please don't let that be a jinx
The next day, Clint walks carefully into the kitchen after checking to make sure that John wasn’t home while he’s cooking breakfast and humming the Mario Bros theme song, completely stuck in his own little world.
So of course he jumps out of his skin when he turns around to see the blonde-haired man standing in his kitchen watching him with an amused expression.
“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!” He yells, throwing the bright red spatula he’s holding at an unsuspecting Clint – who catches it, much to his chagrin. “WILL YOU MAKE SOME FUCKING NOISE WHEN YOU MOVE??? ARE YOU TRYING TO GIVE ME A HEART ATTACK?”
“Stop shouting.” Clint says as he returns the spatula and moves to the coffee machine. “I’m deaf, but not that deaf.” Stiles would have stopped and asked questions, like how had the bright purple hearing aids completely slipped his notice up until now, expect he was distracted by Clint picking up the coffee pot and drinking straight from it.
“did you just…I fucking can’t. It’s seven in the fucking morning, you can’t just drink straight from the coffee pot and expect me to deal with that shit.” Clint just shrugs. “You’re cleaning that when you’re done.” Clint shrugs again.
The list of Thing Stiles Can’t Deal With At Seven A.M. gets a little longer as Natasha Romanov practically dances through his front door with the weird fluid way she moves, snags the spatula from Stiles’ hand and flips the omelet he was cooking over before it can burn.
“Wow, I wasn’t aware that I put up a sign that said, ‘Spy Bros welcome’ last night, but okay. Good morning to you to, Natasha.”
“Why does she get to be Natasha, but I’m Spy Dude?” Clint asks as he continues drinking the scalding coffee straight from the container.
“Because she looks like she could kill me with a look whereas when I first met you, you fell face-first through my window.” Natasha makes a noise of assent as she serves up the omelet for him.
“Tony sent me to get blackmail pictures of you passed out in Stiles’ bed.” She informs them in a very nonchalant manner as she takes the container from Clint long enough to pour herself a cup of coffee before he reclaims it with a grumpy look. “Pepper sent me to make sure you got food and sleep.”
“I thought I saw something out my window.” He nods. “Honestly I was too deep in Wikipedia to notice.” He blushes a little as he remembers how long he spent reading the entire entry on the Indian Rebellion of 1857 because it was mentioned in an article he had somehow ended up reading on rice.
Not one of his finest ADHD moments, but definitely not his worst.
“So, uh, not that I don’t love hanging out with the world’s deadliest assassins and all, because I do, really, this is great, but I’m pretty sure that my Dad won’t feel the same when he walks through the door in twelve seconds, so…”
They’re gone just like that, the only sign they were ever here is the empty coffee pot and red spatula that are now sitting in his sink. John walks in exactly twelve seconds later, arms full of groceries. “Wow, you’re up early.”
“Yep.” Stiles nods as he scarfs down his egg-white and spinach omelet.
“You want to talk about yesterday now?”
“Scott called.” Stiles shrugs, the food in his mouth suddenly not appetizing at all. He forces it down anyways and puts his empty plate in the sink along with the spatula and coffee pot. “He’s angry. Not really anything he can do about it now.”
“And last night?” He stiffens.
Crap.
“Bad dream. I’m over it.”
“I saw your sheets in the wash.”
Double crap.
“Can we talk about this later?” He asks, shifting from foot to foot nervously. “I’m going to be late.”
“Stiles-“
“Later. Dad. Please.”
John sighs, but lets his son go.
“Not a word.” He says a few minutes later when Natasha and Clint join him on his walk to work.
“Understood.” Clint nods.
*****
Apparently, his little emotional meltdown yesterday really scared Pepper, because she intercepts him before he even makes it to the lab to go out for food and shopping. “Do I have a choice?” He asks Clint.
“No.” All three of them answer.
“The lead the way.”
Shopping with Pepper is actually pretty fun. She takes him to a lot of very high-end stores where he pointedly ignores the price tags so that he doesn’t have a stroke as she helps him restock his wardrobe.
He had left a lot of his things in Beacon Hills because most of it belong to Scott and he didn’t really want to be walking around in Alpha Werewolf Scent in unknown territory – also there was the small matter of him being entirely done with Scott’s existence as a whole, so yeah, new clothes.
“Lydia would be crying right now.” He laughs as they stop to eat Italian ice at an outdoor café.
“Who’s Lydia?”
“Huh?” He asks, not realizing that he said that out loud. “Oh. She’s only the most awesome person in the entire universe. She’s stupid smart. Razor sharp wit. Impeccable fashion sense. You remind me a lot of her actually.”
Pepper beams at him. “Why would she be crying?”
“Well, she adores you, for one.” He smiles fondly. “But this – shopping in New York with one of the most intelligent women in the world – is her wildest dream come true. She’d be a very attractive puddle on the ground right now.”
Pepper laughs musically at that. “Well she sounds wonderful.”
“She is.” He says, a sudden pang in his chest as he realizes just how much his misses his Freckles. “I miss her a lot, actually.”
“It must be hard, being so far away from your friends.”
“Sort of. I kind of left to get away from my friends, but there are a few that I really miss.”
“Tell me about them.”
Stiles is taken aback by her genuine interest and finds himself describing each and every one of them to her in extreme detail, the flavored ice left abandoned on the table between them.
He talks about Boyd.
“…he’s really quiet, so when he does speak, everyone just kind of listens. But really, he’s great. There’s just something about being around him that’s just…grounding, you know…”
And Erica.
“…perfect. Confident now. She didn’t used to be, but once she found us, she kind of grew into herself. Drop dead gorgeous. The very definition of a blonde bombshell, but more than that. Funny. Protective…”
Isaac.
“…too cute for his own good. Honestly, I think I miss him the most. He’s so kind and good. He’s been through so much and yet he’s such a happy person. Sometimes I swear he’s part puppy. You should see the smile. That smile could get him away with murder, I swear…”
It goes on and on until he’s even telling her about Derek.
“…Sourwolf is just…an idiot. A ridiculously perfect, stupidly attractive, frustratingly monosyllabic idiot. He tried so hard, after everything that’s happened to him, to still do good and be there for everyone. I honestly don’t know how he even got out of bed in the mornings, but he did. He was there even when Scott was acting like a self-righteous five-year-old. He was always there...”
“You love him.” It’s not a question, but it still takes him by surprise.
“I do.” He nods. “But not like that. At first, sure, I mean, if you could see him, you’d get it. Then I got to know him, and I realized that I didn’t just want him as someone I could obsess over like I had with Lydia before we really chilled out. I wanted him as a friend. That’s probably why it hurt so much when he left. But yeah, I love him. Just like I love Erica and Isaac and Lydia and Boyd. I always will.”
“You’re a good person, Stiles.” Pepper says after a long, not uncomfortable, silence.
“You don’t know me well enough to say that yet, Pepper.”
“I don’t need to. I can hear it in the way you talk about them.” He doesn’t really know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything. After a while, she speaks again. “You and Tony, well, quite frankly, the two of you are a match made if hell. If the last few days have shown me anything, it’s that I should probably never let the two of you within a fifty-mile radius of each other ever again. But…you understand each other, you work well together, and you clearly enjoy each other’s company, so I’m not going to do that. But I need you to promise that you’ll take better care of yourself, Stiles. You can’t go three days with no sleep anymore. It’s bad for you and I really don’t want to be the one to call your father and tell him that you’re in the hospital for malnutrition or sleep-depravation, he seems like a very nice man.”
“I promise, Pepper.” He smiles softly.
“How about we head back, yeah? Someone needs to make sure Tony hasn’t burned the place down yet.”
Stiles can’t help but laugh at that.
Tony hasn’t burn SI down yet, but there is a fair amount of smoke coming from his current prototype.
Really though, the smoke is less alarming than blur that is Clint and Natasha wrestling in the floor.
Oh, did she just bite him? Ouch.
“That did not look pleasant.” A booming voice remarks and he turns to see Thor standing next to Bruce Banner who is observing the two with a nervous look on his face.
For someone who turns into a giant green rage monster, Banner is very skittish.
“I’m going to have to agree with you there.” He shakes his head.
“Ah, you must be Stiles!” The mass of blonde muscles that is Thor moves to clap him on the back hard enough to almost send him flying as way of greeting. “The man of iron has told me much about you!”
“Yeah, that’s me.” He smiles, feeling a little star-struck, but not so much that he can’t help but feel endeared towards the Asgardian’s enthusiasm. “Nice to meet you. Hey, are those Pop-Tarts?”
“Yes, have you tried them?” He looks like he could bounce up and down as he thrusts the box towards Stiles. “You Midgardians craft some of the tastiest treats!”
“I suppose we do.” He smiles as he takes one of the silver packages out of the box.
“Stiles! Good, you’re here! Come look at this before my brain explodes!”
“No, Tony, you’re taking a break and we’re all going out to dinner.” Pepper says firmly.
“Pep, this is more important than dinner. This is, this is huge. Think-“
“Think if you’re not in the car in the next ten minutes, I will have Jarvis cut off your coffee supply.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh, but I would.” The strawberry blonde answers back evenly.
“Alright, you heard the woman. Pack it up. Romanov, Legolas, off the floor. You weren’t raised by wolves for heaven’s sake. Thor, buddy, have you ever had Chinese food? It’s magical, really.”
Stiles can’t help but roll his eyes at Tony’s antics as he lets himself be led out the building surrounded by the people he’s worshipped his entire life.
*****
Dinner with the Avengers is entertaining to say the least.
The Spy Bros – Stiles is okay calling them that when referencing both of them, but he still refuses to give Natasha a quirky nickname yet – constantly have some kind of competition going on that at one point ended with a bet on who could throw a knife – which was definitely something they had brought with them and not a piece of cutlery - through a roll - which he has no idea where they got because they're at a Chinese restaurant - midair and get it to stick to the wall in the center of a framed modern art piece that Tony ended up having to pay to replace.
Thor was overly enthusiastic about every piece of food he tried and completely astounded by the concept of chopsticks. He went through four pairs before Natasha used the hair-band trick to help him. He praised her endlessly for this.
Bruce supplied fascinating conversation for him and Tony and seemed to really make an effort to try an include him in it despite him not being quite on their level.
Pepper just tried to keep the damage to a minimum.
The highlight of the night, however, is when Steve shows up still in full Captain America gear and Thor insists that they all take a picture to post on twitter – which someone named Darcy had recently introduced him to.
Stiles can already feel himself getting comfortable here.
Everyone is great and actually likes him, and he likes them too.
It already feels so natural to just fall into rhythm with them – so much so, that he doesn’t even question it when Clint and Natasha climb in through his window and crawl into bed with him right before he falls asleep.
He does note, before he drifts off, the irony that he prefers deadly assassins crawling through his window to teenage werewolves.
Oh well, we all knew he was a weird magnet.
(yeah okay, I’m pretty sure that one was a jinx)