Superheroes

Flares

Stark is still ticked off at him because of the revenge he exacted, and all the other Avengers have been teasing him about crying literal wolf. He tried to throw away the stuffed animal, but the newest game in the tower is propping it up wherever Stark isn't expecting it. Stiles didn't expect everyone to get in on the fun when he plotted this, but the more the merrier.

Today isn't one of the conference room days, but he's slowly gotten used to being around literal superheroes so he feels more comfortable being in the common rooms to do his homework or lounge with Derek. He and Derek don't hide out in the apartment very much anymore. Darcy mentioned that she wants to do a group dinner for everyone, and so they're going to plan that for the future when Stiles has the time to do a big meal that takes up half the day preparation-wise.

Stiles is doing some pleasure reading on his laptop and Derek is texting back and forth with Scott about a dispute that another pack wants them to mediate. Scott always does the mediation for the pack, but there's talk of sending Stiles there, which means Derek will go back, too. The pack is pretty aggressive, and Kira is a badass, but she can only do so much, especially if there's an ambush.

Barton is in the room, working on his arrows, and Stiles has been peppering him with questions in between paragraphs. The questions are things he remembered Allison talking about almost a decade ago, and the distance from her death doesn't help the hurt.

Derek nudges him in the thigh with his foot, looking over his phone to gauge Stiles' emotions. He reigns in the grief to manageable levels, which judging by Derek's facial expression wasn't what he wanted Stiles to do, but it's the best they're going to get in the situation.

Their nonverbal showdown is interrupted when Barnes and Romanoff enter the room bickering, only they're not speaking English. Their conversation is in Russian. Stiles' eyebrows go up, because even though he's heard that Romanoff and Barnes can speak Russian, he's always conversed with them both in English.

There's a very high chance that no one knows he can speak anything other than English, especially since a few days earlier, he cracked a joke that he took Spanish in high school for the easy A and only remembers how to say yes, no, and ask for the bathroom.

He stops asking questions to listen in on the conversation between Barnes and Romanoff, because he knows people will say a lot more when they think no one can understand them. He's done the same plenty of times and only feels a tiny bit bad about it.

The conversation isn't all that riveting. Romanoff keeps teasing Barnes, but he gives as much as he takes. Stiles manages to keep his calm for ten minutes, until Romanoff tells a filthy joke the moment he takes a drink of water. He sprays the water all over his computer – and wow, he needs to stop doing spit-takes all the damn time – and starts laughing.

Their gazes snap over to him, staring openly as he cackles.

"Since when can you understand us?" Romanoff asks in Russian.

Stiles has to cough and clear his throat before he can properly answer. "Since always."

Barton stops when Stiles replies in flawless Russian, staring. "Wait, you understand them?"