Chapter Text
Chapter 1
A harried blonde stomps out of the elevator just as the lanky businessman that she’s been searching for flicks a piece of hair behind the ear of his current secretary.
“I book your goddamn flights! How is it that I can never find you?!”
Stiles Stilinski a.k.a Iron Man laughs heartily as his assistant, Lindsey Kettle, marches up to him. He turns to his secretary du jour and continues his riveting conversation on the origin of her blouse, ignoring his personal assistant and current nag.
“This isn’t fucking funny, Stiles! You have responsibilities to take care of!”
She pulls at his arm waving the girl off as she steals him away into his office, drilling him all the way.
“You need to remember that YOU are the CEO of this company and a majority shareholder! Man up and face your responsibilities!”
Lindsey flips her hair over one shoulder and glares after punctuating her words with a poke to the arc reactor. Stiles drops his jovial smile to grimace as he turns to his desk.
“Do you even have anything to say for yourself?”
She brings a hand up to massage her forehead as she stares at him exasperatedly.
“Well, if you were really doing your job right, then we reeeally wouldn’t be having this conversation, eh Lindsey?”
He grins quick and sharp as he lets his dig settle and Lindsey starts to fume.
“Stilinski.”
They both jump as Stiles’ ginger goddess, the extraordinary Agent Lydia Martin a.k.a Black Widow, strides into the office.
“You’re needed at headquarters.”
She regards them both with an air of superiority and the usual bit of disdain.
Lindsey blinks owlishly at the woman as Stiles groans and tips forward onto his desk, head smacking his holographic keyboard.
“Is this for the Avengers Initiative?”
It’s Lydia’s turn to blink as Lindsey claps her hands on her mouth with a squeak.
“Not that I know anything about that!”
Stiles stares suspiciously at Lindsey, mouth hanging open in surprise, until she throws her hands into the air and clicks away on her stilettos.
“Just remember that you’re the one who makes me go to those measures!”
Stiles chuckles as he skirts his desk to sit behind his computer and calls up his AI, CORA. Lydia quirks a brow at him as she drapes herself on an armchair, Stiles’ eyes following her as she makes herself comfortable.
“You told her about the initiative?”
Stiles reads her nonchalance for the quiet rage it really is as he releases her from his gaze and pulls up the schematics for his latest project, SKI Tower, on his holographic screen.
“No, but there’s a reason she’s my personal assistant. I didn’t hire her just for her pretty face, y’know.”
“Tell that to your secretary.”
The snotty comment pulls a small grin onto his face as his eyes scan the screen.
“There.”
Lydia looks up from where she’s inspecting something in her nails to send a questioning look at him. He beckons her with a finger and a bright grin that makes her huff and move to stand behind him.
“What am I looking at, Stilinski?”
“Don’t be a bitch, Lyds. Riiight here.”
He points to a nondescript room toward the top of the tower. A finely groomed eyebrow inches up her face with her unspoken "And what am I looking at?" coming in loud and clear.
“This is your office!”
She looks from the schematic to the sun practically shining through his face until she can’t help a small fond smile as she wraps an arm around his shoulders.
“What makes you think I want an office in your stupid tower anyway, Stilinski?”
His smile dims slightly until he feels her hand move to pet his hair and then it’s back in full force because he knows that even though she’ll bitch about it ‘til kingdom come, Lydia will still show up with a box of decorations for the office that she’ll never really use just to appease him.
When they hear a loud knock sound from the door, Lydia is casually flipping her hair over her shoulder, seated yet again, as Stiles taps away on his desk. Neither of them is surprised when Agent Isaac Lahey strolls into the room and plunks himself down on Stiles’ desk, fiddling with his knick knacks.
“Heard you were havin’ a party, Stilinski. It hurts to know that you excluded me.”
Isaac’s grin is wicked when he flips the glass paperweight and it goes crashing to the floor. Stiles and Lydia barely bat an eye at his dickish behavior.
“That paperweight cost more than the shoes on your feet, Lahey. Watch it.”
“We can’t all own vintage, Italian, handmade loafers, Stilinski.”
“Like you could pull off my vintage, French, handmade loafers, Lahey.”
Stiles gives a snotty, upperclass, sniff in Isaac’s direction to punctuate his statement.
Isaac just smirks from his perch and gives Stiles vaguely threatening looks from under his lashes as he slips from the desk to the floor and strides toward the door.
“So, are we going to headquarters now?”
Stiles and Lydia snort simultaneously as they rise from their perches to follow Isaac. Stiles rushes forward to ruffle Isaac’s hair before they reach the door and he straightens his jacket as he leaves his office, making sure to make a lasting impression on his lovely new secretary. It’s just slightly ruined when Isaac comes up behind him to push him down, the two of them roughhousing all the way to the elevator.
Lydia backhands them both into submission once the doors to the elevator close, tired of the childish antics the two of them devolve into in each other’s presence. When she presses the up button on the control panel, Stiles’ eyebrows automatically lift in response.
“Helicarrier.”
Stiles tilts his head at the answer to his unspoken question and just as quickly decides that he really doesn’t care.
When they step out onto the roof of his skyscraper, he decides that he really does care. He cares a lot.
The helicarrier in all it’s glory is quite daunting. He wonders silently how he missed it in his office, where an entire wall is a window.
“It has shields. They’re obviously down now.”
His gaze shifts from the helicarrier to Isaac in rapid succession. He was also, obviously, not wondering silently.
Stiles can’t help but flick his phone’s scanner out to take a closer look at the carrier hovering over his skyscraper.
“Oh yeah, obviously. Don’t you need a permit for this shit? Y’know, this being New York City and all that crap? Don’t they have rules against this?”
Stiles rambles aimlessly, honey brown eyes flitting across the display screen, as it fills with information about the hovering mass above him.
He looks up just in time to for Isaac’s, upside down, face to hover in front of his.
“Isaac!”
Stiles flails backwards as Isaac chortles, swinging forward to grab at Stiles’ arm to keep him steady on his feet.
“Need a lift?”
Isaac grins and quick as whip, has Stiles’ elbow clutched in his hand and is pulling as the line on his belt yanks him up towards the helicarrier. Stiles yelps as the force strains his shoulder and he glares up at Isaac as he smiles beatifically at him just in time to drop him on the lowest level of the BEACON Helicarrier.
Stiles chases Isaac into an elevator just as Scott McCall a.k.a Captain America is about to step out, both of them effectively barreling into him. They end up in a heap on the floor of the elevator, Lydia staring down at them and shaking her head.
“Idiots.”
She smiles briefly as she turns and walks away.
“No Lyds! Take me with you!”
Stiles lets his head thunk back against a bicep as Lydia struts away, ignoring him. He starts when a grinning face makes it’s way into his field of vision.
“‘Sup, Capsicle? How’s the 21st century treatin’ ‘ya?”
Scott pulls himself up and then reaches for Stiles and Isaac as he answers.
“It's alright 'cept for these two fellas mowin' me down in the hallway." He drawls as he eases them up. Stiles and Isaac match Scott’s easy grin with mischievous ones of their own and before he can let go, they yank him to the floor. Stiles squawks when Isaac high-fives him so hard that he hits the wall of the elevator.
“Isaac!”
Stiles is still rubbing his shoulder as Scott and Isaac roughhouse when they step out of the elevator and into the bridge of the helicarrier. He watches as Agent Allison Argent breezes by, stopping Scott midnoogie, and he gags on Scott’s practically saccharine crush. Isaac just watches Scott make googly eyes with a forlorn expression that Stiles is going to willfully ignore. He can’t help but ruffle his curly, brown, mop of hair as he passes by, to go point out who’s trolling through Facebook on the bridge. He’s intercepted by a wall of black and his whiskey colored eyes skirt up to lock with the steely blue of Christopher Gerard Argent a.k.a Director Argent of BEACON.
“‘Sup, Argent?”
Chris glares at Stiles’ jaunty grin and salute.
“It’s Director Argent. Don’t play dumb, Stilinski. It’s not a good look on you.”
“Aw, Chris, you really do care!”
Chris grimaces at Stiles before he turns to address Scott.
“McCall . . . Cap’. . . Captain McCall!”
Scott jerks to attention sheepishly, his eyes finally ungluing themselves from Allison’s lithe form, her body curving downward where she’s kneeling over and instructing a bridge drone.
“Yes sir?”
Chris’ eyes narrow minutely, but he turns away from Scott and addresses both he and Stiles.
“Welcome aboard the BEACON Helicarrier, boys. And welcome to the Initiative.”
“Just one question, Chris?”
His trenchcoat billows out behind him as he turns to regard Stiles.
“According to Agent Martin’s findings from her time infiltrating my company, very nice plant by the way, it would seem that BEACON is uninterested in me as a part of the Initiative. Iron Man: okay. Stiles: not. And we already discussed that the suit and I are one. No me, no suit.”
“Aw, not still holding a grudge about that? Are you, Stilinski?”
Chris’ patronizing smirk is enough to leave a decidedly acrid taste in Stiles’ mouth, but not enough of a deterrent to distract him from the conversation.
Chris lets out a put upon sigh and he turns to his monitors to pull up some information.
“Look Stilinski, last night, a BEACON base was infiltrated by an unknown, and perhaps alien being. It is presumed male and highly dangerous. He stole a very important energy source, known as the Tesseract. The Tesseract in the wrong hands, can cause widespread chaos and destruction. You’ve been called in along with Dr. Derek Hale to find it.”
Stiles glances around to spot the infamous Dr. Hale.
“Uh, is he invisible? Is that a thing now?”
Chris gives a disgruntled snort.
“He’s currently enroute along with Agent Whittemore and the alien, Thor of Asgard, better known by his alias, Vernon Milton Boyd IV.”
His fingers twitch in their place on his gun when Stiles’ face immediately brightens at the name.
“Not a word, Stilinski. Not a word. He came with the name.”
“He prefers to be called Boyd, if that helps, Mr. Stilinski.”
Allison smiles and takes the right hand position behind her father as Stiles flashes a grin.
“Exponentially, Agent Argent.”
“Now what’s the plan then, Director Argent?”
Scott has the determined set to his chin that Stiles recognizes from his foray into 21st century household appliances. It ended with Scott and Stiles taking apart several of Stiles’ thousand dollar appliances, but Scott did learn how to operate them. Stiles has sworn CORA to secrecy about the whole affair, but he’s sure that Isaac has gleaned some sort of idea from of Stiles’ bi-monthly trips to Scott’s apartment to put his latest appliances back together again. Stupid BEACON agents and giving him new shit as housewarming gifts.
Stiles tuned out the conversation and his thought sounds out of place when he speaks.
“Allison, how many toasters have you given Scott?”
Everyone freezes and turns their gaze to him. Allison answers hesitantly with a perplexed expression.
“One?”
Stiles studies her face intently and then abruptly turns on his heel.
“Lies. You’ve given him at least 5 that I can prove.”
He spins as he crosses the room, pinning her with his gaze.
“Also, you have this slight mischievous twinkle in your eye and I recognize it because it’s exactly what I would’ve done in your place and I respect that.”