Archive of Our Own ^beta

There was a pleasant amount of noise in the hangar. There were sounds of metal clanging against various hard objects and surfaces, sounds of screws and bolts being screwed into place, and sounds of cursing when someone made a mistake or accidentally hurt themselves. People in the hangar were talking, their voices a low buzz under the sound of mechanics working and pilots arriving or taking off.

There was a loud beep coming from the droid LD-09 as it sped across the hangar, either on its way to Hewitt or McCall. Scott McCall was a Jedi in training, and LD-09 had been glued to him since the moment he had arrived on base. Along with the droid, X-wing pilot Stiles Stilinski had glued himself to the Jedi. Whenever Scott wasn't training and Stiles wasn't away on a mission, they would hang out around base, LD-09 trailing after them with the occasional loud beep.

The noise in the hangar was pleasant, and Derek Hale found himself to be calmed by it. He was busy fixing Boyd's ship, had been for the past several hours. It wasn't that badly damaged. Boyd and his squadron had been shot at by a couple TIE fighters during a mission to Dantooine, but they had all come out of it with minimal damages to their ships and little to no damage to themselves.

Derek had grease and oil on his hands, arms, and the white tank top he was wearing, the shirt he had worn over it discarded hours ago. He felt dirty, the sweat covering his body and forehead not helping, but he didn't mind it, nor did he mind the ache in his arms, legs, and back from having been on his feet and working all day long. He was a mechanic, this was what he did, and he liked it.

He was in the middle of fixing the part of the ship's wing that had been hit with a laser, when he noticed Erica coming over toward him. She was wiping away grease from her hands, her hair pulled up in a messy bun that was slowly falling apart, and there was a hint of a grin on her lips. Which could only mean she was coming over there to tease.

“Your pilot is coming in,” she said, the grin growing, and she reached up with her slightly less greasy and dirty hands to redo her hair.

Derek rolled his eyes, huffed, and dropped down from the wing, his feet landing heavily on the floor. “He's not my pilot,” he let out in a grumble, but he threw the hydrospanner in his hand to Erica anyway and headed over to the other side of the hangar, where a squad of X-wings were approaching from outside.

He spotted Kira first, her ship landing closer, and he only offered her a quick nod as he passed by, before his eyes were on the ship he was looking for. The ship wasn't as damaged as it was dirty. Just a few scrapes and scratches, nothing that would take long to fix, and he doubted the engine looked worse, considering the mission hadn't been full of enemies blocking their way. He only knew that because he had gotten regular updates from general Argent.

His eyes followed the long scrape across the side just below the viewport, his head suddenly filled with so many questions, but he didn't focus on that. Because then the ship opened and the pilot stepped out, a grin on his lips and his hands removing the helmet on his head, his hair a tussled mess underneath.

“Hey, Derek,” Stiles greeted, running a hand through his tussled hair and pushing it back flat on his head.

Derek took in the sight, the sight of a sweaty Stiles in uniform. A dirty, worn out Stiles who still somehow looked good, and Derek wanted to do nothing but lean over and kiss him, give him a proper welcome. Instead, his eyes flickered to the scrape and then snapped back to Stiles. “What happened to the ship?”

Stiles shrugged, tugging the helmet under his arm. “Nothing. These things just happen in space, dude.” CS-04, the droid coming out from the X-wing, beeped to their right, and Stiles rolled his eyes, his head rolling with them. “Well, it's not my fault she was flying so close to me, Cee!”

Derek huffed, hiding the maybe fond smile growing on his lips with a shake of his head, and he walked over toward the parked ship. “Go get cleaned up. You reek.”

“Like you're any better,” he heard Stiles mumble to himself followed by footsteps moving away along with the sound of wheels from the droid.

Stiles wasn't Derek's pilot, just like Derek wasn't Stiles' mechanic. Derek was a mechanic for whatever base he was stationed at, which had been the station under general Allison Argent's command for the past several years. He wasn't Stiles' mechanic, but it was an unspoken rule among the rest of the mechanics, that Derek was the only one allowed to even touch Stiles' X-wing. The rule had only become a thing, because Derek wasn't very subtle about his feelings toward the pilot, and everyone on base constantly teased him about it. Erica especially.

The first time Stiles had landed in the base hangar, rushed and nowhere near as careful as any of the other pilots landed their ships, Derek had yelled at him for being so carefree. Stiles had done nothing but roll his eyes, pat his chest, and told him to “calm down, big guy, I'm an excellent pilot.” Derek had decided to hate him from then on, but hate quickly turned to desire, because Derek wasn't blind. Stiles was very attractive, especially when he was sweaty and dirty after coming back from a mission, his hair always tussled from being trapped under his helmet for so long. And desire turned to a crush when he got to know him a bit more, a crush Derek could only just barely control.

The worst part of it was the fact that Stiles was always all up in his space, always touching him, always smiling at him, and always coming up to talk to him whenever he spotted him. Derek had tried to avoid him after a few months of crushing on the pilot, but Stiles had barged in on him in his living quarters only a few hours later to yell at him, because apparently Stiles had figured out what he was doing immediately.

So there Derek was. Crushing on a pilot and the whole base aware of it. It was terrible.

{ x }

“Oh maker,” Erica moaned as she rubbed at her shoulder, her head leaning to the side. “I need an hour long shower, and Boyd owes me a back rub.”

Derek huffed, and they took a turn down the hallway toward the base's living quarters. “You barely did any of the work on his ship, Erica. That was me, so stop complaining.”

Erica scoffed and smacked the back of her hand to the side of Derek's head. “You think I didn't work on other ships before I took over for you? Besides, you're big and muscular, I'm not.” Except her arms had gotten a lot stronger since she had started fixing ships more frequently, now that her medical issues were easier to control, and she could easily outdo any of the male mechanics with her physique.

Derek rubbed at where Erica had smacked him, sending her a halfhearted glare as they continued down the hall. “Boyd would give you a back rub even if you had done nothing but sit around anyway,” he said in a lowered voice, a near grumble, and he stepped to the side to let a pilot in just her undershirt and pants run by, another coming right after her with a grin on her face. Sometimes living on a base like this felt like they were surrounded by teenagers. Teenagers who didn't risk their lives every time they stepped into their ships.

“I know,” Erica said with a soft sigh and a smile on her face. “He's such a good boyfriend.” She couldn't have been silent for more than a second, before she continued, that teasing look in her eyes as she continued. “Speaking of boyfriends...”

Derek groaned and rolled his eyes, catching a door opening and a guy with wild bed hair coming out to their left in the corner of his eye. “He's not my boyfriend, Erica.”

“Not yet,” Erica nearly sang and leaned into his space, grin wide on her face. She opened her mouth to continue teasing, but she didn't get to, because there was a crash further down the hall, a room or two away from them, that caught both of their attentions.

A datapad was laying on the floor, cracked and broken. They shared a look of confusion, before Derek curiously walked over to the room it had come from. He didn't need to look at the number to know it was Scott's room, could already hear the familiar laughter coming from inside it, along with another familiar yelling and droid-like squealing.

“-can't just use the Force for shits and giggles, Scott!” he heard as soon as he came to a stop in front of the room, eyes immediately on the back of Stiles and the laughing Scott standing in front of him, LD-09 beeping happily along from next to him. “I could have been smacked in the face with that!”

Scott's laughter died down the second his eyes flickered from Stiles to Derek in the doorway. Derek send him a questioning look, brows furrowed, and he opened his mouth to ask what was going on but never got a word out, because suddenly Stiles was in his arms and he was stumbling backwards, back smacking against the wall on the other side of the hallway and his arms immediately around Stiles to keep him from falling.

Groaning, Stiles lifted his head from where it had smacked against Derek's shirt and the second his beautiful, brown eyes landed on him, they went wide and anger was replaced with embarrassment in a split second, his face flushing and his hands on Derek's biceps tightening their grip ever so slightly.

Derek only vaguely registered Scott laughing in the room, Erica snorting and searching frantically for her imager from the pouch on her hip, and LD-09 making a soft hum from next to the Jedi. He only vaguely registered all of that, because all he could focus on was Stiles. In his arms. Clinging onto him and looking at him with those wide and whiskey brown eyes.

It felt like forever, forever where all they did was stare at each other and holding their breaths, before Stiles cleared his throat, closed his mouth, and pulled himself off of Derek, patting his bicep lightly and his eyes anywhere but on Derek as he let out a nervous laughter. It was only now that they weren't pushed together, that Derek noticed what Stiles was wearing. While Derek was still in his work clothes, everything on him dirty and full of grease, Stiles looked freshly clean and in his night clothes, shirt loose and with a deep neck, his collarbones visible, his pants loose as well and his feet in warm socks. He looked adorable, and Derek wanted to lean back against him, breathe him in.

Derek didn't catch whatever Stiles was grumbling, but apparently Scott did because he shrugged and grinned at him. With a huff, Stiles turned around and looked back at Derek, this time with the smile he always had plastered on his face whenever he looked at Derek, soft and reaching his warm eyes. “Have you eaten yet?” he asked, breaking the awkward tensing between them. “You look like you just came back from the hangar, so I'm gonna guess no.”

Derek let his eyes move away from Stiles for a second to look over at Erica. Erica who was looking down at her imager with a wicked grin on her lips. He was going to be teased about this a lot in the morning, he knew he would. With a sigh, he turned back to Stiles and shook his head. “Not yet, no. I was going to clean up first.”

Nodding, Stiles stepped forward and reached out to grab Derek's wrist, tugging at him until he was standing instead of leaning against the wall. “Then let's get away from the Sith in there and get you to a shower.”

“Hey!” he heard Scott call from the room, LD-09 beeping wildly in the doorway, but Derek didn't care. Because Stiles was dragging him along down the hallway, down toward where Derek's living quarter was. He turned and gave Erica a confused look, only to see her high fiving Scott and the two of them laughing.

His friends were terrible.

Stiles ended up laid out on Derek's bed and going through the holopad in his room while Derek was showering, rambling on about something Derek couldn't hear from under the water. And Stiles ended up sitting down across the table from Derek in the cafeteria, reaching over to steal from Derek's plate despite claiming to be full himself. And Stiles kept on talking, kept telling Derek about everything and anything he had seen during the time he was away on mission. Including where the scrape had come from.

None of this was new, because Stiles did this more often than not. And it didn't help Derek's growing feelings for him.

{ x }

“Hand me the hydrospanner,” Derek said, one hand on an engine part and the other reached out from under the ship. A full ten seconds passed where nothing landed in his hand, so he slowly ducked down just enough to spot Stiles sitting on the floor next to Derek's toolbox, brown eyes immediately snapping down to the holopad in his lap when Derek caught them.

Derek rolled his eyes and sighed. “Stiles, if you're going to hang out around here, you gonna have to help in some way. Sitting around on your ass isn't helping in any way.”

“It's helping with the company?” Stiles offered with a toothy smile, his shoulders lifting for a moment before dropping as he groaned. “Fine.” He turned to look at the toolbox, hand digging in. “Which hydrospanner do you need?”

“Medium one. To your right. No, not- Right, Stiles- Yeah, that one.” Derek caught the hydrospanner when it was thrown to him, and then he went back under the ship, reaching up to screw in the bolt that had been loose.

“You know it would have been easier if you had just walked over here and picked it out yourself, right?” Stiles asked, and Derek could practically hear the grin on his lips.

Derek let out a soft huff, a little smile tugging on his lips, and he shook his head even though he knew Stiles wouldn't be able to see him from where he was standing. “You willingly sat down and offered your help, idiot.”

The scoff that Stiles replied to that was loud and made the smile on Derek's lips grow wider. “I was offering you my company, which, by the way, is a privilege. You should be thankful I want to spend any time with you at all, considering you're so sour and grumpy and just plain rude.”

Derek tightened the bolt one more time, before he ducked out from under the ship, his eyes on the grinning pilot sitting on the floor. “No one asked you to hang out with me,” he shot back, tossing the hydrospanner back in the toolbox, the sound of it hitting the other tools loud and noisy, and he wiped his dirty hands down his tank top. “You can leave anytime you want.”

Stiles' eyes narrowed and his bottom lip popped out. “But you'd be so lonely without me. You'd have no one to bother you and keep you company.”

“I've got Erica, Boyd, and Isaac.” Derek crouched down and dug his hands into the toolbox, searching through it. “You're not my only friend, flyboy.”

“But you do admit we're friends,” Stiles said, a wide smile forming on his lips.

Derek only got a little bit distracted by it. A little bit meaning a lot, because he stopped searching through the box for who knew how long, forgot what he was searching for in the first place once he pulled himself out of staring at Stiles and his beautiful smile. “Fine,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “We're friends,” no matter how much he wanted to be more.

The smile only grew wider at that, and Derek's heart pounded hard in his chest at the sight. Stiles smiling wasn't a rare thing. No, Stiles smiled a lot, almost all the time. There had been a few times where Derek had caught him with a sad look on his face, always whenever he thought people weren't looking, and Derek had seen the occasional sad smiles Stiles offered everyone around him.

But Stiles smiling this widely and warmly, a smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle slightly, his eyes warm pools of whiskey, and his whole face screaming beauty and happiness? That. That was rare, and Derek wanted to remember that smile for the rest of his life, wanted to do everything in his power to have that smile be the only smile Stiles ever had on his face.

“I knew you loved me,” Stiles said after a moment of silence, his eyes warm on Derek. “You big sap.”

Derek rolled his eyes, didn't deny it, and stood up, a tool in his hand. As he turned, he caught sight of a red haired woman rushing in their direction. Lydia Martin. She was part of Stiles' squadron, basically the second in command. She also had a nervous look on her face, he noticed as she got closer, catching Stiles' attention as well, the look almost panicked.

The second Stiles' eyes were on her, the smile faded away and he was immediately on his feet, the holopad previously in his lap now tugged away in the toolbox. “Lydia,” he greeted her, stepping forward when she came to a halt by the two of them. “What's going on?”

“Emergency call,” Lydia said simply, throwing Derek a look. That was all she needed to do for Derek to understand. Derek wasn't a pilot, wasn't even a soldier, and mission information wasn't something you just threw around to anyone. “General wants us to leave immediately.”

Stiles nodded. “I'll be right there,” he said and then turned to Derek, the crooked grin on his lips forced, the nervous feeling he had obvious in his eyes. “Duty calls. See you around, Derek.” And then he turned around to jog after Lydia.

Leaving Derek to stand there, worry making his heart pound hard in his chest.

{ x }

Derek hated when Stiles was away on a mission. Especially when he had been called away for an emergency rescue opp. That was never a good thing. He knew the life they lived, with the constant worry that their enemy would find them, you could never know who returned and who didn't.

He knew because his sister, Laura, had been a pilot. She had been called out for a mission by Jakku, and she hadn't returned. He knew because he had seen how many people mourned their loved ones after every mission anywhere near enemy lines.

And Derek loved Stiles. There was no way around it, he did. Stiles had arrived on base shortly after Laura's death, and Stiles had helped him move on. Stiles was a brightness on Derek's darkest days, a constant fixture to keep him from falling into the dark pit of sorrow he had been in when he had gotten the news about his sister. Stiles was everything Derek needed to stay grounded and not slip into a destructive mindset.

So knowing Stiles was out there, flying around and risking his life, was terrible. Derek hated it, hated being so worried.

Just like everyone else on the base, general Argent was aware of his feelings for Stiles and would either send someone to give him regular updates on him and his squadron throughout the day, or she'd come by herself. It helped him relax and focus on working on the ships still parked in the hangar, some badly damaged, others just in the need of a touch up.

The updates helped, knowing Stiles was safe and alive helped. But every night Derek would lay in bed and be unable to sleep, his mind wandering and his thoughts full of every bad thing that could happen. The empathetic looks everyone around base gave him, and Erica constantly hugging him and telling him Stiles would be okay because “he always is, Derek, he's a great pilot” certainly didn't help, even though they probably should.

Derek knew Stiles was an excellent pilot, knew he had always come back before. But he still worried, because Laura had been an excellent pilot as well, and she and her squadron had been ambushed. A lot of other pilots were excellent as well. That didn't mean something couldn't go wrong.

Derek was crouched down on the front of an A-wing, hands dirty and sweat on his forehead, when it happened.

Stiles had been gone for no more than a week, and they had only run into a few problems, but nothing they couldn't handle, according to what the general had told him. He had been gone for no more than a week, were to return in a few days, and Derek couldn't wait to see him again, couldn't wait to know he was safe.

It was the sound of rushing footsteps echoing in the nearly empty hangar that caught his attention, not the loud beeping from LD-09. Derek paused in what he was doing and looked up, looked over at where Scott was running toward him, a panicked look on his face, and LD was racing after him, loud beeps drowning out the sound of its wheels scraping against the floor.

Derek's heart dropped and worry, panic, rose immediately at the sight of those two. He jumped down from the ship, hydrospanner left on the front. “What happened?” he asked, already wiping off his hands on his shirt and meeting Scott halfway.

“It's Stiles,” Scott started, out of breath and panting from having sprinted through the base. “I don't- He's in danger, Derek. I felt it.”

Scott didn't finish talking, before Derek started running. Running toward the control room, his heart in his throat and panic flowing through him.

Not again. He couldn't do this again.

He ignored Boyd and Erica walking down the hallway, ignored their greeting followed by worried looks, and he ignored when he ran past Isaac coming out from the medbay, bicep wrapped in bandages. He didn't have time to ask what had happened, couldn't even begin to worry about it. Because all he could focus on was finding out what had happened to Stiles.

The control room was chaotic. Derek could hear yelling and rushing footsteps, beeping and curses, from down the hallway as he rounded the corner. His eyes were first on Danny yelling “do you read me? Please respond!” at the com, the hologram in front of him flashing red.

Derek took no more than two steps into the room before he caught Allison's eyes, and she rushed over to him immediately. “What happened?” he asked and shit, he was having trouble breathing. The noise in the room was making his head pound, and he felt a lump in his throat. He was seconds from a break down, minutes from a panic attack.

“You can't be in here,” Allison told him, a hand on his arm. But Derek didn't budge, didn't move an inch, and just gave her a pleading look, so she sighed. “We lost contact ten minutes ago. The last thing we heard was Martin counting TIE fighters. She made it to seven, then we lost them.” She noticed the panicked look on his face, and she reached out to grab his arms, looking at him. “Don't let yourself think the worst, Derek. They're great pilots, even better fighters. They can still make it back.”

Derek felt either numb or panicked for the rest of the day, and he didn't bother returning to the hangar to finish fixing the A-wing, too distracted by the news. Instead, he went straight to his living quarters, sat down on his bed and with his head in his hands, he let himself cry. Let himself break down.

He wasn't sure how long he had been sitting there, but the place around him had gotten dark by the time Erica and Boyd came into the room, Erica sitting down next to him and wrapping her arms around him, pulling him close. Boyd sat down on his other side and wrapped an arm around him in comfort.

They meant to help, Derek knew they did. But he couldn't focus on the comfort his friends offered. Couldn't focus on anything because his world was crumbling around him for the second time.

{ x }

Derek spend exactly twenty hours unable to move away from his bed, before he marched out into the hangar in clean work clothes. He ignored the pitiful looks, avoided anyone trying to give their condolences, and just avoided everyone. Even Boyd and Erica, even Isaac and Scott. He didn't want to talk to anyone, wanted to be left alone.

Allison had told him to take a few days off, but Derek hadn't listened to her. He had gone straight to the hangar, had grabbed his toolbox, and had gone to the A-wing he didn't get to finish the day before. And he didn't do much else than work. Just work.

He spend long nights in the hangar, stayed there until the morning patrol would need their ships. The silence was deafening but the less people there were there around night time, the less people would know when Derek latched out in anger, frustration, and sorrow. People didn't need to know that when he made a mistake or accidentally hurt himself because he hadn't been focused, that he would yell and throw his tools across the hangar, then sink to the floor as he broke down.

People didn't need to know that he was a wreck. A wreck that hadn't been sleeping well since they lost contact with Stiles, a wreck that hadn't bothered showering, and a wreck that hadn't seen the inside of his living quarters in days, because he didn't want to be there. He didn't want to take any breaks, not even to eat, so he ate while he worked.

He didn't want the breaks Erica told him to take at least once every third hour. Because if he allowed himself to relax- If he allowed his thoughts to wander, he knew where they would take him. They would take him straight to Stiles, and he didn't want to deal with the loss of another person he loved.

It had been a whole week with no word from Stiles or any part of his squadron, and Derek wasn't dealing with the loss. At all. He didn't want to go through that again, so he put off the mourning for as long as he could.

{ x }

Derek ignored the greeting the droid CH-17 offered him as it rolled by where he was standing, his arms above his head and hands in the greasy engine of a B-wing. He had been ignoring everyone lately, too exhausted and busy keeping himself distracted to let himself get pulled into any conversation.

Not that people hadn't tried. Erica had tried, and she had tried a lot. Boyd had tried a few times over the past week, but he had quickly let it go when Derek made it obvious he didn't want to talk, didn't want the company. Isaac had tried as well, just once or twice, and Scott had tried one. All got the same result: silence.

But Erica? Erica never gave up. Not when her best friend was falling apart and refused to let anyone help him. She made sure he always had food by his station, made sure to drag him away for at least a nap when he was getting wobbly on his feet and blinking slowly. She made sure to let him know that she and all his friends were there for him when he needed them. And she never pushed for him to deal with the loss of Stiles. Not after he snapped at her on the second day, and it became clear that he wasn't ready. Not yet.

Derek ignored the familiar sound of ships approaching. It happened all the time. Approaching ships wasn't uncommon on a base like this. Something in the back of his mind told him those were X-wing engines he heard, but he didn't bother ducking out from underneath the ship he was fixing to check.

He didn't care for the approaching ships, but he did let his attention get pulled away from the ship when there was a group of people – pilots and mechanics – jogging down the hangar behind him. Curious, he dropped his arms and walked around the B-wing to get a view of the landing ships, and-

He knew those X-wings.

The hydrospanner fell from his hand, the bang of it hitting the floor loud in the hangar now full of people with excited smiles, but he didn't care. Because his eyes found Stiles landing his X-wing immediately.

Stiles looked tired, dirty and beat up. His helmet was on but it looked damaged, and Derek could spot a few dark red spots on the side of his face, the injuries looking minor, thankfully. There was a tired smile on his face, eyes on the crowd surrounding the squadron. The ships were all badly damaged, one or two missing.

Derek would have noticed that if his eyes weren't glued to the- to his pilot coming out of his X-wing, the helmet coming off to reveal that messy, tussled hair Derek wanted to do nothing but run his hands through. His feet were moving before his brain could properly process what was happening. His heart was pounding hard in his chest, and his eyes never left Stiles as he pushed his way through the crowd.

His mind was blank when he made it to the other side of the crowd, his eyes were wet when Stiles' beautiful, stunning, brown eyes came to rest on him, and his heart was pounding when he ran over and wrapped his arms around Stiles in a bone crushing hug. “Thank the maker you're alive,” he heard himself whisper against Stiles' neck, his voice breaking ever so slightly.

Stiles laughed, a sound Derek had missed. The laugh was happy, relieved, and loud in his ear. “Missed you too, big guy,” he said, his voice soft, and Derek felt arms wrap around him, hugging him back.

Derek never wanted to let go of Stiles. Never. But he did let go after a minute of breathing in Stiles' dirty and horrible scent, only to reach his hands up, cup Stiles' face, and lean in to press his lips to Stiles' in a firm and desperate kiss.

Stiles didn't kiss him back. Not immediately. He made a noise of surprise, and for a second Derek thought he had made a mistake. That he had screwed it up. So he moved to lean back, his lips leaving Stiles' surprisingly soft ones. But then Stiles grabbed him, threw his arms around him, and pulled him back in, pressing their lips together again. This time it wasn't as desperate, but it was deep and with years of build up want and love.

Neither of them paid attention to the wolf whistles and cheers from the crowd around them, and neither paid attention to Melissa trying to get Stiles' attention, probably to get him to the medbay along with the rest of his squadron, her voice stern but soft.

At the moment, nothing but Stiles mattered. Stiles who was back, alive, and in Derek's arms. Finally.