Lemon:)

Inside the bathroom, you’re examining your reflection in the mirror, a tiny smile on your face as your thumb brushes over the fresh scar against your skin. Your face lights up when your eyes meet his in the mirror, and you turn around to face him. He can’t help but smile back at you, approaching you slowly, picking you up and setting you on the bathroom counter so he doesn’t have to bend down to kiss you as thoroughly as he wants.

“Mm,” you hum, pleased as his tongue touches yours, delves into your mouth. He takes his time, kisses you slowly. He’s got all the time in the world now. You’re his. For good.

But when you break away for air, he can’t help but stare at your mark and swallow nervously. It’s been three days since he marked you, and you marked him in return. Even now that the wound has healed over—now that it’s bright and shiny, standing out stark and silver against your skin, telling the world you’re his—he’s worried you’re going to change your mind. Realize that he’s not enough for you.

In that brief moment, as he fears that you’re regretting it—regretting him—you kiss him again.

“I’m really, really happy right now,” you tell him. “And I love you a whole lot.”

It’s like you can see right through him, to the messy, tangled emotions inside his heart. He’s happy, too. He knows you know that. But you can also see him spiralling, wondering how long that happiness will last, because it never has before. Because this bond with you is the most important thing that’s ever happened to him. And he is so, so grateful, but he’s also terrified.

“I love you too,” he says hoarsely. “Even if—even if you decided one day that you didn’t anymore. It would kill me if you left, but I would let you go, because I love you that much. And all I want is for you to be happy.”

“Stop that,” you chide gently. “I’m never gonna leave you. You’re mine, Adrian.”

“I am.” He nods, and a little weight lifts off his shoulders. He loves you. He trusts you. And he will do everything in his power to give you the world, to keep you safe, to keep you happy. Because he never thought he would have this. Because you deserve it.

You kiss him again fervently, let your lips trail to the side to nibble on his jaw, rough with stubble.

“You’re all prickly again. Time for a shave.”

“I’ve been a little busy,” Adrian deadpans, pressing a teasing thumb against your clit over your underwear. You squirm at his touch. “My priorities were elsewhere. They still are.” 

He doesn’t even have to ask—he can smell it now, sense your arousal like it’s his own. It’s not as strong as it has been the past few days. You’re approaching the end of it—your heat, his rut. It comes in surges, like rushes of adrenaline, the way your heat causes crashing waves of need. They’ve calmed into ripples, but they’re still coming, and he can scent how damp your underwear is.

You lift your hips and shove the fabric down to your ankles, a pleased sigh escaping you when Adrian’s fingers finally touch you without anything in the way. Your head falls forward, mouth latching onto the spot where his own brand-new mark has healed over, and he feels the vibration when you groan into the juncture of his neck.

He pulls you off the counter, your feet dropping to the floor, hands brushing up and down your torso beneath the shirt you’d been sleeping in, goosebumps trailing in their wake. Why you even bothered getting dressed, he has no idea. He’s just been completely naked for the last three days.

“Turn around,” he murmurs in your ear. “And bend over for me.”

“Here?” you ask, bemused. “The bed is like, twelve feet away, baby.”

“I want you here,” he says, hands gripping firmly at your waist and turning you around. He meets your heated gaze in the mirror. “Just like this.” He presses a quick kiss to your shoulder, holding your stare the whole time, and relishes in the way your pulse flutters and your chest rises when you inhale sharply.

Slowly, you do as he first asked, bending over, clutching the edge of the counter. Adrian’s cock is already half-hard—it has been for days—but staring at you, his hand jerking at himself, it takes him no time at all to get himself ready for you.

“You’re so beautiful,” Adrian says, kissing up the line of your spine. “All mine.”

“All yours,” you echo, and he hears the slight strain in your voice, notes the way your legs are shaking.

“You need my knot, Omega?” 

He steps closer, until his front is flush with the soft expanse of your back. One hand drifts beneath your shirt to cup at your breast. The other drifts downward, fingers spreading you open. You gasp.

“Please,” you whine. “God, please, Alpha, I need it—”

Adrian lines himself up, the thick tip of his cock notching at your entrance, and pushes inside with a quick, hard thrust that shoves you against the counter.

“Fuck,” he grunts.

He’s fucked you a dozen ways over the last few days. Soft and sweet, murmuring loving, sappy things in your ear. Hard and fast, nothing but animalistic grunts and groans. Now, feeling you push back against him, feeling your pussy try to suck him in deeper, he recognizes that you need the latter. He sets a brutal pace, one hand on your waist, the other on your shoulder, slamming into you over and over again.

“Oh god,” you groan, biting your bottom lip. “So—so close, fuck, Adrian—”

He quickens his pace, staring at you in the mirror, watching your face for cues, waiting to feel you convulse around him. It takes less than a minute for you to topple over the edge, already oversensitive, crying out with wordless pleasure. He follows you almost instantly, shoving his knot inside you with one last hard thrust, spilling inside you.

Adrian’s arms circle you from behind in a tight hug, and he kisses the back of your head.

“Okay?” he asks breathlessly, chest heaving.

“Yeah,” you say, breathing just as hard. “Fuck. Thank you.”

He wants to kiss your thanks away, to show you that he doesn’t need it—that he is the thankful one, that if he did nothing else with the rest of his life but take care of you like this, he would die happy. But you’re facing away from him. He remembers now why he doesn’t tend to like fucking you from behind. And on top of that, with him knotting you like this—

“Fuck,” he grumbles. “I just have to stand here for like twenty minutes now, don’t I?”

“Why did you think I told you we should move this to the bedroom, babe?”

But even as you say it, you’re giggling at him, and he can’t help but smile and lean forward to kiss every part of your face he can reach.

For two more days, you stay home together, ignoring the rest of the world in favor of cultivating the fresh bond between you. Every touch, every kiss, feels like an electric spark in the best way, and Adrian can’t get enough of you, even in the moments when your lust calms into something softer, less intense. He feels warm and content and happy in a way he has never felt before.

But then…it’s over.

The happiness doesn’t fade, exactly. It never will, he thinks, as long as he has you, and now—he has you forever, so he’ll always, always be happy and loved and a part of you. But as the haze of your heat and his rut fade away, the other emotions creep back in, threatening to pop the bright bubble he’s been living in for the last week.

You can sense it too, the last morning. You notice the way Adrian’s eyes grow distant as he lies in bed and looks at the ceiling, and the tightening of his jaw as he clenches his teeth, just a little, thinking about the challenge that still awaits when he returns to work.

You run your thumb over his jawline, a featherlight touch, and the tension in his jaw disappears, replaced by a soft smile. He turns his head to kiss your palm.

“Tomorrow?” you ask, soft and a little regretful. He doesn’t need to ask what you’re talking about. He knows.

Your heat is over. His rut is over. 

Which means it’s time to get back to work. There’s one last obstacle preventing him from being truly relaxed, because as long as Leon Sullivan and those other assholes are out there, his pack is at risk. You are at risk. And that’s just not fucking acceptable.

“Tomorrow,” he sighs, a little forlorn. But he looks up at you, leaning over him with a content smile, and the corner of his mouth quirks up.

Because yes, he’s going back to work, but he’s going back to work with you. His mate, officially. And sure, everyone knows already, but it still feels—new. Exciting. Maybe that’s the weird, proud Alpha instinct simmering silently inside him, needing to show you off to the world.

“How did the mission go, anyway?” you ask. “We’ve been kinda busy, we haven’t talked about it. Anything important I should know?”

Adrian turns it over in his mind. There was something he was supposed to tell you. What was it?

Then he remembers, and he can’t help the way he winces. Not at the memory of the pain. At the prospect of telling you.

You give him a look. Not surprised. Exasperated.

“You got shot, didn’t you?”

“Sorry, babe.”

The next morning, walking into the Checkmate office, Adrian couldn’t wipe the obnoxious grin off his face even if he tried, with you tucked into his side, his arm slung over your shoulder. 

His gaze keeps landing on your neck. You’re wearing a low-cut top today, just for him, he suspects, so he can keep glancing at your mark. Or maybe, just maybe—you want to show it off to everyone else, too. He knows he left his own polo shirt unbuttoned at the collar, just loose enough to let the rest of the pack see the imprint of your teeth. His cheeks are flushed a pretty pink, knowing that any minute, everyone is going to know that he belongs to you.

Chris is the first one they see. He doesn’t say a word, just claps Adrian on the shoulder and smiles. The younger Alpha delights at the silent approval from his best friend. Emilia approaches from just behind Chris, and you step out of Adrian’s arm to hug her. 

Adrian is so high on cloud nine he’s not even jealous watching you hug another Alpha. He doesn’t need to feel possessive, not when there’s a clear indication right there on your body that you are his. He just beams as Emilia says, “I’m happy for you guys.”

“Thank you, Em,” you say.

Ads comes into the office a few minutes later, John trailing just after her with fresh coffee for the whole team. She squeals when she sees you and nearly drops the tray of drinks she’s holding, scrambling to put it down so she can hug you, too.

“Congratulations!” Ads says, her smile bright. “I’m so, so happy for you. I wanted to—I don’t know. Celebrate. Get you cupcakes or flowers or something, but John said it would be weird.”

“It is weird,” John mutters. “They don’t need sex marathon cupcakes, Ads.”

“Obviously I wouldn’t put Happy Sex Marathon on the cupcakes, John—”

“We got coffee and donuts instead,” John continues, ignoring her.

“Yeah, because sex marathon donuts are so much less weird than sex marathon cupcakes,” Chris says.

You roll your eyes. Adrian just happily reaches for two donuts—strawberry frosted with sprinkles, obviously, because that’s his favorite, and a chocolate one for you, because that’s your favorite, passing it your way. He starts munching away, smiling to himself.

“I’m happy to see him in a good mood,” Ads says to you in a private aside. “I thought he was going to lose it on that mission, he missed you so much.”

“I missed him too,” you admit.

“Come on,” Emilia says. “Let’s get to the conference room. We’ve got some updates, let’s get you both up to speed.”

“Give them a minute to settle in, Harcourt,” Ads protests.

Emilia shakes her head, only slightly apologetic. “We’ve got work to do. A lot of this is time sensitive, Ads. We’ve got to get the ball rolling.”

Adrian’s smile falls a bit, and suddenly, he doesn’t want to finish his donut anymore. He feels a bit sick, actually, and he regrets even eating it in the first place, because his stomach instantly starts churning with worry and anxiety. He chucks it into the nearest trash can.

The week away from work, wrapped up in you, feels like it happened years ago instead of just yesterday. It wasn’t enough. It will never be enough, the time he has with you. It’s strange. He never thought he would care about anything, anyone, more than work. More than being Vigilante. But he suddenly feels like he would give it all up in a moment if he could just relive last week over and over and over again for the rest of his life.

You notice the distant, sorrowful look in his eyes.

“I’m worried about him,” you murmur, still standing next to Ads. “He was so relaxed yesterday. It’s like—a punch to the gut, for him, walking right back into this mess. He didn’t even finish his donut. He loves a sweet treat. Strawberry is his favorite.”

Her eyes flick between you and Adrian, sympathetic.

“Once this is all over,” she says. “We should all take a vacation. Close up the office for a bit. No one thinks about black ops or killing people for at least two weeks. We deserve some rest. I’ve already talked to Emilia about it.”

“That’s a good idea,” you agree. “I just hope that we get that vacation sooner rather than later.”

“Go on,” she says, nodding in Adrian’s direction. “I think your boy needs some loving right now.”

You walk up to Adrian, step right into his personal space and plaster yourself to his side. His arm falls around your shoulders automatically, and he tugs you close. You kiss his jaw.

“You okay?”

“Back to work,” he says regretfully, when you offer him a questioning tilt of the head. He brushes your hair out of your face as you nod.

“Back to work,” you repeat. “Together.”

You take your usual seats at the table in the conference room, right next to one another. Emilia stands at the head of the table next to John, who has his laptop hooked up to the projector screen.

“Right,” John says. “To recap everything you missed, while you were, uh. Ya know. Um.”

“They were fucking, Economos,” Chris says. “You don’t need to beat around the bush about it.”

“Not everyone wants their sex life on full display! I’m trying to be respectful! You know—sometimes I think this entire pack is too far up each other’s asses. No one has any privacy.”

“In this particular case, everyone is supposed to know about the fucking,” Emilia comments wryly, gesturing at the silver outline of your teeth just above the collar of Adrian’s shirt. “That’s kind of the whole point of the shiny new marks on their necks.”

Adrian’s chest puffs up with pride, even as his cheeks flush. He can’t help it—he just smiles, wide, and looks at you, and you’re looking back at him with the exact same look on your face. A little shy under the attention of your friends, but eyes sparkling with happiness.

“Okay, okay!” John concedes. “Whatever. We are not here to talk about how they railed each other six ways to Sunday and bit each other’s necks like vampires last week. We are here to talk about Leon Sullivan and his cronies.”

Adrian sobers up almost instantly, a deep frown taking over his face. His brow furrows, a little wrinkle appearing on his forehead. You want to reach up with your thumb and brush over it, wipe it away until he’s instead, his eyes crinkling in the corner just the way you love, a mark of happiness on his face instead of concern.

“What about the others?” you ask. “Rip, Sasha, and Fleury? Don’t we need to wait for them? Where are they, anyway?”

“They’re out in the field right now,” Emilia says. “Hunting down Hilary Young.”

“What—how—where?” you ask, confused.

“Her information was in that document,” Adrian says. “Right?”

“What document?”

“Right, sorry,” Ads says. “You weren’t here when we got back. When we broke into Dev Mason’s apartment, we found a file on his computer.”

“It contained names, dates, job assignments and locations,” Chris explains. “For Leon Sullivan’s entire team. Dev was his tech guy. He managed the finances and the schedules. So we know, with confidence, which members of his team are going to be where for the next two months, at least.”

“Holy shit,” you breathe.

“Hilary Young is on assignment in Seattle right now,” Emilia says. “The most local to us. So we sent Judomaster, Bordeaux, and Fleury to track her down.”

“Are they…” you pause, considering how you want to ask the question. “When they track her down. Are they going to kill her? Kidnap her and take her here for leverage? What’s the plan?”

“Their orders are to stay under the radar as much as possible, but shoot to kill when they have the opportunity,” Chris says. “These people are out to hurt us. We’re gonna make sure they’re all dead before…something bad happens again.”

The room falls awkwardly silent for a moment, and you rub at a phantom pain in your shoulder, remembering. Adrian watches the movement like a hawk, and his jaw ticks. 

He tries really, really hard not to fall back into the memory, but he can’t help imagining the scars hidden beneath your clothes. He’d kissed those healed-over bullet wounds a dozen times in the last week, wishing he could make them go away. Wishing the only scar marring your skin was the one he left behind on your neck.

“They’re going to pay,” Adrian says, voice low. “For what they did to us. To you.”

Adrian has changed. He’s more now, than he was all those months ago when he held you in his arms and watched you bleed. That near-feral, fresh Alpha feels so far away. He remembers the haze of panic, the possessive growl rising up in his throat. The all-consuming need to protect you hasn’t dissipated. The instinct has just grown stronger, more refined, crystallized in his mind and his heart.

Because it’s not just him. You are more now. You’re not just another member of the pack anymore. You’re his mate. His responsibility. His to protect. You’re the person he loves most, more than anyone or anything else in his life, and nothing is going to stop him from making sure he never sees your blood outside your body ever again.

“They are going to pay,” Emilia agrees, fire in her eyes. “These are people I thought we could trust. People who I have fought alongside in the past. It’s fucking despicable that they would do this to our family. We won’t let this slide.”

“So the plan is to—pick them off one by one?” Adrian asks. “Follow them to their mission locations and take them out?”

“Pretty much,” Chris nods.

“In the meantime, John will keep digging, to see if there was anything else in Dev’s files that could help us tackle this problem from the root,” Emilia says.

“From the root?”

“Their operation is much larger than we originally thought,” John says gravely. “Those names we had—those are just the people who used to work at ARGUS. We thought they were just lone wolves. Mercenaries that operated mostly independently, in an interconnected network.”

“That’s not the case?” you ask, your brow furrowed with worry.

“No,” Ads says. “They’ve recruited from other agencies, too. We thought they were working together more…loosely. Just to target Checkmate, and our pack, and wipe us out as competition before splitting up and going separate ways. But they’re building their own agency.”

“You’re kidding,” you scoff.

“Which is why we need to start as soon as possible. John and Ads have put together a schedule for us,” Emilia explains. “Adrian, you and Chris leave in a few days. Your target is Lydia Grimmaldi. She’s on assignment in Idaho.”

“What the fuck is in Idaho?” you ask, confused. “Is there, like, a secret criminal network in a cornfield or something? Who hired her?”

“Actually, Idaho is more well known for their potatoes, not their corn,” Adrian says conversationally.

“Jesus Christ,” John mutters. “No. There is not a secret criminal network in a cornfield.”

“Damn,” Adrian says, genuinely a little bummed. “I wanted to kill some cowboy drug dealers.”

“What’s in Idaho?” you repeat, trying to keep the conversation from heading too far off the rails.

“We aren’t the only competition they’re trying to eliminate,” Emilia says. “There are independent contractors scattered throughout the country. She’s going to be there targeting someone else—a man named Jamie Torrente. Mercenary. Adrian and Chris are going to get to her before she gets to him.”

“Which will also, hopefully, build us a new bridge,” Ads says. “This network of theirs is much more widespread than we originally believed. We’re going to need to do a complete overhaul of our contacts database and cut out all the people we know are working with or connected to Sullivan’s company.” She looks to you. “You and I are going to get started on that. We can’t rely on or trust old connections from ARGUS. And once this is all over—well. Checkmate will still need business, and it’s important to plan.”

“Are you sure I can’t—”

“You are one of the only soft-spoken members of the team,” Ads points out. “I know you want to get out in the field, but—do you really want Fleury to be the first point of contact for new connections and leads?”

You wince. “Okay. Heard.” Ads is right, you know. This is one of your strengths—you’re a carer. A people person. It’s an opportunity for you to leverage your skills as an Omega. To build a better future for the company as a whole, while the others tackle the problems of the present.

Adrian lets out a quiet, private sigh of relief. You’re staying here. In the office. He’s still going to worry about you. He’s always going to worry about you. But if he knows you’re going to be here, safe, at home, he’s going to worry a little bit less.

“The others are due back from Seattle tomorrow evening, as long as everything goes to plan today,” Emilia says. As long as Hilary Young is dead, she means. “Once they’re back, they’ll take a day to recover, and then we’ll start prepping for the next targets. We’ll be working in teams. Me and Fleury, Judomaster and Bordeaux, Chris and Adrian. You and Ads will focus on your work, with John’s help. Any questions?”

There’s one glaring hole in the plan that you can’t help but notice.

“This won’t work forever,” you point out, worrying your bottom lip. “If, like you said, Sullivan’s team is much bigger than we thought—it will take us a while to kill them all, even split up in teams. And it’s not sustainable to travel up and down the coast and halfway across the country every time we have a lead, just for one person. And even if we make them look like accidents, they’ll catch on after the second person we eliminate. They aren’t stupid. They’ll know they are being targeted, if they don’t already, because of Dev.”

“I’m still working my way through Dev’s files,” John says. “I’m hoping it will turn up something more useful. An address for their headquarters, or a name for their company—anything for us to go on, to help us find them.”

“That’s all we’ve got for now,” Emilia says. “But we can’t just sit by and do nothing.”

She meets Adrian’s eyes when she says it. It’s like she can see through him, like she knows exactly how much he’s itching to kill.

“When do we leave?” he asks.

Things move rather quickly after that. The next day, Judomaster, Bordeaux, and Fleury come back from Seattle with solemn but determined faces, and you know it means that they were successful on their mission. One more threat to the pack is eliminated, but instead of celebrating, everyone has no choice but to throw themselves right back into work, because there’s so much more to do before you can all just—breathe. 

Two days later, Adrian and Chris head out for their assignment in Idaho. The day after that, Emilia and Fleury are off to Arizona, and soon after, Judomaster and Bordeaux are leaving for another assignment. You, Ads, and John stay back at the office and do what you can to support everyone remotely.

You grit your teeth every time someone leaves on an assignment. You know that the work you are doing here is valuable and important. You and Ads have been reaching out almost nonstop to potential allies, trying to build new lines of communication to support Checkmate once this is all over. But it still eats at you to watch the revolving door of pack members going out on their individual assignments, coming back to the office for a quick rest, picking out a new target and leaving again a day or two later.

It’s eating at Adrian, too. Walking away from you will never get easier, he thinks. He had hoped, maybe naively, that it would get easier once you were mated, but every time he walks out the door and gets in that fucking van with Chris, it breaks him a little bit to leave you behind, to step further out of your reach. To be without you, even when it’s only a couple days at a time. 

Things are always intense, when two people first bond, and emotions are already heightened for everyone on the team right now. So Adrian—Adrian feels like a walking live wire. Like one wrong word will set him off.

For the first time in his life, he’s living for the moments between jobs, when he gets to crawl into bed and sleep through the night beside you, instead of falling asleep to the sound of Chris’s snoring through thin motel room walls. It’s hard when the killing isn’t just for fun. When it’s personal.

At least he feels like they’re at least making progress. With every person that dies, a little weight lifts from his shoulders. This last kill—someone who wasn’t even on the original list of traitors, because apparently every time he turns around more enemies pop up—he and Chris did everything they could to get more information out of the guy before Adrian killed him. All he needs is an address. A location for this new company that Leon Sullivan has decided to start, this dick who has decided that Adrian and his pack are his enemy. Then he’ll fucking—bomb the place. Go in guns blazing and kill everyone inside. He doesn’t care. 

Checkmate is not above bribes, threats, torture. Adrian is just so fucking angry that he even has to. It’s draining the joy out of something he loves. Killing people is like, his favorite fucking hobby, so the fact that he doesn’t feel like doing it tells him that something is seriously wrong.

This should be a happy time in his life. He should be enjoying his fresh bond with you, getting teased by the rest of the pack, getting scolded by Harcourt or Economos for whisking you off to his tiny supply closet workshop to make out with you because this connection with you feels so much deeper and stronger now, and he can’t get enough of it, can barely keeps his hands off your hips, his lips off your neck.

Instead, he has to steal spare, tiny moments whenever and wherever he can. He is happy, he tells himself. He loves you, and he’s grateful for every one of those moments. He just wishes he didn’t have to dig through all of this chaos in order to find them.

The second he gets back from his mission assignments with Chris, he makes a beeline for you. He’s feeling particularly needy after this last one. It was a long ride in the van, and he’s feeling antsy, and he just wants you. 

He literally sweeps you off your feet and throws you over his shoulder the second he reaches you. Your belly swoops as you laugh.

“Welcome back, baby,” you giggle. Adrian grins as he shoves open the door to his tiny office and plops you on the workbench. He hasn’t even changed, he’s still in his suit, but his mouth latches onto your neck almost immediately.

“Need you,” he says, pulling your shirt up over your head, smiling into a kiss when your legs wrap around his waist to pull him in closer.

Neither of you notice the door opening, too lost in one another’s touch, but John’s exasperated voice draws you out of your bubble.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he says. “Why is everyone around here so fucking horny all the time—do I need to get a spray bottle and start training you like cats? Jesus fuck!”

“Maybe you should just learn how to fucking knock, Economos,” Adrian says, a little pissy.

“Maybe you should just learn how to lock the fucking door, Adrian,” John retorts.

Adrian growls, a surge of protective instinct crawling up inside him. Probably because his mate is half-undressed and vulnerable, and John’s being snippy. Economos is not a threat, Adrian knows that, but he still feels like one.

“Give us a minute, John,” you say, and he rolls his eyes and slams the closet door behind him as he goes.

“Sorry,” Adrian grumbles.

“It was an accident,” you say. “I missed you. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Adrian says, but it feels almost like a lie. He corrects himself. “Maybe I’m not fine. But I have to be fine. So I’m fine.”

There’s still something angry in his tone when he says it. You run a calming hand through his hair. He closes his eyes.

“It’s okay if you’re not fine,” you say quietly. “I know Vigilante is a killing machine, and he’s gotten a lot of attention the last two weeks since we’ve been back, but Adrian is somewhere in there too. And you’re allowed to have feelings.”

“I’m…frustrated,” he allows after a moment. “I just want to be with you. I want to enjoy the fact that I am bonded to the love of my life, and be with you. This should be like, the happiest time of my life.”

“It is a happy time,” you tell him softly. “I am happy with you.”

“I know you are,” he says hoarsely. “I am happy too. I am so fucking happy. But we should be stressing about stupid shit like this. Like sneaking around the office and trying to fuck in the break room. Not stressing about all the people we still have to kill before—” He cuts himself off.

“Before what?”

“Before I can let this be real,” he says. “Before I can accept that it’s here, and it’s mine, and no one is going to take it away from me. Take you away from me.”

“I’m not going to let that happen,” you say firmly, but even your voice has a little wobble to it that breaks Adrian’s heart.

He’s not the only one stressed, he knows. It’s getting to you both. Watching him walk away for every one of these short missions is as hard for you as it is for him to actually do the walking. 

You’re shouldering a lot more burden than you’re letting on. You think you’re good at hiding it, but Adrian sees the emotional labor you’re doing, for him and for everyone else. The little touches you’ve added to the break room and other office spaces to make them feel more homey and comfortable, since everyone is spending so much time here. Treating any mission wounds, no matter how small or inconsequential, with your soft, practiced hands. You look at the mounting emotional distress of the entire team like it’s a problem you’re personally responsible for solving.

Adrian tries, desperately, not to be a part of that problem for you. To put on a brave face, act like everything is fine. But the longer they go without apprehending the last of the assholes who are threatening his pack, the more agitated he gets. He tries not to let it show. He doesn’t want to be one more thing on your plate, one more person you need to worry about or take care of, but he knows that you know. It shows in the way he looks at you, the way he touches you, the way he kisses you. Like he’s afraid every time might be the last time. Like all the time he has with you is borrowed.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice cracking a little. “I was so excited to see you, and now I’m just—working myself up about everything, again, and—”

“How about this,” you say. “How about, when we’re together, just the two of us—we don’t talk about this. When we are alone together, we focus on this. On us. Your office here, and home, they’re safe spaces, and we don’t let the bad stuff creep in when we are here. Deal?”

Adrian swallows and nods, a tiny smile growing on his face. He leans in to kiss you. “Deal.”

Adrian tag list: @justalotoffanfiction @danversxwasabi @clowninavan @adoresami @a-young-g0d @bastardstevie @am-3-thyst @xoxocamis @morguegrl89 @somethin-sparklyy @secretjesterr @seeingdubs @lovenerdywhitemen2 @jeshomie @aerionshipthrust @deamlucem @tlfg-adrianchase @brianna-merlim @amart-e @countvonklit @pieolsen @gingerjane15 @dosyrosyposy @mylcvemineallmine @rentaldarling @vigilcourt @hot-bean-juice @meg-winchester @sepaaaaa @residentsuperhero

The sound of their collective panting filled the air, the thud of fists against skin echoing off the walls as they tested each other.

Quick jabs, hits to the ribs; it was push and pull as they were nearly on equal ground, two decorated professionals with national titles.

You had to keep a close eye— track his movements to take note of any injuries, run over how exactly you would deal with each one. It was your job to.

But, admittedly, you found your gaze wandering against your will lately. More often than you wanted to admit.

It was difficult to ignore the way his biceps flexed with each jab, how soft blond tufts fell over his face, stuck to the sweat lining his forehead, the low hang of his boxing shorts highlighted his abs straining with each motion.

"Fuck!"

The sharp curse broke your trance, eyes snapping up, immediately alert.

Eijirou's hands flew over his mouth, his fighter's stance softening, hesitant hands reaching out towards his friend whose head was angled down, fighting to not reel.

"Woah, man, I am so sorry—"

Katsuki slapped his hand away, wiping at the blood beginning to drip down his nose with the back of his hand, unyielding eyes meeting Eijirou's.

"Keep it goin', Shitty Hair. And you,"

He didn't bother to look at you as you approached, keeping his burning stare on his opponent while waving you off with a harsh motion of his free hand. "Get back."

His bite was nothing new. You didn't bother to fight the eye roll, stepping closer to assess the extent of the damage. "Don't be dumb. Let me look."

"You deaf or something? Beat it."

More blood trickled down, coming over the curve of his lip. You had worked with Katsuki long enough to know that he pushed himself until he was battered, had nothing left to give.

Your job was to keep that from happening.

With a sigh, you grabbed him by the crook of his elbow.

"You are gushing blood. Come on—"

"Get your fuckin' hands off me, you piece of—"

"Again, don't be dumb—"

Eijirou blinked between the two of you, watching as you wrestled to keep Katsuki's arm in your grip, ineffectively attempting to drag him away. With a smile that didn't quite meet his eyes, he began to take backwards steps towards the bench where he kept his water, knowing there was little else he could do in this situation.

"I'm gonna take five. Go with her, man."

Feeling Katsuki's resistance give in just enough, you tugged him towards the med bay, giving Eijirou a grateful look over your shoulder. You hoped he didn't feel too guilty. Sparring was never supposed to get this intense, after all. But, mistakes happened.

You offered soft apologies under your breath to the few nurses on the same late shift as you were with a tight smile as you rushed past them to guide him into the room at the very back, shutting the door behind you.

It was just you two now.

Katsuki was still panting, worked up from the fight. There was probably enough adrenaline in his system to keep him from feeling the real pain of his affliction.

You pushed him back onto the bed against the wall to your right with a hand over his chest, feeling the warm muscle rise up and down under your palm before you turned to rummage through the cabinet, fishing out a medical kit with a crease forming between your brows.

"Are you trying to get yourself put on medical leave before your match next week?"

He didn't say a word, only the sound of his heavy breathing filling the room as you felt his glare against your back.

You sighed.

"Right before I get off too..."

"Yeah," He scoffed, a mocking edge to his voice. "'Cause I did that shit on purpose."

"You kept pushing. That was stupid and you know it, the best athletes know when to call it quits."

Katsuki scoffed, his jutted lower lip pursing as you set down the kit beside him, opening it up to fish out some gauze. "Maybe we should get you in the ring. Since you're such an expert."

You pushed his thighs apart with an unimpressed look, standing between them to get as close as you could.

A hand went behind his neck, gently tilting his head down so the blood wouldn't trickle back into his nose, go down his throat.

You carefully pinched the sides of his nose bridge to stop the blood flow, wiping away at what had escaped with clean gauze.

“You love making my life harder,” you muttered under your breath. “Can’t you just admit I'm right? Say you’ll be more careful?”

“The day I say that shit you can put a gun to my head.”

You rolled your eyes, but he continued.

"I don't say shit I don't mean," he sighed out, abs flexing as he winced slightly. “If your meddling ass didn't get in the way, I would've won.”

“Or you would've gotten your ass beat, but whatever.”

“I've had worse. A fucked up nose is nothing."

"Is that supposed to be a good thing?" you raised a brow, getting a new piece of gauze. "You never know when to stop, Katsuki. That's your issue."

The room settled into silence only the hum of the AC, your shifting, and the quiet, reluctant winces that slipped past as you tended to him.

His eyes never left you.

Sometimes, you wondered why.

Why he allowed you to treat him, why he let you get close. But you shook yourself out of those thoughts, reaching down to grab an ice pack. No time to get sidetracked, not now. Especially on something that was very likely nothing.

"Bleeding stopped."

He didn't respond, eyes downcast as you alternated between pressing it to either side of his nose bridge.

When he finally spoke, his words were quick. Quiet.

"I was going for his blind spot."

Said like he had to explain himself to you, or maybe himself.

But he didn't have to. You knew that his slip ups were extremely rare, he never made the same mistake twice— he beat himself up over every error, obsessed over earned perfection, victory.

His high standards for himself were what got him so far, but you knew they got to him. That, quietly, he sometimes needed reassurance, like anyone would.

“I know you were.” you finally responded, voice gentle, without pity.

"Eijirou's right side was open and he was getting tired. That was the right move. You would've gotten him."

He blinked down at you, as if assessing your honesty before a slight smile touched his lips. He gripped the edge of the small bed a little tighter, leaning down closer.

"Knew you were starin'."

Your heart jumped in your chest, but you pushed it down.

"Well, that is my job."

"It's your job to watch for injuries. Not stare."

You couldn't help what came out of your mouth next.

"Maybe I was staring at Eijirou."

"You think you're so funny."

"I think your ego's inflated."

"Wanna say that again?"

You pressed the ice a little too harshly into the side of his nose, drawing a small groan from him.

"Save it, Katsuki."

You packed up your kit and gathered the bloodied gauze to throw away, rinsing your hands before coming back to assess your work.

Blood clean, no signs of continued bleeding. A small bruise forming under his right eye from the trauma, expected.

It took everything in you to ignore the weight of his eyes, how he looked at you with an intensity reserved for his opponents in the ring. Calculating, searching. You could feel the burn crawling up the back of your neck. Professional, keep it professional.

You nodded a little too quickly, turning on your heel. "Yep, all good. No more sparring, but you can go back now."

He tugged you by the back of your shirt collar before you got too far, pulling you back between his legs, face only inches away from yours.

"You don't want that."

The sudden proximity along with his words made your heart spike, as if caught.

What did you want? The question made you uneasy.

(Or, maybe it was the answer that you knew deep down that made you want to crawl out of your skin.)

You pushed back slightly, deflecting.

“I want you to see Dr. Tanaka as soon as you can. I'll make an appointment for tomorrow morning since he left for the day. I think your nose is broken.”

“No it's not.”

It wasn't. If it had been broken, you would've known from one look, you would have been angrier with him. But that was your out, your excuse to get away. And he had called your bluff, gaze unmoving.

"Don't play dumb right now."

“I'm not playing dumb." the words came snappy, brave; but you were just so close, that fire faltered. His hand that had gripped the back of your collar had shifted carefully to the front, so close to your neck that you were afraid he might feel your heart try to burst out of your throat.

"You're just…" you trailed off, struggling to find your words. "…difficult. You're being difficult.”

"Difficult?" a dry sort of laugh. "You're the difficult one. For someone smart you can be pretty fuckin' dense."

You bit the inside of your lower lip, eyes darting between him and the door.

You knew what he meant. This back and forth between you was nothing new. But when it got too real you had always gotten away, said something and acted like nothing had happened once you cooled down.

The sounds outside seemed to be getting louder, closer. These doors didn’t have locks. Anyone could come in, find you like this. One of the nurses checking in, a gym goer looking for band-aids.

“Or maybe you do know. Hm?”

The question pulled you from your thoughts in an instant, made your eyes snap to his— first mistake. Once his crimson stare bored into yours, you couldn’t look away.

Could you have been that obvious? You thought your moments of distraction were fleeting, imperceptible to the average eye.

He had never commented on it before, slipping back to his normal self even after your closest calls.

But you should’ve known better. Katsuki Bakugou was not average in any sense of the word.

(Of course, he noticed. Of course he did.)

You sputtered something before you could think, just wanting to hear something other than the sound of your own thoughts.

"Some…someone could—"

"No one's gonna come in." his voice flat, dismissal easy. All matter of fact as he craned his neck down closer to you.

"Unless you want Eijirou to come in. Since you were, what, staring at him, right? That what you want?"

"What?!" the word was almost a squeak, high and taken aback. "That's not— "

You fought the strange heat crawling up your face by shooting him a look, eyes narrowing.

"Katsuki. I was joking."

He hummed.

(Unbelieving? Amused? A bit of both?)

"Sure you were."

You opened your mouth, then closed it. The deflections that had once come so easy were heavy on your tongue. There was no joke, no eye roll, nothing you could say to slip away. Not this time.

You sighed, next words defeated.

"What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to be real with me." you could feel his breath against your lips; hot, charged. "Tell me you don’t want this, that you haven't thought about it.”

“Katsuki…”

It came out weaker than you wanted. Small, kind of breathless. Almost pleading.

For what— to let you go?

(To keep going?)

He kept egging, eyes not once leaving yours. “Say it. I'll stop.”

And you knew he would. Because he was being serious, you could tell by his voice— how it was low under his breath, softened. 

For you, he was being intentionally careful.

Just the thought made you want to cave. But the entire reason your relationship worked, why you were able to handle him, was because you didn't give in.

"There are rules about this sort of thing—"

"You think I give a fuck about bullshit rules?"

"Yeah, I know you don't." you gave him a look. "But I do. I could lose my job, you could get me fired, or…"

You swallowed back the rest of it.

He didn't have to know how it made you afraid, testing the fragile nature of this relationship. How giving in meant that all of this could shatter, that this could all amount to one big mistake.

Katsuki blinked, taking in your expression. He looked off to the side for a beat, lips pursing in thought before, carefully, he took your hands into his.

"You know I won't let that happen. I don't see any of the other shitty medics here."

You snorted a little. Because you did know. You cocked your head to the side, a small smile tugging at your lips. "They're not shitty."

He didn't retaliate, just raised his brows slowly. The truth of his words wasn't what mattered, it was the implication behind them.

(You're the one I see. You.)

His earlier words rang in your ears.

Tell me you don't want this, that you haven't thought about it.

You couldn't, because you had.

Countless times— whenever you watched him hover over his opponents, keep them locked underneath him, the heat in his eyes, a cocky smile on his lips.

He wormed his way into your mind, more often than not, late at night. When sleep couldn't find you and your bed felt exceptionally cold. Empty.

(Him. You imagined him.)

Denying all of that was exactly what you should have done. That would have been the rational thing to do, the smart thing.

But as you traced his face, followed the soft curve of his cheeks against the otherwise harsh lines, watched the furrow of his brow deepen ever so slightly, as if he, of all people, was nervous— you couldn't fight the feeling anymore.

Because you wanted to kiss him, and you wanted him to kiss you— more than anything.

Hesitantly, you brushed your thumbs over the bruises on his knuckles.

“No, I… I do. Want this, I mean."

Something in his expression shifted. Surprise, for a brief second, before that cocky gleam in his eyes that you had seen when he was in-action settled over his face. Only, a little different. (A little sharper, hungrier.)

"Yeah?" he pushed closer, nose just barely brushing yours. "You want this?"

Slowly, you nodded.

"Yes."

His gaze darted from your eyes and lips before the sliver of space between you finally disappeared.

The kiss was tentative, careful. So unlike him that it caught you a little off guard.

Soft. His lips were so soft against yours.

He kissed you like he was trying to figure out the shape of your lips, go slow enough to savor the moment, commit the feeling to memory. The hand near your collar came up to cup your jaw, angle your face just right.

You had thought about what this would feel like for longer than you would ever admit. Did he think of you the same way? Were you what he had expected?

When he pulled back just enough to breathe, he drank in your expression; your pretty lips plush and parted, wide doe-eyes blinking up at him.

He groaned, "Fuck it."

You yelped when calloused hands gripped your arms, hoisted you up like you weighed nothing, thick biceps flexing as he pulled you down to straddle his thigh.

You planted your hands on his chest to steady yourself on instinct, unable to process it for a second. Your thighs were around his leg, his hands at your waist, holding you in a way you had only ever thought would exist in the secret fantasies you let yourself indulge in. The small bed creaking under your combined weight. His chest rising and falling under your palms.

Sometimes, you forgot how strong he actually was. How he wasn’t just some other annoying, short-tempered guy— his body was molded to his profession; brute strength and jagged lines carved from a life in the ring. His shoulders broad, a tapering waist, arms nearly the size of your head. He could probably pick you up and snap you in half if he really wanted to. Your stomach flipped at just the thought.

Before you could open your mouth to speak, he flexed the muscle of his thigh; deliberate, testing. Sharp eyes watching as your face flushed at his bare muscle pressing up against your core.

Your breath hitched, warmth pooled down between your legs, heart beating in your ears as his large hands slid down to rest over your hips, holding you steady— pulling you down closer.

"Feel good?"

Your ears burned at the mocking edge to his voice. You squirmed, caught between wanting to slap that smug look off his face and slowly seek more friction by grinding down.

You didn't have to choose, not when his hands slowly guided your hips down, back and forth against his hardened muscle. You bit your bottom lip between your teeth, clearly embarrassed, ineffectively fighting the whimpers that threatened to slip past with each movement.

His gaze never once left you, taking note of every little reaction.

Heat crawled up your face at being watched so shamelessly.

Leaning forward, you distracted yourself by pressing soft kisses up the side of his throat, staring to grind down on him yourself, your tongue darting out before gently sucking soft marks into his skin.

He let out a strained sigh, tilting his neck back just enough to give you more access.

You hooked your arms loosely around his neck, pecking across his jaw. Your fingers curled into the hair at his nape, giving it a soft tug, pulling his head back so his eyes met yours.

Pupils blown, eyes heavy with want, hair falling over them all messy and disheveled.

You didn't know how you had gone so long without this, how you could have ever wanted to keep your distance. Now that you let yourself have a taste, you didn't think you could ever get enough.

Tugging him to you by the hair, you pulled him to kiss you again.

This time, it was feverish, insatiable. Months of tension and denied desire pouring over all at once.

He kissed like he was still chasing you; like he had something to prove, like he wanted you to feel that you were his favorite taste. A clash of tongue and teeth, nipping at your bottom lip. Each time he pulled back to breathe it lasted less than a beat before he rushed back to steal the soft sounds that slipped past your lips as your hips continued to buck against his thigh.

But the fabric, it was in the way. No matter how hard you grinded down on him, there was too much between you and what you wanted, and the frustration was showing. Your slight sighs turning into small huffs, brows pinching against your will.

The next time Katsuki pulled back, you didn't let him kiss you again. The small string of saliva between your lips broke as you spoke, softly panting. "I want 'em off."

He looked down at your request, pinching the fabric of your pants between his index and thumb. Eyes looking up into yours carefully, like he was uncertain if that was something you really wanted.

You nodded, a little frantic.

"Off. Please."

He got straight to it. Getting them off wasn't pretty, but a controlled sort of desperate.

His movements were precise as always, fairly smooth, but you could feel that something was simmering under his palms as he moved you around to get them off just right, even more so when they finally rested over your bare legs, eyes slightly dazed as he gave the flesh a tentative squeeze.

You bit your lip at the feeling, skin burning under his touch, wanting it all over you.

You glanced down at your shirt.

"This too."

He scoffed, but there was something like a smile pulling at the corner of his lips. "Fuckin' bossy."

His hands slid under the hem, bunching the fabric up over your chest, too impatient to get it all the way off. He reached back to unclasp your bra, letting it fall to the floor as he took in the shape of your bare chest, the way your nipples hardened at the cool air of the clinic.

For a beat too long, he just stared.

On instinct, you wondered if something was wrong, if there was something about you that was weird or unappealing, the feeling twisted in you. But before you could tug your shirt back down, he cupped your tits with both hands, feeling the weight of them, squeezing slightly.

"Been waiting for this shit for so fuckin' long, y'know that?" He groaned out, leaning forward to bury his face into them.

You whimpered as he pressed wet kisses across the skin, thumb brushing over one of your nipples while his tongue lolled out to lick over the other, sucking it between his lips.

You began grinding down on his thigh again, the feeling so much more intense with just your panties on. You shifted your hips to find the angle that felt best, rubbing yourself down against the hard muscle of his thigh beneath you, solid and perfect, the friction sending sparks up your spine, your breaths coming out in shallow pants.

Each roll of your hips made your breath come a little faster, especially as his mouth pulled off one of your tits to give the other a fair share of attention.

Your nails dug into his shoulders when he nipped at your chest, sucking harshly, catching your sensitive peak between his teeth just to hear you whine. His tongue was hot against your skin, wet and needy.

Katsuki could feel your arousal starting to coat his thigh, soaking through your panties, smearing over his leg with every drag of your hips. Smiling against your chest, he pulled back with a soft pop, looking down at the glistening mess you left behind.

He moved a hand down between your bodies, slightly nudging your hips up with his leg to give him enough space in between to feel you over your panties, the fabric evidently damp as his index and middle finger stopped right above your clothed clit, pressing against it just slightly, enough to pull a shaky sigh from your lips.

"All this from just my thigh?"

There was a smug, slightly demeaning tone to his voice, like he was surprised you were so wet, as if it wasn't his fault. It made you want to throttle him. Or kiss him. Or both.

Your brows furrowed. "Shut up."

He only chuckled, drawing a line down your clothed slit. All slow, agonizing. Self-satisfied at the soft whimper that slips out of you.

"It's a simple fucking question. Haven't even touched you properly yet."

You huffed, mustering your most serious expression to meet his eyes. "God, just quit teasing, Katsuki. You're being mean."

He raised his brows, that smile on his face only widening. "You think this is mean?"

Finally, finally, he hooked his fingers into your panties, pushing them aside. The first touch, skin-on-skin, made you gasp. He dragged his fingers between your folds, coating them in your slick, slow and deliberate, before circling your entrance.

"I can show you mean."

His eyes were locked between your legs, watching his own fingers move. "Look at you," he murmured, almost to himself. “Fucking soaked."

He pushed one finger inside, slow enough that you felt every inch. You whimpered softly, walls fluttering around him.

He groaned softly, watching your face contort, feeling himself get even harder in his shorts.

"Tight," he breathed. "Gonna add another. That okay?"

You nodded frantically, beyond words.

The second finger stretched you more, made you bite down on your lip to keep from moaning too loud. He worked them deeper, curling them slightly. Your chest heaved at the intrusion you fought to not cry out, your nails digging into his shoulder as he hit just the right spot.

"There?" His voice was rough, satisfied. "That the spot?"

You couldn't respond, forehead falling into the crook of his neck, clinging to him as he curled his fingers again, rubbing that soft patch inside you with devastating precision.

Once he found it, he didn't stop, pumping his fingers in and out, hitting it with precision each time.

You grinded down into his hand, feeling the heel of his palm press up against your clit. You chase the feeling, shameless. Lost in the sensation, the overwhelming feeling of him all around you.

You mumbled into the skin of his neck incoherently about how you were: "Almost… 'm gonna…"

You could hear his voice right by your ear. Hoarse, determined.

“Yeah?” his efforts nearly doubled. “Close?”

You could only nod, coherent thoughts gone from your mind, only a desperate haze of want.

"Yeah. Yes. Please, please more…"

He kept at it, silently savoring your desperate sounds.

You wrapped your arms tight around his neck, moans muffled into his skin as the tightly wound up knot came undone. Your breaths getting heavy in your lungs, head getting fuzzy, eyes fluttering shut, nails having left angry red lines down the skin of his upper back.

He ran a hand up and down your back as you collapsed against him, coming down from the high. He let you rest against him, breathing from a moment before pulling you back with a small kiss to the side of your head.

"Look at me."

It didn't sound like a request.

"Hm?"

You watched with hazy eyes as he slowly pulled his fingers out of you, the loss making you whimper. They glistened under the harsh light of the clinic, coated with the evidence of what he'd just done to you.

He held your gaze as he brought them to his mouth. His tongue darted out first, licking a long strip up the slick-covered fingers. Then, he took them fully into his mouth, sucking them clean, eyes never once leaving yours.

Your breath caught in your throat. Heat flooded through you again, despite having just come. Tasting you off his own fingers like you were the best thing he'd ever had— it was almost too much.

When he finally pulled his fingers from his mouth with a soft pop, he smirked at your expression.

"Tastes good," he said simply, like commenting on the weather.

You clenched around nothing, already missing him inside you, feeling spent but somehow needing more.

"You're shameless."

"Last I checked, I wasn't the one humping your thigh."

Your face burned, a small, angry sort of pout settling on your lips.

He snickered, hand sliding up to your waist, giving it a small squeeze. "Little too late to get all embarrassed. Shit was hot."

"Uh huh…" You gave him a look, "Um. Thanks, by the way... that was—" You trailed off, not knowing how to express what you feel just the right way. "Good. It was good."

Katsuki snorted. "Just good?" you rolled your eyes, but leaned into his teasing with sweetness, something he didn't quite expect.

"Much better than good."

He searched your eyes for a beat, a hand coming up to brush back some of your hair. Then he pecked your lips— soft, almost sweet — before tugging your shirt back down carefully.

That was when you slowly realized, he was wrapping this up. But… he didn't cum?

He didn't cum.

"Hey, wait you didn't—"

He knew what you were talking about, the strained bulge in his shorts was nothing short of obvious.

"Does it look like I care."

His dismissal of his own need threw you off.

"Katsuki, that's not fair. I can't just—"

"Sure you can. You just did."

You turned his head towards you, pulling him into a soft kiss, parting his lips with yours, trying to not get lost in tasting yourself on his tongue. Gently trying to urge him to let you have him the way he had you.

You try to convince him, urge him to let you return the favor, do something.

You ran your hand over the bulge in his shorts, traced it gently, wanting. He groaned against your mouth, the sound strained in the back of his throat, like he was holding himself back. "C'mon, Katsuki," you palmed him over his shorts, wanting to hear more. "Let me? Please?"

He looked like he could give in, his jaw tense, eyes screwing shut as your finger hooked into the waistband of his shorts, drawing out a breathy sigh. You froze when the intercom crackled above you.

"The gym will be closing in ten minutes. Please begin wrapping up your sessions and make your way to the exit. Thank you."

You blinked. Fuck.

"…I can be quick?"

That was a lie. Ten minutes wasn't nearly enough time to do what you wanted to.

He waved you off with a snort, tugging your hand away from his throbbing cock, taking it upon himself to adjust the hem of your shirt with more care than you thought possible from someone like him.

"Relax." He pulled back just enough to meet your eyes. "Shit’s not a big deal. Can take care of it in the shower."

The mental image of him standing under the shower, hand wrapped around his cock, thinking about this — you — made something low in your stomach tighten.

You must have made a face, because he huffed out a laugh.

"But if you want to make it up so bad," He leaned in closer, nose brushing yours. The soft curve of his lashes was so much more apparent this close. He pressed a final, lingering kiss, grinning softly as he spoke. His voice low against your lips, promising. "We'll go for round 2."

may blabs: baby's first smut dont throw tomatoes at me.. ok

btw if u ever genuinely have a bloody nose do NOT tilt your head back. that blood will go down your throat and if it gets into ur stomach u could throw up and that is not good so do NOT do that ✌️✌️

big special thank u to the mutuals ( @updownandbatty & @cupidkats & @hushedlotus ) AND irls i bothered w this fic… u are goated ❤️‍🩹

again, art in the header is not mine, credits to the artist !!!

taglist: @nanakamii 𓂃˖ ࣪⊹ :

But even as he says it, he realizes Emilia might be right. He’s been pissy and agitated and aggressive all week. He’d written it off as stress. Being apart from you for the first time, being stuck in close proximity to another Alpha in that tiny ass van, being this close to taking down the assholes that had hurt his pack, all while knowing your heat was on the horizon.

“Holy shit,” Chris says. “I thought he was just being annoying because he missed her. And I don’t smell it on him. It’s not—as strong, as last time.”

“Yeah, because last time was the first time,” Emilia reminds them.

“I need—I need to go,” Adrian realizes.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Emilia says, rolling her eyes.

“Wait, wait,” Adrian says, looking at Chris with panic in his eyes. 

“What’s wrong?” Chris asks, alarmed.

You’d talked about it before he left. Waiting until you were both in sync. Your heat and his rut at the same time, so you could mark each other properly. And now—that was happening way sooner than he expected.

“If I’m in rut—we said—the next time that we were synced up we would—” Adrian stutters. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing Chris—”

Everyone’s staring, watching Adrian spiral into a panicked meltdown, and Emilia looks around the room.

“Get back to work!” she orders. “Adrian, Chris. Break room, now.”

“But I need to—” Adrian looks at his friends with wide eyes.

“Go, Adrian. Talk it out with them. I will make you a list so you can go to the store and grab all those things we talked about,” Ads says, already reaching for a notepad. “We got you. I promise.”

“No, I need to—she needs me, I need to go—I can’t—”

“You will be absolutely no use to her if you are freaking the fuck out like this,” Emilia says plainly. “You need to calm down before you go anywhere. I don’t want you getting in a fucking car accident on the way there. Chris can drive you to her apartment if you need. Breathe.”

Adrian follows the other two Alphas into the break room with shaking hands, trying desperately not to hyperventilate.

“Adrian,” Chris says calmly. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“We said we would mark each other,” Adrian says, his voice thin. “I don’t—I thought I had time. I was going to do research. I was going to prepare. I don’t want to hurt her—”

But even as he says it, he feels the urge rising up inside him. He’s wanted, for years, to make you his, and now he can do it in a way that matters. That really matters. A way that’s permanent.

“You don’t have to, right away,” Chris reminds him. “Circumstances have changed since the last time you talked. I don’t think she would be mad if you still wanted to wait, Adrian.”

“I don’t want to wait,” Adrian says. “I want her. I just don’t want to fuck it up!”

“The important thing, Adrian, is for you to talk to her about it,” Emilia says. “It’s a decision that the two of you make together. And from what I’ve seen—she wants it just as much as you do. She’s been walking around the office all week looking at your empty desk like she wants to cry, because she’s fucking missed you so much—”

Adrian wants to cry when he hears her say that. “Really?” His voice cracks.

“She loves you,” Chris says. “You know she does.”

“What do I—” Adrian swallows nervously. “What do I have to do? I don’t want to do it wrong.”

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Emilia says, her tone serious. “Marking hurts like a bitch. You’re literally going to bite her. Break skin. It’s totally normal for it to be painful. But afterward—” She glances at Chris, and a tiny half-smile dons her face.

“Afterward,” Chris finishes, “when the bond sets in. It’s all warm and nice and—” He clears his throat. “I’m not getting sappy right now. I told you yesterday, no more fucking sappy conversations. It’s nice, is the point. It only hurts for a minute.”

“So as long as that’s something that both of you want,” Emilia says, “you will be just fine.”

“It is,” Adrian whispers.

“Then as soon as Ads gets back,” Chris smiles, “you go home to her. And I don’t want to see you back here for at least a fucking week.”

You’re curled up in bed, nursing your cramping belly, when a sound at the front door of your apartment puts you on guard. You tap on your phone screen, but when it lights up, you have no messages. Adrian would have texted you he was on the way, and your heart drops in your chest.

Someone is breaking in. The blankets wrapped around you, set just so to make up your nest, get tangled around your legs as you stumble out of bed as quietly as you can and reach for the gun in your bedside drawer.

Someone stumbles into your apartment, the door slamming behind them, and you shove open the bedroom door with gritted teeth, gun at the ready.

Adrian, who has just burst through the door in a panic, juggling half a dozen bags between his suitcases and everything Ads had picked up for him at the store, nearly drops everything when you burst out of the bedroom, half-dressed, looking at him like a deer in headlights and aiming a gun at his head.

“What the fuck?” he says, scrambling to pick up the loose items slipping out of his arms while returning your shocked stare.

“Jesus Christ, Adrian! You scared the shit out of me. Why didn’t you tell me you were on the way home? I could have shot you!”

“I didn’t think!” he blurts. “Economos—he said you went home early because you didn’t feel good, and I was worried that maybe your heat had started, and I broke, like, three traffic laws getting over here because I didn’t want you to be alone—”

Your face softens. “I’m okay, baby.”

“—but I’m glad you’re taking your safety seriously, baby, I mean, if I was a home invader—stellar reaction time. And I would have been fine, anyway, even if you’d shot me,” Adrian rambles. “So really, you should just—shoot first, ask questions later—”

Another bag tumbles out of his arms and onto the floor, and it sends you back into motion. You set the gun safely out of the way on a side table and hurry forward to take something from Adrian before everything spills out onto the floor, but he manages to gather it up, even as he continues his senseless, nervous rambling. 

“Sorry, I’m a mess,” he’s saying. “I was in such a rush to get here—but I had to stop at the store, too—you made that nice care package for me during my rut and I wanted to do something nice like that and Ads helped me make a list but then I lost the list almost immediately so I think maybe I bought too many snacks and soft things and painkillers, I spent like, $200 at CVS—”

You shake your head, smile, and reach for his face, stretching over the pile of things between you. Then you kiss him, and he gives up trying to hold it all, half a dozen bags thumping to the floor, miscellaneous groceries rolling out of plastic bags, because he’s got something more important to hold. 

You.

His hands come up to frame your face, gentle but eager, and he kisses you back like he’s been starved, because he has. A week without you is too fucking long, he’s decided. It doesn’t matter that he talked to you every day, multiple times a day. Nothing compares to this. The way you fit against him, fold into his arms like you belong there.

When Adrian smiles into your kiss, it’s so wide he’s not even kissing you anymore, just laughing against you, because he’s home. He trails that smile along your jawline, peppering happy kisses on your skin, until he’s nosing at your neck for a deep inhale of the comforting scent he’s missed so much. He had things that smelled like you—he slept with the picnic blanket every single night—but there’s nothing like scenting you unfiltered, straight from the source.

He breathes in. Something is off. It’s not your impending heat, though he can smell that, too, a hint of extra sweetness that makes his mouth water. He frowns when he realizes.

“You don’t smell like me,” he says, grumpy. He’s gotten so used to the trace of his own scent mixed with your own, and after a week apart, it’s missing, washed away by sweat and showers, dissipating from the distance.

“What, did you not want me to shower while you were gone?” you laugh, squirming at the way Adrian’s tongue tickles your neck as he immediately sets to work fixing the problem, licking every inch of bare skin he can reach. 

“No,” he growls. “Want everyone to know you’re mine.” And he does. Standing before you now, with you on the verge of your heat and him on the verge of his rut, he feels it more intensely than he ever has—the ever-familiar wave of want and need, possessive and protective desire that’s impossible to tamp down.

As Adrian continues to lick at your neck, you breathe deep, and that’s when you catch his scent, deep and thick and familiar, all pine and gunpowder and musk. It brings you right back to that night outside Chris’s trailer, back when all this first started.

“You’re—” you gasp, and Adrian hums against the skin of your throat. “You’re in rut? When—how long—”

“Not yet,” he says. “But—soon. I didn’t even realize until I got back to the office and Emilia said something. I just thought I fucking missed you. No wonder I wanted to kill Chris all week every time he looked at me wrong.”

His arms circle you tighter, and you let yourself go lax in his embrace as your knees give out, knowing he would never let you fall.

“Are you okay?” he asks, a little panicky, and you huff a laugh.

“Yeah,” you say hoarsely, wincing a bit as another cramp overtakes you. They’ve been terrible all day. “Just—hurting, a little.” He frowns, brushing a thumb over your cheek, tracing under the dark circles under your eyes. You haven’t been sleeping well. But then, neither has he.

Your heat was already affecting him from miles away, and now that you’re within reach, Adrian is practically vibrating, his pulse racing beneath his skin. He chalks it up to the fact that he’s nervous. That he’s on the cusp of his rut. He wants to be good for you, to do good for you.

“Can I make it better?”

“You already are,” you whisper, kissing him again, leaning in closer. “Take me to bed, Alpha.”

Adrian swallows. “You—you want—now?”

“No,” you say softly, shaking your head. “I’m tired. Just want to cuddle. Sleep. Nest. Be with you.”

“Okay,” he says, pressing a soft kiss to your cheek as he picks you up and carries you back into the bedroom.

Adrian looks with soft, happy eyes around the room, noticing all the little ways you’ve unpacked his things and mixed them in with your own. Sees his spare glasses on the nightstand on what has become his side of the bed. Sees his hairbrush sitting on your dresser, his clothes hanging in the open closet. He feels like he already belongs here, in your apartment.

Because he does. He belongs wherever you are.

When he sets you on the bed, he starts to get back up, but you whine and hold on tighter to him. He kisses the side of your face again.

“I gotta change, baby,” he says. “I’m still in my mission clothes. Let me go get some pajamas—”

“No,” you pout. “Just take them off.” He furrows his brow, but catches on when you start pulling off your own shirt. “Want you close.”

“Whatever you want,” he says softly, reaching behind his neck to pull off his collared shirt, kicking off his sneakers and shucking off his jeans a moment later. 

He crawls into the nest you made—our nest, he thinks—in nothing but his underwear and lets himself curl around you, tucking you into him as close as he can, legs entwined, arms wrapped tightly around your torso. You shuffle in his arms until you’re facing him, hugging him right back, your nose pressed directly into his neck where you can inhale his scent, strong and thick and comforting.

After a minute, he starts to feel a weird hum against his skin, and then he realizes it’s audible, too, a gentle purring noise. It’s coming from you.

“Are you purring?” he asks, bewildered. He knows that Omegas can do that—purr in the same way that an Alpha can growl. But he has never heard you make this sound.

“Yeah,” you say, a little embarrassed. “Sorry. It happens when I’m really relaxed. Happy.”

“No. Don’t be sorry. I want—keep doing it. Please. I like it,” Adrian insists, a tinge of awe to his voice. You’re so fucking happy that he’s home that you’re purring.

It makes him feel all fuzzy, calming the anxiety that has been building up inside him the whole week he’s been away. He treasures it, the soft and gentle sound you make, the vibration against his skin, a quiet rumble. He treasures the shy smile that curls against the skin of his neck.

In less than ten minutes, both of you are sound asleep.

When Adrian wakes in the middle of the night, he can smell it the second he breathes in.

Your scent, thicker and sweeter than he’s ever smelled. He can feel it, too, the way your skin burns hot against his own, the damp layer of sweat covering your body. You’re shifting uncomfortably in his embrace, pressing your thighs together with a wordless whimper that you try to muffle with the back of your hand.

You are absolutely, 100% in heat.

“Omega,” he whispers, petting a calloused hand down the side of your body, goosebumps rising on your bare skin. “Let me—”

“Go back to sleep,” you manage to say, your voice strained. “You’re—you just got back from a mission, I know you’re exhausted, baby, we’ll—worry about it in the morning.”

“Um,” Adrian says, confused. “No.” 

His hand covers the soft skin of your belly, fingers dipping beneath the seam of your underwear, brushing over your clit. You gasp, hips shifting, legs spreading wider to welcome his hand, and he feels how wet you are, so far gone already that your underwear is soaked with slick. One of his fingers dips down to your entrance and he feels another gush, leaking right into his hand. If he wasn’t awake before, he’s wide awake now.

“You are clearly uncomfortable and I can fix it. Right now,” Adrian continues, voice quiet in the dark bedroom as he kisses you behind your ear and works you over gently. “I’m never gonna let you suffer when I can do something about it, baby.”

Even as he says it, he can feel his own body responding to you. His skin is just as hot to the touch as yours.

You’re writhing, wanting, beside him in bed, and desire floods through him, just as hot and strong and overwhelming.

Your heat has started, and it’s triggered his rut.

His cock grows hard impossibly fast, prodding against your thigh, and you whimper again. Adrian grunts when you reach for him, pausing your hand before it can wrap around him and squeeze, because if you do, this will be over before it even starts, and—this is it. His heart starts pounding with nerves. It’s happening, now, and you still haven’t even talked about it.

“But before I can take care of you,” he says, pausing his ministrations on your clit, making you whine with frustration, “we need to—talk about this.”

“Wh—what?” You stumble over the word, your breath shaky.

“Look at me, Omega,” he says, firm and soft. Your eyes flutter open and meet his, pupils dark. Adrian’s eyes dilate as he takes in the look on your face, head tilted back, lips full and wet when you lick them. He kisses you softly. He can’t help it. 

He’s never wanted you as bad as he wants you right now. Every fiber of his being is screaming at him to give you what you need. To pull your underwear aside and fuck you until you’re gushing slick, clenching around his knot, holding him tight and hot inside you. Until his teeth sink deep into your neck and he tastes blood.

Which is exactly why he pulls back and takes a deep breath, shoving away the thought. You make a strained noise of protest, trying to chase after his lips.

“Need you,” you rasp desperately. “God, Alpha, I need you so bad.”

He closes his eyes at your words, clenches his jaw. Your hand reaches up to trace along his jawline, grasping his chin between your fingers, trying to pull him back down to meet you, shifting your body beneath his. He gives you what you want, settling himself over you, letting his weight press you into the soft mattress, and opens his eyes when he feels like he’s gotten control of his urges.

“Look at me, Omega,” he repeats, his own voice just as raspy as yours. You do as he says, eyes locked on his, half-lidded, hazy with want. He’s sure he looks the same. 

There’s no way he’s marking you without having a conversation first, and he had been so caught up with finally seeing you last night after a week apart that it never came up. But there’s also no way that conversation is happening right this second. You’re too far out of it, swimming in a hot haze of desire that’s clouding all your other thoughts. You won’t be able to give him a clear answer, won’t be able to fully consent to it.

Not until he takes the edge off for you.

“Do you have a toy?” he asks, hands clenching into fists when you rock yourself forward. You groan when your clothed core meets the barrier of his underwear instead of his bare cock.

“Toy?”

“A fake knot.”

“Yes, why?” you ask, confused, a little note of distress creeping into your voice. “Don’t want it. Don’t need it. I have you. I want your knot Alpha pleaseIneedit—” You start rocking again, more frantically, trying to latch your legs around his waist and pull him into you.

“I need you to trust me, baby,” he whispers, kissing you again. “I’ll knot you. I promise I will. But not yet.”

You make a discontented sound, and Adrian kisses at your jaw, running a hand over your body to calm you. Your breasts, your belly, your thighs. You shift uncomfortably again, trying to press them together, desperate for friction.

“Where do you keep it?” Adrian asks. It’s talking every bit of his self-control to ask. “The toy.”

“Mm,” you whimper. “Dresser. Bottom drawer.”

“I will be right back.”

You let out a small cry at the loss of Adrian’s weight on top of you as he detaches himself from your grip and crawls out of the blankets, crossing the room to the dresser. He finds what he’s looking for easily, the blue silicone knot tucked next to a vibrator and some towels. He grabs it all, bringing it back to toss on the end of the bed.

“Hips up,” he says gently, taking a towel to spread beneath your legs so you won’t have to change the sheets later. At the same time, he pulls your damp underwear down your legs, leaving you bare to him. He keeps his on.

You watch him with wide eyes through the dark as he climbs back onto the bed and reaches for the toys.

The vibrator clicks on with a gentle humming sound, and you bite your lip and whine when Adrian presses it against your clit. He uses one arm to hold you down, keep you in place, while the other holds him up above you so he can kiss you without crushing you into the mattress.

After that quick kiss, Adrian settles back onto his knees. You start to protest, wanting to hold him there, in place above you, but then he’s lowering himself onto his stomach in front of you. Another sharp, sudden cramp in your abdomen making you inhale sharply, face screwed up with pain.

“H-hurts,” you stammer. “Please—”

“My poor girl,” Adrian says. “I’m gonna make it better, I promise.”

Then he’s using his other hand to spread you wide, dipping his head down to lick up your slit. You taste even sweeter than he remembers under the full force of your heat, and he groans as he delves his tongue into your opening, tossing the vibrator aside so he can devour you more fully, his nose nudging at your sensitive clit.

“Fuck—Adrian—”

His hand reaches for your opening, and he sucks on your clit as he slips one finger inside you, then another, and your hips buck up uncontrollably at the sudden touch, your body already trying to suck him in deeper. Your high-pitched moan makes his chest swell with a primal kind of pride, telling him exactly how good he’s making you feel.

Adrian groans himself at the feeling of your wet walls clenching around his fingers, and he realizes you’re already tipping over the edge into orgasm, chest heaving, thighs trembling. He starts to slow his movements, but you shake your head, gasping.

“Don’t stop pleasedon’tstop—”

His own hard cock and raging arousal getting harder and harder to ignore as you beg for him. He prods his fingers gently inside you, seeking out your most sensitive spot, and he’s rewarded with a moan.

He remembers his first rut, when all he wanted was this. You, laid out in front of him, wet and ready and wanting, and finally having it—god, it’s so tempting to just toss the vibrator aside, shove his underwear down his legs, and take you hard and fast until you’re screaming his name.

No. Not his name. His title. You’ll call him Alpha, tonight.

Another desperate noise from you brings him back to himself, and he shakes the thought away, moving his hand faster, digging his fingers deeper.

“Please,” you beg. “More—I need more needyoutoknotme—”

Adrian turns his head to the side to suck a bruise into your thigh as he reaches for the toy, warming it in his hand for a moment. He rises up, lets you grab him by the shoulders and yank his mouth down to your own for a fierce, rough kiss. You gasp against his lips when the thick tip of the toy prods at your entrance.

“Ah—mm—”

Adrian lets you go at your own pace, your hand grabbing at his wrist, guiding him as he pushes the toy inside you. Your mouth falls open as it stretches you, fills you, until the fake knot is resting at your entrance. You aren’t stretched enough for it to pop inside quite yet.

“Okay?” Adrian checks, watching your face carefully for any sign of discomfort, but all he sees in your eyes is lust. You nod, holding his gaze, and he thrusts his hand slowly, relishing in the way your eyelashes flutter as your head falls back against the pillows.

With every pump of the fake knot, you shift your hips, planting your feet to meet each pounding thrust. It drags against your walls, slides easily because of how wet you are. Adrian is fascinated as he feels it. He knows, in theory, that Omegas produce more slick during their heat to make it easier to accept a knot, but—you’re soaking the toy, soaking his hand, soaking the towel he’d laid beneath you on the bed. He wants to fucking—lick it up. Lick you, all over, all night. He practically salivates at the thought.

He can tell you’re getting close when your hand tightens on his forearm, nails digging so deep into his skin that they’ll leave a mark, a sharp pain that only serves to spur Adrian onward, moving the toy faster.

His other hand comes to circle his own cock, dipping beneath the hem of his underwear. He jerks at himself in time with the toy, watching it split you open over and over again, until finally, the knot pops inside your stretched entrance. You clench around it, crying out as you come, writhing with pleasure, still gripping Adrian tight.

Just a moment later, Adrian follows you over the edge with a desperate sound of his own, making a sticky mess of his underwear when he comes, collapsing next to you and rolling you into his tight embrace, ignoring the uncomfortable wetness and just focusing on you as you start to come back to yourself.

Once it’s over—once your heaving breaths settle back into calm, regular patterns and your thighs stop trembling and your fingers stop digging so hard into his shoulders—Adrian kisses your cheek. You turn your head so your lips touch his, your hands cupping his face, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones in gentle strokes.

“A little better?” Adrian asks.

He lifts himself a little further away from you to take you in, all glistening, sweaty skin, hot to the touch. But your eyes are clearer now than they were before, some of the fiery desire quelled by your orgasm, your body locked around the silicone knot that soothes the worst of your pain and discomfort.

“I’m okay,” you say hoarsely. “Why—why didn’t you—”

“I needed to talk to you first. Before—before I knot you,” Adrian says, flushing red-hot. “When we talked before I left I agreed to help you through your heat, and I’d mark you later. Once we synced up. But that was before—before we knew. That I’d be in rut too.”

Your confusion softens into understanding, and you kiss him again.

“I want you,” you murmur. “I don’t want to wait anymore. I would have let you mark me even if you weren’t in rut. I asked you to.”

“Well, that’s—I already told you, I’m only biting you if you bite me back,” Adrian says. “And now—we can do that. Tonight. But I still wanted to ask. Double check that it’s something you still want—”

“Yes,” you interrupt, before he can ramble anymore and talk himself out of it.

“I thought so, I just—while you were, uh…really horny, just now? I think you might have said whatever the fuck I wanted just so I’d knot you. That’s not real consent.”

“So ask me now,” you whisper. Adrian clears his throat.

“Will you?” he asks, his voice just as quiet. “Mark me? Let me mark you? Be my Omega, officially?”

“Yes,” you say again, louder, firmer. You lay a hand on his chest, just above his heart, and slide it up until it rests at the juncture of his neck. Your eyes land on the spot, eyes darkening, and Adrian can see your desire simmering beneath the surface, can scent the slick pooling between your thighs as you lick your lips.

“Are you sure?” Adrian asks, voice trembling with nerves. “Harcourt said—she said it will hurt. I don’t want to hurt you.”

In that split second, you remember the words he told you two months ago, huddled together on the ground beneath the window of Chris’s trailer. 

“I couldn’t sleep, knowing you were here all alone. Hurting,” you had said.

“I can take it,” he’d responded. “I can take it because I know you’re waiting for me at the end of it.”

“I can take it,” you echo now, wrapped in his embrace, warm and safe in a nest of blankets, heart so full of love it feels like it might burst. “I can take a moment of pain. Because I know what’s waiting for me at the end of it.”

Adrian’s brow furrows, but then you kiss him, long and soft and deep, and whisper the answer to his silent question into his mouth.

“A lifetime with you. As many years as I can get.”

“You can have all of them,” Adrian says, his throat so tight he almost chokes on the words.

You fall asleep in Adrian’s arms not too long after that, absolutely exhausted. He’s not surprised. It’s still the middle of the night. When he glances at the clock on your nightstand, it’s nearly 3 a.m.

Not just your nightstand, he reminds himself. Not just your bed, or your home. It’s his, now, too. The realization makes him smile to himself at the dark ceiling, even as he shifts uncomfortably in his wet underwear.

He untangles himself from your arms carefully so as not to wake you, and turns you over just as gently to remove the wet towel from beneath you on the bed. He uses it to clean himself up, and pads out into the living room stark naked to toss everything into your washing machine. 

On the way back to bed, he picks up everything he dropped in the living room earlier, the contents of plastic grocery bags spilled out across the hardwood floor. He sets most of it on the counter, but brings back one bag’s worth of food and electrolyte-enhanced water. The last thing he wants is for you to be hungry or dehydrated, and he knows exactly how much it can take out of a person to be endlessly horny for several days straight.

When he finally climbs back into bed, you turn toward him even in your sleep, letting out a pleased sigh once your face is pillowed against his bare chest. He runs a hand through your hair, settling back into the pillows, and closes his eyes.

It’s late morning when Adrian wakes up. He wishes he could say he woke feeling refreshed, happy, content. He wishes he could just lay with you, calm and comfortable as sunlight trickles through the window blinds, casting rays of light over your beautiful face, could cuddle back up to you and go back to sleep and forget about the world.

But he’s hot. He’s feverish. His dick is so fucking hard it hurts. He tries to breathe through it, eyes twisted shut to bear the agonizing rush of need that rushes through him. A strangled noise escapes his throat when he breathes in your scent, thick and sweet, and it makes everything worse. His desire cranks up a dozen notches more, if that’s even possible.

It wakes you up, the sound, and he feels instantly guilty for disrupting your rest. But he can’t bring himself to protest when you blink away the haze of sleep and look at him with nothing but soft, clear, loving eyes. Last night, you had needed him, and he’d been so focused on you that his own needs fell to the wayside. 

Right now, though—he needs you. A wild, primal need that consumes him. And you know it.

“Is it bad?” you say, your quiet voice just calm enough not to shatter the peace of the morning. Your hand grazes lightly over the skin of his chest, through the trail of hair leading down from his belly button to his hard, leaking cock, which jumps at your touch, dribbling precum over the skin of your fingers.

“Oh, fuck,” he pants, his voice strained. “I’m sorry—”

You swallow his unnecessary apology with a kiss, and Adrian opens his mouth under yours, craving more of you, wanting nothing more than your tongue in his mouth and your hot, wet cunt wrapped around him.

“Don’t be sorry,” you whisper. “I got you, baby.”

“I love you,” Adrian says past the lump in his throat.

He suddenly feels emotional as he remembers the last time he felt like this. So desperate for you, so hot, the agony of his first rut that felt like it would never end. How badly he had wished you were there with him when he jerked himself off or rutted against a pillow.

“I love you too,” you whisper back, and he fists a hand in your hair to drag your mouth back down to his.

You’re with him now. He’ll never have to be alone like that again.

“How do you want me?” you ask him. “I think traditionally—people do it, well, doggy style. If we do that, you can mark me first, and then I can mark you later—” 

“No,” Adrian manages, gritting his teeth when you touch his aching cock again, trying desperately not to come and end this moment before it even begins. He doesn’t want to roll you onto your belly, to fuck you while he can’t even see your face, though his dick twitches at the mental image of you bent over, ass in the air, waiting for his knot.

Instead, he pushes you over onto your back, looks into your eyes, and says, “We do it at the same time. Together.” He nips at your neck, a playful bite. A promise of what’s to come. 

“Together,” you agree. “You lover boy.” You smile, and he knows he’s made the right choice. He wants to see that smile, wants to kiss you, wants to whisper pretty words in your ear. Not fuck you like an animal.

“Your lover boy,” he says, and he tries to grin in response, but another bolt of agony shoots through him. He grunts through the pain, and your brow furrows with concern.

You take his hands and bring them to the soft skin on your belly.

“Take what you need,” you murmur, spreading your legs wide for him. He palms your thighs, thumb brushing over the deep bruise he’d sucked into your skin the night before.

“I didn’t prep you—”

“Don’t need it,” you say breathlessly, lifting your hips impatiently, coating his cock in your slick. You’re soaking wet, and he hasn’t even done anything. His breath catches.

You want Adrian just as bad as he wants you. You need him just as bad as he needs you.

He doesn’t deny either of you any longer.

His cock stretches you open with an easy slide, and he watches it disappear into your body, listens to you groan. He was going to give you a moment to adjust to the size of him—he’s bigger than the toy he’d used on you last night—but something takes over him when he feels you gripping him warm and tight like this, and he can’t help it.

He thrusts into you hard, and you gasp, legs circling his waist, heels pressing into his ass to drag him in impossibly closer, deeper. He sets a wild rhythm, too far gone for anything else but pure instinct, letting his body, for the first time, take what it wants, because you’ve given him permission. Because you want it too.

You’re absolutely soaked, and the noises of him plunging into you over and over again, wet suction and skin slapping on skin, make your face flush even hotter. Every sloppy thrust finds the sweet spot inside you, drawing tiny noises from the back of your throat. Adrian lets out his own whimper at the sound, and groans into your ear when he feels even more slick gush out of you, drenching his leaking cock.

It’s messy, it’s raw. The scent of your combined arousal grows thick in the air, saturating his every inhale, so much that he feels heady, intoxicated with it. It’s all he can think, all he can feel. Just pleasure and heat and you.

“Please,” Adrian chokes out. “Need you to—come for me, Omega, wanna feel you, want—want you so fucking bad, holy shit—”

“Ah,” you gasp when he wraps his arms around your torso, lifting you up, changing the angle, hitting you even deeper. You can do nothing but lay there and take it, clutching at his back with a whine.

He kisses you, sloppy, and then his forehead drops to your neck as he pants into your skin, groaning long and low. Then he feels it—your teeth on his neck, the sharp point of your canines, a teasing graze. His lungs feel tight, his stomach swoops with nerves, but god—he wants this he wants you he wants—

His mouth lands on your neck in return, and he can feel the way his canines have elongated, sharper than usual. Ready to break skin. But he waits.

“Please,” he begs, lips moving against your damp, sweaty skin, inhaling the scent of you right from the source. “Please, please—”

His thrusts grow erratic as hot pleasure rushes down his spine and he comes, trembling arms giving out when his knot pops inside you, locking you together. He collapses on top of you just as your orgasm rushes through you and your teeth sink into his neck, a sharp pain that he barely notices because he’s still coming, spilling thick ropes of white inside you, lost in the pleasure and the connection.

There’s only one thought left in his mind—he needs to make you his. Permanently.

Adrian bares his teeth, digs them in to your skin, and hesitates. He’s waiting for you to tense, to change your mind, to wince at the pain. But you don’t do any of those things. You just curl closer into him, tilt your neck further to welcome his mark, make him feel trusted, show him that you know—you know that he will protect you and love you and never, ever hurt you.

He lets his teeth sink into your skin.

The sudden euphoria that rushes through him  when the bond sets in is like nothing he’s ever felt before and nothing he will ever feel again. He can’t explain it—how deep it runs, this new connection with you. How warm and loved it makes him feel. It’s almost too much; it’s like he’s choking on it—his love for you.

He expected it to feel fragile, like something he would need to protect, to defend, but—it’s strong, raging like a fire in his chest, and he sees those flames reflected in your eyes when he finally releases you and pulls back.

Adrian alternates between kissing you and licking at the fresh bite mark on your neck, soothing the lingering sting. You’re still lying still beneath him, with his full body weight resting on top of you, smiling up at him with wet, bright eyes.

“You’re mine,” you whisper, tracing your fingers along the red, bloody mark you’d bitten into his skin. 

In the next few hours, it will heal into a silver, crescent-moon scar that tells the world he belongs to you, just like yours will tell the world that you belong to him. That you belong to each other.

“You’re mine,” he echoes hoarsely, beaming back at you.

Adrian tag list: @justalotoffanfiction @danversxwasabi @clowninavan @adoresami @a-young-g0d @bastardstevie @am-3-thyst @xoxocamis @morguegrl89 @somethin-sparklyy @secretjesterr @seeingdubs @lovenerdywhitemen2 @jeshomie @aerionshipthrust @deamlucem @tlfg-adrianchase @brianna-merlim @amart-e @countvonklit @pieolsen @gingerjane15 @dosyrosyposy @mylcvemineallmine @rentaldarling @vigilcourt @hot-bean-juice @meg-winchester @sepaaaaa @residentsuperhero

“We have to go back through their message history first,” Ads says, on the phone with John. “Figure out what their code words might mean. They’re not stupid enough to just talk about cocaine dealing outright. Dev might get suspicious if something sounds off.”

“No full sentences,” John notes. “Lots of straight up dates, times, meeting locations without any other context. Occasionally a follow-up to explain. Like this one—got the good stuff in yesterday.”

“What should we say?” Ads asks, staring at the blinking cursor in the message thread. Her thumbs hover, ready to type.

“We can lure him in with the promise of a job?” Chris suggests. “Say Eli knows a guy who has work for him?”

“Eli?” Adrian asks.

“The drug dealer you killed last night,” Chris deadpans. “He had a name.”

“Oh, right.”

“That’s risky,” you point out, and Adrian straightens at the sound of your voice. He hasn’t realized you were on the other end of the line with John. 

“Morning, baby,” he says, unable to help his smile.

“Hi Ade,” you say, and he can hear the smile in your voice. “What if Eli didn’t know Dev is a mercenary? We can’t assume that. Whatever message you send, it has to be drug related.”

“Good point,” John muses.

“Well, Adrian just saw him buy drugs last night,” Chris says. “He’s probably not gonna need more for a little while, at least. So what’s the move here?”

“I worked in the drug trafficking unit of the DEA for a while,” Emilia says. Adrian’s smile falters a bit when he realizes she’s there too. He wonders how close you’re standing to her, then kicks himself for even having the thought. He grits his teeth and clears his throat to stop the growl that threatens to escape. Chris gives him a weird look.

“You need some water, Vig?”

“I’m good,” Adrian says, looking away, clenching his fists. 

“One time we lured a guy by fabricating a supply chain issue,” Emilia continues. “Made it out like the dealer was running low and might not be able to restock for a while due to local gang activity. If he thinks his source is drying up, Dev might buy some extra.”

“Still not a guarantee that he would show, but I think that’s a better option,” you agree. 

“Even if he doesn’t show—now that I have his number, I’ve coded a program to scan and trace calls coming from his phone. It just might take a little longer,” John says. 

“Either way, we’re on to him. We know he’s in the city, we got the bar right that he frequents. We’re in a good spot,” Ads says. “I say we go for it. What should I say?”

“Pick a location where they’ve met before, if you can find one in the message history,” Emilia says. “Give him an address and a time. No frills. Then send a follow up. Running low. Supplier problem. Meet here if you want an emergency restock.”

“Misspell a couple words,” Adrian notes, reading the thread over Ads’s shoulder as she searches for an address. “This guy is fucking illiterate and apparently doesn’t use autocorrect.”

Your laugh rings out over the phone speaker, and it makes Adrian feel a little lighter.

“Keep us in the loop,” Emilia says. 

“Be careful,” you add. “I don’t want to hear about any bullet wounds or broken bones.”

“I’ll keep him in line,” Chris says, and Adrian only half-resents the implication that he’s like an animal in need of leash training.

“Love you,” he says, ignoring the dig.

“I’m not saying I love you too, that’s fucking weird,” John says.

“He wasn’t talking to you, you fucking moron,” Emilia groans.

“Love you too, Ade,” you call back with a giggle, over the sound of Emilia smacking John upside the head.

“You ready, Vig?” Chris asks. “I can see Mason coming this way.”

“I’m ready, all right,” Adrian says, a slight growl to his voice.

“Please remember that you cannot kill him right away,” Ads says, exasperated.

Ads is set up in the van a block away from the established meeting spot, while Chris keeps a careful eye on it from a rooftop across the street. Luckily, Dev Mason took the bait, and Adrian has been waiting for him to show for the last twenty minutes, hands shoved deep in the pockets of another jacket borrowed from Chris, because apparently his own clothes aren’t cool enough and Dev will be suspicious if he sees a dork in a dad outfit.

You’d giggled when Adrian had called you to complain about it. Really, he’d just wanted to talk to you one last time before meeting up with Dev tonight. It was late now, nearly 2 a.m., and he wouldn’t get to talk to you again until tomorrow.

“They’ve got a point,” you said sympathetically. “Maybe we need to get you some undercover outfits. Your Vigilante suit is intimidating. The rest of your wardrobe, not so much.”

“I thought you liked my wardrobe!”

“I do love your wardrobe, because you are the one wearing it. But you have to admit that you don’t dress like the average black ops agent.”

“Fine,” Adrian grumbled.

“Hey. I love you, baby, ” you remind him. “Be careful tonight.”

“I will,” he said softly. “I love you too.”

Adrian thinks about that conversation now, eyes closing briefly as he remembers the sound of your voice, reminding him that you love him, calling him baby. Even still, his nose wrinkles with irritation. The memory isn’t enough to erase Chris’s strong Alpha scent that’s leached into the fabric of the jacket. 

Normally, Chris’s scent doesn’t bother him, but it’s one thing to be crammed into the van with him. It’s another thing entirely to be wearing his clothes. It’s putting him on edge, even more than he has been the rest of this week. It’s making his stomach hurt, it’s making his head hurt, it’s just plain pissing him off. He wants to rip all his clothes off and wrap himself in the picnic blanket, the one still barely holding on to traces of your scent after five days away from you.

“Dev rounding the corner in thirty seconds,” Chris reports, his voice ringing in the mic in Adrian’s ear. Adrian refocuses. He’s got a job to do. 

“Remember,” Chris says. “No small talk. You’re bad at it. But you are probably stronger than him. He’s only a Beta, and he’s pretty wiry. Just grab him and drag him into the alley. I’m already on my way down to meet you so you have backup.”

Not ten seconds later, Dev Mason rounds the corner and nods at Adrian.

“You Eli’s guy?”

Adrian grits his teeth and forces down the wave of rage he feels just at the sight of this asshole, so casually nodding at him, like they’re fucking buddies. Like he’s not on Adrian’s shit list, right in the top ten. Adrian can’t even bring himself to speak, he just schools his expression and nods, waiting for Dev to walk closer, intending to pass off some money in return for drugs and make a deal.

The second he’s within reach, Adrian wrenches Dev’s arm behind his back, kicks him in the groin, and punches him right in the neck. A sickly satisfied smile crosses Adrian’s face. He delights in the way that the man’s eyes go wide with surprise, the wind knocked out of him, mouth gaping as he tries to speak, to yell for help, anything, all for naught. 

Adrian drags him off the street and out of sight. The Checkmate team had gone through Dev and Eli’s previous meeting spots and carefully selected the location for this specifically—the dark, filthy alley with the giant dumpsters. Adrian shoves Dev behind one of them, right into the wall, his head making a cracking noise as it hits the stone wall of the building.

Dev finally manages to take a deep breath, but right before he’s about to shout, Adrian’s hands close around his throat to hold him in place.

Chris enters the alley behind them just a few seconds later. Dev hears his footsteps and starts struggling, thinking someone might have come to save him.

“Help,” Dev manages to squeak out, his voice hoarse and tight, Adrian’s grip cutting off his air supply just enough to keep him under control, but not enough to kill him.

“He’s not here to help you,” Adrian hisses. “He’s here to help me, you fucking dickbag.”

He sees the moment when Dev catches a real glimpse of Chris and a flash of terrified recognition crosses his face. 

“Peacemaker,” he rasps. His struggle intensifies as he looks back at Adrian. “And you—you’re Vigilante?”

One hand grips desperately at Adrian’s around his throat, trying to pry his fingers away. He looks left and right for an exit route that is nowhere to be found.

“Okay,” he says, panicked. “Okay, okay! Tell me what you want! I’ll—I’ll give you whatever you want. Money? Information?”

Chris shakes his head and scoffs with disgust at how easily he’s surrendered.

“No shit, we want information,” he says. “We know what you’re doing. You and Leon and the others.” He walks closer and pulls a gun, cocking it at Dev’s head. “Members of my pack got hurt because of you.”

“Not because of me!” Dev insists desperately. “I’m not—I’m not the decisions guy! I just do the tech work! I worked in the same department as John Economos at ARGUS, we just—we just do the computer shit!”

“Computer shit,” Chris says. “What kind of computer shit?”

“I book the jobs! Manage the finances, manage everyone’s schedules! That’s it! I don’t—I don’t do field work! I’ve never killed anybody!”

“Pussy,” Adrian mutters.

“If he manages the schedules,” Ads says over the comms, “then he should know where they all are right now. Ask him.”

“You know where they are?” Chris says. “The rest of your team?”

“Y-yes, I do!!” Dev sputters. “I’ve got—I’ve got it all on my laptop, on a spreadsheet. It’s at my apartment! I can take you there!”

Chris cocks his head as he considers. The guy seems about five seconds away from pissing himself. He lowers his gun.

“Put him down, Vig.”

“What?” Adrian cries, outraged.

“Look at him. His knees are fucking shaking. He’s about to piss himself. He’s not a threat.”

Adrian gives Chris a hard look. His hands clench tighter around Dev’s throat as he hisses a breath through his teeth. Chris is on your side, he reminds himself. Chris is your best friend. You promised you wouldn’t have any problems taking orders from him in the field.

Adrian lets go of Dev with a shove, pushing all his anger into the piece of shit in front of him even as his heart is screaming at him to grab on again. To squeeze tighter around Dev’s neck until his face is turning red, until he can’t breathe, until he’s fucking dead, just like he deserves for everything that he and his team have done to his pack. To you.

Dev swallows and looks between Chris and Adrian nervously. “I—”

“What?” Chris demands.

“I’ll take one of you,” he says, seemingly working up a scrap of courage when he realizes Chris might be willing to show him a bit of mercy. “I’ll take Peacemaker.”

“I think fucking not,” Adrian says at the same time that Chris says, “Okay. Deal.”

“Are you fucking insane, Chris?” Adrian says.

“He’s right, Chris. You’re not going anywhere with this guy by yourself. It might be a trap,” Ads says.

“And what, you think I can’t handle myself?” Chris snaps. “Might I remind you, I am the pack Alpha. I am more than capable of making a call like this, especially with this wimpy asshole—”

He cuts off at the sound of thundering footsteps. He and Adrian turn in the direction of the sound to see Dev’s retreating form, bolting as fast as he can out of the alley and down the street.

“Fuck!” Chris says.

“This is why I didn’t want to let go of him, dude!” Adrian shouts, taking off to chase after him.

Dev looks back with wide, panicked eyes when he realizes the two Alphas have stopped arguing and started pursuing him. He fumbles a bit, yanking his shirt out of his pants as he runs and nearly tripping over a sidewalk curb as he reaches into his waistband behind him to pull a gun.

“He’s got a gun!” Adrian yells, just as Dev manages to fire a shot. It flies wide. So fucking wide it’s laughable. And Adrian, in fact, starts cracking up.

“Holy shit,” he says as he pulls his own gun from the deep pocket of Chris’s jacket. “You’re fucking kidding. Your aim is shit! How do you work black ops, Mason? Jesus Christ.”

“Maybe stop criticizing the aim of the guy trying to kill you, Adrian!” Ads cries over comms.

Dev keeps firing erratically, and Adrian cries out when one of them manages to hit him. It doesn’t stick—it’s only a graze—but it hurts like a bitch because he’s not wearing his Vigilante suit. He doesn’t have any armor on.

“Fuck!” he hisses. “You fucking dickhead!”

Adrian lifts his gun and shoots. And his aim is anything but laughable. The bullet hits dead center at the back of Dev’s head, and he hits the ground instantly. Adrian keeps running until he gets to the body, kicks the gun out of his hand, but when he looks down, he sees it wasn’t necessary.

“He’s dead,” Adrian reports, holding his ear.

“Fuck, Adrian,” Chris says. “He could have still been useful!”

“Fuck you! He shot me! Was I supposed to not shoot him back?”

“You’re hit?” Ads says urgently. “Fuck. I’m coming around with the van. Put pressure on it. Try not to bleed everywhere and leave evidence, please?”

Adrian does as she asks, putting his gun away and covering the wound on his shoulder with his hand. He frowns and huffs.

“Fuck. I told her I wouldn’t get shot,” Adrian grumbles. “She’s gonna kill me.”

Chris and Adrian tense at the sound of a vehicle pulling around the corner, but relax when they realize it’s just Ads. She pulls up right beside them and rolls down the window, taking in the scene with an unamused sigh.

“Alright,” she says. “Let’s get this cleaned up.”

“Do we take the body?” Adrian muses, ready to reach down and pick it up.

“No,” Chris says. “We take all his shit, like we did to Eli. The cops will think they’ve got a mugger on the loose who keeps killing people.”

“No,” Ads says. “Even if we take all his shit—we have to break into his apartment, too. That’s where he said his laptop was, isn’t it? With all the information we need? We won’t be able to do that if the cops are swarming the place, investigating his murder. Adrian’s right. We take the body.”

Adrian tries not to feel too smug that Ads is taking his side, for once.

“Okay,” Chris says. “We take the body. Break into his apartment and grab the laptop. Bring it home to John to dig through all the files. And dump him somewhere random on the way back home?”

Adrian and Ads nod.

“Alright,” Chris sighs. “Let’s do this. I wanna go to fucking sleep.”

Adrian doesn’t wake up until nearly 2 p.m. the next day.

He panics when he checks his phone and sees a dozen message notifications. Did he miss something important from you? Did your heat start? Does he need to go home?

But ten of the messages are just from Chris and Ads, saying they’ll regroup for dinner, taking it easy after the chaotic events of the previous night.

Ads: What time are we meeting today?

Peacemaker: It’s too fucking early. I’m going back to sleep.

Ads: It’s noon, Chris.

Peacemaker: I don’t give a shit. I spent two hours last night scrubbing blood off the sidewalk. I do not want to deal with the body in the van yet.

Apparently Adrian is not the only one feeling tired today. He, especially, needed the extra sleep, his body healing from the bullet wound on his arm. He unravels the bandages Ads had wrapped last night to find smooth skin. 

Still, he’d broken a promise to you and gotten hurt. He was impulsive last night, chasing after Dev like that. He wasn’t even wearing his suit, no plates of armor to protect him. If that bullet had hit a foot to the right, it could have done some serious damage. Damage that his body might not have been able to repair. And then you would have been left alone. His stomach clenches with guilt.

He has to tell you. He knows he does. He just really, really, doesn’t want to do that right now. He clenches his jaw and turns back to the group chat.

Ads: Alright, fine. Go back to sleep, Sleeping Beauty. I’ll update the team back in Evergreen.

Ads: Don’t worry Adrian. I won’t tell her you got shot. I’ll let you have that conversation 😬

Ads: I’ll pick up pizza for dinner. Let me know what you want.

Peacemaker: You know me Ads. Meat lovers all the way.

Ads: Meat lover, huh? Maybe you really are an ally, Chris

Peacemaker: It’s not gay to like pepperoni Ads!!!!!!

Adrian rolls his eyes and types out a quick response.

Sorry guys. Just woke up. Pizza sounds great. Meet in an hour? Can’t really do anything until it’s dark anyway.

Just moments later, Ads likes his message. Then he closes out the chat and opens his message thread with you.

Omega 🩵: Morning, baby. I know you had a late night, considering I didn’t get a goodnight text until 5 a.m. I assume you’re still sleeping. I miss you! Call me later.

For the first time ever, he hesitates about pressing the call button next to your name. He doesn’t want to worry you. Not when you’re already in a sensitive state, not when you’re already wanting him and worrying about him. He can tell you about the injury later. It’s already healed up anyway.

“I don’t have to tell her right now,” he says to himself with finality, and he calls you.

It only rings once.

“I would say a regular hello, but something tells me I should be saying good morning,” you tease with no preamble. He smiles.

“I did, in fact, just wake up. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for, baby,” you say softly. “I want you to be well-rested. Especially out in the field. You’re less likely to get hurt.”

Adrian winces and changes the subject. “How are things back at the office? Ads says she updated you?”

“She did,” you say. “Dev is dead?”

“Yeah,” Adrian says. “One down. Five to go.”

“Good,” you say firmly, a sharp note in your voice. “I’m glad you killed him.”

“And he spilled a lot of information before I did,” Adrian adds. “Hopefully we’ll find even more at his apartment tonight. But first, Chris and I have to dump the body. It’s just…sitting in the van right now.”

“Dismember and burn?”

“Yeah. We’ll have to drive out of the city for that. Not sure where yet.”

“I can help with that,” you say. “I’m sitting at my computer right now. Let me bring up a map—”

“You don’t have to—”

“Let me fucking help, please,” you interrupt. “I’ve been feeling absolutely useless the last couple days. Just sitting around waiting for you to come back.”

“You’re not useless,” Adrian immediately argues. “You’re—you’re—everything. You’re my reason.” He pauses and swallows. “I think about you all day. And then I get back to this shitty motel and I think about you all night. And the only thing that’s keeping me from running home right now is the fact that everything I’m doing here is to—keep you safe.”

“I want to keep you safe,” you remind him, your voice thick with emotion. “I told you before you left. Before you even went on this mission. I can help too. I am more than capable. And I am trying really hard to be mad at you right now for being all overprotective. I don’t want to have this conversation again. But you’re such a sap and you just—say all the right things sometimes. You’re gonna make me cry.”

“Don’t cry,” he says hoarsely. “I never want you to cry. Not ever. I want you to be happy and safe and—mine.”

“I am.”

That evening, Ads rents a car to keep watch outside Dev’s apartment while Adrian and Chris go dump his body in a river thirty minutes outside the city.

“Just in case,” she says. “If he has a roommate or something, we need to be prepared.”

“Good point,” Chris says. “But be careful, Ads. We’ll be half an hour out if you need anything.”

“I’m not worried about me,” Ads says. She looks pointedly between Chris and Adrian. “I’m worried about you two and your bickering. Don’t kill each other.”

“We won’t,” Adrian says.

In fact, you had told him the exact same thing. Ads had told you that he and Chris were terse with each other this week.

“He’s your best friend,” you had reminded him. “Think before you snap. I know it’s not easy.”

It turns out, though, that everything is fine. Chris and Adrian have dumped dozens, maybe hundreds of dead bodies together. They fall into the old rhythm of it quietly, carrying Dev’s dead weight out into the middle of the woods, finding a good spot where the river water rushes by. It’s quick and efficient and—well, not quite fun. Chris grumbles a bit about the fact that they’re even out there dumping a body at all, and Adrian feels a little guilty for jumping the gun and killing the guy so quickly when they might have been able to get more information out of him. But there’s almost something nostalgic about it that brings him back to the days before Chris even knew his secret identity.

It’s the time in the car on the way back when things start to feel a little more…tense. Adrian starts to get almost carsick as he sits in the passenger seat and every breath he inhales feels hot and thick with Chris’s scent from the seat right beside him. He cracks the window open.

They’ve been sitting in silence for ten minutes when Adrian can’t take it anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he says, just barely audible over the sound of the radio that Chris has cranked up, playing his usual hair metal songs.

Chris pauses and glances over. “What the fuck are you sorry for?”

“Being annoying,” Adrian says. “All week. I know I’ve been on edge, and it’s making you on edge. And I’ve been more impulsive than usual.”

“I would be the same,” Chris admits, “if I was in your shoes.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know what it’s like. I keep thinking about what I act like when Emilia is in pre-rut. How agitated I get about protecting her. She threatens to kick my ass when her rut comes around twice a year and yells at me that she doesn’t need my protection,” Chris huffs a laugh. “She’s right. She doesn’t. It’s one of the reasons Alphas don’t mate with Alphas, a lot of the time. They butt heads too much. Like we’ve been doing this week.”

“Oh,” Adrian says. He’s never even noticed.

“I give you props for even being able to come on a mission at all,” Chris continues. “Leaving her behind can’t have been easy. But we needed you, and you’re doing great. Even if you’re a little more…high-strung than usual. You just gotta learn to channel that energy and anxiety into the work, instead of bottling it up, you know?”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“Okay. I think we’ve had enough sappy conversations in the last several weeks to last a lifetime,” Chris mutters. “Let’s cut that shit out.”

“It’s healthy to be in touch with your emotions,” Adrian says. “Being able to be vulnerable with me is an important outlet, especially since you don’t see a therapist or anything—”

“Shut the fuck up, Adrian.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“You don’t see a therapist either.”

“I am already in touch with my emotions, I don’t need therapy.”

Chris looks at him sideways. “You need therapy more than any other person I’ve ever known.”

Adrian put on his Vigilante suit tonight before breaking into Dev’s apartment, the address listed on his ID. Chris and Ads had tried to talk him out of it, saying he’d draw more attention and look suspicious, but he’d insisted.

He’s still feeling guilty for getting shot last night. For breaking his promise to you. It’s put him on edge, made him nervous about tonight. He doesn’t want to risk getting hurt again, not because he’s afraid of the pain. Yeah, pain sucks, but he’s been literally tortured before. He knows he can take it.

He just doesn’t want to hurt you. And he knows that you’ll take on his hurt like your own. So he dons the suit, even though it’s a hot, steamy summer night, and his visor fogs up every time he exhales. And he waits until dark, when no one will see him sneaking up the building’s fire escape.

It’s a shitty part of town, anyway, nothing but moonlight guiding his way because all the street lamps are shitty and broken. The window itself is shitty, too. The lock on the frame breaks away under his gloved hands with ease, and he clambers into the dark, messy apartment. He makes a face.

“This place is a fucking mess,” he mutters into his comm. He broke a sweat scaling up the building, and he goes to wipe off his face before remembering he’s got the suit on, and does nothing more than hit himself in the face. “Fuck. It’s hot in here. Does he not have any air conditioning? Jesus.”

“Just make sure it’s clear, and then come open the door for us,” Ads says. “I don’t care if he’s got literal garbage piling up. Somewhere in there, he’s got something we need.”

Adrian makes his way through every room of the tiny apartment—the bedroom, where he came in through the window, a tiny living room and kitchen, a bathroom. That’s it. No office, no second bedroom. It’s so small Adrian almost feels claustrophobic, especially when he’s stepping around piles of dirty laundry and old takeout containers.

“It’s clear,” he confirms.

Two minutes later, he opens the front door for Chris and Ads, who wrinkle their noses when they step inside.

“You weren’t kidding,” Ads says. “This is just as bad as Chris’s trailer when he first got out of prison.”

“Hey! That was not my fault. The fucking cops raided my shit.”

“That was totally not cool of them,” Adrian agrees.

“Forget it!” Ads says. “We’re looking for his laptop. Any technology, really. Stuff we can bring back to John to look for.”

“There’s no office. This place is just as tiny as it is messy,” Adrian says, gaze swinging around the room. “God. I’m sweating like crazy right now.”

“It’s not that bad,” Ads says, confused.

But Adrian exhales again, red visor steaming up with his breath, and he starts to feel like he’s choking on it. Chris notices the way he’s tensed up, maybe even smells the change in his scent, the way he gets a little panicky.

“Take the mask off, Adrian,” he says. “There’s no one here.”

Adrian does what he says with trembling hands, inhaling sharply.

“Are you feeling okay?” Ads asks, concerned. “You’re really flushed right now.”

“Just—hot,” Adrian says, strained. He looks down at himself. He wants to take the entire fucking suit off, actually. It suddenly feels too tight, too scratchy, too much. He swallows it down.

“Drink some water,” Chris says, digging through Dev’s kitchen cupboards for a glass. “You really don’t look good, man.” He fills up the cup from the sink tap, and Adrian scowls.

“I’m not drinking his nasty sink water,” he says. “I’d rather die of dehydration. What if he—puts cocaine in it?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Drug addicts do weird things! Addiction is a mental illness!”

“Are you sick?” Ads asks him. “How was your wound when you woke up this morning? Did I not clean it out well enough? Is it infected? Do you have a fever?”

“No, his healing factor would have taken care of that too,” Chris says, shaking his head. “It’s been a long week. It’s probably just stress. He’s been away from his Omega for almost a week, and her heat—”

“I’m okay,” Adrian insists, through his shallow breathing and shaking hands. He clutches at his mask to hide it. “Just—let’s find this fucking laptop and get the hell out of here. I want to go home.”

And that is what he wants, he realizes, more than anything right now. He wants to feel your gentle hands on his hot forehead, he wants to curl up in your lap, he wants to be laying in the cool grass with you outside in the Checkmate courtyard. No. Not in the courtyard—in bed. In the nest you’ve been fidgeting with all week. He wants to slot himself inside it like the missing piece he is, and feel you next to him and all around him, and go home. 

Because for the first time ever, home doesn’t mean back to his mom’s house, or an empty safe house. It means your apartment. It means you.

“Right. Adrian and I will start out here in the living room, Ads, you can tackle the bedroom.”

It takes less than ten minutes for Ads to turn something up. She comes out of the bedroom holding a high-end laptop in her hand, maybe the newest and most expensive thing in the entire apartment.

“Found this under the bed,” she says. “Next to some unspeakable things that I do not want to talk about.”

“A man has needs, Ads,” Chris says, and she rolls her eyes.

“There was more stuff under there too,” she says. “But I thought we should try to crack this first.”

“I’ll keep looking in there,” Chris says. “You and Vig are better with computers than me.”

Ads cracks open the laptop and goes to turn it on, but Adrian stops her. 

“Cover the camera,” he says. “He might have some spyware installed, or some shit.”

“Good point,” she says.

Ads powers on the computer expecting it to bring up a password screen, but it just—opens. To all of the files sitting on the desktop, just as messy and disorganized as the apartment they’re sitting in.

“You’re kidding,” Ads says. “He doesn’t even have a fucking password on his shit.”

“This guy is the shittiest black ops agent in the history of the universe,” Adrian comments.

Ads clicks around on some files. Everything appears to be names with a series of random numbers and letters, maybe a code that means something to Dev, but nothing that means anything to them. And while the computer isn’t password protected, it appears that a lot of the documents are.

“We’ll have to bring it to John,” Ads says. “Damn. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to, in case there’s some tracking bug on here or something.”

“Hold that thought,” Chris says, exiting the bedroom with a black notebook held in the air. “Password book.”

“You’re kidding,” Ads says. Adrian reaches for the book and cracks it open.

“It’s all right here,” he says, disbelieving. “File A75FBT2. Password: b00b5.” He and Chris cackle.

“Real mature,” Ads deadpans, but she types in the password, and—it works. They all stare at the screen for a moment, waiting for the gotcha moment. For the computer to crash, for the laptop to lock up. But nothing happens.

“Holy shit, I can’t believe that worked,” Chris says. “This is their tech guy? And he used to work for ARGUS?”

“I’m sure John will have stories,” Ads says. She takes a hard drive out of her pocket. “I’ll copy all the files over onto the drive. We’ll take the notebook.”

“Guys,” Adrian says, because while they’ve been chatting, he’s been reading the file that they just unlocked with wide eyes. “Take a look at this.”

It’s a schedule. A breakdown for the entire team. Job assignments, what the job whether it’s stealing or killing or protection, how much they’re being paid. But most importantly—names. Dates. Times. Locations.

“Holy shit,” Chris says. “This is it. This is—”

“Exactly what we came for,” Adrian finishes.

Adrian is itching to go right now. To burst in, guns blazing, and just fucking take them all out. They’ve got all the information they need. Names, times, and locations of their mission assignments. They could go down the list one by one. Starting with that dick Leon Sullivan.

Only some of the information is encrypted—who hired them. And they could easily work without that. Anyone hiring a mercenary to kill someone is gonna be bad news; no matter what, they’d need to be on guard.

The sooner these assholes are dead, the sooner the entire pack is safe. The sooner you are safe. And selfishly, he thinks, if he can take care of this before the rest of the group has to even get involved, he doesn’t have to worry about you putting yourself at risk, in the line of fire. Not for a while, anyway.

And he’s not the only one thinking about it. Taking immediate action. He can tell Chris is thinking it too. In the van on the way back to the motel, the air in the vehicle is heavy with tension.

“We could go.” Adrian says the quiet part out loud. “We could go now. And kill them. Take care of it.”

Chris hesitates, exchanging a loaded glance with his friend. “I know.”

Chris is stressed, Adrian knows. Maybe even more stressed than he is. Adrian is worried about you. It’s his job to keep you safe. But Chris—he’s the pack Alpha. He’s got everyone’s safety in mind. He’s got the final call.

Ads, in the backseat, finally speaks up. “We should go home. Regroup.” She says it firmly. “This isn’t something we should rush into. Remember what happened last time. When we thought we were prepared. We got ambushed. We should give the hard drive to John. Let him unlock the encrypted shit. So we’re not caught off guard. No surprises.”

Adrian goes tense immediately. Chris meets Adebayo’s eyes in the rearview mirror and nods.

“You’re right,” he says quietly. “We go home. We’ll regroup.”

Before, Adrian might have fought him on it. Part of him wants to, even now. But he’s got a new perspective. There’s a new level of shared life experience that he and Chris have, now, and it helps him understand, a little bit more, the weight that his best friend carries. The lengths that he’s willing to go to in order to protect his pack. If that means being patient—Adrian can do the same. He is determinedly on the same page as his friend: whatever it takes, the pack stays safe, which means you stay safe, and that’s the only thing that matters.

Chris looks over at him, and Adrian realizes he’s waiting for his agreement. That his opinion matters, here. It’s a new feeling. A good one. He swallows and nods.

“We go home,” he echoes, with a little bit of relief. Because he really does just—want you, after days apart.

You’re going to need him soon, anyway, he thinks, and you are more important than anything else.

By the time they pull into the Checkmate parking lot, Adrian is the one driving the van. 

He was thrilled when Chris tossed him the keys. He never gets to drive. But Chris and Ads seemed exhausted, and Adrian was wired with nerves and excitement about going home to you, so he happily took over while his teammates napped in the back seat.

“Home!” he says cheerfully, and Adebayo winces awake, rubbing her neck. Chris continues snoring in the passenger seat until Adrian kicks his foot.

“What?” he grumbles.

“We’re back!” Adrian says. He doesn’t wait any longer for the other two to get their shit together. He glances at the clock. 3 p.m. Everyone is still at the office. You’re right inside. His smile grows.

He should probably stop and bring some bags inside. There’s all kinds of shit they need to unpack. Med kits, weapons, his own duffle bags with clothes and personal items. But he doesn’t give a shit.

Adrian just tosses the keys at Chris, still half-awake. They hit him in the face, but Adrian is already outside, the van door slamming shut behind him as he runs inside.

Fleury is the first person he sees. He nearly runs into him, actually, in his rush to get inside.

“What the fuck!” Fleury exclaims. “When did you—”

“Literally right now,” Adrian interrupts. “Chris and Ads are in the van still. Where is she?”

Fleury’s eyebrows furrow. “She didn’t—”

“She’s not here,” says John, and Adrian jerks his head to look at his friend as he exits the break room. “She went home early. She said she wasn’t feeling well.”

“She’s sick?” Adrian says worriedly.

Emilia steps out from behind John. She gives Adrian a pointed look, and his eyes widen.

“Oh,” he says. “Oh, I need to—I need to go—”

He immediately reaches for his phone to call you, hands trembling, ready to fret over you. He realizes then that you’d texted him two hours into the drive.

Hey. I am NOT in heat yet. But I’m reaching the point where I’m cramping a lot and I just want to go home and nest, so I’m leaving early. Don’t rush. I’m only telling you because I don’t want you to worry when you get back to the office and I’m not there. Love you.

“Yeah, no kidding, you have to go,” Emilia says. “I can fucking smell it on you.”

“What—what do you mean?” Adrian says, caught off guard. “Smell what? That she’s in heat?” 

He tries really, really hard not to get all pissy about the fact that another Alpha can scent it, the same way that he can. He grits his teeth in an effort not to growl.

Emilia looks at him like he’s a fucking moron.

“Not her. You,” she says, like it’s obvious. She looks at Chris and Ads, who have finally followed him in the front door, carrying in some of their travel bags. “Chris, you’ve been with him for a week straight. It’s a miracle you haven’t killed one another.”

“What?” Chris says, just as confused. “I mean. Yeah, it fucking is, he’s been unbearable all week, but—”

“No shit!” Emilia says. “He’s in fucking pre-rut!”

Adrian tag list: @justalotoffanfiction @danversxwasabi @clowninavan @adoresami @a-young-g0d @bastardstevie @am-3-thyst @xoxocamis @morguegrl89 @somethin-sparklyy @secretjesterr @seeingdubs @lovenerdywhitemen2 @jeshomie @aerionshipthrust @deamlucem @tlfg-adrianchase @brianna-merlim @amart-e @countvonklit @pieolsen @gingerjane15 @dosyrosyposy @mylcvemineallmine @rentaldarling @vigilcourt @hot-bean-juice @meg-winchester @sepaaaaa @residentsuperhero