Superheroes

Hurricane

The camaraderie that he built with Rogers - Steve - continues to flourish. He and Barnes start to trade off time. Steve will come in after Barnes, and on one memorable occasion, beat him there, prompting Barnes to kick him out of the chair, literally, and tell him to go break some punching bags. They don't have the traditional therapy sessions he's working up to with Barnes. Steve asks as many questions as Stiles does, and they spend one whole afternoon coloring together.

During one of their impromptu sessions after he's returned from classes, Steve looks up from the mandala he's coloring - with his own pencils, because Stiles measly dozen colors don't have enough depth, whatever that means - with an expression Stiles has seen before. Steve wants to ask him a question, but doesn't know how Stiles is going to feel about it and is nervous about asking.

Rolling his eyes, Stiles puts down his coloring pencils and crosses his arms. "Well?"

With a sigh, Steve stops coloring as well. "Tomorrow, Tony has to do some maintenance on Bucky's arm. Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't. He can have flashbacks. I'm with him, and when Thor is on planet, so is he, but since he's done so well with you, I wanted to know if you'd be there?"

Stiles pushes back the excitement, because as much as they've talked about some of the trauma he's endured, he and Barnes haven't talked about the arm at all. He hasn't seen it beyond the left wrist, either.

"I don't know if he would want me there," Stiles begins slowly. "Especially since you're asking and not him." Rogers at least looks sheepish about that. Progress. "But I'll ask him if he would feel comfortable with it, and if he says yes, then I'll be there."

He relays the question via Friday before dinner. When there's a knock on the door five minutes later, Stiles' eyebrows go up, but he opens the door just as Derek enters the room.

Barnes is on the other side, arms crossed and a glare on his face. "Who told?"

Stiles leans against the door frame with a smirk. "Who do you think?"

When Barnes rolls his eyes, Stiles gestures him inside. "Look, there's a reason I asked if you were comfortable with it in the first place." He closes the door and Derek goes back to cooking. "Want to stay for dinner? Derek's making something that smells amazing but I can't pronounce. It'll be good. You can tell me embarrassing stories of baby Steve in revenge since he technically violated your privacy."

Barnes snorts but falls into what is becoming his armchair due to him stalking around Stiles and Derek's apartment on the days when the conference room feels too institutional. "It's just regular maintenance."

"So Steve said. But I have no idea what that entails." Stiles shrugs and flops back onto the couch. "I don't want to be another person staring at you and making you uncomfortable."

Stiles feels like he's already achieving that, with the way Barnes' shoulders hunch and he slides down in the armchair more. "And judging by your stellar turtle impersonation, that's an issue."

Derek walks behind him, smacking him on the back of the head before dropping two water bottles next to him on the couch. He rubs at the spot but hands over one of the bottles to Barnes.