isaac asks. "Suit yourself, serves me right for tryin' to be a good Samaritan."

Isaac heads back to his truck and starts the engine, but before he can pull out completely the driver's jogging back up to him, shaking his head.

"Changed your mind?"

"The most bizarre thing," the driver starts off saying. "I could have sworn I got everything, but now I can't find the damn lug wrench."

Isaac sighs, but he moves back out of his truck. "Let's have a look then, yeah?"

"Erica," Stiles whispers, as soon as both Isaac and the driver make their way back to the truck. "Right side."

"Roger that, boss-man," Erica murmurs. From their view, Danny catches a glimpse of the missing wrench in her hand as Erica makes her way to, presumably, the right side of the van.

On the other screen, and the other side, Isaac's feed is showing the driver kneeling down to look at the blown tire and cursing up a storm.

"What was it, some broken bottle or something?" Isaac asks.

"Who the fuck knows, man," the driver mutters. The spare tire is lying on its side, and Isaac drags his feet picking it up.

Stiles presses the comm button once more. "Erica."

"On it."

Danny doesn't know exactly what she's doing-- he can only see what she sees: the side of the van, the backdoor getting jimmied open, the laptops, all labeled and marked and packed.

"Which one's hers?" Erica asks.

"There should be a log by the driver's seat. It'll have it tagged and listed there."

Erica picks up the log, no problem. She takes out a pen from somewhere in her back pocket, contemplates the list for a moment, and then scratches a line through Allison's laptop. That's not going to fly, Danny thinks, but Erica writes a note beside it, in handwriting exactly the same as the one on the rest of the log.

"She used to skip class that way; her mother never knew," Stiles says, something that sounds like awe in his voice. "Then she started charging the other kids to make them notes too."

"I never knew that."

"Did you ever try to play hooky?"

Danny smirks. "Didn't need my mother's signature for that."

"This isn't working," the driver is saying, having grown impatient with Isaac's futile fiddling. "Let me go check the back again, see if I can find something to help."

Stiles swears under his breath. "Erica, move."

"Hang on, I think I've got it," Isaac says, just barely keeping the desperation out of his voice as the driver walks away. Danny watches, chest constricted, as Erica ducks into the passenger side, curling into fetal position in front of the seat. The van doors open a millisecond later, and the driver ambles through.

"Fucking hell," he says.

Isaac's voice shakes a little, but he poses the question as casually as he could. "What is it?"

"I found the stupid thing." The driver pops out of the car and holds the lug wrench up for Isaac to see. "It was lying on the floor just behind the passenger seat. I don't know how the hell it got all the way there, but here, we'll probably have better luck with this."

Danny lets out a breath he doesn't know he's been holding. He turns to see Stiles's fists loosen as well, and they share a nervous, awkward laugh.

Erica slips out of the van as easily as she comes in after that, laptop in tow and log modified, and in the next minute she's in the back of Isaac's pick-up. The driver doesn't even know she's there.

"Isaac, we're clear."

The tire gets easily replaced after that, and the driver shakes Isaac's hand before they're both on their merry way.

Stiles and Danny meet them a few minutes later. Erica's demanding drinks for the trauma and Isaac's ignoring her, examining the laptop they just stole before handing it over to Danny.

"It's all you now, Mahealani."

Danny forgets what sleep feels like. Or even what his apartment looks like. He takes Friday off from Mahealani Software, and his first day with an Argent Industries-issued laptop consists primarily of figuring out how to make it run. The second day, it's fixing the damage Scott's spilled coffee did, a prospect that sounds daunting enough until you remember that all the parts are made in-house.

"I already spent the fifteen grand you gave me," Danny warns Stiles, tapping out a hasty response to Sarah's worried email. Just make sure nothing blows up. Working on big client. The next email that pops up is from Ethan. All it says is We need to talk. so Danny archives that without opening it. He's already sent Ethan's things over to Aiden's, and he didn't keep anything with him. There's nothing to talk about. The laptop is split open before him. "This is way beyond what I thought we'd be doing, Stiles. I can't do this."

Stiles's hand on his shoulder is sudden, casual. Danny doesn't shake it off, but it puts him on edge until Stiles squeezes once, leaning closer to take a look. "What seems to be the problem?"

"The problem is you asked me to work on coding, not hardware," Danny says. "This looks-- they don't even have screws that look like normal screws!"

"I know, I know, don't worry." Stiles picks up one of the frizzled pieces of equipment, turning it this way and that to examine it. "What can you tell me about the hardware though?"

Danny's never been well-versed in that area, but he has a rudimentary knowledge of it. "I think the motherboard's fine," he says, pointing to the section he thinks holds the actual program that the laptop runs off on. "I think it's the display that's fucked up. The thing you're holding, I'm guessing?"

Stiles grabs his phone, taking a picture of the ruined material. He uploads it to a search and his screen is filled with similar-looking parts. "Now that we have a name for it," he says, keying in a few more search terms, "we can find out how to fix it."

"This is what you do?" Danny asks. "Google how to fix equipment?"

"Don't knock it til you've tried it." Stiles grins at him, then leans over Danny's shoulder to pull his monitor closer. The search is synced there too, and he picks out a couple of pages to open. "You'll be surprised at the amount of shit people know."

"Unbelievable," Danny mutters with a shake of his head, but it's the only option they have so he goes along with it.

By early Sunday morning they have a fully functioning laptop from Argent Industries.

"Think you can crack their code?" It isn't a question, coming from Stiles. It's a challenge.

"If you can cobble it together using silly string and Google, I can crack their code."

"Just call me MacGyver."

"No."

Stiles just grins, that infectious, goofy smile. He leaves Danny alone to take a nap after Danny foregoes one for himself and picks up another pot of coffee from the kitchen sink instead.

No programming code really exists within a vacuum. No language is ever completely unlearnable. There are some things that stay universal, some fundamental ideas that cannot be changed. Danny parses out the code as best as he can, notating oddities and marking down idiosyncrasies when he runs into them. By noon, when Stiles finally wakes up and ambles over to ask him if he'd like something to eat, Danny has a working schematic of the basic commands.

"Knew you were amazing," Stiles mumbles, a sleepy smile lining his face. "Seriously, though, go take a nap or something and make sure you eat and pee and don't get stuck here, okay? I think you've earned a break."

Danny doesn't think he's earned anything yet, but he agrees to breakfast and a nap as soon as he finds a way into the network.

"We can't tap into theirs; we're too far away, remember?" Stiles reminds him. "This'll really have to wait until tomorrow."

Defeated, Danny sighs and stretches in his seat. He hears the satisfying pop! his back makes and rubs his eyes before smiling at Stiles. "Until I have an intermediate understanding of the code, then. But okay, I'll go find food with you. But it better not be shitty McDonald's."

Stiles laughs as Danny falls into step beside him. "Who do you take me for? Danny, buddy, for you the sky's the limit. How's In-N-Out sound?"

Danny still spends a majority of Sunday learning the code. Sarah sends him another email, and Danny wishes he can tell her more than he feels comfortable with, at least to ease her mind. Having an AWOL boss while you're seven and a half months pregnant is really no way to spend your last trimester. She calls him sometime around five, and Stiles gestures toward one of Lydia's workstations so he can have a little bit of privacy.

"I'm okay, Sarah, I promise," is the first sentence out of his mouth.

"Yeah, you know what, I'm having a really hard time believing that." He can hear the restraint in her tone. "What's going on, Danny? You've been taking afternoons off, missing full days entirely-- God knows you can do whatever you want, but this isn't like you."

"I told you, I'm working on a client."

"Even bigger than the ones we have right now?" Sarah challenges. "How big, Danny? Is it worth it?"

"Yes. I promise, it is."

"Danny--"

"Look, I haven't been neglecting our current clients, okay? How's Stephanie doing?"

"She's struggling, Danny. She does great work but she's new and none of us have the time to train her. We kind of need you."

Danny sighs, rubbing his temple as he takes in slow breaths. "Okay," he says. "This thing I'm working on-- Sarah, it's kind of hands-on. I'm gonna need you to hold the fort another week or two, tops, okay?"

"Two weeks?"

"I know, and I'll owe you big, I just-- Sarah?"

He can hear the hitch of breath on the other line. "I promised I wouldn't bring it up, but you're worrying me. Danny-- is this about Ethan?"

"What?"

"He came by the office last Friday. Asked if he could talk to you." Sarah sighs again. "I didn't even know you two broke up. He's upset, Danny, and he doesn't look too good. I think whatever it is--"

"It's not related to this," Danny says. If he comes off cold, he doesn't mean it. "Sarah, I promise. Ethan and I--"

"You don't just throw years of your life away like that," Sarah tells him. "You don't just stop coming in to work and tell me everything's fine."

Danny finishes what she leaves unsaid. "But I have and I am." He sighs, looking heavenward for the answer. It isn't there, and when his head drops forward he catches Stiles's eye and the small nod he gives him. "I'm working with SM Consulting," he says, having received Stiles's permission. "Software consultant. They're collaborating with a multinational and the payout will be enough to get us comfortable for the next three months. Whatever it is with Ethan is-- that's separate. It's different. I'll deal with it when I can, but you guys come first, okay?"

Sarah doesn't say anything for a really long time, enough that it worries Danny. "Sarah?"

When the other line finally comes through, it isn't Sarah's voice he hears. He doesn't think it's possible but it honest to god feels like the air whooshes out of his lungs in one painful exhale. "They've always come first, Danny," Ethan says.

"Fuck, Ethan--"

"Danny? Danny, he's gone. I-- I am so sorry, I thought I was going to-- I thought I could help--"

"It isn't your fault," Danny says, lips dry and stomach hollow. "I can say I wish I could take it back but I meant it, didn't I?"

"Danny--"

"I'll call you next time I'm available."

He hangs up before Sarah can say anything else, then collapses on the nearest chair. There's nothing left to talk about between him and Ethan. He knows that-- hell, he decided it-- but now that Ethan's come to the same conclusion he feels--

"Danny?"

It's Stiles, cautious and tentative. Danny takes a deep breath and blinks until his eyes are dry. By the time Stiles reaches him he's pursed his lips.

"I need another crack at that coding."

It's Monday morning when Danny figures out, in theory, how to tap into the network. By this time Stiles is curled into a ball on the sparring mat, blanketed by his hoodie and Danny's jacket. Lydia's the first one in, sliding the heavy door with a bang at seven in the morning and stepping around Stiles's sleeping figure in bright green heels.

"Long weekend?" she asks, laying down three venti cups of black coffee on the kitchen table.

"Stiles said we'd need to get the van ready," Danny tells her. "Know anything about that?"

"No, but I know someone who does," she says, picking up her phone and pressing a number. "Scott, we need the van."

The Mystery Machine is rolling into a parking lot an hour and a half later, far enough away that they don't get noticed, but close enough that they're within reach of the network. It's just Stiles, Danny, and Erica this time.

"So does Lydia ever go out to the field?" Danny asks as he boots up the laptop, waiting for the system to wake up so he can start hacking into it.

"Every now and then." Erica's got both feet up on the steering wheel at the front, and she's opened up a pack of Doritos to share with Stiles. "She usually just hangs around because Stiles likes her."

Danny cocks his head at Stiles, but he just mumbles under his breath and avoids looking Danny in the eye. "You have a crush on a girl for ten years and suddenly you're--" He doesn't finish the sentence, instead choosing to shake his head. "She helped start this," he explains to Danny. "Most of her interests run tangential to what we do, but they're useful and she brings in income we wouldn't have gotten elsewhere. Also, she's kind of really good at drumming up business."

Erica snorts. "You mean she's really good at drumming up Jackson."

"He's one of our bigger clients," Stiles says. "I know you guys are close--"

"Not really," Danny says. "Not anymore. Not for a while." He lost touch with high school once MIT happened. Found new friends, drifted with a new crowd. He'd assumed that was normal, until he found himself basically walking back into this. A small part of him bristles at the idea that even Jackson's managed to stay in touch more than he has. Last he heard he's been spending half the year in London anyway, running the UK offices of Whittemore's firm from there.

"Well, maybe at the next company party you can reconnect," Stiles says brightly. "How are we doing on the network?"

He can do with a change of subject. "I'm in." He's typing at a much slower rate than he's used to, but once understood the Argent OS isn't really all that difficult to manipulate. There are a few confusing commands and syntaxes that don't make sense up close, but on the macro level he has a decent enough grasp of it to understand. The year-long training, he thinks, must be meant to cover all the areas of the system when all he really needs to do is master just the security protocols in place.

There's no password to access the network, which makes sense when only employees are supposed to have access to the laptops. It's clear they invested more in the idea of infrastructure as security than actually securing the network itself. After all the trouble they had just acquiring a laptop, he doesn't think it's a wholly terrible strategy. Danny taps into the key databases with enough ease and he shows his work to Stiles, who glances over the data.

"Looks like their customer base?"

"Yeah, accounts and support tickets, that sort of thing."

"We need to go deeper."

"I'm trying."

"I wish there was a way we can download all of this for later reference," Stiles grumbles under his breath.

Danny agrees, but as it is this is the best they're going to do. "This is going to be a little trickier."

"Is Allison not given access to the research portion of the intranet?" Erica wants to know. "The way Scott talks about her you think Argent Health treats her like some kind of second coming."

"Scott's still pursuing that strategy?" Stiles asks, and Danny wonders why he sounds surprised.

"She just invited him to this party or whatever, so yeah, I'd say he is." Erica shrugs. "I guess he thinks we can never close a door too quickly. But I don't blame him. You've seen Allison Argent, right? She can get it."

Danny ignores the last statement but answers Erica's earlier question. "She's got access, I'm sure, but there's an extra layer of-- hang on."

Stiles is barely listening to him though. He's turned to Erica and though he says it quietly, Danny hears the question nonetheless. "Scott told you that?"

"No," Erica mumbles back. "Heard it from Lydia."

"From Lydia?"

Danny doesn't see what Erica does, and he doesn't hear her say anything else either, but he's also deep into trying to figure out where Allison's access went. He pulls up a different program and types in what he thinks are commands to bypass the security measures, but is faced with error messages each time. "Shit."

"What's going on?"

Danny doesn't answer, because either he's going to succeed after a few more tries or eventually he trips up an alarm somewhere. He looks through the code again, trying to browse it over in case he missed anything. It's encrypted, and there's no password required, just a string of actions that he doesn't know and he won't have the ability to figure out.

"Danny."

"I'm trying," he grits out. The Argent coding is somewhat crudely cobbled together, the language a quilted thing of borrowed behavior and structure from multiple different languages. But the system itself is elegant and intuitive, and secured in a way Danny hasn't seen before.

There's not much Danny can do except screw it and try. "Keep an eye out for anybody approaching us," he tells Erica before playing around with a series of actions. "I might trip up an alarm."

"What are you doing?" Stiles wants to know, but Danny ignores him through one try, through two. Five tries later, Stiles is looking out the window too. Seven tries. Eight. Twelve. There has to be a logic to this system, but Danny feels like he's grasping for straws. "Danny."

The network isn't protected the way a prison is, where each cell is locked with code and key. Instead it's a labyrinth-- Danny needs to know where to go to get there. Danny sucks in a deep breath. "Give me the blueprint."

"What?"

"The blueprint, Stiles. Where is it?"

There's a minute or two of Stiles digging around, but he receives the copy of the blueprint not long after. If his hunch is right and the system is a maze, it would be designed so those who knew Argent Health intimately would know how to access certain sections just by their familiarity with the building layout. He bites his lips as he zigzags through the sections, following them turn by turn through the blueprint. He can feel Stiles watching him, hand at his shoulder and breath by his ear. He moves his fingers through the keyboard, tearing down the halls. He hits Enter.

"Danny--"

"I found it."

There's plenty of material to glean from Argent Health. The pharma division is fledgling for a company their size, but the amount of research and data they've already gathered and acquired is daunting regardless. For the next two days Danny and Stiles-- plus Lydia, now, and a rotation of Erica, Isaac, or Scott-- swelter in the heat of the Mystery Machine as they pore over the files they find. With Thursday just around the corner, they have a lot of new information, but nothing they can take back to their client that's worth the money they're getting paid. Stiles sends their client updates as they get them and they confirm this with him.

"What's that project?" Lydia asks, letting Danny pull out a report filed just before the Argents purchased the pharmacy.

"Looks like some kind of blocker. Minimizes the effects of the full moon on a were, in case they're not fully in control of their wolf yet."

"What about AHSBT043?"

"Argent Health Silver Bullet Treatment," Danny reads aloud, skimming over the brief of a report. "It's some sort of medication, but it doesn't say what for. The test results are in--"

"Yeah?"

"They're not in here." Danny's double-checking the blueprint, making sure he's in the right spot. But the trail ends where the research division is. He tries a couple of paths and comes up blank each time.

"What can be more classified than what Allison Argent has access to?" Lydia asks, humming as she looks over the one-pager that they have on Silver Bullet.

"Whatever we're looking for, obviously."

"She only does ammo testing, and it's for the parent company," Scott pipes up. "Her mother is the one who oversees everything else related to Argent Health."

Danny glances over at Stiles, who asks the question on everybody's mind. "So do we have the wrong computer?"

"I don't think so," Danny says. "It's just a matter of figuring out how to access what Victoria Argent can access, and if that's just a matter of outfitting this laptop to fit in with the permissions Victoria has, we should be fine."

"Can you do that?"

Danny frowns at the screen. "I'm going to need some time."

It takes him an hour and a half, but he manages to dismantle the security protocols well enough to find an open passage. It's there, though. Stiles, Lydia and Danny all crowd around the one screen to study it, absorbing as much information as they can.

"Financial projections, test candidates, project timeline…" Lydia's breath hitches. "They're targeting launching by the third quarter next year."

"These aren't numbers that look like they're going to shift the market away from Win-- anybody," Danny points out.

"They don't have to," Stiles says. "Clients get jumpy around competition; this information's just as valuable to them."

Danny frowns, a file catching his eye. He pulls it up and his heart jumps to his throat as Ethan's face and test profile fills the screen.

"Hello, handsome," Lydia murmurs, beside him. "What did they do to you?"

Stiles's gaze flickers momentarily to Danny, but Danny ignores him. "Where are the test results?"

"This says refer to Test AHSBT Trial files."

"Danny, can you pull them up?"

There's another three hours of searching, but this time Danny comes up empty. "I don't think they're in the network."

"Victoria's computer?"

"It's gotta be there."

"How the hell are we going to get into that?"

Lydia whips around to tap Scott on the shoulder. "So," she says, voice bright and cheery. "About this party Allison's invited you to…"

"This is not what I signed up for," Danny reminds Stiles for the umpteenth time.

"I know, sweetheart, but you'll be fantastic." Stiles smirks. He's tying Danny's tie in the worst possible way, but Danny feels awkward enough as it is so he just lets him mangle it. He's nervous as fuck and he can't figure out if it's because of what they're about to do or because Stiles's hands are on him. "There. Now you look perfect."

"I hate you."

Stiles just chuckles. "You'll be fine. Just let me do the talking, alright?"

Danny doesn't know if that prospect is any better. Maybe it is. He's tried to reach Ethan about the trials but after that call with Sarah, understandably Ethan doesn't pick up. So now, here they are.

He doesn't know how Stiles procures an invitation to the party, an inauguration of sorts for Argent Health, but they're supposed to play the part of a pharmacy chain exec and his boyfriend. It's in the same building where Victoria Argent's computer would be, so yeah, it's kind of important for Danny to be part of it. He can't coach through mic and earphone now-- instead it's Lydia manning the van with Isaac on the lookout, Erica backing them up as part of the wait staff, Vernon in security and Scott as Allison's date.

Everybody's in place and all Danny needs to do is to not fuck it up.

"Relax, Danny, you're going to be fine." How Stiles can talk through a toothy smile Danny doesn't know, but his hand's light on the small of his back and it's an unexpected source of comfort for Danny as they weave through the crowd. He almost makes eye contact with Scott but Stiles just walks through them, making introductions here and there with people they don't know.

"Never been good at playing normal," Danny replies, cringing as Stiles takes his hand. "My hands get clammy; I wouldn't do that if I were you."

But Stiles ignores him and squeezes his hand just a bit. For comfort or for show, Danny can't tell, but he breathes a little better. Like Stiles says, he keeps quiet, following his lead. It's really the first time he's seen Stiles around people other than the ones he grew up with, and the way he acts with them is so incredibly different from what Danny's used to. He's a much more confident talker now, somehow growing into the awkward teenage babble that Danny had always thought was odd and oddly endearing. He succeeds in talking a whole lot without telling much of anything at all, coaxing stories out of people with ease when they try to ask him about himself. At one point they even come face to face with Chris Argent, who's a little stiff and formal but who eventually cracks a smile at a joke Stiles makes.

Danny doesn't even hear it; he's in a haze of catatonic panic, worried Chris would ask him a question. But Stiles starts rubbing the back of his palm with his thumb, his hand still holding Danny's, and when Danny looks up the smile he receives is uncharacteristically tender. Either Stiles is a really good actor or-- Stiles breaks the gaze, turning back to Chris and wishing him luck with Argent Health, expressing his confidence that the Argents can break into the industry easily enough, and Chris tells them both to enjoy the evening before he walks away to interrogate the date his daughter brought with her.

They run into another Argent Health executive-- Kate Argent, who heads up marketing-- and Stiles exchanges pleasantries and jokes with her too. Danny almost believes it, that Stiles has been running distribution channels all across the western region before Stiles is pulling him away from Kate and the crowded ballroom, past the hall where the restrooms are supposed to be and through the right wing of the building. They move in a weird kind of zigzagging, jerky path that confuses Danny until he realizes Stiles is weaving in through the surveillance camera blind spots.

The entrance to the entire wing itself is locked, and Danny's about to ask, but Stiles is already swiping Chris Argent's ID against the fob and the doors slide open for them. "Where did you get that?"

"Where do you think?" he asks, taking Danny's hand and tugging him inside. "Lydia, you there?"

Lydia's voice comes through both their earpieces. "Take the first left, second right, first right, past the double doors."

"Got that, Danny?"

"Loud and clear." He follows Stiles through the halls of the executive offices, ducking the cameras as they pass them. Victoria Argent's is at the end of the last corner they turn, and they get in easily enough-- again, with Chris Argent's card. The man works in operations under the parent company, but it doesn't surprise Danny that he has access to his wife's office.

"I'll keep watch," Stiles says, heading to the entrance of the office while Danny boots up Victoria Argent's computer. "But hurry, okay?"

Finding the files is easy enough, now that Danny knows where to go. Same protocols, same security measures. Same holes. Sure enough, all the research files are there-- hundreds of pages' worth of information that Danny doesn't even know where to start.

"Lydia, can you see all this?"

"Slow down, Danny. Look closer. Let me look."

He lets Lydia sift through the files one by one. She earmarks a few, but they're still too much to take in.

"Are you kidding?" Stiles hisses as the printer comes to life.

"We can't read these in any format with the equipment we have," Danny reminds him. Allison's laptop has been returned in pretty much the same way it was borrowed. Their USB ports aren't quite the same dimensions, and the files aren't readable by any other program anyway.

"We don't have much time."

"I know that," Danny says, but it isn't like Stiles can help him either. There's only one laptop and only one printer, but so many damn files. "Lydia, can we prioritize here?"

"We don't know what we don't know," Lydia says. "Can you look around her office? See if we can get some of those files in storage?"

Stiles looks visibly uneasy, and Danny's on his side for this one. "That's not how we operate."

"We don't want them to know there's anything wrong, do we?" Danny asks.

"It'll be too late by then. We'd have gotten the money and the information we need, and how are they going to track us down? Just be sure to leave no fingerprints."

Danny gives Stiles a look, and they're caught in that moment of indecision, but then Stiles springs into action, rooting around cabinets and drawers, breaking into their locks as quickly as he can. By the time page forty of the first report comes out of the tray there's a soft, triumphant cry from the corner shelf.

"I got them!" Stiles says, carrying over an armload of binders marked test results.

"Jesus Christ. How the hell are we going to carry all of that out?"

Lydia has the solution in his ear. "Pick the first and last tests, and take out a few in between--"

"Stiles?" Danny calls out, interrupting Lydia mid-speech.

"Yeah?"

"Find Ethan's for me, will you?"

Stiles's gaze softens. "Of course."

Danny gives him a grateful smile, but Lydia doesn't skip a beat. "Stiles," she says, "do you have the full project scope anywhere there?"

"If there is one, we don't see it."

"If there's a formulation for the booster they're testing, we need it."

"It might be in her files."

"Get that printed out."

"What would it be called?"

Lydia directs Danny back to the laptop while Stiles works to bring the binders back where he found them. It takes too long for the rest of it to print-- Danny's tapping his fingers on his knee when he sees Stiles taking off his suit and tie and undoing the buttons on his dress shirt. "What the hell are you--"

"Relax," Stiles says, and Danny hates the twisting in his stomach when Stiles smirks at him. He's wearing some kind of slim vest underneath the shirt, tucking all the research and reports neatly in vest pockets so they lay as flat against him as possible. "Cool, right?"

"How often do you do this sort of thing?"

"Stiles, get the last of the reports tucked in. Danny," Lydia calls. "There's one more thing I want you to do."

"Yeah?"

"I want you to delete the files."

It feels like hours, but by the time Danny and Stiles are done only thirty-seven minutes have passed. He doesn't know how he's still walking; his heart is racing and his knees feel weak, but he's upright, at least, and mobile.

"Hey! Careful," Stiles cautions, grabbing his arm and yanking him back. "You almost walked into the camera there."

"Sorry," Danny mumbles. They've gone this far. He isn't about to blow the entire thing because committing a little corporate espionage wasn't sitting well with him. Stiles doesn't quite let go of his arm, which Danny thinks is for the best. They're just a few hundred feet from the ballroom doors when Stiles tugs him into the men's bathroom, past the sinks and into a single stall. "What are you--"

"Thanks, Lydia. We'll take it from here," Stiles says, pulling out his earpiece and then Danny's, tucking them in his back pocket. To Danny, he says, "Take out your contacts and we'll flush them in the toilet."

"Covering our tracks?"

"Something like that. Also--" Stiles glances up at him and holds his gaze for a moment before he's looking past Danny, avoiding eye contact as he runs his hands through Danny's hair, pulling and tugging here and there. "Gotta look like we have an alibi, right?"

He knows what Stiles is doing, but even so Danny's throat goes dry. Stiles is undoing the buttons on his shirt and putting them back together haphazardly, loosening his tie and getting it just this side of crooked, but all Danny can think of is how Stiles's hands feel against his chest, and how much better he prefers Stiles's hair now than when it was buzzed because he can do the same to him, so he does. Stiles jerks away, like he's shocked Danny is playing into it.

"Too bad there's no way to fake kiss-swollen lips," Danny says.

Stiles gets the hint. Danny's surprised at how little height difference there is, how Stiles always seems to carry himself short and average but it's Danny who's looking up when Stiles leans forward to kiss him. Without meaning to his hands settle on Stiles's waist, fingers creasing an otherwise perfectly pressed shirt while Stiles's hand cups the back of his neck and his tongue rubs against Danny's own. One of them moans-- just a short, quick hum from the back of their throat-- and Danny fumbles to untuck Stiles's shirt. There's skin beneath that, he thinks, skimming his fingers up before he runs into the black vest. He has no idea how fucking tight it hugs Stiles's body and, frustrated, Danny moves his hands around Stiles's waist to cup his ass instead.

"Oh god," Stiles squeaks, his breath hot against Danny's neck. Danny takes the moment to take in a deep breath, but Stiles isn't done with him yet. He's kissing Danny again, nipping on his lower lip and worrying the spots with his tongue after. He's a restless kisser to Danny's more languid style. Danny keeps his mouth closed, coaxing Stiles to slow down a little, both of his hands moving up to cup Stiles's cheeks. Easy, there, he thinks, and when he parts his lips Stiles shows him just how fast a learner he is.

He's starting to get uncomfortably comfortable when Stiles finally pulls away, his face red in spots and his lips looking even more fuckable than they normally do.

"I think we're okay," Danny whispers, not trusting himself to speak much more coherently than that, and Stiles just nods his agreement. They stumble out of the stall with nervous laughter, barely even noticing that a third person's joined them until he speaks.

"Pardon me," he says, voice sleazy-smooth and thick with whiskey. It's the fastest way to sober Danny up and he jolts away, turning around like he'd been caught red-handed.

"Oh god, sorry, we were just--"

"Not at all. I'm sorry for the interruption." The man looks amused and vaguely familiar, arms crossed and a Cheshire cat grin on his face. "Mr. Stilinski, what a surprise to see you here."

It is at that moment that Danny realizes Stiles has frozen in place. But he doesn't look shocked or terrified; his fists are clenched and his jaw flexes, like he's gritting his teeth. When he talks, Danny understands why. "Hale."

"Derek?"

"Oh, to be that young and foolish," the man says with a shake of his head. "Peter Hale, at your service. Though I'm afraid I don't believe I've met you yet…"

"David. David Kahuanui."

Peter Hale smiles like he doesn't believe him, but before he can say anything Stiles is storming out, and Danny's got no choice but to follow.

"Are you okay? Are we in trouble?" Danny wants to know.

Stiles is seething. "That bastard. I had no idea he'd-- fuck, what if Erica or Isaac or Vernon had seen him? What if Scott? What's he even doing--"

"Stiles," Danny says, squeezing his arms gently. "Look at me. Take a deep breath. It's fine. If any of them saw him, I doubt he'd have managed to make it to the bathroom in one piece."

"Probably not."

"But he knows who you are. He probably knows who I am, too. What are we going to do about that?"

Stiles shakes his head. "Not a lot," he admits. "He won't say anything to the Argents-- you can bet they've invited the Hales here out of professional courtesy and nothing more. But we're going to have to lay low after this."

"Okay. That's all I wanted to know. What next?"

"We walk back in there and mingle for a bit, and then we're out. We just need to be seen returning."

"Alright," Danny says, and then he's pulling Stiles in for another kiss. To get them both back to looking like that's what they'd been doing all this time, he tells himself. That's all. He's thorough and he takes his time, thumb brushing Stiles's cheeks as he puts the blush back on Stiles's cheeks. "There. Now we look it again."

Those who see them when they walk back in look on with disapproval, but at least they're not ringing any alarms. At one point Stiles acts like he's just realized his pants button is undone, and tries to discreetly fasten it by the bar. Danny smoothes out his shirt multiple times and gives a sixty-year-old woman a cheery wave when he catches her watching.

"Do you want a drink?" Danny asks Stiles.

"Yeah, I'll come with you in a minute. I forgot to give an update." Stiles pulls out his phone to send a quick text message. They both nearly jump when a nearby phone buzzes at the exact same moment. "Who the hell--"

The ballroom is crowded, but Danny doesn't miss it. He sees Peter Hale, not twenty feet away, pull out a cheap flip phone from his pocket and read something he'd just received. He smiles and looks up in Danny's general direction, but Danny knows that his eyes are on Stiles.

They back out of the contract. Danny doesn't know that's what happens until Lydia calls him on his cell, demanding to know where he's keeping Stiles.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm surprised you're not concerned," Lydia says. "I thought Mahealani Software was going under."

"What should I be concerned about?" Danny asks, because his bank notified him that morning of the successful transfer of $85,000.00 into his account. Money for a rainy day, like Stiles promised. "What is going on?"

"Did the bastard--" Lydia takes deep breaths, the kind she likes making to refocus and redirect her ire. "He told us the job was canceled. He didn't say why. I just managed to keep him from throwing the files away-- they're wilting on my desk, obviously, but it was a close call, and those are the only copies we know in existence anywhere, but otherwise? We pulled out from the client. Castle Services is pissed, naturally, but Stiles isn't listening to them, if they can find him. They haven't. I haven't. Thus, this call. I assumed-- incorrectly, I suppose-- that he'd have hidden himself with you somehow."

"Why would he--"

"Oh, Danny, spare me the surprise. You know why he would."

It's been so long since he's been on the receiving end of Lydia's cutting observations that he forgets what it feels like. "I--"

"Find him. Talk some sense into him. If he's at least going to tell the client to fuck off, then he better damn well figure out a way to do it without getting us blacklisted and hunted down."

"What are we going to do with the files?"

"You worry about Stiles, Danny, and I'll worry about these."

Lydia hangs up before Danny can say anything else. Across from him, Sarah tilts her head in question. "Problem?"

Danny sighs. "I'll be back, I promise."

Both Sarah's eyebrows go up, but she nods and lets him go.

Danny pulls up at the sheriff's house-- ex-sheriff's house, now-- half an hour later. The Jeep is there, like he suspected, but there's also a Harley Davidson parked out front, which confuses Danny until Scott comes out.

"Hey, everything alright?"

Scott shakes his head. "He won't tell me what's going on." It isn't like him, Danny thinks, but what does he really know what Stiles is like? "What happened at the party, man?"

And then Danny understands what Scott's thinking. He holds up both hands. "Hey, no, we didn't-- that isn't-- nothing happened!" he starts, which is a lie, but not quite the lie Scott thinks it probably is. "I mean. We kissed, but that was part of the plan, and we haven't-- things are fine between us. I didn't do anything that--"

Scott's looking less and less convinced, and Danny's stammering isn't helping his case.

"The client is Peter Hale," he says finally. "Or at least, that's what I think he thinks. We ran into him at the party. That's why he backed out."

Scott's eyes grow wide, but he's not protesting any longer. "Why didn't he tell me?"

"I don't know, man. I probably shouldn't have told you either, but--"

"I don't have werewolf hearing but do you two realize how fucking loud you're being?" Stiles is standing at his father's door, arms crossed and grumpy. "We need to get that asshole back for all the work he put us through."

"Stiles--" Scott starts, but Stiles holds up his hand.

"The Hales ruined our friends' lives, Scott. I can't--"

"Some things we're going to have to learn to let go," Scott tells him, turning to Danny for support. It feels awkward, because Danny's only seen the aftermath, but he knows where Scott is coming from. That kind of resentment grows like poison, and he's about to agree when his phone rings.

"Lydia, what's going on?"

Scott and Stiles look at him curiously. He doesn't say much-- Lydia does most of the talking-- and when he hangs up there's an unspoken question in the air.

"We have a problem," Danny says. "Silver Bullet's farther along the research process than we first thought."

"The Argents can keep their Silver Bullet for all I care."

"You should care." Danny doesn't have a hard time saying exactly what Lydia told him over the phone. "It's not a booster. It's poison. They're developing it to wipe out lycanthropy from the world entirely."

"It's built like a restorative supplement," Lydia explains, pulling out the stolen schematics and laying them out on the desk. "High spikes of superlycanthrope senses, for short periods of time. Five-hour energy. But they've added in this-- kind of like a Trojan horse? It gestates in the immune system, then sets out to destroy everything in the body that makes a lycanthrope… well, supernatural."

"Permanently?" Scott asks, incredulous.

Lydia shows them an illustrated structure of what Danny assumes is the chemical makeup of Silver Bullet. She gestures to different parts of the page as she speaks. "I'm guessing the pharmaceutical company was working on some sort of vaccine-- this part shows you as much. But the Argents bought it, added the booster as cover, and see this one here? They added that in after too; it's a virus, built to replicate itself in the system so it attacks the superhuman cells in the body until they've weakened significantly, and for longer periods of time. Longer and longer until it's gone completely. And I'm not a hundred percent positive of this, but it looks like they were building this so it's highly contagious."

"Ethan?" Danny has to ask.

Lydia glances up at him. "He was in early testing. He didn't get that far. They were testing just the immediate effects with him. Of course, we don't know what the long-term effects of it are."

"They could wipe out every werewolf that way."

Something niggles at the back of Danny's head. "How would they know--" If that had been Ethan, Danny would have known he was undertaking tests. They would have traced it back.

Lydia licks her lips and pulls out a dossier. "These are the later stage test subjects. I've matched a few up with missing persons reports-- runaways, the homeless… They were bitten first, tested after."

"Discarded when the bite didn't take?"

"Or when the drug did."

"Jesus."

"I don't understand," Stiles says. "How would they get this drug out to market and not get caught?"

Lydia shakes her head. "I'm not sure. This would never pass FDA testing and it isn't built to. It'll be too easily traceable back to Argent Health, even with the gestation period built in. If this were me, I'd let the drug leak in the black market. Fastest way to spread something, easiest way to escape liability. They could trace the drug back to Argent Health labs but I'd just engineer a break-in and blame the whole thing on--"

"People like us?" Danny asks, watching the blood drain from Lydia's face.

"That job had been too easy," Stiles murmurs. "They must have known."

"We don't… we don't really know that, do we?"

"If they do, it might be too late," Lydia says. "They might already have production in the works."

"What are we going to do?"

"I think I know." It's the first time Scott says anything. He pauses, brow knit in deep thought, but when he speaks he is confident and sure. "We need to tell Allison."

Erica is the first to break the silence. "Well, this is cozy."

"You don't have to trust me if you don't want to," Allison snaps back. Her arms are crossed and Danny wonders where the sweet heiress went. It's a surprise at all that Scott had thought to tell her, and Stiles had disagreed but now here she was. "And I don't have to prove myself to anyone here. You've already made up your mind."

The two of them stare each other down and Danny shares a nervous look with Stiles. He's not planning on getting in the middle of that.

It's Lydia who breaks the deadlock. "Can we just focus for a moment here, ladies?" she asks, the smile on her face anything but friendly. "Allison, welcome to the group. We're glad you're not a rampaging hunter with a chip on your shoulder like the rest of your family apparently is--"

"We have a code," Allison hisses. "This wouldn't have been sanctioned if my family knew about this. I don't know how this slipped past my mother, but she wouldn't have--"

"Right," Lydia says breezily, pursing her lips so that her dimples show. "Well then, we're happy you agree this is incredibly wrong, and that you're willing to help us take down whoever it is in Argent Health that's plotting this."

Erica scoffs. "What's she going to do? Give us a Powerpoint presentation?"

"Erica." Lydia's tone holds a warning, and though Erica doesn't stop glaring, she doesn't say anything else. She knows just as well as Danny does, as well as everyone does, that Allison's their last resort. They've done all they could with the information they had, but if the drug's gone into production they need to know where and how to break in. They've just barely stopped Allison from telling her family everything, and Danny almost wants to know what Scott told her to convince her to break into her own company like this, but there's room for questions laters.

He hopes, at least.

The Argent Health lab can be found in the lower levels of the office, Allison tells them, and back-up files are stored in a server there. There are codes and levels of access none of them have time to crack, but Allison knows what those are. She's watching in the van with Danny and Lydia; her laptop's hooked to the security system thanks to a back passage she shows Danny, and it lets him loop the camera feed continuously. Lydia's got her eyes on the screens and Allison's giving Scott and Stiles instructions through the mic. Erica and Isaac have gone to distract security, Vernon's on the lookout still dressed in Argent Security uniform, and Danny--

Danny's got his fingers crossed.

"We're in," Stiles says, his voice crackling to life in the dim of the van.

Allison fires off a set of instructions and security codes while Danny keeps his eyes on the looping surveillance video. They break into the lab easy, finding the records and the samples they need with a lot less fumbling.

"Issued for production, approved by--" Stiles stops, but it's too late. They can see what he does. The signature at the bottom is neat, crisp, and crystal clear. Danny shoots a worried glance at Allison, but to her credit she doesn't skip a beat. He doesn't know how many can do the same when they realize just how deeply involved their mother is in something like this.

"Check the numbers," she says. "We want to know if there's any missing. Stiles, can you show me that approval form again? I need to see where they're manufacturing the drugs."

"Emeryville."

Lydia's talking to Isaac and Erica before Allison can ask. "Did you hear that?"

"There's still a few guards around," Isaac points out.

"Stiles," Lydia says, "Security hasn't been handled yet."

"Doesn't matter. Tell Erica and Isaac they need to get out there now," Stiles says. "We'll take care of them here."

"Erica? Isaac?"

"We're on our way," Erica confirms.

"On their way to do what?" Danny asks, but just then, Vernon comes in with a warning.

"Security's going in."

"Stiles, Scott, are you close?"

"We can try," Scott says, but Stiles cuts him off.

"We're going to need more time."

"Hold on. Danny, clear the way for me," Allison says, and before Danny or Lydia can stop her, she's sprinting out to the building. Danny hurries to loop the feeds for the cameras along her way.

"What's going on?" Stiles asks.

"What did Allison do?" Scott wants to know.

"Just get your shit out of there, both of you."

But Scott doesn't listen. Or maybe he does, because he jerks up, head whipping around in the manner werewolves usually do when they've heard something someone hasn't. "They found her," he says, but Stiles grabs him by the arm before he can rush out of the room.

"You need to take these back to the van," Stiles says. "You're faster, and these are important. I'll make sure she's got back-up."

"Stiles--"

Stiles holds up a gun. "Scott, you're our best chance of getting these to safety. I'm not going unarmed, and I wouldn't put it past these people to have wolfsbane in their bullets. You're better off slipping away while Allison and I provide a diversion."

Danny can see Scott giving in before he nods. It's the last image they have before Stiles removes the contacts and chucks them in with Scott.

"Just in case," he says, before running off, and Danny can't help the twisting in his gut at the implication of those words. Just in case they're caught. Just in case they trace the camera back. Just in case--

The screen goes dark and the comm line to Stiles fizzles dead. From Scott's camera Danny watches Stiles leave the room. He hopes it isn't the last he's seen of him.

Lydia's jaw is clenched, but she just licks her lips and glances back at the blueprint. "Scott? Still there?"

"Yeah. Almost ready to go."

"You'll be taking a different route to leave when you are, alright?"

Scott confirms he is, and Lydia and Danny get to work. He gets into the van just a few minutes later and is about to head back for Allison and Stiles when Danny frowns at the screen.

"Vernon's line just went dark too," he says.

"What the hell happened?" Lydia demands to know, but the answer comes from neither Danny nor Scott.

"Plausible deniability," Stiles gasps, hoisting himself into the van. He's breathing hard and there's a bruise just above his eye, a cut on his lip. Allison looks a little worse for wear, but she's right behind him and that's all that matters. "We figure it's the best way to make sure his ass is covered when they start asking how shit hit the fan."

"You're an ass, I hope you know that," Danny grouses, because what right did he have to run off like he did, like an idiot, and because Stiles is smiling that annoyingly smug grin of his again, Danny yanks him down and kisses him hard.

"Is this what you do to asses like me?" Stiles asks. The smugness is gone, replaced by something this side of goofy. Danny decides to wipe that away with a gentler kiss.

"Don't push your luck."

Nobody's hurt when Argent Health's Emeryville plant blows up. The investigation concludes that a leakage in the piping systems close to an overheated generator is to blame, and when Stiles raises an eyebrow at Erica, she only shrugs and says even some days she knows when not to overdo it.

They hold their breath for the weeks after. Destroying all the drugs they knew of is one thing, but even with Allison on their team they have no idea whether some drugs have already been distributed. Allison's still on Argent Industries' payroll and she promotes Vernon to Head of Security not long after; it's the best way to make sure the Argents stay clean. Scott brings her home to meet Mrs. McCall a week later. The idea of Scott at an Argent family dinner is a delicate subject, and Stiles says he's not sure exactly how it will play out, but he's going to want front row seats for it.

Danny wonders if they'll always be waiting for the other shoe to drop, and he almost hates the relief he feels when news reports of a few weres getting ill from unknown reasons-- Derek Hale the most prominent among them-- come out of San Francisco.

But it's a false alarm, or so he thinks, because Sunnydale Pharma develops a cure almost overnight. The weres are treated and they recover, and the month after that Sunnydale announces the development of a post-bite immunization injection.

"We're acquiring approval for FDA testing beginning next month, and Sunnydale Research is looking for volunteers to undertake this process with us. It's a breakthrough Sunnydale Pharma is proud of, and we hope by this time next year, everyone will be able to carry around a surefire way to survive the bite and remain human. We should all be able to make that choice."

Danny turns the TV off as the Sunnydale Pharma CEO steps off her podium. Beside him, Stiles holds up both hands in surrender.

"Don't look at me like that," he says.

"How am I supposed to look at you?"

"Not like that."

"Did you have anything to do with this?"

"Actually, no," he admits. "Lydia and Buffy go way back. Delta Gamma back. Lydia helped isolate the viral strain and sold the formula to Sunnydale. Their research team did the rest. The Hales are so grateful we saved their beloved idiot of a son that they're getting off our back for not giving this to them in the first place."

"Did they really."

Stiles snorts. "No. But I guess only Peter Hale knew of the arrangement, so there wasn't a lot he could do when we backed off, despite the fantastically worded threats he sent to me and Lydia. You should read them sometime. Guy's got a great career for supervillainny if he ever decided to go full-time."

"So you did know about the deal with Sunnydale," Danny says. Maybe his voice sounds a little strained, and maybe he looks a little bit annoyed, because Stiles pulls up an envelope from his back pocket.

"I wanted to surprise you," he says. "In hindsight, maybe I should have thought it through a little bit more, but uh--"

"What's this?"

"Open it." Stiles watches as Danny does, but Stiles being Stiles, he can't help talking anyway. "It's shares for Sunnydale Pharma stock. Everyone's gonna want immunity when they go to market with this thing."

It takes Danny a long time to process the starter amount of stock he has. It's already more than enough for a few months' worth of running his company. "We already got a payout," he says dumbly. He's tried returning the money Stiles gave him since the mission went nowhere profitable, but Stiles insisted on paying him for the help regardless. He still isn't sure just how rich Stiles has made himself but Danny's barely made a dent in the amount of money that got deposited in his bank account the week after that last job. It's not like Stiles flaunts it, after all-- case in point, the boxes of Chinese laying around their coffee table at the moment. "You don't need to--"

"You're as much a part of this as I am," Stiles says. He chews on his bottom lip, and Danny can read Stiles's guilt so he prompts him.

"And?"

"And," Stiles adds, "if you're interested… Sunnydale has a job for us."

Danny cocks an eyebrow.

"They want us to look into Peter Hale."

"I'd have thought you'd have done that already," Danny points out.

"Not without the resources Sunnydale can give us," Stiles says. "And if we get paid for it, why not, right?"

"Fair point."

Stiles grins, and Danny can't help smiling back. "So…" Stiles asks, "you in?"