Chapter Text
Derek felt his claws lengthen as he leapt onto the stadium field. Next to him, he saw that Stiles’ body was glowing with magic, fists clenched in anticipation.
Stiles looked pretty confident, but Derek could hear the way his heart was hammering away in his chest; he was nervous. Not that Derek could blame him—he was incredibly nervous himself. And the way that Deucalion had so easily handled Jackson certainly wasn’t helping his mindset. He knew logically that he and Stiles had the advantage; it was two-on-one, and the last time they had fought, Stiles’ magical golems had been more than enough to finish the job. But Derek couldn’t shake the feeling that since that fight Deucalion had come up with some more tricks up his sleeve, and that made Derek extremely wary.
Across from them, Deucalion still had the sadistic smirk on his face and was looking at both of them hungrily.
“Well that was certainly a lackluster warm-up,” he said, tossing Jackson aside. “I really can’t believe that he actually thought he had a chance of taking me out. That was laughable.”
“Well he’s not the brightest crayon in the box, that’s for sure,” Stiles shot back. “I know his name is Gold Standard, but he probably should be called Grayscale or something underwhelming like that.”
As Deucalion tilted his head back and laughed, Derek marveled at the way Stiles was able to be witty and sarcastic despite being incredibly nervous. To anyone else, it would sound like an ordinary comment, but Derek could hear the slight strain in Stiles’ voice, and the rapid beating of his heart.
Deucalion was still laughing so Derek took the opportunity to take a quick glance around the stadium. Most of the crowd had fled, leaving only a couple people scattered here and there. The Sheriff and his men had done a really good job with crowd control, Derek had barely noticed them leaving. As Derek scanned the remainder of the people in the stadium, he briefly locked eyes with Isaac, who had moved to the front row with Scott.
Isaac looked like he was more scared for Derek’s life than Derek was, and his heartbeat was even faster than Stiles’.
Derek offered him a small, what he hoped was reassuring smile and then turned back to Deucalion.
“That was a good one,” Deucalion said, once he had re-composed himself. “I wonder if sarcasm is one of your superpowers. I wouldn’t mind being able to crack jokes like that.”
“Too bad you’ll never find out,” Stiles replied, eyes glowing. “Because you’re not stealing my powers at all.”
“We’ll see about that,” Deucalion said threateningly, and out of the corner of his eyes, Derek saw Stiles take a small step back.
Deucalion smirked again and quickly lunged at the two of them. Derek braced himself for attack but he quickly realized that Deucalion was aiming for Stiles and not him.
But Stiles seemed paralyzed.
Derek snarled and tackled Deucalion mid-air before he could get to Stiles. He clawed at Deucalion’s torso and hurled him into the goal post furthest from both of them. The sheer force of Derek’s throw caused Deucalion to break through the goal post.
Derek didn’t know much about anatomy, but he was pretty sure that after an impact like that, some part of Deucalion had to be broken, and even with advanced healing he would be down just long enough for Derek to talk some sense into Stiles.
“Were you going to move?” he snarled in Stiles’ direction. “Or were you just going to let him get to you?”
“I… I’m sorry,” Stiles stammered, heartbeat thundering in Derek’s ears. “I freaked out. I… I’m good.”
“You better be,” Derek growled, glancing over his shoulder as Deucalion struggled to get the goal post off of him. “I can’t do this on my own. I need you, Spark.”
That seemed to do the trick. Stiles closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. When he opened his eyes again they were glowing with a brilliant, determined orange hue.
“I’m ready.”
“Perfect,” Deucalion said, as he walked back over to them. “Because I think Black Wolf just broke my spine.” He stopped a couple yards away from them and cracked his back for emphasis. “I’ll be sure to send that one hero who had the super healing a thank you card. What was her name again? Cat-lady?”
“Her name was Catwoman,” Stiles said, glaring. “And you’re going to pay for what you did to her.”
Derek barely had time to react before Stiles sent three blasts of fire streaking Deucalion’s way. Evidently, Deucalion wasn’t expecting it either as he dodged the first two, but the third one slammed into his chest.
Seizing his opportunity, Derek raked his claws across Deucalion’s already burned torso. He didn’t want Deucalion be able to mount any kind of offense. Derek had been on the receiving end of several Deucalion punches, and he would really rather never experience those feelings again.
Derek and Stiles kept up their relentless barrage of attacks, and if he was honest Derek was surprised at how coherently they were fighting together. Deucalion seemed to be reeling the entire time. Derek would rush him with claws and fangs, then would spring back and allow Stiles to fry, burn or crush Deucalion with whatever element of magic he chose.
But as well as the fight seemed to be going; it never really felt like they were making any real headway. It just didn’t seem like Deucalion was taking that much damage. Especially since he kept making sarcastic little quips every time he was attacked.
“Well, this is certainly much more exciting than last time,” he grunted after Stiles had just shocked him with a bolt of lightning. “Have you guys been hitting the gym or something? Training a little extra, perhaps?”
“Shut up!” Derek growled, raking his claws back across Deucalion’s chest. He let out a frustrated growl when his claw marks healed almost immediately. Even he didn’t heal that fast. “What are you?”
“Ah, ah,” Deucalion said, wagging a finger. “A magician never reveals his secrets.”
“He’s been cursed,” Stiles said, landing next to Derek. His hands were still crackling with electricity and he leveled Deucalion with a withering glare. “Haven’t you?”
“I’m surprised it took you this long to figure it out,” Deucalion said, smirking. “After taking all your attacks, I should be dead by now.”
“I thought curses were a bad thing."
“Not necessarily,” Stiles answered, still glaring at Deucalion. “A curse is another name for a spell cast with black magic. But if the subject has practiced black magic before then the negative effects can be diluted. But if we don’t finish this quickly he’s going to be more insane than he already is—it’s a side effect of black magic.”
“Precisely,” Deucalion answered, still smirking.
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Stiles said, brow furrowing in confusion. “A curse this strong—there’s only a couple people on the planet who can cast it. And I know for a fact that almost all of them wouldn’t use their powers to cast a spell on you.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I can just take their powers for myself then, isn’t it?” Deucalion answered, cocking his head.
“Wait a minute,” Stiles said. “If you could always cast black magic on yourself, why—”
“Why didn’t I do it in the cemetery?” Deucalion finished. “I know, I’m kicking myself for it too. To be honest, I’ve never needed to use it. As you said, the side effects are pretty horrendous, and none of the heroes I’ve absorbed have put up enough of a fight for me to use it.”
“You forgot you had it,” Derek growled.
“Rookie mistake, I know,” Deucalion said with a shrug. “It’s almost disgraceful. I’m so disappointed with myself. But since I am cursed, I can kill you both and take your powers. And I think I’m going to make this a little more fun for myself. I always was fond of role-playing.”
“What are you—” Stiles started, but stopped as he saw Deucalion start to shape shift.
A chill ran down Derek’s spine as he recognized the voice.
“The Silver Huntress,” Stiles breathed.
“Hello, Black Wolf,” Deucalion said, in Kate’s voice. “Long time no see.”
Derek’s breath caught in his chest and he felt all of the fight go out of him. “You’re not really here,” he whispered. “You can’t be here.”
“Of course she’s not,” Deucalion said, rolling his eyes and twitching slightly. “She’s still in prison, but I couldn’t resist seeing the look on your face.”
“He’s losing his grip on reality. The curse might be affecting his mind. He might even think that he’s the Silver Huntress,” Stiles muttered. “We need to finish this soon, before the magic corrupts him even more."
“What’s the matter, Black Wolf?” Deucalion asked, smirking and twitching again. A black aura started to appear around his hand and Derek eyed it warily. “ You don’t look very excited to see me. I killed your pack remember? Remember? The mighty Hale Pack?”
Deucalion raised his hand and pointed his finger at Derek, who stared back. He felt broken. Even though logically he knew that Kate wasn’t really there, Derek still felt rooted to the spot. Deucalion was every bit as intimidating as he remembered Kate being. She had murdered his entire family. His mother, father, both his sisters and his uncle had met their end at her hand. And all of them had been better werewolves than Derek would ever be. If they hadn’t been able to beat Kate, then Derek had no hope either.
The ground started rumbling and Derek closed his eyes, bracing for the kill shot, but was surprised when he didn’t feel anything. If anything the ground was shaking more, and Derek thought that Deucalion had created an earthquake of some sort until he cracked one eye open and saw that he was surrounded by earth golems, which were protecting him from Deucalion’s curse.
Unless the curse was for him to be shaken violently for the rest of his life.
“Derek. Derek!”
It took Derek a couple seconds to realize that Stiles had both hands on his shoulders and was the one shaking him furiously.
“Derek, if you check out on me right now, I swear on my life I will kill you myself.”
“I can’t do it,” Derek muttered, taking a couple small steps back and leaning against the wall of golems. “I can’t—I—she killed my—no. I can’t..”
“Derek, look at me,” Stiles said, jerking Derek’s head to look him in the eyes. “You are one of the bravest people I have ever met, and I know you’re scared right now. But you can’t give up, okay? Kate’s not really here. Beacon Hills needs you. Isaac needs you. I need you, okay?”
“Stiles…”
“Yeah, it’s me, buddy,” Stiles said, cupping Derek’s face in his hands. “And when this is over you and I are going to have a long talk about this whole secret identity thing because I feel like you’ve known longer than me. But right now I really need you to snap out of it. I don’t know how much longer this shield is going to hold up.”
Derek looked up and saw that the wall of golems was starting to crack under the force of Deucalion’s spell. He could just make out Deucalion’s voice from beyond the wall.
“You can’t hide in there forever, Black Wolf!”
Derek closed his eyes and took a deep breath to compose himself. “I can do this,” he said quietly.
“I know you can,” Stiles said. “And I know that know is definitely not the best time for this, but I believe in you,” he added, pressing a soft and gentle kiss to Derek’s mouth.
Derek instantly flashed back to the time at High Point when he and Stiles had kissed for the first time. The fireworks immediately returned to his head and he suddenly felt better, boosted by the belief and support of Stiles.
A smug look appeared on Stiles’ face. “I guess my kisses are magic.”
Derek rolled his eyes and stepped in front of Stiles, facing the crumbling wall. He narrowed his eyes and lengthened his claws.
“Let me at him,” he growled.
“That’s my boy,” Stiles said. His eyes glowed amber and the wall of golems split apart and stood menacingly in between them and Deucalion.
“Perfect,” Stiles said, grinning. “You hit him high and I’ll hit low?”
Derek snarled in response and leapt at Deucalion, claws outstretched. He was vaguely aware that Stiles and his golems were behind him, but all of his attention was focused on Deucalion.
It helped a little bit that Deucalion still looked like Kate. It was therapeutic in a twisted sort of way. Derek had spent so long suppressing the hurt and demons that had come with the Hale fire, that there was some sort of retribution in clawing Deucalion’s chest.
If he couldn’t claw Kate, he supposed clawing a Deucalion that looked like Kate was the next best thing.
As Derek and Stiles continued their attack on Deucalion, Derek began to realize that he was starting to switch between his own form and Kate’s.
“He’s losing his grip on the spell,” Stiles muttered, firing a bolt of lightning right at Deucalion. “Things could get a little tricky. I might have to—”
“Less talking more hitting,” Derek growled, grabbing Deucalion’s waist and tossing him halfway across the field. Deucalion tried staggering to his feet but collapsed to the ground.
Derek roared in triumph and dashed to make sure Deucalion was down for the count but was surprised to find that a wall of golems stood in his way.
“What are you doing?” Derek asked, whirling around to face Stiles.
“Derek, listen to me,” Stiles said. “Remember how I said that there were always negative effects of curses?"
Derek nodded, but he didn’t really understand why Stiles was telling him this. He’d already gotten his crash course in curses, he didn’t understand why Stiles was choosing now to give him a review lesson, especially when Deucalion was lying forty yards away, just waiting to be apprehended once and for all.
“Look at him,” Stiles said, pointing to Deucalion. Derek peered past the golems and saw that even though Deucalion was lying almost motionless on the ground, his body was still shifting between his own form and Kate’s. Every now and then he would twitch and a surge of black magic would course through his body, but other than that he looked down for the count.
“The curse put a huge strain on his body,” Stiles explained. “So if you keep pummeling him like you do, then the magic might get forced out all at once and that won’t be pretty.”
“You’re lying,” Derek growled. “There’s no way he’s going to explode. Let’s just finish the job.”
“Derek, stop!” Stiles said, blocking Derek’s path. “It’s too dangerous for you to touch him right now. If you touch him and he blows up, I don’t know if you’ll survive the explosion even with your healing factor. And there’s no way I’m giving up having superhero sex with you when I haven’t even had it yet.”
“So what’s are we supposed to do?” Derek growled. “Just let him lay there?”
“I… I think I can drain the excess dark magic. It’s dangerous, but I think I have a pretty good shot at it,” Stiles said, frowning and looking at his hands. “At least that way we’ll be able to apprehend him without anything bad happening.”
“What, no! Stiles, I can’t let you do that,” Derek said, grabbing Stiles’ shoulders. “There has to be another way.”
“There probably is, but we really don’t have a choice right now, do we?” Stiles said grimly. “The more time we spend arguing, the longer Deucalion has to catch his breath and then we’re right back to where we started and I’d really rather not do this all night.”
Derek was silent for a few moments. All he wanted was for this whole Deucalion situation to be over, but he didn’t want Stiles to put his life in danger. He knew that it was part of being a hero, but Derek hadn’t had any time to date Stiles now that they both knew each other’s secret. He knew he was being selfish, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care.
“Derek, I’ll be fine,” Stiles said softly, gripping Derek’s hands. He pressed a kiss to Derek’s knuckles and gave him a reassuring smile. “Trust me. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Derek made a small noise of protest as Stiles let go of his hands and started to make his way over towards Deucalion.
“Stiles, I—I…”
“I know, big guy,” Stiles said, smiling. “I know.”
Stiles landed right in front of Deucalion and traced a circle in the ground before taking a deep breath and muttering some words that Derek could barely make out even with his enhanced hearing.
As the circle and Stiles started to glow a brilliant white, Derek felt a body press up against his side. He flinched and turned to see Isaac and Scott standing nervously behind him with the Sheriff lingering behind.
“What’s he doing?” Isaac murmured. He reached for Derek’s hand and gripped it tightly.
“I don’t know,” Derek said. “But I hope it works.”
They all turned their attention back to Stiles, who was slowly siphoning Deucalion’s power and channeling it into the magic circle. A line of dark magic was tracing from Deucalion and into Stiles as he drained the magic. Stiles had a look of intense concentration on his face and a thin sheen of sweat was breaking out on his forehead.
“What’s going on out there, Wolf?” the Sheriff asked. “Or should I say Derek Hale?”
“Sheriff, I…”
“Relax, Derek, Scott and Isaac told me everything,” the Sheriff said.
Derek turned his gaze to Isaac, who whined and hung his head. “More like he called us out,” he said quietly. “He’s too smart for his own good.”
“It wasn’t hard to figure out considering how they were the only two left in the stadium,” the Sheriff said rolling his eyes. “Still, I suppose I should thank you for looking out for my son both in and out of costume,” the Sheriff said, extending his hand. “Call me John.”
Derek shook John’s hand, wilting a little bit under John’s intense gaze. “I wanted to—”
“We’ll talk about this later,” John said, shaking his head. “Right now we need to focus on making sure this whole thing gets resolved.”
Derek nodded and turned his attention back to Stiles and Deucalion. Stiles was still siphoning power, but now instead of white, the circle was black with the magic that was coming out of Deucalion.
“Is that supposed to happening?” Scott murmured.
“Stay here,” Derek growled before sprinting over to Stiles. He was about to break the barrier when Stiles’ voice stopped him.
“Stay back!” Stiles cried. He had a pained expression on his face and was covered in sweat. “I—there’s too much dark magic. I can’t take all of it out.”
“What can I—”
A large explosion went off and Derek watched as Stiles’ body hurtled through the air. He landed about twenty yards away and didn’t move.
“Stiles!”
Derek turned and started to make his way over to Stiles when a voice stopped him dead in his tracks.
“Well I think that about does it for him,” Deucalion chuckled, standing up and dusting himself off. The sadistic smirk flickered across his face as he looked Derek up and down. “Mouthy little hero, wasn’t he?”
Stiles tried struggling to a kneeling position, but was too weak and collapsed to the ground. Scott and John quickly rushed to his side, but Derek could hear Stiles’ heartbeat and it was getting fainter and fainter.
“Der…”
Derek had never felt more weak than when Stiles’ body was lying on the ground. It felt like someone had taken all of the air out of his lungs as he looked on helplessly while the Sheriff dialed for an ambulance and Scott tried make sure Stiles was okay. This wasn’t supposed to happen. They were supposed to take care of Deucalion and save the day.
He was a good guy. The good guys always won, that’s how it always happened. Superman always won. Iron man always won. Batman always won, and he made it look easy.
He and Stiles were supposed to win, too.
“Well, that was a little bit messier than I anticipated,” Deucalion said, turning to Derek. “I suppose you’re wondering how it happened. But long story short I had Stiles drain the excess black magic and I just waited for Catwoman’s healing factor to kick in. And I knew that neither one of you would think of that. So Red Spark got his, and now it’s your turn. Just like in the cemetery, except I don’t think Red Spark is going to be able to come to your rescue this time,” he added, smirking viciously, casting a disdainful glance back at Stiles.
Derek lost it. Something snapped in his head and suddenly nothing else mattered other than avenging Stiles. He roared and sprung at Deucalion, whose eyes widened in shock. Derek didn’t even know where he was aiming, all he knew that he wanted to take Deucalion down, permanently. This was the monster who had dared attack his family, his friends, his mate.
“You’re a wolf,” Deucalion gasped, moments before Derek tackled him to the ground.
Derek thought he had been angry the first time he’d attacked Deucalion, but now all he could see was red. He was full of white-hot anger and right now all he cared about was inflicting as much pain as possible. He was clawing and snapping at every part of Deucalion he could reach. His own heartbeat was pounding in his head and he was running on pure adrenaline and rage. Everything felt amplified. His claws felt longer, his jaws felt sharper, and he felt more powerful, more feral.
Deucalion seemed to be struggling, but Derek continued to claw and bite until he stopped moving. He howled in triumph and was seconds away from ripping Deucalion’s throat out, when a small whimper broke him out of his frenzy.
Derek whirled his head around and saw Scott, the Sheriff and Isaac had surrounded Stiles and looked like they were trying to stop the bleeding. Scott had his hands pressed down on Stiles’ stomach, and logically Derek knew that he was trying to help, but all he could sense was Stiles’ pain.
Derek snarled and bounded over to Scott and bared his fangs in his face.
“Derek… I’m trying to help him,” Scott stammered, shifting nervously. Derek could smell the fear and nervousness leaking off of him in waves. “You can put your fangs away now, please.”
Derek snarled again, demanding Scott would get the message to back off, but was surprised when he felt a hand on his snout and a somewhat comforting scent filled his nose.
“It’s okay, Derek. It’s over,” Isaac said softly. “The paramedics are on their way. Stiles is going to be okay. I promise.”
Derek whined low in his throat, but allowed Isaac to gently guide him to a lying position, nestling his head in Isaac’s lap.
“I’m so proud of you, Derek,” Isaac continued, running his hands along Derek’s fur. “You saved all of us. And you shifted! I didn’t know you could do that.”
Derek hadn’t known he could do it either. He didn’t even know how he did it.
“Get some rest,” Isaac said soothingly. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
Those were the last words Derek heard before he passed out.