“A couple days,” Chris says solemnly. You wince.

“How is he?” you ask, and Chris snorts.

“You’re the one laid up in a hospital bed, you know that, right? Hooked up to a bunch of machines and IVs and shit?”

“Chris.”

“He’s a mess,” he tells you, and your heart cracks. “The only reason he’s not here right now is because he’s been sitting in this chair staring at you for days, and he stank like hell, so I made him go home and take a shower. I told him to sleep, too, but we both know he won’t. Either way, he’s gonna be pissed that you woke up while he was gone. You should just go back to sleep, probably, and pretend.”

“Thank you,” you say softly. “For making him take care of himself, at least a little bit. And—for the rest of it. Everything.” You swallow past a growing lump in your throat as you think of everything that’s happened over the last few weeks. “Since the day you met me I’ve just been—a fucking disaster. And you’ve been nothing but kind.”

“You are a bit of a disaster,” Chris allows. “That’s why you fit in. With the rest of us. But maybe less murder, from now on, yeah? Leave that to Adrian? I’m tired of burning bodies.”

“You’ve cleaned up a lot of crime scenes for me, huh?” you say, laughing. “I owe you. Big time.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Chris says. “Friends help each other.”

It’s the first time he’s referred to you that way. As a friend. It makes you smile.

“We do,” you agree, and he smiles back.

Then the door swings open, and Adrian comes shuffling in, arms full of water bottles and snacks, his glasses crooked on his nose as he tries to juggle everything. Your heart stutters in your chest at the sight of him. It’s been days, and you haven’t even been conscious for most of it, but it feels like you were in that dark, dusty basement for years, thinking that you’d never see him again. Now he’s here, in front of you, and you instantly feel your throat going tight with built up emotion.

“Dude, why the fuck are you sitting here in the dark? That’s so fucking weird.”

“Don’t ask me,” Chris says, and he gestures toward you.

Adrian’s eyes go wide when he looks at your face and sees you looking back at him with a soft smile and teary eyes. “You—oh my god—baby—”

Everything in his arms goes tumbling to the floor, forgotten, and he rushes to your side. His hands hover, like he wants to touch you, but he’s not sure if he should, if he’s allowed. You try to reach up with both your hands, but you’ve got one arm stuck in a bulky cast, so you have to settle for one, cupping his cheek.

“Hi,” you smile, and he melts into your touch, tilting his head and pressing his face further into your palm like a puppy that wants to be pet. You oblige, running your fingers into his hair.

“Are you okay?” he asks, a bit frantic when you blink and a tear runs down your cheek. He brushes it away with his sleeve, careful and gentle. “Are you in pain? Should I get the nurses? Do you need water? Food? Are you hungry or—”

You shush him, shaking your head, and he falls silent immediately. But he still worries, eyes flicking over your face, catching on every bruise and scratch he sees.

“Don’t ever do that to me again,” Adrian says roughly. His lower lip trembles. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

He presses a kiss to your lips, and you return it with fervor, letting him take what he needs. Somewhere in the background, you hear the door opening and closing—Chris giving you some privacy.

Adrian breaks away, but leaves his forehead pressed against yours, hands coming to rest on your neck. He’s feeling for your pulse, you think, right where it races beneath your skin, reassuring himself that it’s there, that your heart is beating, that you’re alive.

“What’s the prognosis?” you ask, and you feel the way Adrian’s jaw ticks beneath your hand. You’d been practically unconscious by the time you’d gotten to the hospital, so out of it that you barely remember a thing after the gunshot that killed your kidnapper and you collapsed back into Adrian’s arms. But for him, you’re sure, the memory is clear as day. His hands drift down, tracing over the bandages and stitches holding you together, reassuring himself that you’re here with him in one piece.

“Broken arm,” he says, knocking lightly on the shell of your cast. “A bad one. At least three months with that.”

“Fuck,” you mutter.

“Several stab wounds. Nothing too deep, but you know that,” Adrian says. He swallows, eyes wet. “Most of the bleeding was internal. They beat the shit out of you, baby. You were in surgery for hours.”

Your heart cracks. “Oh, honey,” you whisper, wiping away a tear that runs down his cheek. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“You’re not okay,” Adrian says, voice shaking. “You’re in—you’re in the hospital. You’ve been unconscious for days, you’re stitched up like Frankenstein, and fuck, I love you, baby, but you look like shit—”

“I love you, too,” you interrupt, and he goes quiet. You smile, a little wobbly, and his thumb brushes over your bottom lip, eyes laser-focused.

“I never thought—” he starts, then cuts himself off, tries again. “I never imagined I would ever have this. Now that I do, now that I know—I am never, ever, letting you out of my sight again. I opened the door to that basement and I thought you were—”

He can’t finish the sentence. His voice cracks.

“They’re gone,” you say firmly, for him, but for yourself, too. Your hand curls into the short tuft of hair at the back of his neck, still damp from the shower he had run home to take. He shivers at the touch, eyes fluttering closed. You kiss him again, softly. “They’re all gone, they can’t hurt me anymore.”

“Your dad is still alive,” Adrian says. The words are tinged with bitterness. You bite your lip, frowning.

“I know,” you say. “And if—if you want to…take care of that. We can discuss that at a later date.”

He nods, satisfied enough with your response for the time being. He laces his fingers with your good hand, holding it up. “Your bracelet—it was on your broken arm, and—it was drenched in blood,” he says, softly. “They had to cut it off for the surgery. I gave you mine.”

Sure enough, there’s a black and blue friendship bracelet knotted around your good wrist that wasn’t there before, and Adrian’s is notably absent. His fingers run over the string, the tiny silver heart charm.

“Thank you,” you whisper, trying to swallow past the lump in your throat, because—it’s just a stupid bracelet. But it’s also not.

“We’ll go back,” he says firmly, looking you right in the eyes. “To the arcade. Once you’re better. And get new ones. We’ll get so many fucking friendship bracelets you won’t know what to do with them all.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

They discharge you after a week.

Technically, you can go back home to your apartment now. There’s no one left looking for you, stalking you, trying to kidnap or kill you. Chris fixed up your bedroom door and front window for you while you were staying at the trailer before, and most of your stuff is still there. It would be easy.

But it’s not. And you can’t. Adrian drives you there, pulls up to the curb, and takes one look at the dread on your face before putting the car in drive and going back to the trailer. You grip his hand wordlessly, grateful that you don’t have to explain that you don’t want to go back to the place where it all started. That you can’t walk into the kitchen and look at the knife block, missing two blades. That you won’t be able to sleep in your bedroom without picturing the dead body slumped in the corner.

Adrian is secretly grateful, too, because he doesn’t think he could manage it either. Doesn’t think he can walk past the threshold of your bedroom without a spike of panic, without seeing a vision of you covered in blood.

“I’ll go back later,” he says, “to get the rest of your clothes and your stuff.”

Adrian stays with you, of course, because there’s not a chance in hell you’d be able to function on your own, and there’s not a chance in hell he would even let you try. It’ll take a couple months to heal, at least, the doctors told you, especially the break in your arm. You need to take it easy, stay on top of your meds and physical therapy.

“I’ll be there,” he promises. “For all of it.”

There’s not a fucking shot he’s letting you out of his sight, especially in those first few weeks, when you’re still struggling to walk and perform basic tasks on your own, limited by your injuries. He takes leave from Fennel Fields so he can take care of you. Drives you to appointments, holds you through the nightmares, laughs with you on the good days, which are growing more and more frequent as time goes on.

And then he never goes back to work. Because Ads and Emilia stop by six weeks later with a proposal. An idea for a new company—Checkmate. A way to put all the drug money sitting in his basement to good use.

Adrian hesitates at first. But you talk him into it.

“You’ll be able to help so many people,” you say softly. “People—people like me. Who don’t have anybody else.”

He cups your cheeks. “You have me, now,” he says. “You have all of us. Chris and Ads and Harcourt and Economos. But—I know what you mean.”

“You’ll do it?”

He thinks about it. Tilts his head and considers, looking down at you.

“Only if you promise to work there too.”

“What?” You’re confused. “Adrian—I have no relevant skills to bring to the table—”

“You do, actually,” he argues. “I’ve been training you for months, and yeah, you’re a little out of practice, but you’re a fucking badass, and you’re even better at throwing knives than me and Chris. Don’t tell him I said that.”

You laugh. You can’t help it.

“But I know you don’t want to kill people all the time. You can be—I don’t know. Our secretary,” he suggests. “Or don’t! You can sit there in the corner and look pretty and I’ll pay you a salary for it, I don’t give a fuck. But don’t go back to your old job. Come to Checkmate with us.” He swallows roughly. “With me.”

You search his face, see how serious he is. “You won’t, like, get sick of me?” There are probably other things you should be more concerned about.

“I could never, ever, ever get sick of you,” he says with a quivering, nervous smile. “You will probably get sick of me. And maybe it’s—a little selfish of me. To want you with me all the time. And I know—we’re doing all this really fast. It’s only been sixty-three days since I first kissed you—”

“You’ve been keeping track?” Your heart flutters in your chest.

“—and you were unconscious for several of those days, but I don’t really give a fuck, baby, because—you’re it for me. I know you are, this is—”

“Okay,” you interrupt. Adrian falls instantly silent, eyes wide, and when you smile at him, he smiles right back, wider than you’ve ever seen. “Okay. I’ll work at Checkmate. I can do admin work, or budgeting, or—”

He cuts you off with a fierce, joyful kiss, your noise of surprise muffled by his mouth. You feel the tension drain from his body as he pulls you closer and realizes he won’t have to let go for a long, long while, and you know you’ve made the right choice.

So you submit your resignation at work and throw yourself into planning with the girls. You’re relieved to have something to do while you’re healing besides wandering aimlessly around the trailer and sleeping. 

Adrian is reluctant to let you leave his side, but as long as you’re not alone, and you’re armed—his favorite knife, now yours, back in your possession, tucked into special pockets Adrian has sewn into all your favorite clothes—he bites back his anxiety for your sake. Still, he hugs you extra tight the minute you get back from filing legal paperwork with Ads or looking for office space to rent with Emilia. All three of you take pity on him, and let all of the boys come along for the furniture shopping trip, laughing as Adrian and Chris try out every spinny desk chair they can find.

Only a month later, everything’s coming together, and you’re walking hand in hand with Adrian into the office for the first official day. He sets your bag on the reception desk by the front door. He wouldn’t let you carry it, even though you insisted you still had one arm that was perfectly functional at the moment, and your broken arm was in a lighter brace now instead of an ugly, bulky cast.

“This is your desk?” Adrian pouts. “It’s so far away from all the other desks! How come you can’t be next to me?”

“A little bit of space is healthy, honey,” you remind him. “It’s literally only twelve feet. And we spend the rest of the day attached at the hip anyway.”

He sighs forlornly. “Fine. I guess I’ll be all the way over there. If you ever decide you want my love,” he says dramatically. You roll your eyes.

“I always want your love,” you say, kissing him quickly. “Look. I promise I won’t forget you. Even though you’re a whole dozen feet away.”

You reach into your bag with the things you’d brought to decorate your desk, pulling out the photobooth pictures you’d taken at the arcade this past weekend, when he dragged you back to earn enough tickets to replace your matching friendship bracelets. You tuck it into the edge of your computer monitor and pat it.

“Perfect,” you say. “Now even when I turn around, you’re still right in front of my face.”

He grins. “I’m still gonna roll my chair over and annoy you twenty times a day.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

“Stop being sappy,” Chris complains as he walks past you. “I’m gonna make Ads hire an HR department just so I can file complaints about you two being gross.”

“Nope,” Adrian says, wrapping his arms around your waist and nuzzling into your neck. “Not gonna happen.”

“Get to work,” you tell him, shoving his chest playfully.

He gives you a tiny salute, and a final kiss, and heads over to his own desk. You watch as he pulls something out of his own bag—the matching photo strip to yours. He tucks it into his own monitor and glances back at you. You smile.

“Is that the last one?” you ask as Adrian sets a cardboard box on top of a precarious pile and beams down at you.

“That’s the last one,” he says. 

He hadn’t let you carry a single box. You’re still healing, he insists, practically every single day. Even though it’s been more than three months since you were kidnapped, and it’s been a week since they took the brace off your healed arm, he hasn’t let you pick up a single thing heavier than a mug of tea. And there’s been a lot of heavy lifting to do over the last two days.

You shut the front door to your brand-new apartment and click the lock shut with a sense of finality, turning around to face your boyfriend with a bright smile.

“Honey, I’m home,” Adrian says, in an exaggerated tv-sitcom-dad voice, and you crack up laughing.

But something about it genuinely warms your heart, because it is home, now. It’s yours, and it’s Adrian’s.

After a few weeks at Checkmate, you’d started looking. It was nice enough at Chris’s trailer. It was comfortable, it was safe there, but the tiny space didn’t feel like it was really yours. So you started quietly looking, and you found a spot near the office and showed it to Adrian.

He didn’t have the reaction you were expecting.

“You don’t want to live with me anymore?” he asked, distraught, getting panicky.

“You’re an idiot,” you said, exasperated. “For both of us, honey. We can’t stay in Chris’s trailer forever. I thought—” You paused, suddenly feeling a little shy. “I think we deserve a real home. A new one. A fresh start.”

“Oh,” he’d said, both touched and relieved. “Thank god. I did not want to move back in with my fucking mom.”

So you’d found a new place, together. Put his name on the lease right alongside yours. Now you’re finally here, and your heart swells when you see how happy he looks. You can’t help yourself—you jump up into his arms, and he catches you easily as your legs hitch around his waist. You kiss him, and he smiles against your mouth.

“I love you,” he says, peppering kisses across your cheeks. He sets you down gently, though he still holds you tightly, your arms looped around his neck.

“I love you too,” you smile.

“Where do we even start?” Adrian asks now, staring at the overwhelming piles. The living room is a mess of cardboard boxes and unbuilt IKEA furniture.

The IKEA trip this past weekend was a whole other chaotic misadventure. Adrian had dragged you through every showroom and excitedly admired all the little knick-knacks while you pointedly reminded him that you were there to buy furniture, not decorative spiders or a disco ball. (You let him have the decorative spiders anyway. It broke your heart to see him pout about it.) He also mispronounced the name of every product you walked past just to make you laugh and ate way too many meatballs, but you did leave with the shelving, dresser, bed, and couch that you needed, at the very least.

“Um, shelves first?” you suggest. “So that when we unpack, we actually, you know, have some place to put all of our clothes and stuff?”

“You’re so smart, babe.”

Adrian breaks open the box, and you reach for the directions while he starts laying the pieces out on the floor.

“You know, they say this is the official relationship test,” you muse, waving the direction pamphlet in his face. “If you can assemble IKEA furniture together without killing each other, you’re set for life.”

“Babe, we’ve killed several people together,” Adrian says, snatching the directions out of your hand. “So I don’t think killing each other is going to be an issue. I also think we are past the point of furniture assembly. But if that’s what I have to do to prove my love to you, allow me to put together this…” He squints at the name of the item. “...Kallax? and solidify our future as a couple.”

It’s a surprisingly smooth process, but it takes longer than you expect, and you realize as it’s nearing nine p.m. that maybe you should have started with the bedframe or the couch instead of the bookshelf and the dresser.

“I’m so fucking tired,” you complain, flopping onto the floor onto your stomach, stretching out your aching back. “I’m so out of shape.” You haven’t done this much physically in a while, even though Adrian has shouldered the bulk of the manual labor.

Adrian laughs, laying down next to you and nudging your foot with his, rubbing gently down your spine.

“We can finish tomorrow,” he says. “We don’t have to do all of this right now.”

“But Chris and Ads and everyone are coming over tomorrow! We need to be ready for guests!”

“It’s okay. They can sit on the floor. They literally work black ops. They’ve slept in the shittiest places you can think of. It won’t kill them to sit on our carpet for an hour.”

“It might kill John,” you say, and Adrian makes a noncommittal noise.

“You can go to sleep, then, and I’ll finish the couch by myself,” he says. “The bedframe isn’t put together, but we still have the mattress. Get some rest. You’re still healing, baby—”

You pout, rolling over on the floor closer to him. “I’m not sleeping by myself on our first night in our new apartment.”

“Okay, okay,” Adrian laughs. “Then we go to bed and we worry about the rest in the morning.” He gets to his feet, then pulls you to yours, and you lean into him, letting his arms wrap around you in a hug.

“Bed?” he asks.

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Bed.”

An hour later, once you’ve showered, changed into pajamas, and put some sheets on the bare mattress, you flop down onto the cushioned surface next to Adrian and sigh happily. He rolls closer to you instinctively, pulling you closer to him with a hand on your waist, and you kiss his cheek as he pulls the covers up over you both.

“No,” he complains petulantly. “Gimme a real one.”

You laugh and peck him on the lips, then pull back with a devious smile, because you’re planning on giving him a hell of a lot more than that.

“You know how I had my doctor’s appointment today?” you say, trailing a finger down his chest. He hums in acknowledgement. “The doctor said I’ve been doing everything right. He cleared me to start working out again.”

“Really?” Adrian says, brightening. “Does that mean we can start your training up again?”

“Mhm,” you say.

Then you hitch a leg over his hips, swinging yourself on top of him, resting your hands on his solid chest. He freezes, eyes wide as he stares up at you.

“What are you doing?” he asks, speaking so quickly the words run into one another. You lean down, letting your weight settle all the way against him, and he inhales sharply.

“The doctor also cleared me for sexual activity,” you whisper in his ear, and all the breath rushes out of his lungs in an audible whoosh.

“Oh,” Adrian says breathlessly, pupils blown wide. His hands squeeze your waist, and you roll your hips in a sharp, sudden movement, feeling him growing hard beneath you. “Oh god—don’t—warn a guy, would you—”

“That first night in your bed,” you say as you kiss a line down his jaw, “you said we were going to—revisit this later?” You push back the blankets and sit back onto his thighs so you can see him fully, open-mouthed and gasping beneath you. “This is me. Revisiting this. If you want. Because I want you, honey.”

“Are you kidding,” he gasps. “I have literally wanted to fuck you since you shot that guy in the alley the first night we met, I am—fuck—”

He scrambles to sit up and yank his shirt off in one swift movement, and you nearly topple off his lap, laughing. When he reaches for the hem of your shirt to do the same, you lift your arms to make it easier for him, and you go down easily, giggling when he flips you over onto your back, your hair splaying out on the pillow behind you.

Adrian props himself up over you and you hook a leg over his hip, pulling him closer to you, grinning with satisfaction when his clothed cock brushes against you and he closes his eyes and groans.

“Don’t—don’t fucking do that,” he says, pushing your leg down. “Do you not remember how fast I came in my pants the first time—”

“Maybe I want you to again,” you tease.

“I want—I’ve wanted you so bad,” he says, and it sounds like he’s in pain, his voice straining.

“You’ve been so good to me,” you say, and—you’re not teasing anymore. You feel ridiculous, actually, suddenly emotional and vulnerable. “So—patient and helpful and good. However you want me, honey, you can have me. Forever.”

“All the ways,” he whispers. “I want you all the ways.”

He dips his head down to kiss you, soft and hungry, and you open up for him, let it deepen. One of his hands trails down your bare torso, firm and purposeful, and when he reaches for the hem of your underwear, you lift your hips without him having to ask so he can pull them down your legs.

There’s a wet, smacking sound as his lips break away from yours, and your chest heaves as you take a moment to suck in air. Adrian kneels between your legs and spreads your thighs apart, and you feel yourself clench around nothing in anticipation.

“What do you want?” he asks. “My mouth or my fingers?”

You feel yourself flush with heat even as you huff a laugh and cover your face with your hands. He’s so blunt, so matter-of-fact about it, like he’s asking you what you want for dinner, not how you would like your orgasm of the evening. It’s weirdly endearing.

“Why are you laughing?” he asks, genuinely confused. You take a deep breath and settle yourself.

“I just love you,” you say. “And I’m really, really happy.” Adrian smiles.

“I’m really, really happy too,” he says. 

“I want you to do whatever you want,” you breathe, answering his question. Then he touches you, hands ghosting up your thighs, leaving goosebumps in their wake, and your eyes fall closed as you shiver with anticipation.

Adrian slides a finger through your wetness—not teasing. Exploring. He brushes over your clit, circling lightly, and your muscles clench involuntarily. He presses harder, firmer, and a strangled noise escapes the back of your throat.

When your eyes flutter open, Adrian’s head is tilted, locked in on you where you’re wet and wanting, pupils widening behind his glasses as he watches the tip of his finger disappear inside you and feels you clench around him, suck him deeper inside.

“More?” he asks, and you nod. Your breath hitches when he slides another finger inside you and brushes his thumb lightly over your clit. You try to reach for his shoulders to steady yourself, but he’s too far away, and you make a frustrated noise.

“Come here,” you say. He follows your order obediently, and you clutch at his biceps, hips rutting upwards to meet the movement of his fingers. “Kiss me.”

Adrian’s lips meet yours immediately, tongue delving into your mouth, and you let yourself sink into the sensation of him. The way he’s touching you, kissing you, holding you, surrounding you. He grunts when your nails dig into the muscle of his shoulders.

“Adrian,” you plead. “Please, Adrian, I need—”

“What do you need?” he asks, kissing down your neck, never relenting the steady movement of his hand. You reach down for the hem of his sweatpants, trying desperately to reach and push them down, out of the way, to get to what you want. You’ve been so, so patient, and you are so, so tired of waiting.

“I want—I need—you to fuck me.”

Adrian pushes down his pants and underwear, kicking them off. “Hang on—need a condom, baby—”

“I’m on birth control,” you remind him, grabbing at him when he moves to get up. “I’ve got the implant. Unless you’re off fucking other people in your very limited spare time—”

“I would never!” he says, affronted.

“I know,” you say softly, laughing. “I trust you. I love you.”

Adrian swallows. “I love you, too,” he says, voice raspy, and he kisses you again like it’s the only thing that matters.

Then he rests his forehead against yours as he settles further down, his whole body covering yours, pressing you into the mattress, and you feel yourself growing wetter as his cock brushes against your center. He reaches down with one hand to line himself up, notching against your entrance and pushing in, stretching you open, filling you up the way you’ve been craving for months. You feel his warm, panting breaths against your lips, hear his whispered praises, you’re entirely surrounded by, consumed by, overwhelmed by him in the best way.

You can’t help the way your inner walls clench, and Adrian groans.

“Fuck, baby,” he says. “Don’t do that to me.”

“Move,” you tell him, shifting below him, and he does, a tender, slow thrust as he nips at your throat.

“Stop being gentle with me,” you pant, hitching your legs up around his waist and squeezing. “I’m not made of glass. Fuck me, Adrian.”

The wanton, choked noise he makes is absolutely involuntary, and he thrusts again, an erratic, stuttered movement, but rougher, faster this time.

“You’re gonna kill me,” he says. “You’re gonna—fucking kill me, and I’m gonna be happy about it, but—fuck—”

“Yes,” you gasp. “More—more—”

The positive praise spurs him on, and he sets a desperate, frenzied pace, and you push back to meet his every thrust as he plunges into you over and over again, hands curling into the bedsheets at your sides. His hands find yours, intertwine your fingers, and your chest heaves as you feel the familiar trickle of warm heat building in your spine.

“I’m—I’m close,” you tell him, and he snakes a finger between you to thumb at your clit. 

“Come on, baby,” he says. “Come for me. You’re so fucking pretty like this. We waited so long, didn’t we? But now—we can do this every fucking day.” You whine at the thought, thighs quaking. “Every day, I’ll make you feel this good, I promise I will—”

Your release rushes through you, and Adrian follows quickly behind, thrusts growing sloppy as you feel his cock twitching and spilling inside you. He collapses, half on top of you, his cheek resting on the cushion of your chest, which rises and falls with every deep breath you take. Your hand pets through his sweaty hair, and you giggle as you reach to take his glasses off where they’re pinching at your sensitive skin.

“You do,” you say softly. “You make me feel good. Every day.”

He smiles into your sweaty skin and closes his eyes.

“I love you,” he says for the dozenth time that day, and your heart swells, because you’ll never get tired of hearing it.

“I love you too, honey.”

“How does February sound?” you ask, standing at your desk in the office. On one monitor, you’ve got everyone’s Checkmate mission schedules pulled up. On another, you’ve got a window open to buy plane tickets.

“We should be done with all our open cases by then,” Chris says, looking over your shoulder. “Let’s aim for the second week?”

“Em, Ads, John,” you call loudly. “Are you guys coming?”

“Am I coming on your weird vacation to go kill your mob boss dad?” John scoffs. “No thanks. I’m good.”

“He can’t come anyway,” Chris points out. “Someone needs to watch Eagly.”

“I’m in,” Emilia says.

“What the hell,” Ads says. “Why not?”

“It’ll be like a team bonding activity!” Adrian exclaims. He looks down at you and beams. He still looks at you sometimes with this soft smile, like he can’t quite believe that you’re real. That you chose this, chose him. That this is his life now. You lean over to kiss his cheek, but he turns his head to kiss you for real.

“HR violation number 5,019,” Chris says. “Right in front of my damn face.”

“You say that like you and Emilia weren’t making out in the break room the other day,” Ads says pointedly. “Right in front of my damn face. And my caesar salad.”

Chris falls silent and walks back to his desk, and you laugh. Emilia rolls her eyes.

“I think maybe all of you need to just stop being horny at work,” John mutters.

“I think maybe you just need to get laid,” Chris shoots back across the room.

“Plane tickets are being purchased,” you declare. “Check your inboxes, people.”

Adrian, who has stolen your desk chair, pulls you into his lap right before you can click ‘confirm.’ You acquiesce easily, arms sliding around his neck, and look at him with confusion.

“We don’t have to,” he reminds you quietly, and you’re—surprised, to say the least, that your boyfriend, whose favorite hobby is murder, who has wanted to kill your dad for months, is the one who is pausing to check in. He sees the way you’re looking at him with confusion and clarifies, “I mean. I absolutely want to. I really, really would like to cut his fingers off one by one and then shoot him in the face, and also kill all of the people who work for him. But I know he’s your dad.”

You glance around the room at the rest of the group. Chris and Emilia talking quietly to each other, Ads and John laughing and joking at his desk, and you feel light and happy and fulfilled.

“He is my dad,” you allow. “But he’s not my family.”

“I don’t get it,” he says, brow furrowing.

You look back at Adrian, your hand coming up to cup his cheek. “This is my family. You are my family. You’re the ones who take care of me, who protect me, who love me.”

His eyes light up when he understands, and you smile. You complete the purchase for the plane tickets as you’re seated in his lap, Adrian’s head resting in the crook of your neck and watching over your shoulder as you send off the confirmation emails to the team. Once it’s done, you turn to face him, and he kisses you, cradling your face in his hands.

“Come on,” you remind him before he gets too carried away, nodding at your desk calendar. “Training time, Vigilante. I ordered some extra ammo in this week’s shipment, so you can get as trigger happy as you want this week.”

He grins and kisses you again, smiling against your mouth. “You know me so well.”

He hesitates, and he’s still staring into the popcorn bowl instead of looking at you, which makes you worry. Adrian might have trouble making eye contact with other people, but never with you. You frown.

He tells you everything. He’s never lied to you, not once, in your whole lives. You’ve been friends since you were children. You’ve known about Vigilante since the beginning. You’ve been patrolling with him just as long. You’ve been there for every bullet wound and buried body and late-night patrol. Something is eating away at him, and it’s not like him to hide from you.

“Tell me,” you say, softer, but it’s not a question. It’s a demand.

“Do you like Economos? Why did you hug him?” Adrian asks, and you’re majorly caught off-guard, because that is not what you were expecting this to be about.

“I—what?”

“After the mission yesterday. When we got back to the van. You hugged Economos,” Adrian says, and the words have a bit of bite to them. Your brow furrows and you sit up straighter.

“What?” you say again, because you are still baffled.

“We killed all those drug dealers in that warehouse, and then we got back to the van, and you hugged Economos.”

“I—yeah, I did,” you say, remembering. “He was on the cameras while we were in there. He warned us through the earpiece about that guy that was right behind us that neither of us saw. I was saying thank you.”

“So you hugged him?” Adrian asks, and it sounds…bitter?

“Wait a minute. Are you jealous?” Adrian doesn’t answer, but he is very pointedly not looking at you. “Seriously, Ade? Is that what this is about?”

“So it wasn’t, like, a sexy hug?”

“Adrian. Listen to yourself.”

“What?”

“What even is a sexy hug?”

“I don’t know! A hug between two people who want to fuck each other, I guess!”

“And you think I want to fuck Economos?”

“Well, don’t you?”

“No!” you cry. “Why—what—”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” you repeat, disbelief lacing your words.

“He is my fourth best friend,” Adrian says petulantly. “He’s a perfectly fuckable guy. You don’t need to sound so offended by the prospect.”

“Why do you want me to fuck Economos?”

“I don’t want you to fuck Economos! That is literally the last thing I want!”

“Then why are we talking about this, Adrian?”

He falls silent and looks back down at his popcorn. He refuses to look at you, just stares at the tv screen even though it’s on pause, and you just hum and observe him for a moment, admiring his side profile.

“I can’t—” you start, but cut yourself off. “You are such an idiot.” 

You don’t mean it in a cruel way. The words come out fond, if anything. Adrian’s lips twitch. It’s not a smile, but it’s something. Familiar territory, at least.

“You’re so mean to me,” he complains halfheartedly, an accusation you hear at least once a week.

“You love me anyway,” you say, like you always do, and you start to relax again, sliding your feet back into Adrian’s lap. He puts the popcorn bowl aside and sets his hands on your calves, absentmindedly tracing patterns on the fabric of your leggings.

But you’re not quite ready to let this go, yet.

“Even if I did want to fuck John…why would it matter?” you ask quietly.

Adrian’s hands still, his breath caught in his throat. It’s like he’s petrified by your question. He can’t look at you as you pull yourself up toward him. One hand reaches for his face, grips his chin firmly and turns his head to face you, holding him in place and making him look.

Your eyes are curious as they meet his, and Adrian hates the way that you look right through him. Like you can see right into the messy core of him, all the things he tries to hide away. Then your gaze flicks down to his lips, and his breath hitches, because god, he wants to kiss you right now. But you are his friend, his oldest, longest friend, and he really, really doesn’t want to fuck it up.

But it’s all fucked up anyway, isn’t it? Because of these stupid feelings, that won’t go away, no matter how much he pretends that they aren’t there.

“It would matter because I’m in love with you,” he whispers. “Even though you’re mean to me sometimes. I don’t want you to fuck Economos because—because—”

“Because you want to fuck me?” you finish. Like it’s that simple.

Adrian can’t even bring himself to feel embarrassed. He’s too nervous, too overwhelmed, too full of this godawful feeling. Jealousy, love, want. It’s all mixed up inside, and he feels sick with it.

“Yeah,” he finally manages to say. The word wrenches out of him, almost involuntary. He’s not sure if a weight has lifted off his shoulders, or if he wishes he could take it back and melt into the floor.

The smile that blooms on your face is bright and joyous.

“You really are an idiot,” you laugh. “Adrian, I’ve been in love with you since we were twelve. I’ve just been waiting for you to catch up.”

“I—What?” he says, flabbergasted, because this is not how he pictured his dramatic love confession going. He just poured his heart out, and you’re laughing at him. “You—Why didn’t you say something?”

“I tell you I love you literally all the time, you doofus.”

“I thought you meant as a friend! How was I supposed to—”

“Adrian, are you going to keep rambling, or are you going to fucking kiss me already? I think I’ve waited long enough,” you interrupt.

Adrian lets out a breath that’s been stuck in his chest for years. Since you were kids sitting around a table playing Dungeons and Dragons in his basement, before it was his Vigilante lair. Since the first time he can remember thinking you were beautiful, when you were fourteen, with melted strawberry ice cream smeared across your cheek.

All he can do is make a desperate choking noise and lean forward until he finally, finally feels your lips press against his.

It was going to be soft and sweet. It was. But then you sigh into his mouth, a release of tension, and he can’t resist; he opens up for you, wet and deep and wanting. He wants to swallow you, to climb inside you and live there, and now he knows that he’s allowed—that you want him the way that he wants you, in this all-consuming, unbearable, overwhelming way—it’s almost too much.

Adrian tugs you into his lap, feels your weight settle onto him, close in a way that would make him squirm away if it were anyone else, but with you it’s comforting. The movement sends his popcorn tumbling to the floor, the metal bowl loud and clanking on the wood, and he could not give less of a fuck, because your hand on his jaw is sliding into his hair, gripping firmly to his curls, while your other lands on his neck, thumb pressed against his pulse point, right where his heart is racing so fast he thinks he might die.

He can’t stop moving his hands—they land on your waist, slide down to your thighs, brush against the hot, soft line of bare skin where your shirt rides up, and he hears your breath catch. You break away from his hungry lips with a gasp.

“Adrian,” you say. You’ve never said his name like that before. He wants you to say it again, wants to keep kissing you and never, ever stop.

“Yeah,” he says, and he sounds absolutely wrecked. All you’ve done is kiss him, and he’s devolved into a wanton mess.

“We don’t have to,” you continue. “I know you don’t always like—soft touching, or sex—”

“It’s different,” he says quickly, hands tightening on your waist. He can’t let you go on thinking for another moment that he doesn’t want this. “With you. It’s different, I want—”

His hips jolt upwards, a helpless grind to make you feel how much he wants you, and you say his name again, all raspy and longing, just like he wanted, and he groans.

Then you’re pressing on his chest, sending him back into the couch cushions as you push off of him and stand up. He panics for a minute, hands grasping at your clothes—he doesn’t want you to go, you can’t go now, not when he finally has you like this—but you shush him.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you whisper, because you know him, and his racing mind steadies, just a bit. Then you take a tiny step back and reach for the hem of your shirt, and it goes into overdrive again.

“No,” Adrian says hoarsely, hands shaking as he reaches forward. “I want to do it. Please—please, let me—”

“Yes,” you say, and that’s all he needs, scrambling to his feet. His fumbling hands settle on your waist, roam up and under your shirt, brush against the soft skin of your stomach. Then he tugs at the bottom of your shirt. You lift your arms and he pulls it over your head slowly, tossing it on the couch behind him.

He stares. You shiver under his intense gaze, suddenly nervous, and feeling a little ridiculous about it. It’s Adrian. He’s your best friend. He loves you, he just said so, and even before he did, you knew. You’ve known the whole time. But you still feel stripped bare, because he’s seeing you in a way he never has before, and he looks—hungry.

“Your turn,” you say, flustered, hands drifting up inside his shirt, trailing over his abs. Adrian swallows, shudders at the light touch of your fingertips on his skin, and reaches to grab his shirt at the back of his neck and yank it off.

When he’s shirtless in front of you, your eyes latch onto the muscles of his arm. One finger trails over his bicep, and he watches the motion.

“I’ve wanted to fucking bite you, right here,” you tell him, “for at least a decade.”

“Oh, fuck,” he chokes out, and you dig your teeth into the muscle of his shoulder just as you brush your hand against the bulge in his jeans. “Oh, my god—”

Adrian can’t seem to manage to string together a coherent sentence, not as you flick open the button on his pants and fumble with the zipper, your mouth sucking a bruise into the skin of his arm all the while.

“Oh, fuck—oh god, fuck—”

He’s losing control of the situation. He can’t function like this. So he wraps your hair in his fist and pulls, using the leverage to yank your mouth back to his, swallowing your noise of surprise. He grabs your hands and guides your arms up around his neck, then bends down to pick you up, strong hands supporting your thighs. You yelp, caught off guard.

“What the—”

“Are we going to fuck right now?” Adrian asks bluntly. It’s a little frantic, tinged with want, his pupils blown wide as he looks up at you, hoisted in the air with your legs wrapped around his waist.

“I was under the impression, yes.”

“I don’t have any condoms.”

“Bedside drawer, baby.”

“Fuck. Call me that again,” he whines, and you kiss him, long and deep. Your lips trail along his jawline, tongue tracing the shell of his ear, and it sends a shiver down his spine.

“Baby,” you whisper, giving him exactly what he wants, and his knees nearly give out. “Take me to bed.”

You’ve given him an order, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t do exactly as he’s told.

Adrian considers himself a pretty solid, balanced person, at least physically, but you’ve made him unsteady. He can still feel himself trembling with nerves, though he clutches you tightly as he walks you to your bedroom, determined not to drop you. It doesn’t help that your lips wander the whole time, tongue darting out to lick the salty dip of his neck, a little nibble on the sensitive spot under his ear.

“If you don’t fucking stop that—”

“Make me.”

He nearly trips over his own feet more than once before finally tossing you on the bed. You giggle at his desperation, reaching behind you to unclasp your bra and toss it aside, and Adrian’s jaw goes slack when you lay back against the pillows, waiting for him.

“You’re so mean,” he says for the second time that night, breathless, hands working at the clasp of his belt and pushing his jeans down his legs until he’s left only in his underwear.

“You love me anyway,” you say. It’s your usual response, but this time it hits differently. Adrian pauses.

“I do,” he says, quiet and firm, and he crawls over you onto the bed, pushing you into the mattress as he kisses you, spreading his hands on your thighs and pushing your legs apart to make room for himself as his hips roll into yours. “God, I am—just—so fucking hard right now—”

“I can tell,” you gasp, meeting his sloppy thrust with one of your own. The pressure is so, so, good, even through your leggings, but— “Fuck, Adrian—if you don’t take my pants off in the next ten seconds—”

Then he’s pulling your leggings down, and between the wet, open-mouthed kisses he presses to your inner thighs, he pants, “Fuck, baby—you’re so fucking pretty like this, oh my—I thought I was gonna have to—fight Economos. First he stole my chainsaw kill, and I thought he gonna steal my girl—”

“Oh my god, Adrian,” you groan, and he presses his tongue against you through your panties. Your hips buck off the bed. “Jesus Christ, can you please stop talking about John while you’re getting me naked—”

“Sorry,” he says, a little sheepish, hooking his fingers into your underwear and sliding them down your legs. 

Then his mouth attaches to your clit and sucks, and one finger slides through your folds and slips right inside you with absolutely no warning, and every rational thought you’ve ever had leaves your mind entirely and a strangled noise wrenches out of you.

Adrian listens to the wrecked noise you make, watches you squirm, feels your thighs tighten around his head, pressing the metal frame of his glasses into his face, and a proud, possessive feeling roars up inside his chest, because he is the one making you feel this way. 

He’s spent so many years molding his body into a killing machine, into an instrument of vengeance, and for a long time, it felt like that was the most important thing could ever do. But suddenly there’s this, and he knows that nothing could ever be more important than getting you to make that noise again.

“Let me hear those pretty noises,” he says, and he keeps at it, fucking you with his tongue, his fingers, and the whole time, he talks, the vibration of his ramblings radiating through you, every whispered and grunted curse fueling the heat that spreads under your skin.

Your little choked pants and gasps leave Adrian heady with the desire for more. When his callused fingertip grazes a sensitive spot inside you, you cry out, thighs trembling, tension coiling in your abdomen.

“Does that feel good?” he asks eagerly. He slips another finger inside, spreading you open wider, and nudges for it again, and you’re so wet now that the slick and filthy sound of his thrusting fingers fills the room. You feel your cheeks heat.

“God, oh god, yes.” 

Adrian glances up through his slightly fogged glasses, smiling. He watches with wide eyes as you nod fervently, one hand reaching to knead at your breast, and he reaches up to catch it in his, swat it away.

“No,” he says, kissing up your abdomen, hand still moving between your thighs, thumb circling your clit. “Let me—do it. I want—I want—”

He can have it. Whatever he wants, he can have it, because god, you are so fucking close.

His tongue trails over your breast, and now that he’s within reach, you grin, one hand tracing through his hair, fingernails scraping on his scalp. You can feel him shiver against you, exhale hot against your sensitive skin.

Your other hand drifts down, slips into his underwear, wraps around his bare cock, and squeezes.

“Oh my god,” he says, eyes screwing shut. He goes entirely still, all the air punching out of his lungs. “Jesus fucking Christ, holy fucking shi—”

You cut him off with a kiss, stroke him slowly, and snap at his waistband.

“Take these off for me, baby,” you murmur.

Adrian swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing right in your light of sight, and you can’t help yourself, you lean up to nip at it. He hasn’t breathed since you’ve touched him, so you pause, take your hand off him, give him space for a moment. He follows your signal, fingers slipping out of you, and you bite your lip and try not to whine at the loss of him, clenching around the nothingness.

“Take a breath,” you instruct, and he sucks in air, harsh and sharp. Both your hands come to rest in his hair, scratching gently at his scalp, and it soothes him, just a little. “Look at me, Ade.” His eyes flutter open. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he rasps. “Yeah, I’m—I want—”

It’s the second time he’s cut himself off. “What do you want, baby?”

“I just want you,” he pants. “I want you so bad.”

“You’ve got me, Adrian,” you say. “You’ve always had me.”

“I love you,” he whispers, and he dips down to kiss you, more urgently than he has all night. It’s sloppy and rough; your teeth clack together, he sucks your tongue into his mouth, like he’s trying to consume you.

“Want you to fuck me,” you plead. “God, please, Adrian—”

He shoves his underwear down and reaches over to the bedside drawer, fumbling around.

“Where the fuck—” he mutters. “Goddamnit. Where are the—ha!” He grins triumphantly when his fingers finally close around a foil-wrapped condom, holding it up for you like a prize.

“That’s nice, baby,” you say, snatching it out of his grasp and ripping open the package, because you’ve been on edge now for too long, and you’re starting to get impatient. “Now put it on and get inside me.”

“Right,” he says, rolling the condom on and lining himself up. “I’m gonna try so hard not to like, instantly cum, but I have been waiting for this, for, my whole life, basically, so—”

“I’m so goddamn close,” you groan, impatient, moving your hips and feeling him notch at your entrance. “I swear to god, Adrian, if you don’t stick your fucking dick in me already—”

“Okay, okay, I—” He sinks into you slowly, watches his cock disappear inside you and loses his words, feels your soft warmth yield to him until he’s fully surrounded. Your legs around his waist, ankles pressing into his ass to draw him as close as he can get; your arms around his neck, holding his face against your throat where he whispers a breathy chant of repeated curses into your skin; your cunt fluttering around his cock, tight and hot and perfect.

You take a steadying breath, adjust to the feeling of him inside you, the way he stretches you, fills you. Then you shift your hips, just a little, and Adrian groans. You laugh, muscles clenching around him.

“God, don’t do that,” he says. “It’s already hard enough not to—”

“Move,” you tell him, and he does, an erratic snap of his hips that shoves you deep into the mattress. You make a noise of surprise, and it’s his turn to laugh.

Adrian should have expected it to be like this. Should have known that loving you would be easy. Should have done this weeks, months, years ago. It makes his heart swell in his chest, looking down at you smiling up at him, and he kisses you again. He can’t help himself, overwhelmed with affection, grinning even as he feels your nails dig into the muscles of his shoulders.

You meet his rhythm with your own thrusts, every jerk of his hips met with the arching of your back. Adrian whimpers, whines, face falling forward until his forehead touches yours while he ruts against you.

“‘m gonna—” he chokes, “gonna cum—” One hand drifts between your legs, finds your clit, and his thumb starts circling, frantic. “Need you to—I want to feel you—”

“So good,” you pant, feeling yourself start to tip over the edge. “You—make me feel so good, baby—I love you—”

It’s those three words that set him off, raspy in his ear, and just a moment later, he feels you convulse around him, writhe beneath him, his cock twitching as he spills into the condom, chest heaving. His muscles quiver, and he pulls out, lying down beside you before his arms give out and he collapses on top of you.

He turns his head to the side, watches your chest rise and fall as you catch your breath, and turns on to his side to wrap an arm around your waist. He tucks his face into your neck, licks and sucks at the skin there, because it’s too bare, too smooth. He needs to leave a mark, to prove he was here, to prove that you’re his, now. You just close your eyes and let him, hand brushing through his hair, sweat and slick drying salty on your skin.

You protest when he presses a final kiss to the fresh bruise he left on your neck and shifts to get out of bed, but he just kisses your forehead and says, “I’ll be right back. I’m gonna go clean myself up. And really, babe, you should go pee, I don’t want you to get a UTI—”

You roll your eyes, but you laugh and follow him into the bathroom, leaning into his side because you’re tired, knees a little shaky, and you know he’ll hold you up.

Eventually, you both tumble back into bed, still a little sticky and sweaty, but also spent and satisfied and happy. Adrian pulls you into his side, and you press a kiss to his chest, smiling, eyes fluttering closed.

You’re on the edge of sleep when the rumble of Adrian’s voice rings out in the comfortable silence.

“I’m just saying,” Adrian says. “Economos could never—”

“Oh my god. Shut the fuck up—”

Adrian wakes up to a soft kiss.

“Mmm,” he hums, squinting at you, because his glasses are all the way over on the bedside table. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, baby,” you laugh, letting him tug you on top of him.

“Are we gonna fuck again right now?” he asks, a little sleepy, but absolutely ready to get going if that’s what you want. His hands are already trailing down your sides, but you shake your head.

“No,” you say apologetically. “Emilia just sent out an SOS. We need to be in the office for a debrief in twenty minutes.”

Adrian makes a face. “Do we have to?”

“Yes,” you say firmly, and Adrian pouts.

“But we could just…stay here,” he says. “In bed. And not do that.”

“We have to go,” you say. “Come on. The sooner we get there, the sooner we’ll be back home, yeah? And then you can fuck me all you want. Promise.”

“Fine,” he grumbles.

Twenty minutes later, you’re walking in the doors at Checkmate, joint hands swinging between you. Adrian won’t lie. He’s a bit smug as he waits for everyone to notice. But no one even looks up from their desks, even when he clears his throat.

“Morning everyone,” you say, letting go of his hand so you can go grab yourself some coffee from the break room. “You want a hot chocolate, Ade?”

He frowns, but nods, because you make the best hot chocolate. 

He wishes you would call him baby. He wishes someone would look up at you and ask who gave you the bright purple hickey on your neck. You didn’t even bother trying to hide it with makeup. He wishes he wasn’t even here, sharing you with everyone in this godforsaken office, that he still had you home in bed, naked.

“Debrief in the conference room in five minutes,” Harcourt calls out.

Adrian sighs and decides to run to the bathroom before the meeting starts. But then, when he walks into the conference room a few minutes later, he feels like he’s going to lose it, because you’re sitting next to Economos. It’s like you’re doing this on purpose.

“Are you fucking with me right now?” he whispers, grabbing you by the back of the shirt. He pulls you up out of the seat and takes it for himself. He thinks for half a second about just yanking you onto his lap in front of everyone, but decides that might be a bit too much, and he would probably get a really inconvenient boner. Instead, he shoves you into the seat right next to him and pulls the entire chair closer so your thighs are pressed together and he can hook his ankle around yours.

Then he looks down at you with a falsely innocent smile.

You give him a look like you know exactly what the fuck he’s doing, but you just roll your eyes, swapping your coffee mug with his cup of hot chocolate on the table in front of you.

“What the hell was that about?” Chris asks from across the table, because Adrian has not been subtle at all.

“Oh, nothing,” Adrian shrugs. “I just really wanted to sit next to my good buddy Economos.” He reaches up to squeeze John’s shoulder, maybe a little too hard.

“Ow! That hurt, motherfucker,” Economos says, looking at Adrian like he’s grown a second head.

“Would you cut it out?” you say, rolling your eyes and smacking Adrian in the back of the head. His glasses go a bit crooked. “You don’t need to stake your claim. I will gladly announce it to the table. Adrian and I are finally fucking, everyone.”

“Jesus Christ, took you long enough,” Harcourt says.

“What?” Chris says, eyes wide.

“Did you really not know?” Ads asks, disbelieving. “They’ve been all moony-eyed over each other for literal years, Chris.”

“Dude, why didn’t you tell me you liked her?” Chris says. “I’m your best friend!”

“Hang on, why am I being involved in this?” John asks, bewildered, still rubbing at his shoulder.

“Because I hugged you after the mission the other day, and Adrian couldn’t contain his jealousy,” you smirk.

“Seriously, dude?” Economos scoffs.

“I thought it was, I don’t know, a sexy hug!”

“What the fuck is a sexy hug—”

You don’t mention any of this. You just smile, kiss him again, and ask, “Where are we going?”

“I debated it for a while,” Adrian says, still sounding uncertain. “Not the movies. There’s only one way in or out. I don’t want us to get cornered if something happens.”

“I guess an escape room is out of the question,” you joke.

“You want to go get locked in a room by a stranger right now? On purpose?” Adrian sputters. “Absolutely not.”

“I was joking, baby. Even though I’m sure you could pick all the locks anyway. But please, continue.”

“Mini golf is out in the open, which leaves us too vulnerable. And the arcade gives people opportunities to sneak up on us…but there are also lots of exits and places to hide.”

You’re taken aback. “That’s…a lot of things I would have never considered.”

“I think the arcade is ultimately our safest bet,” Adrian determines. “I talked to Chris last night, and he said he could come stake the place out while we’re inside, so we can relax and enjoy ourselves without looking over our shoulders the whole time.”

“Okay,” you agree, running a hand over his forehead to smooth out the worried furrow in his brow. You smile, lean in to kiss him on the cheek, and he accepts the affection, leaning further into your touch.

“Sorry,” he says, arms circling your waist, tugging you on top of him in bed. “I know I’m being a lot.”

“You’re not being a lot,” you say, hugging him back. “You’re being smart, and responsible, and a good boyfriend who is concerned about my safety, but also wants me to have fun. Come on. Let’s go get ready.”

Before you get in the car to leave, Adrian pops open his trunk and starts shoving weapons into practically every pocket he has—a gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans at his back, pocket knives and switchblades folded into his jeans, pistols in the inner pocket of his winter coat.

The corner of your mouth quirks up as you think back to the first night you met him, watching him pull weapons out of all the hidden pockets on his suit. Watching him do the same thing in reverse is just as mind-boggling. You’re still astonished at how many weapons he can manage to carry at one time without making it obvious, especially when he’s not even wearing the Vigilante suit.

He starts digging through the trunk, clearly looking for something, and growing agitated when he can’t find it, sorting through an assortment of clinking metal ninja stars and tiny knives.

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

“It’s not here,” he mutters, tossing his machete aside. “We have to make a pit stop at my house.”

“Okay,” you say easily. “Whatever you need, honey.”

Adrian opens the passenger door for you, still frowning a bit, eyes distant. He’s nervous, foot tapping anxiously, fingers drumming on the top of the open door. Before you get in the car, you tap a hand on his cheek. You brush his hair out of his face, tilt his head and make him meet your eyes.

“Hey. I’m really excited to go out and have fun with you.”

And you are. You think back to afternoons spent in the woods, squinting at the red visor, wanting him, wondering if you could ever have anything more. Now it’s here, at your fingertips, and despite everything that’s happening, you are so, so happy.

Adrian smiles down at you, cheeks squishing between your hands. “Me too.”

“Thank god,” Adrian mutters as he pulls up to the curb, frowning at the empty driveway. “I thought my mom might be home.”

“I’m gonna have to meet her eventually,” you say. He looks like he’s in physical pain at the thought.

“Today is not that day,” he says, relieved. “Come on. I just need to grab something really quick.”

“Do I get to finally see your top secret Vigilante headquarters?” you ask, hanging on his arm as he unlocks the door. He grins.

“You do,” he says. He leads you inside, down a staircase to a plain white door with three locks and a red-lettered No Admittance sign. He starts making his way down the deadbolts one by one, until finally, he turns the knob and the door swings open.

You are not prepared for what you see when he flicks the lights on.

“Adrian, what the fuck?” you cry. “Is that cocaine—are you—what—”

“It is,” he confirms, like it’s not a big deal at all, pushing you inside and shutting the door behind you both. He makes his way over to a work bench and starts opening drawers, muttering to himself. “It’s gotta be here somewhere.”

“Adrian!” you cry, still looking around the room at the pallets of drugs and—is that cash? “Why do you have so much fucking cocaine and—god, there’s got to be what, millions of dollars in here? Why is all this just sitting in your basement? Where did it come from? You are a busboy.”

“Every time I bust a drug ring or whatever, I take all the shit and put it here,” he says, a little oblivious to your breakdown because he’s still searching for whatever the hell he’s looking for. “I’m not gonna turn it over to the cops, those guys are corrupt as fuck!”

“Oh my god,” you say, looking around the room. “You are insane. Like, I knew that already, but Jesus Christ, honey—”

“Found it!” he says, holding up the object of his treasure hunt. It’s a medium-sized blade, silver steel, with a pretty teal marble hilt and a black sheath.

“You have all those knives in your trunk. Why did you need that one?” you ask, bewildered. The fact that Adrian made a pit stop here—risked seeing his mom, on this day when time already feels like it’s dwindling away, doesn’t make any sense to you at all. “I mean, it’s really pretty, but—”

“For you,” Adrian says, holding it out to you hilt first. “It’s my favorite one. It’s yours now.”

You stare at him, at the weapon in his hands, and you don’t even know what to say. But he looks at you so earnestly.

“You can’t—” you protest. “I’m not taking your favorite knife, Adrian. It’s—that’s so beautiful, I couldn’t take that from you—”

“You promised me,” he says, voice rough as he tries to swallow past some emotion. “You promised me that when we left the trailer and went out in public, you would have a weapon on you at all times. You are taking the knife.”

“I will gladly take a knife,” you say, gesturing around the room, at the rack of blades he’s got hanging against a wall next to his work bench. “You’ve got, like, eight thousand knives, Ade. I know you do. Why—”

“You have to take this one,” he says, a little hoarsely, looking at you with wide, pleading eyes. “It’s like, my lucky knife—and I don’t even know if—god. This is going to sound stupid. I don’t even know if I believe in luck, but if it is real then I want—I need you to have it. It will make me feel better if you do.”

He presses the hilt of the blade into your palm, and uses his own hand to close your fingers around it. You hear him exhale, see some tension leave his body, just at the sight of you holding it.

“Adrian,” you say quietly, looking down at your hand holding the blade, at his hands holding yours. Then he brings his hands up to your face, cups your cheeks, and the way he looks at you makes your heart swell.

“This is—you are—too important,” he whispers. “I don’t want to take any risks. So please take it. For me.” You just nod, and he tilts your head down to kiss your forehead.

“Okay.” You glance down at your own outfit. “But honey…there is no way this thing is going to fit in any of my pockets.”

“Fucking women’s clothing,” Adrian mutters. “Hang on.”

An hour later, you’re walking hand in hand with Adrian up to the entrance of the arcade. You’re wrapped up in one of Adrian’s hoodies, your new knife tucked into the deep front pocket. It’s not your finest or sexiest first-date outfit, but. Extenuating circumstances.

Chris trails a few yards behind you. He lingers at the entrance as you walk inside, nodding and smiling at you.

“Have fun, guys,” he says.

“You’ll let me know if—”

“Adrian, if you don’t shut the fuck up and go show your girlfriend a good time, then I will.”

You laugh. “Thank you Chris.” Even Adrian smiles a bit, and you drag him inside.

It’s a bit chaotic and loud, between the chiming musical noises of the game machines and the chattering of the crowd, and you notice Adrian’s eyes darting all over the place, catching on every exit, scanning the face of every adult man in the crowd. He’s on edge.

“Hey. Chris is here, he’s got our backs,” you remind him. “It’s okay.”

“I know,” he says, sounding like he’s reassuring himself. “There’s just…more people here than I thought there would be. It’s usually dead on Sunday afternoons, I don’t know why—”

“Looks like a birthday party,” you point out, looking at a group of kids running around near the prize counter. “I don’t think those toddlers with cake all over their faces are here to assassinate me.”

“That’s not even funny,” Adrian says, but the corner of his mouth quirks up. “Toddlers can kill people, just like anyone else.”

You picture a tiny Adrian wobbling around this place with a gun in one hand and a fistful of arcade tickets in another. “Right. Equal opportunity murder, and all that. I’m sure the mob is accepting baby applications on a rolling basis. You’d better watch your back, honey. How many toddlers can you take on at once?”

“Are we talking one after another? All at once? Do I have any weapons?” he asks, seriously considering.

“All at once. No weapons, just you.”

“Maybe…twelve?”

“No fucking way.”

“Why am I fighting these toddlers? What crime did they commit?”

“Crayon graffiti.”

He laughs outright, and you beam, pleased, as he finally seems to relax into the moment.

“So,” you say, elbowing him in the side. “Are you gonna show me all your high scores, or what? I bet I can beat you at skee ball.”

“Good luck with that, babe,” he scoffs, and you know you’ve got him now. 

Adrian will never back down from a challenge without a fight. He never lets you win at anything, makes you really work for it. The first time you’d bested him at target practice in the woods, you’d lived off that high for three weeks.

You’ll live off the high of this day for a while, too. You have the best day you’ve had in a long time. You run around the arcade giggling like a little kid. You take pictures in the photobooth in the corner and make out like teenagers. Adrian makes you play every single machine in the building—one turn for him, one turn for you, tallying up each of your wins the whole afternoon to see who will come out on top, collecting armfuls of colorful paper tickets the whole time.

“Ha!” you cry when you score higher than him on a sniper game, taking out more digital aliens than him. You jump up and down, pointing at him with your plastic laser gun.“I beat you! I actually beat you! At the gun game!”

“Damnit!” he says, but he’s laughing the whole time. “How the fuck did you do that? I literally have the high score on this machine! I came here all the time to work on my aim before I could afford to buy real guns.”

“What can I say,” you tease, leaning back against the machine and tugging on the lapels of his jacket to draw him in. “I had a pretty good teacher.”

Adrian kisses you, grinning the whole time, nose bumping against yours, and for the first time in a few days, it feels light, weightless. He’s kissing you because he can, because he wants to, like the first time, that night in his bed. He’s kissing you because he’s your boyfriend and you’re out on a date and you’re having fun, not because he’s desperate to hold you close and keep you there and make sure no one takes you away.

“Come on,” you say when he pulls away, laughing when he continues pecking kisses all over your face. “That was the last game. We’ve played literally every machine in here. Tell me who won.”

“Prizes first,” Adrian says excitedly. “We should choose for each other! Make it a surprise!”

“Ooh yes! Me first!” You start heading toward the prize counter, but Adrian grabs you by the back of your hoodie before you even make it two steps.

“Where do you think you’re going, all by yourself?” he chides. He glances over toward the entrance and waves over at Chris, who cocks an eyebrow but makes his way over to you.

“What’s up?”

“We’re picking out surprise prizes for each other,” you explain. “And Adrian says I need a trusted adult to go up to the counter with me.”

“I don’t know if anyone has ever considered me a trusted adult before,” Chris says, “but okay.”

Chris walks up with you to the prize counter, hands in his pockets, eyes roaming. He really has been keeping an eye on the place while you and Adrian have been having fun.

“Hey,” you say. “Thank you for doing this for him. He really needed this.”

“I’m doing it for you, too,” Chris says, smiling. “Just so you know.”

You don’t answer him, but you smile to yourself as you lean against the glass counter with your half of the tickets, handing them over to the attendant.

“Anything from here,” the guy gestures to a section of the display. You scan your options, see what you want, and smile.

“Right there, please. The blue and black set?” 

“Oh, he’s gonna fucking love those,” Chris says as the employee hands over the items you asked for. “He’s such a nerd about that kind of thing.”

You tuck them into your pocket, next to the knife he had given you earlier.

“Your turn, honey!” you call back to Adrian, and he rushes over.

“What did you pick?” he asks eagerly. “Show me, show me!”

“Not yet,” you grin, walking away with Chris.

“He really likes you,” Chris observes.

“I really like him,” you admit. “I—”

“Here you go!” Adrian says, walking over to you with a massive teal teddy bear the size of his torso. He deposits it in your arms, beaming at you.

“Adrian…what?” you ask, straining your neck to look at him around the giant stuffed animal. “We did not earn that many tickets.”

“I had some saved up on my account,” he explains. “I mostly just come here to play the games. And look! I used the leftovers for this!” He holds out a little paper finger trap. You giggle.

“Nice choice, Ade.”

“Guys, I think they’re closing up,” Chris says.

The place has emptied out significantly. Families with younger kids all left much earlier, and the only people left are a couple teenagers playing Guitar Hero in the corner.

“Right,” Adrian says, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. “Let’s get you home.”

Back at the trailer, you can see it as Adrian’s anxiety about the coming week starts to creep back in. He’s clingier than he has been all week, which is really saying something, and—maybe you’re enabling him, but you’re clinging back.

You reach for his hand when you get up from the couch, even if you’re just going to get a drink. You lean back into him when his arms wrap around your waist as you microwave leftover takeout for dinner.

And when you see him settling down in his usual spot outside the bathroom door while you’re getting ready to take a shower, you say, “Will you come in with me?”

“Can I?” he rasps.

“I want you to,” you say, and Adrian sighs, a breath of relief, like he’s been waiting all week for you to ask. You let him undress you, catalog your healing bruises, step under the hot stream of water with you and help you get clean. When you’re done, and he wraps you up in a towel and puts you in his pajamas, not yours, you don’t say a word, just breathe in the scent of him surrounding you and sit on the edge of the mattress while he gets himself ready for bed, too.

“Hey,” you say softly, once he’s dressed. He puts his glasses on as he looks up at you. “Bring me the hoodie I was wearing earlier?”

Adrian reaches for it and hands it over to you, and you dig into the pocket and pull out the two tiny things you picked out at the arcade. You hold one out to him.

“My prize,” you whisper.

He stares down at them, eyes shining with some unknown emotion, and sinks onto the bed next to you.

“Friendship bracelets?” he asks, voice cracking. It’s nothing fancy. Two black and blue corded friendship bracelets with tiny, matching silver heart charms. But Adrian looks at them like you’ve just handed him something made of gold.

“Do you like it?” you ask.

“Give me your hand,” he says, and you hold out your arm for him. He ties your bracelet around your wrist, knots it as tightly as he can. Then he holds out his own wrist for you expectantly, eyes wide and shining. You smile softly and return the favor, tying a tight double-knot.

“Perfect,” you say, looking up into his eyes.

“I love it,” Adrian says, but he’s not looking down at the bracelet. Your breath hitches. It’s not an admission, not really, but it feels like one.

He swallows. “Tomorrow—”

“Don’t,” you interrupt. You smile, shift yourself onto his lap, feel his hands splay across your back to hold you firmly against him. “We had—the best day today. Don’t let tomorrow ruin it. Just be with me, right now.”

“Okay,” Adrian agrees.

You close your eyes, feel him tuck his chin on top of your head, and let him hold on to you for as long as he needs to.

On Monday morning, Adrian pouts. 

He pouts as he watches you pack your bag for work. He pouts as you get into the passenger seat of his car. He pouts as he drives you there. He pouts when he puts the car in park, and he looks over at you, giving you a final, pleading look.

“I’m going inside,” you say with finality. He sighs as you dig through your bag for your ID badge, nerves settling a bit when he peeks inside and sees that you’ve tucked his lucky knife into one of the pockets. “Look on the bright side. You don’t have to hide in the bushes in the parking lot anymore. You can just…walk me to the front door.”

Adrian smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I can.”

And he does—he carries your bag for you, he holds your hand, maybe a little too tightly, charms from your brand new friendship bracelets clinking together as you walk. He cups your cheeks and kisses you firmly when you reach the front of the building.

“Chris and Ads are picking you up at five and dropping you off at the restaurant,” he reminds you. “My shift ends at eight. Everyone’s swinging by the trailer tonight for a regroup.”

“I know. I am, in fact, also in the group chat.”

“Right—I know that. I just—”

“Hey,” you say softly. “It’s gonna be okay. I’m literally going to be sitting at my desk all day catching up on emails from last week. I’m not leaving the building. I won’t strain myself. The door locks automatically, no one goes in or out without security’s approval. I’ll be safe. I promise.”

“Okay,” he says grudgingly. He’s still holding your face in his hands, brushing his thumbs over your cheeks. “I’ll see you later.”

You kiss him again before he goes. Then he lets his hands fall to his sides reluctantly so you can step back and open the door. He waits to hear the click of the lock behind you before he walks back to the car.

When you get to your desk and look out the window, he’s still sitting in the parking lot. You sigh and pull out your phone.

Are you really going to sit there all day?

I’m gonna sit out here until I have to go to work at noon🧜

You sigh, but you know there’s no convincing him otherwise. He still lingered outside the door this morning while you were in the bathroom. The fact that both of you are returning to work today is completely throwing off the routine of the last week, and you know it’s making him anxious. Honestly, your stomach is churning a bit too, but you’re doing your best to hold it together for his sake.

It was his turn to have a nightmare last night. You didn’t let him know that he woke you up—you didn’t want him to feel guilty. But when you felt him jolt up in bed, you’d shifted closer to him, cuddled up to his side, and waited for his heart rate to slow down before you let yourself fall back asleep.

So if it will make him feel better to sit in the parking lot for a couple hours, you’ll let him. You’ll even make sure to stay by the window so he can see you the whole time. He has done so, so much for you over the last week and a half, and if you can make this transition easier for him, you’re going to do it.

And maybe…it makes you feel better, too, looking out the window and seeing him waiting there. Knowing he’s watching, just like he had been all those months ago when you still only knew him as Vigilante. Maybe it’s not healthy, this level of attachment, this early in a relationship. But considering the way you and Adrian met, your relationship would never have been any kind of normal anyway.

He calls you at 11:55.

“Hey,” you say when you pick up, glancing out the window. He’s gotten out of the car, walked closer to the building. You stand up, too, walk right up to the glass, and wave. He smiles.

“Hey,” he says, and the way his voice sounds through the phone reminds you of the way it used to sound, muffled through the Vigilante suit. “I have to go now.”

“I’m going to be okay,” you tell him, placing your hand on the window.

“You’ll text me?” he asks, apprehensive and uneasy. “Just…update me, throughout the day?”

“Every hour on the dot,” you promise.

“I lo—” he starts, but then he stops himself, shakes his head. “I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

“Yeah,” you say. “I’ll see you tonight. At the restaurant. You can save me a seat at whatever booth you want, so you can keep an eye on me for the last part of your shift, and point out all your shitty coworkers you’ve told me stories about, and I’ll kiss you in front of all of them and they will all be super jealous.”

He laughs. “That sounds perfect.”

“Bye, honey,” you say.

“Bye, baby.”

You stand at the window and watch as he gets in the car and drives away.

Five minutes later, 12:00 on the dot, you text him, I miss you. You pause and smile to yourself, and add in a 🐦‍🔥for old time’s sake.

He responds just a few minutes later. I miss you too. Be safe 💙🧜

Like you promised Adrian, it’s an otherwise uneventful day. You spend the entire time sitting at your desk, and the time passes in a blur of catching up on the work you missed last week, and hourly updates to Adrian, who sends you back an obsessively long string of emoji hearts every time.

Chris texts you that he and Ads are on their way at 4:45, and you pack up your things at 4:55 and head outside to wait for them.

As you stand on the sidewalk, you start to type up your final update to Adrian before you see him in just a few minutes. 

I’ll see you soon, honey 🩷

You’re about to hit send when you hear the footsteps approaching directly behind you. You shove your phone in your bag and reach for the knife, fingers closing around the teal hilt of the special blade Adrian had given you yesterday.

But you don’t get the chance to use it, even as you pull it out. It all happens so fast, you don’t even see your attacker. There’s a sharp prick at the back of your neck, and in seconds, everything goes dark. The last thing you see is Adrian’s knife clattering on the concrete.

it’s late in your shift—almost three in the morning—when the automatic doors slide open and let in a man who looks like he took a wrong turn somewhere between cosplay convention and midlife crisis. he’s tall, broad-shouldered, dressed casually but strangely—like he dressed himself in the dark and decided confidence would carry him the rest of the way. he doesn’t look hurt. he doesn’t look sick.

he looks curious.

he approaches the desk with an easy grin, rests his elbows on the counter like you’re already friends.

“hey,” he says. “quick question.”

you blink. “are you a patient?”

“not right now,” he says cheerfully. “but, let us just say hypothetically—”

you sigh internally. hypotheticals never end well. “what’s your question?” you ask anyway.

he leans closer, lowering his voice like he’s about to tell you a secret. “which artery makes people bleed out the fastest?”

you stare at him.

he watches you stare. completely unbothered.

“…excuse me?”

“like,” he continues, gesturing vaguely with his hands, “if someone were to get stabbed—accidentally, obviously—where would be the worst place? time-wise.”

your mouth opens. closes. opens again. “sir,” you say carefully, “if you’re asking about harming someone—”

“no, no,” he interrupts. “not harming. research.”

“research for what?”

he thinks about it for a moment, then smiles wider. “writing, in a mary shelley-esque bet.” that tracks, somehow.

you give him a flat look. “we can’t answer questions like that.”

“oh. okay.” he nods, unfazed. “what about freezer burn?”

you pause. “…what about it?”

“what temperature does it start at?”

you rub your temple. “why?”

“details matter.”

you consider calling security. but evergreen trauma medical center doesn’t really have security—just a bored cop who naps in his cruiser outside the diner. and the man in front of you doesn’t feel threatening. he feels… earnest. like a golden retriever with homicidal curiosity.

“i can tell you about frostbite,” you say. “freezer burn isn’t something we covered in school.”

“perfect.”

and just like that, you’re explaining tissue damage and temperature thresholds to a stranger whose eyes light up every time you say something technical. he listens like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever heard, nodding along, asking follow-up questions that are way too specific for comfort.

when you finish, he beams. “you’re really smart,” he says.

“…thanks.”

“i’m adrian,” he adds, holding out his hand.

you hesitate, then shake it. “you can’t keep coming in here just to ask questions.”

he grins. “watch me.”

he leaves a few minutes later, waving like he’ll see you tomorrow.

you assume you won’t.

you’re wrong.

adrian becomes a fixture.

he always comes in late—after the rush, when the ER is quiet enough that you can hear the heart monitors beep in rhythm. sometimes he brings coffee. sometimes he brings pastries from the bakery downtown. he never pretends to be a patient. he never crosses a line.

he just asks questions.

sometimes they’re harmless.

“what happens if you stay awake for too long?”

“can adrenaline really make you lift a car?”

“do people feel pain differently when they’re scared?”

other times… not so much.

“how long can someone survive with internal bleeding if they don’t know it’s happening?”

“what’s the difference between a bruise from a fall and one from being grabbed?”

“is it possible to snap a neck without killing someone?”

you start answering selectively. carefully. you tell yourself he’s a writer. a true crime author, maybe. or a screenwriter. you’ve met weirder. hell, you’ve dated weirder.

you don’t notice when the ER starts to feel… safer.

it was always safe, technically. evergreen doesn’t see much violent crime, aside from the random attacks from the masked crusader who calls himself vigilante (who names themself after their job?). but little things change.

dr. shen mentions a patient who made a crude comment, who lingered too close, who made her uneasy in a way she can’t quite explain. you nod sympathetically, offer solidarity. a few weeks later, you see his face on a missing person poster taped to a lamppost outside the grocery store.

you feel a flicker of discomfort. then you shrug it off. people leave town all the time.

nurse callahan complains about a regular who gets handsy when he’s drunk. you roll your eyes with her, promise to keep an eye out next time. there is no next time.

the woman with the bruises—the one who always says she fell, who avoids eye contact, who comes in every few weeks like clockwork—stops coming in altogether. months pass before you see her again, laughing in a coffee shop, hair freshly cut, eyes bright. she tells you her husband left town suddenly. just packed up and vanished.

you smile. wish her well.

your mother’s voice echoes in your head: bad things happen to bad people.

you don’t connect the dots. you don’t notice the red visor watching from rooftops when you clock out at ungodly hours after swapping shifts with other nurses.

you don’t notice how adrian’s posture changes when you vent about a patient who scared you. you don’t notice how carefully he listens.

but adrian notices everything.

you start to look for him without meaning to.

it’s subtle at first—just a flicker of disappointment when the doors don’t slide open at the usual time slot, a moment of anticipation when they do. adrian never comes in during chaos. he always waits until evergreen settles into its nightly hush, when the ER lights feel too bright for how empty the waiting room is.

tonight, he’s late.

you’re halfway through charting when you hear footsteps and glance up instinctively. he’s there, leaning against the counter like he belongs behind it, not in front of it. he’s wearing a hoodie tonight, sleeves pushed up, hair a mess like he ran his hands through it too many times.

“hey,” he says.

you relax without realizing you were tense. “you’re late.”

“yeah.” he grins. “got… held up.”

you don’t ask by what.

he peers past you at the quiet ER. “slow night?”

“always,” you hum in response. “that’s evergreen for you.”

“good,” he says softly. then, louder: “so! question.”

of course. you close the chart and face him. “if this is about arteries again—”

“nope.” he raises his hands in surrender. “this one’s about bruises.”

you pause. “bruises.”

“yeah. like—” he gestures vaguely at your arm. “how long does it take before they show up? after someone gets grabbed.”

your stomach tightens. “depends,” you say slowly. “force, location, the person. why?”

he shrugs, too casual. “just wondering how people miss them.”

you don’t like the way he says that. like it’s personal.

before you can respond, dr. shen walks past, clipboard tucked under her arm. adrian’s gaze flicks to her automatically—sharp, assessing. noticing the way her shoulders stiffen when she spots him, the way she speeds up.

he notices things.

“you okay?” he asks you, eyes still tracking her retreat.

“yeah,” you say, though you’re not sure why he asked. “why?”

he hums. “she seems… tense.”

you snort. “that’s residency.”

“mm,” he says, unconvinced.

he asks a few more questions—lighter ones this time, about sleep deprivation, about why some people faint at the sight of blood and others don’t. eventually, your shift ends.

“you walking out?” he asks.

you nod, grabbing your bag. “yeah.”

“i’ll walk with you,” he says, like it’s a given.

outside, the air is cool and still. the parking lot is mostly empty, streetlights buzzing softly. you don’t think twice about letting adrian fall into step beside you. he keeps a respectful distance. always does.

“you ever feel unsafe here?” he asks suddenly.

the question catches you off guard. “what?”

“in evergreen,” he clarifies. “at work.”

you think about it. about missing posters. about hands that lingered too long. about bruises explained away.

“…not really,” you say. “why?”

“no reason.” he smiles. “just curious.”

he stops at the edge of the lot. watches you unlock your car.

“night,” he says.

“night, adrian.”

you don’t notice the way he waits until you’re inside before he leaves.

the first time you almost connect the dots, it’s because of nurse callahan.

she corners you in the break room, eyes wide, voice low. “did you hear?”

“hear what?”

“that guy,” she says. “the drunk who kept grabbing me. they found his car abandoned outside town.”

your heart stutters. “what?”

“yeah. keys still inside. wallet too.” she shivers. “creepy, right?”

you force a laugh. “guess he skipped out on some debts or something.”

“guess so,” she says. then, quieter: “good riddance.”

that night, adrian comes in whistling.

you watch him more closely than usual as he leans on the counter, asks you about concussions. he seems lighter. happier.

“busy night?” you ask.

“nah,” he says. “pretty productive, though.”

your pulse ticks up. “productive how?”

he grins. “oh, you know. got some stuff done.”

you study his face. there’s no guilt there. no hesitation. just an easy warmth directed entirely at you.

you tell yourself you’re imagining things.

it becomes a pattern.

every time someone at work scares you—really scares you—something happens to them.

a man who threatens a tech disappears.

a belligerent drunk who throws a chair gets arrested for something unrelated and never comes back.

you never see adrian do anything. you never hear him confess. but he always seems to know.

“you okay?” he asks one night, after you finish recounting a patient who made your skin crawl.

“yeah,” you say, tired. “just… people suck sometimes.”

“they don’t have to,” he says mildly.

you laugh. “that’s optimistic.”

he tilts his head. “is it?”

there’s something in his eyes then. something sharp behind the friendliness. like a blade wrapped in velvet.

you should be afraid.

instead, you feel safe.

the night everything clicks is quiet. too quiet.

you’re walking out later than usual, parking lot empty, when you hear footsteps behind you.

you tense.

“hey,” adrian says quickly. “sorry! didn’t mean to scare you.”

you exhale, embarrassed. “you didn’t.”

he falls into step beside you, closer than usual. you can smell metal on him. iron. 

blood.

you stop.

he stops too. instantly.

“adrian,” you say slowly. “are you hurt?”

he blinks. “what?”

“you smell like blood.”

a beat. then he smiles. “oh,” he says lightly. “yeah. that!”

your heart starts pounding. “that what?”

he studies your face, something calculating flickering behind his eyes. then he sighs. “i was hoping you wouldn’t notice yet.”

your breath catches. “notice what?”

he steps closer. not threatening. intimate. “that i take care of things,” he says softly. “for the doctors and nurses here. for you.”

the parking lot feels suddenly very empty.

“what does that mean?” you whisper.

he reaches out—slowly, giving you time to pull away—and brushes his thumb against your wrist, right over your pulse.

“it means,” adrian says, voice warm, reverent, “that nobody who hurts you gets to keep doing it.”

the world tilts.

“you’re joking,” you say. “this is—this is some writer thing, right?”

he chuckles. “oh, i am a writer.”

your stomach drops. “of what?”

“justice,” he says brightly. and then, like he can’t help himself, he adds: “also murder.”

your pulse is a roar in your ears. “you’re serious?” you breathe.

he nods. “yeah.”

silence stretches between you.

“you’ve been watching me,” you say.

“protecting,” he corrects. “there’s a difference.”

“there really isn’t.”

he shrugs. “agree to disagree.”

you should run. instead, you ask, “why me?”

his expression softens in a way that’s almost frightening. “because,” he says, like it’s obvious, “you save people. you care. you listen. and the world keeps trying to hurt you anyway.”

he leans closer, forehead nearly touching yours.

“i won’t let that happen.”

your knees feel weak.

“you’re not scared,” he observes, delighted.

“i should be,” you whisper.

“but you’re not.”

“no,” you admit. “i’m not.”

his smile is slow. possessive. “good! because i really like you.”

you don’t sleep that night.

you lie in bed staring at the ceiling, replaying his words over and over until they lose meaning and then regain it all at once.

“i take care of things for you.”

every instinct you have—every training, every ethical boundary—screams that you should report him. that you should quit. that you should run as far away from evergreen as possible.

but another part of you, quieter and far more dangerous, keeps inventory.

you’ve walked to your car alone for months without fear. no one touches you at work anymore. the people who made your skin crawl are gone.

and adrian never once crossed a line with you.

when he shows up the next night, you’re already waiting.

he hesitates when he sees your expression—guarded, serious, no hint of your usual tired amusement.

“...okay,” he says carefully. “you look like you’re about to either punch me or ask me out. i’m hoping for the second one.”

“sit,” you say.

he does exactly as you tell him to. he always does.

you fold your arms. “how long?”

he exhales. “how long what?”

“how long have you been doing this,” you say. “for me.”

he doesn’t joke. doesn’t deflect. he looks at you like this matters.

“a few months,” he admits. “since the guy who cornered you by the supply closet.”

your stomach drops. “you saw that?”

“i heard it,” he says. “your voice changed.”

that sends a chill straight through you.

“you followed me,” you say.

“i watched,” he corrects. “there’s a difference!”

“stop saying that.”

he winces. “okay. yeah. fair.”

you lower your voice. “how many people, adrian?”

he tilts his head, considering. “that’s… a loaded question. i mean, i've got a bet going with my friend about who can get the coolest one, so i keep trying stuff. and because i’ve liked, saved the world a couple times, and i’ve been to alternate dimensions—”

“answer it.”

“do you want the number,” he asks gently, “or do you want to keep sleeping at night?”

your jaw tightens.

“that’s what i thought,” he murmurs.

you should feel disgust. horror. fear.

instead, you feel something dangerously close to relief.

“you don’t get to decide who lives or dies,” you say, even as your voice wavers.

he nods. “you’re right.”

that surprises you.

“i don’t want to,” he continues. “but someone has to. and i’m really good at it! it’s like a total win-win situation for everyone.”

you swallow. “what if you’re wrong?”

“i’m not,” he says immediately. then softer: “but if i ever was… i’d stop.”

you meet his eyes. “for what? or even who?”

“for you.”

the weight of that settles heavy in your chest.

“you scare me,” you admit.

his mouth quirks. “yeah, no, that tracks. like, i totally see where you’re coming from. i’d honestly be a little more worried for you than usual if you weren’t scared of me!”

“but,” you add, barely audible, “you make me feel safe.”

something in adrian’s expression breaks open at that—something raw and unguarded. “i work really hard at that,” he says quietly.

silence stretches between you, thick with everything unsaid.

“you can’t keep doing this,” you whisper.

“i can,” he says. “but i won’t if you tell me not to.”

you search his face for a lie. find none.

“…i don’t want to know,” you say finally.

his brows knit together. “what?”

“i don’t want details. i don’t want names. i don’t want blood on my hands by association.” you steady yourself. “but i won’t turn you in, because you’re him aren’t you? you’re that vigilante guy. you take down the actual bad guys.”

relief floods his face so fast it almost knocks him over.

“also,” you continue, heart pounding, “if i say someone scares me—really scares me—you don’t act unless i ask. those are my terms.”

he nods immediately. “deal.”

“you swear?”

“i swear,” he says. “on… you? i really hate my mom, so if i swear on her that means nothing. but on you, it means something.”

that shouldn’t mean anything.

it does.

evergreen never notices the difference.

that’s the thing about safety—it’s invisible when it works.

life settles into something that almost looks normal. you work. you sleep. you come home. adrian starts showing up at your place with alarming regularity, like a stray cat that figured out your schedule and decided it lived there now.

he learns your routines.

which mug you always reach for first. how you kick your shoes off by the door. the way you hum under your breath when you’re exhausted but trying not to be.

“you know,” you tell him one night, watching him fold laundry like it’s a sacred ritual, “most people would find this creepy.”

he glances up, visor-less, soft-eyed. “most people don’t deserve you.”

you snort. “that’s not how that works.”

“sure it is,” he says. “you’re the baseline.”

he makes dinner. nothing fancy—pasta, mostly—but he insists on cutting vegetables with surgical precision. you watch his hands more than you should.

“you ever wish things were simpler?” you ask.

he considers. “no.”

“really?”

“simple usually means someone’s lying,” he says. “this is honest.”

that shouldn’t be comforting. it is.

the first time you come home shaken—really shaken—you don’t even have to explain.

adrian’s already there, sitting on your couch, helmet resting beside him like a promise. he looks up the moment the door opens.

“what happened?”

you drop your bag. your hands are trembling.

“new attending. he grabbed me,” you say. “not—bad. but enough.”

his jaw tightens.

“i told him to stop,” you add quickly. “he laughed.”

adrian stands slowly. carefully. like he’s afraid sudden movement might scare you. “what do you need?” he asks.

the room feels very still.

you think of ethics. of rules. of the version of yourself that existed before adrian chase. then you think of walking to your car alone.

“i don’t want to see him again,” you say.

adrian nods. once. “okay.”

you don’t ask questions.

the next day, the man doesn’t show up for his shift. or the next.

or the next.

you feel the familiar twist of guilt—and the equally familiar release that follows.

some nights, adrian comes back bloodied and buzzing with energy, curls up beside you like nothing happened. other nights, he stays home, lets the city fend for itself.

those nights are your favorite.

you lie in bed together, his arm heavy around your waist, your fingers tracing absent-minded patterns into his skin.

“you ever think about stopping?” you ask once.

he hums. “do you want me to?”

you consider it. the quiet. the safety. the way the other women at work suddenly have nothing to fear either. “no,” you admit.

“then no,” he says simply.

he presses a kiss to your temple. “i’m yours. that’s the rule.”

you should argue.

instead, you smile and close your eyes.

evergreen remains peaceful.

the ER stays quiet.

and sometimes—when you leave work late and the night air feels too open—you catch the faint reflection of red in a darkened window. watching.

guarding.

loving.

you don’t wave. you don’t have to. adrian already knows you’re safe.

“How is my favorite library patron today?” you tease. He always loves it when you call him that. The tips of his ears turn pink and he gets all shy. But today, he glances around at the mostly empty library, leans in closer to you, and lowers his voice.

“I did something bad,” Adrian says today, deadly serious, and you almost can’t take him seriously. Because he did something bad yesterday, too, and the day before that, and the day before that. He’s killing people constantly. But that’s obviously not what he’s talking about.

“What did you do?” you ask, leaning in and matching his low tone of voice.

“I ruined a book,” he says, like he’s admitting to murder, except he almost definitely would care less about that than about this. “I got shot on patrol last night, and I had a library book in my passenger seat. It’s like…covered in blood. Definitely a biohazard. You do not want it back.”

“Jesus Christ, baby,” you say worriedly, looking him up and down. Adrian seemed fine walking in here—he’s not limping or anything, and he doesn’t seem like he’s in pain. You’re still getting used to having a vigilante metahuman for a boyfriend. No matter how long you’re together, though, you don’t think you’ll ever stop worrying about him when he gets hurt. “I literally could not care less about the book. Are you okay?”

“I’m good,” he says. “I slept it off. I have to go to work in a couple minutes, I just need to right my wrong before I go about the rest of my day.” He slaps two twenties on the counter and pushes them over to you. “Here. For a replacement. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” you say softly, your hand covering his on the counter. “Be safer. Please. I would like my boyfriend to keep coming home to me in one piece.”

Adrian looks down at your joint hands and smiles softly. “I’ll try not to get shot or stabbed this week,” he promises, and you sigh, knowing that’s the best you’re going to get. “I’ll see you later, right?”

“Yeah. You will,” you say. You take a quick look around for anyone watching before you rush around the desk to peck a quick kiss to his lips. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he says, smiling.

Several hours later, once you close up the library, you make the familiar drive over to Fennel Fields. 

It’s become something of a weekly routine for you to spend your Friday evenings at the restaurant after the library closes, tucked up in a booth with a book while you wait for Adrian’s shift to end so you can spend the night together.

“Hey, girl,” Taylor says when she sees you walk in. “Adrian saved your booth for you, and already put your order in. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

“Thanks, Taylor.”

You wave and greet the rest of the staff as you make your way to the booth in the back corner, where Adrian had put you the first time you’d visited him at work because, as he insisted, “I can see you better when I’m in the back washing dishes.”

As soon as you take off your coat, put down your bag, and plop yourself into the seat, the man in question sticks his head out of the kitchen and waves eagerly, calling to you across the restaurant. “Hi baby!”

“Hi, honey,” you laugh. “Get back to work. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“I get my break in twenty minutes,” he says. “I’ll bring your food when it’s ready and come sit with you.”

“Okay.”

You pull out your book, the sounds of the restaurant and its customers fading into the background as you get absorbed in your book for a few chapters. You only make it through two and a half of them before Adrian is dropping two Diet Cokes and a basket of mozzarella sticks on the table and sliding into the booth next to you, his entire body pressing up against yours like he’s never heard of the concept of personal space.

“Hi,” he says, green eyes sparkling, and one hand cups your cheek so he can kiss you thoroughly. Adrian never does anything halfway. You hum against him, eyes fluttering closed, book falling open on the table in front of you as you drop it so you can clutch at the front of his uniform shirt.

He’s beaming at you when he pulls away, glasses and hat a little crooked, and you giggle and reach up to fix them for him.

“Whatcha reading?” he asks, reaching for your book, pressing even closer to you on the bench and hooking your feet together under the table.

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to tell you about this,” you say. “They’re letting me start that book club!” 

“Oh my god, baby, that’s great!” Adrian exclaims. “They approved the budget?”

You’ve been asking for nearly two months to get this new program started, but the library director has been reluctant to let you buy a dozen copies of the book to supply to book club members each month. You hold out a book to him excitedly, a twisty mystery/thriller.

“This is the first book we’re going to read!” You hold it up for him to show him. “It went viral online recently, so I’m hoping it draws in some attendees.” 

You worry your bottom lip with your teeth as you stare at the book cover, clearly nervous about it. Adrian knows exactly how much you’ve wanted this, how much it means to you that it’s finally happening.

“I’m proud of you,” he says, lifting your chin until you look him in the eyes. “Hey. It’s gonna go so great. People are gonna love it. Because you are amazing and beautiful and perfect and wonderful at your job.”

“That’s a lot of adjectives,” you laugh.

“And they are all accurate,” he says firmly. “You’re gonna have the coolest book club that has ever existed, babe, because you are the one running it.”

You really, really hope so.

“You…you’ll come, right? I need people to show up, otherwise they won’t let me continue,” you say, feeling a little ridiculous for even asking. Of course Adrian will come. You would probably need an armed guard outside the library to prevent him from showing up, and even then, he might just kill the poor guy anyway just to show up for you.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” he says.

And Adrian knows exactly what he can do to help.

“Let me get this straight,” Chris says. “You go to the library? Multiple times a week? On purpose?”

“Yes,” Adrian says. “I don’t have a computer! How else am I supposed to check my email—”

“You have an iPhone, Adrian,” Economos deadpans. “You don’t need a desktop computer to check your email.”

“Okay, well—how am I supposed to play video games that are only available on PC?” Adrian argues.

“Why don’t you just buy a computer?” Adebayo asks, bewildered. “You have an actual job. You can afford one.”

“Do you have any idea how expensive guns are?”

“Stop buying so many weapons!”

“I’m a vigilante! I need weapons to do my job! And—even if I did have a computer, I have to go to the library anyway to pick up the books that I have on hold.”

“This is why I’m more buff than you,” Chris says. “Because you’re a fucking nerd, and you go to the library and read books all the time.”

“That’s why you’re a moron,” Economos says. “Because you don’t fucking read books.”

“I take offense to that. I have been working on my emotional intelligence,” Chris argues.

“I’m sorry, are we skipping over the other thing that Adrian just said?” Harcourt interjects. “When the hell did you get a fucking girlfriend?”

“Do none of you listen to me when I talk?” Adrian asks, annoyed. “I literally mention her all the time. Every day.”

“Honestly,” John says, “I tend to tune you out, like, sixty percent of the time. Because you’re usually talking about like, narwhals or something.”

“Narwhals aren’t real,” Adrian says.

“They are, actually,” Adebayo says.

“No they aren’t,” he scoffs. “A whale with a horn? Really? Next you’re gonna tell me unicorns—”

“But that is beside the point, Adrian,” Adebayo interrupts.

“He does talk about the librarian all the time,” Chris says. “I just thought he was, ya know. Being a stalker creep, like usual.”

“What the hell, dude! I’m not being a creep! She’s my girlfriend!”

“You’re actually dating the librarian?” Adebayo asks, disbelieving.

“Yes!”

“And she…also knows? That you’re dating her?” Economos asks.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just making sure this is a consensual situation for everyone involved—”

“You really have a girlfriend?” Harcourt asks again.

“Yes!” Adrian cries. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“Yes,” everyone says in unison.

“Well I do,” he says defensively. “And she likes Pokémon and video games and she loves me very much and we are very happy together!”

“I won’t lie, Vig,” Chris says, “you’re kind of a freak. And I would have expected you to end up with someone who is also a freak. Librarians are like…as normal as they come.”

“She doesn’t care that I’m a freak,” Adrian says. “She thinks I’m endearing.”

“She might be the only person on earth who thinks that.”

“Do you want to come to book club or not?” Adrian asks, annoyed, getting back to the point of the conversation in the first place.

You need program attendees. He’s got four friends with basically no social life and a crap ton of time on their hands. It seemed like a good idea at first, but now he’s not sure he wants to introduce you to any of them, because they’re being fucking mean to him.

Well, maybe he should introduce you anyway. Let them talk shit in front of you; you would probably give them a piece of your mind about it. Like you yelled at that guy who called your coworker a bitch the other day. Adrian had been about to step in when you had gone off on him. You’re so fucking hot when you’re mad.

“You want me to read a book?” Chris asks. “I don’t read books. Books are for nerds.”

“I don’t care if you read the book,” Adrian says. “I care if you show up. It’s a new program, and it means a lot to her, and if it doesn’t get enough attendance, they won’t let her keep doing it.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but. Yeah. I’ll go,” Harcourt says. “I need to see this girl with my own two eyes.”

Chris changes his tune almost instantly.

“If Emilia goes, I guess I’ll come,” he shrugs, trying and failing to be nonchalant. Harcourt rolls her eyes.

“I think we all should go,” Adebayo says. “It actually sounds like fun. We only ever get together and drink. Which is fun, but—we should branch out. I’ll read the book.”

Economos sighs. “Okay. I’m in. What are we reading?”

Adrian beams. “Thank you, guys. She will be really happy.”

A few days later, Adrian is in the woods late on a Tuesday evening, in full Vigilante uniform, shooting up an old dishwasher with Peacemaker.

“You know, man,” he’s saying, “if you really want to work on your emotional intelligence, like you were saying, you should read some romance books. You can learn a lot from those things.”

Chris scoffs, takes a shot that blows right through the center of the dishwasher door. “I highly doubt that.”

“You’re missing out, dude,” Adrian insists. “I’m telling you. I was reluctant too, at first. I’m like, a true crime guy all the way, right? That’s my jam. But I see her reading this book one day, blushing red as a tomato, and I’m like, what the hell are you reading? And—” He starts to laugh. “Oh my god, these book girls and their smutty romance are crazy motherfuckers—I read one page of that thing and it was filthier than any porno I’ve ever watched.”

“No shit?”

“I swear to god. When I get to her apartment and I see her sitting there reading a fantasy romance? I know I’m in for it, man. She’s gonna be horny as fuck, and she reads some of these dark romance books—you will not believe some of the kinky shit she has asked me to try. There’s this one called Lights Out that she made me read, and holy shit, they do this thing with a knife—I don’t think I’ve ever cum that hard in my life—”

He feels his phone buzzing against his waist, the special pattern he set just for texts from you.

“Oh—sorry, hang on, man,” he says. “That’s her, I need to look at this.”

Gang fight outside the library today, in the parking lot. 

I’m okay, so are Dawn and the rest of the staff. But we had to call the cops and file a dozen no trespass orders, and one of the guys said he would “beat my bitchass” and threatened to kill me.

Thought you should know.

He grits his teeth. He knows you love your job. He does. But sometimes he wishes you worked literally anywhere else. Somewhere safer, where he didn’t have to worry if a crazy, dangerous person would walk into the public library and say some outlandish shit to you or do something insane that put your life at risk.

Adrian rips the Vigilante mask off and yanks his gloves off with his teeth so he can type faster, his first message so riddled with typos it’s unreadable because his fingers are shaking with fury. He clenches his fist, takes a deep breath. You’re okay, you told him you were okay.

What’s his name, he types again, slower this time. He doesn’t even include his customary merman emoji, because he’s pissed.

Louis Rossi.

When Adrian smiles, it’s sharp at the edges, cruel and satisfied. Louis Rossi is a dead man walking.

Stay home tonight, he texts you. Make sure your doors and windows are locked. I love you.

♥️ Come over when you’re done. Be safe.

“Hey, dude?” Adrian says, voice tight, and Chris looks at him brow furrowed, and nods for him to continue. “Do you mind if we have a change of plans for tonight?”

“What’s going on?”

“There was a gang fight outside the library today,” he spits. “One of them threatened to kill her. And now they’re all gonna fucking die.”

“Holy shit,” Chris says. “That’s pretty hardcore. Is she okay? Do you need to like, go check on her?”

“She’s okay. She deals with this shit, like, all the time,” Adrian says. “It’s infuriating. People go in there and they think because it’s a public service they can do and say whatever the fuck they want to the staff.”

“That is…really fucked up.”

“I know. I’ve been doing everything I can to kill all the motherfuckers that make their lives hell. I mean—there’s dudes that literally jerk off at the public computers. On like, a weekly basis!” Chris makes a face. “When it’s really bad, like today, she tells me about it, so I can take care of it.”

“Hang on. She knows you’re Vigilante?”

“Well, yeah. Obviously. I don’t keep secrets from her.”

“I was your best friend for years before you told me who you were,” Chris says, almost offended. “Hang on—are you telling me—have you been acting as the local public librarian’s personal assassin?”

Adrian pauses. “I mean. I guess you could say it like that. I put in book requests, she puts in kill requests. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.”

“Dude, those things are not of equal value, like, at all.”

“It’s not important! Look, I normally just take care of it myself, but I figured it would be better to have backup if I’m taking on a whole gang at once. But if you don’t want to help—”

“Okay, okay. Let’s go take care of this, so you can get home to your kinky girlfriend who is apparently just as insane as you are, yeah?”

“Thanks man,” Adrian says gratefully, starting to pack up his ammo and strap his weapons into his utility belt. Chris does the same, then clears his throat.

“...What was the title of that book, again?”

It’s nearing 2 a.m. by the time Adrian and Chris have gotten the job done, made it look like a rival gang shooting, and Adrian has gone home to change, shower, and clean himself up enough to head over to your apartment like you asked. 

He never goes to you directly from patrol; it’s too big a risk. The less chance of you being connected to Vigilante, the better, especially since he’s been directly targeting so many problematic library patrons since your relationship started.

He normally wouldn’t even bother going over to your place this late, but you asked for him to come, and honestly—he needs to see you, after today. He’s been on edge since you texted him about the incident, and even though he knows those people can’t hurt you anymore, that he made sure of it, he needs the reassurance. Even if all he does is crawl into bed with you, cuddle up to you from behind and breathe in the scent of your shampoo, that’s good enough for him. To know you’re safe, watch the rise and fall of your chest, even if you’re sleeping.

When Adrian arrives at your doorstep, though, and opens the door with his spare key, all of your lamps are still on, casting the space in warm light, and the entire apartment is warm, smelling like vanilla and sugar. At the sound of the door, you look up from your spot tucked into the corner of the couch. There’s a blanket and a book in your lap.

“Hi,” you say, smiling. Adrian shuts and locks the door behind him, kicking off his shoes.

“Why the fuck are you still awake?” he asks, not angry, but playful. “You have work in the morning, missy.”

“They gave me the day off,” you say, smiling as you stick a bookmark in your paperback to mark your spot. “After everything that happened today. It was worse than the usual stuff, and I took the brunt of it. The director’s worried about staff burnout, I think.”

Adrian approaches you from behind the couch. You tilt your head back and smile as he leans down to give you an upside-down kiss.

“It’s taken care of,” he says, soft, serious. He brushes your hair out of your face gently. “All of it. All of them.”

“And you’re okay?” you ask, shifting on the couch cushion onto your knees so you can kneel higher and face him head-on, scanning him up and down for injuries. There aren’t any scuffs or scratches you can see, but he’s wearing long sleeves and sweats, so that doesn’t mean anything.

“I’m great,” he grins, arms circling your waist. “The guy who called you a bitch is dead, Peacemaker helped, we had a sick time bonding. And I didn’t even get shot or stabbed, just like I promised!”

“Forgive me if I want to check for myself,” you say, only half teasing as your hands drift under his shirt and across his skin. He shivers, lets your hands roam, and he kisses up your neck and across the edge of your jaw while you feel across his smooth skin for any bumps and bruises.

“It smells good in here,” Adrian murmurs.

“I was doing some baking,” you smile, letting him kiss you again. “I’m gonna bring some treats to book club, I wanted to practice. Want to be my taste-tester?”

“Um, obviously,” he says, following you into the kitchen like a duckling. You hand him a cookie, still warm, off of a baking tray, and he devours half of it in one bite.

“Good?”

“So, so good,” he says with his mouthful, crumbs flying everywhere.

“Consider it a thank you. I’ll box some up and you can bring them to Peacemaker, the next time you see him.” You pull some plastic containers out of the cabinet and start packing them away.

“Actually, I forgot to mention,” Adrian says, still chewing, reaching for another cookie. “He’s gonna come. To the meeting.”

You pause abruptly, incredibly confused, and turn back to your boyfriend. “Peacemaker. Is coming…to book club?”

“Yep! So is everyone else,” Adrian says excitedly, halfway through his second cookie. “You said you needed people to show up! And I know it’s important to you, so I asked my friends to come!”

“Adrian,” you say, suddenly emotional, tears welling up in your eyes, and he starts to panic, dropping his cookie on the counter and brushing the crumbs off his hands onto his sweatshirt. Then his hands fly up to cup your cheeks.

“No! Stop that! Don’t cry. Should I not have done that?” he asks, frantic. “I’ll tell them to fuck off. They don’t have to come. They don’t even read books that much—”

“No,” you interrupt with a wet laugh, wiping at the corners of your eyes. “I just—that was really, really thoughtful of you. Happy tears, baby. Not sad ones.”

“Oh,” he says. “So…I did good?”

“Yes,” you assure him, sniffling a little. “You always do. The best boyfriend ever.”

“Your favorite library patron?” he smiles.

“My favorite library patron.” You start to laugh but it turns into a yawn, and he grins and pulls you in for a hug. You bury your face in his shirt, let him pull you along to bed, shutting off the lights, wrapping you up in blankets, and curling around you like a koala.

You’re asleep in minutes, and Adrian closes his eyes, too, but he lays there awake for a while, thumb pressed against the pulse point in your wrist, letting the steady rhythm soothe him, focusing on the fact that he’s got you here, safe with him. Tomorrow, he’ll call out of work, sleep late with you, wake up to coffee and sleepy kisses, and he lets that dream of the soft morning settle him to sleep.

Adrian hasn’t seen you since this morning, and you had been nervous—you’d been stress-baking cookies all evening on Wednesday, worried about whether people would like the book you chose, hoping enough people would show up to the meeting.

“It’s gonna be great, baby,” he’d reassured you before you left for work. “No matter what, I’m so proud of you. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

Now, he’s feeling almost as nervous as you, piled into Adebayo’s car with the rest of the 11th Street Kids on the way to the inaugural Evergreen Public Library Book Club meeting. 

“Does she actually wear, like, glasses on a chain and a cardigan and shit? Or is that just in the pornos?”

“Really, Chris?” Adebayo says. Adrian’s crammed into the middle of the backseat between Chris and Economos, foot tapping anxiously, and he can see Harcourt rolling her eyes from the passenger seat in the rearview mirror.

“Jesus Christ,” Economos mutters. “This was a mistake.”

Adrian has to agree. God, why did he think this was a good time to introduce you to his friends for the first time?

As soon as Adebayo parks the car and everyone else spills out, Adrian is scrambling out of the car and speedwalking toward the library entrance. The others follow after him. They’re early, but he wants to be. In case you need help setting up, moving chairs or tables, anything he can do to make the night easier for you.

He pauses in the parking lot when he sees a man pissing on the side of the building.

“Hey, asshole, there’s literally a bathroom in the fucking lobby! Put your dick away and get the fuck out of here, you pervert!” he starts ranting. Harcourt grabs him by the back of the shirt and pulls him into the building before he can do anything more.

“I don’t think your girlfriend would appreciate it if you got arrested right before her book club meeting,” she says.

“We can take care of it later, dude,” Chris adds, voice low.

Adrian takes a deep breath, shakes off her hand, and walks into the main floor of the library. It settles him a bit, the familiar environment, the smell of the books, the beeping of the checkout scanners.

“Hey, Adrian,” Dawn says from the circulation desk. Laura pokes her head out from the back office to wave hello as well. They both pause when they see the entourage walking in behind him, looking around curiously. “Hello, there.”

“I brought my friends,” Adrian says. “For book club.”

Dawn’s face softens from confusion to understanding. “She will appreciate that very much, Adrian.”

“I didn’t realize he had any friends,” whispers Laura, obvious surprise lacing her tone. Dawn elbows her in the side.

“They’re in the meeting room upstairs,” Dawn says. “You know where you’re going. Oh—and a book came in for you, whenever the meeting is over.”

Adrian nods. “Thanks, Dawn.”

“Damn. You really are a regular here,” Economos says. “They know you by name and everything.”

“What can I say,” Adrian says, “I’m a memorable guy.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Adebayo says, clapping Adrian on the shoulder. “Come on. Introduce us to your girl.”

Adrian smiles and leads everyone upstairs to the meeting room. You’re absorbed in your work, worrying your bottom lip with your teeth as you lay out refreshments on the conference table, and he knocks on the door frame to get your attention.

“Hey, baby,” he says, and you beam at him.

“Adrian,” you say, practically skipping toward him and throwing your arms around him. “You made it.”

“My god,” Harcourt says. “Fuck me sideways, you weren’t lying, Chase.”

“She is wearing a cardigan—” Chris starts, and Adebayo and Economos tell him to shut up at the exact same time.

You turn your smile on Adrian’s friends. “It’s so nice to meet you all. I’ve heard so much about you, and, god, I can’t thank you enough for coming, it means a lot.”

“Full transparency, I think at least three of us weren’t convinced you were real until right this moment,” Economos says.

“Ignore all of them. Please,” says Adebayo. “I’m Leota. It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

“Do you need help with anything, baby?” Adrian offers. “Moving furniture, or getting anything ready, or—”

“I’m good, honey, thank you,” you smile. “You guys just take a seat, I have to go grab the copies of next month’s book!”

“Where are you sitting?” Adrian asks. “I want to sit next to you.”

You drop your water bottle and your copy of the book, annotated with sticky notes, at an empty chair. “Right here. I’ll be back soon. We’ll be getting started in twenty minutes or so.” You press a kiss to his cheek.

They all watch you go, then everyone turns to stare at Adrian.

“What?” he asks.

“Dude. She’s like, hot,” Chris says.

“And nice,” Adebayo says.

“And normal,” Harcourt adds.

“And real,” Economos finishes.

Adrian just crosses his arms, smug, and pulls out a seat for himself at the table.

“I fucking told you.”

You’re back two minutes later, rolling in a cart of books, talking excitedly with a couple library patrons that are also there for the book club meeting. As everyone starts chatting books, Adrian is surprised to see that all of his friends actually did read the book, and in fact have some strong opinions about it.

“I thought it was great,” John says. “I mean, is it a literary masterpiece? Absolutely not. But highly entertaining.”

“I know what you mean,” you laugh. “I had a good time too, and I will probably recommend this to a lot of people, but it’s not going on any all-time favorites lists.”

Adebayo has some really thoughtful contributions to the discussion too, even though she thought the book was just okay, and Harcourt tacks on to her comments with her own additions that inspire others in the room to speak up, too. With that, the room devolves into detailed conversation, and Adrian sits there, mostly quiet, with a tiny, proud smile on his face as he watches you lead the discussion, completely in your element. 

Chris does make one idiotic comment, but one glare from Harcourt has him shutting the fuck up before the conversation heads too far off the rails. Adrian, unfortunately, didn’t like the book very much, which he is honest about when you ask, and while he couldn’t exactly explain it was because he didn’t think the murder scenes were realistic enough, he did piece together a sentence or two that sounded intelligent, at least enough so that his friends look at him like he’s grown a second head.

“I’m so glad you could all make it tonight,” you say as the meeting starts to wrap up. “I would love to have you back, and if any of you have requests for specific books, or types of books we read in the future, I would love to hear them.”

“Some sci-fi would be fun,” John suggests. “I’ve got a couple favorite authors in mind, I can email you a list.”

“I’d like to read some romance,” Chris says, and everyone stares at him.

“Really?” Harcourt asks, disbelieving.

“Listen. Adrian told me to read this one called—what was it? Lights Out? And I started listening the audiobook, and oh, man, that shit is crazy—”

You give Adrian a look, eyes wide. He shrugs.

“I mean, it was crazy, babe—”

“Okay,” you say, bewildered. “I guess I’ll add it to the list.”

Everyone starts to filter out soon after that. The group has been chatting so long, it’s near closing time. Adrian and his friends stick around to help you clean up refreshments and put the furniture back where it belongs so you can finish the last of your closing duties.

“Be honest,” you say quietly to Adrian as you box up leftover cookies. “How do you think it went?”

He stops and looks at you, then glances at his friends who are joking and moving chairs around.

“Everyone had a great time,” he says, lowering his voice. “I’ve never seen Harcourt talk that much in one sitting, honestly. You made miracles happen tonight.” You smile, just a bit. “I’m proud of you, baby.”

“Thank you,” you say softly. “For all of your help. With…everything.”

The word is loaded. He knows exactly what you mean. Whether it’s vigilante shit or book club, he’s always going to be there for whatever you need.

“Good luck getting rid of me,” he jokes. “I’m planning to stay your favorite library patron until I die.”

“You’re my favorite everything,” you say, leaning in for a quick kiss, but Adrian grabs you by the neck and holds you there longer, kisses you deeper, smiles against your mouth until he feels you smiling back.

“Come on,” you say. “Your hold came in. The one about narwhals? Why the hell did you request a narwhal book, anyway?”

“So I could prove to Ads that they’re not real.”

“Adrian…”

“Um…Chase, your - your mouth?” you attempted but he waved you off, his focus locked onto you like a hapless puppy. 

“Who cares! I want to hear more about me doing better than everyone else,” he chirped.

“Well, I didn’t say better than everyone else…”

“It’s okay. You can say it. They’re basically asleep anyway.”

“Fuck you, Adrian,” Ads groaned from where her head was nestled in her arms on the table.

“Your traction has gone up considerably with the, um, 18-40 demographic?” 

That was enough to grab everyone’s attention. Adrian, however, seemed perplexed. And perhaps, if you were reading his furrowed brow correctly, disappointed? 

“Oh,” he said simply, slumping back into his chair. 

“Oh?” Chris echoed. “Every chick 18-40 wants to bang you and all you can say is ‘oh’?”

“Actually, it’s not just the female-identified base…”

Adrian’s head whipped back to you. “Wait a minute? Is ‘traction’ code for ‘everyone wants to bang me’?”

“Well, no,” you clarified. “Not everyone. But…a lot of them…yes.”

“It’s my cool moves, isn’t it?” Adrian said, angling his chin up slightly. He was preening like a goddamn bird that Fleury wouldn’t be able to recognize.

You cleared your throat and suddenly found the tablet in your hand very interesting. “It’s uh…it’s the mask, mostly. I’ve gathered. From my…research.”

You didn’t want to have to explain exactly how that research had been conducted. You were still trying to forget the depravity of r/Vigilante.

“Sounds kind of…kinky,” Adebayo parsed quietly. 

“Anyway, kink aside, it is boosting Checkmate’s branding significantly. So keep being sexy, I guess?”

Harcourt choked on her coffee. “Jesus Christ.”

“Speaking of Jesus and further proof he doesn’t exist,” you plowed ahead, swiping on your tablet. “Peacemaker and Harcourt are also doing numbers.” 

“Well, of course I’m doing well, I'm the titular superhero,” Chris said, crossing his impossibly broad arms over his chest. 

“Peacemaker is the titular superhero of…Checkmate?” John asked, barely suppressing a shit-eating grin. You knew you were approximately 60 seconds from losing the group altogether down yet another linguistic rabbit hole. There was at least one of those a week, sometimes several if you were particularly unlucky. You’d started building “tangent time” into all meetings after your second month.

“Yes,” Chris replied simply. 

“Dude, I don’t think you know what titular means,” Adrian chimed in. Harcourt rolled her eyes.

“Oh good, now Adrian is offering grammatical advice,” she drawled.

“What? How am I wrong on this?” Chris asked, genuinely perplexed.

Economos sighed. “If this company were named Peacemaker Inc or whatever the fuck, that would make you titular. As in, in the title.”

“I don’t think that’s right, but whatever, what do I know?” Chris said sarcastically and you bit your tongue to keep yourself from intervening on telling him exactly what he didn’t know. These last few months had been a real crash course in managing personalities. Somehow more than any of your work before. Actors and politicians and conglomerates had never been quite so difficult.

“Well, also I should have clarified. You two are doing well together. As an…entity,” you managed to finally interject into the general cacophony of the table. 

Harcourt glared at you. “Please tell me ‘entity’ doesn’t mean what I think it means?”

You swallowed hard, your throat suddenly tight. You turned over how to spin it in your mind. You certainly weren’t about to tell Emilia Harcourt that people were drawing fanart of her and Peacemaker kissing all over the internet. “I…think…that…people have taken an interest in your dynamic as a…duo. And they are…speculating…about what your interpersonal dynamic is.”

“You’re a good bullshitter but I’m going to need you to do better than that,” Harcourt replied.

“It’s not her fault that even dweebs on the internet can sense your palpable sexual chemistry,” Adebayo chimed in with a grin. Luckily Chris was too busy eyeing Harcourt with open want to bother pulling your chain much more. You moved on expeditiously before Harcourt could go on her well trodden path about the evils of social media. 

“Adebayo! Your charitable work is doing great numbers, your personal, not quite as strong,” you said, referring down to the spreadsheet you’d been compiling. “I think people just don’t have a sense of you.” 

“That’s okay. I don’t need to be a poster child for all this,” she replied, gesturing vaguely at the absolute chaos around the table. “I just want to help people.”

You caught her eye and nodded firmly. You knew she was reticent to be so public facing after the conference she’d held after their first big mission. The one that kind of blew everything up, putting them all on the map in some capacity - for better or worse. So you wouldn’t push - Adebayo had become a friend and in this line of work you had to look out for friends where you could find them. 

A glance down at your meeting notes indicated you were almost through - you could practically taste the almond croissant you were so close to enjoying the second it was over. You kept going, “Noted. Bordeaux, Lane called from The Daily Planet asking about doing a front page story on you, and I figured it could be some good rep? She and I go way back, so we can trust her not to dogpile you with some kind of gotcha journalism, but she means business and she isn’t going to take it easy on you. You’ll need to bring your A game. Thoughts?”

“Any journalist not afraid to take down Lex Luthor is cool with me,” Sasha replied.

You nodded. “Great, we’ll get it on the books. John, that tech conference reached out again? Have you changed your mind?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” he replied with a middle finger salute, but you knew better than to take it personally. You’d been cutting him slack ever since he saved your ass rescuing content from a hard drive that had been damaged in the field. (Note to self: hard drives are not bulletproof and Adrian will insist you’re no longer allowed in the field.) You gave him a middle finger right back and he smiled.

“Rip, do you know what ‘edits’ are?” you asked, casting one someone had made of Superman to the song “Starman” by David Bowie to the screen. Rip crossed his arms over his chest and rolled his eyes. 

“Girl.”

“Right, sorry, forgot you’re basically addicted to TikTok,” you muttered under your breath. Adrian laughed just a little too loudly and you swallowed down a slight smile. 

“Cheetos wants to do their very own Judomaster collab edit,” you announced with a proud smile. Rip sat up in his seat.

“Are you fucking with me right now?” he asked. 

“Rip, you know I would never joke about something so sacred,” you said seriously. “There’s a PR package on your desk.”

“I’m sorry for ever doubting you. I worship at your altar,” Rip said. You gave him a slight bow.

“Great,” you exhaled, clutching your tablet to your chest. “Any questions?”

“What about my numbers?” Fleury asked, startling you. You’d forgotten he was even there. You pretended to scroll furiously on your tablet already knowing the answer was that he didn’t register with the populace (or you, apparently) at all, but you didn’t really want to hurt his feelings. 

You wrenched your gaze up from your screen and gave a thumbs up. “Keep up the good work, Fleury.”

“I knew it,” he whispered as he pumped his fist.

Before you could even properly get out the words, the meeting room cleared in a blizzard of grabbed pastries and cups of coffee passed from one hand to another. 

“Good meeting, boss!” Adrian cheered from behind you. You spun around and Adrian’s grimacing face matched yours. You both shook your heads. “Nope, not right. I could feel it the second I said it. I’m going to keep trying though.”

You couldn’t help but laugh. You also couldn’t help but notice the way Adrian’s smile widened when you did. “It’s okay. Really! I’ve never been much of a nickname person, anyway.”

“But then how will you know you belong?” Adrian asked so earnestly you were sure your heart stopped beating for a second. “For example, Economos is Econogoat, right?”

“Questionable nickname, but sure…”

“And people call me Vij, and sometimes Ade, and Ads is Ads.”

You stifled a laugh and nodded. “Mhmm.”

“So…?”

“Oh, what, you’ve moved past ‘camera girl’?” you teased, but you couldn’t help the slight catch in your throat at the sight of Adrian’s fallen expression. “Such a shame, I really liked that one.”

“Chris says I was a dick to you, you do know I’m sorry, right?”

“Chris is right about very few things but he is right about that one,” you replied. You hated the doe-eyed frown that resulted. You nudged him with your elbow before you resumed gathering your stuff on the table. “But I do know how sorry you are. Mostly because you tell me every other day.”

He started stacking empty coffee cups at the other end of the table, lingering the way he always did after meetings now. He was doing that thing again - when you knew he was play acting at being casual, but the man didn’t have a casual bone in his body. “Hey, so, do you think you’re gonna come out for drinks with everyone tonight?” 

You winced, thankful your back was to him. Nearly every Friday was drinks at a local spot. And you hadn’t gone to a single one. In the months you had now worked for Checkmate. You knew how it probably seemed to everyone else. But it wasn’t that at all - you wanted to. You really did. You’d just…never really been a part of a workplace where people actually wanted to be friends. And they’d all been friends for so much longer, bound together by near-death experiences, and bonding in the field and saving the goddamn planet. You weren’t sure there was a way to slip into a picture like that and not mess up the whole image.

“Oh shoot, I don’t think I can tonight. I have…I have a date,” you lied through your fucking teeth. A date with my couch, you thought.

“Oh!” Adrian said, seeming surprised. His posture straightened slightly and it was his turn to nudge you with his elbow - except when he did it, it fucking hurt. “So, who’s the lucky guy? Or, oh shit, sorry, girl? I don’t want to presume. Ads says I shouldn’t project heteronormativity onto people - which, I really usually don’t! I swear. My dad’s gay. So.”

“Just some dude from Hinge,” you said, trying to keep the lie simple. Less webs to get tangled up in later on. Of course, Adrian Chase did not understand the concept of simple.

“What’s he like? And also what’s his full government name - like, just in case? And also do you know his address? If not, full government name will do. I’m not going to…stalk him or anything. I just need to know. In case your body is, like, found face down in the river tomorrow or something.”

“Hey, Adrian? What the fuck?” you asked in disbelief. “Let’s not manifest my death, perhaps?”

“Uh, it’s called being prepared.”

“You’re catastrophizing, and it’s freaking me out,” you muttered.

“Well, it’s not like you’re never going to die!” he argued, tossing his hands up. You sighed a sigh that was dredged from somewhere deep within your soul. Many things had changed in the past few months, but Adrian Chase was not one of them. The only difference was now he liked you - you suspected there was a chance you’d surpassed Rip in the friendship rankings at last, but Adrian had neither confirmed nor denied.

“I’m not going to tell you this guy’s name so you can stalk him, Adrian,” you said finally. Well, that, and because, of course, he did not exist.

“I just said I’m not going to stalk him. I’m starting to think you don’t listen to me sometimes,” he moped. You grinned, unable to resist the bait as he followed you out into the hallway.

“Sorry, did you say something?”

You were freshly showered and sprawled out on the couch with no plans but eating a bunch of junk food and watching garbage television so you could fully turn your brain off. Or, at least, make an attempt. Unfortunately, you never really could turn your brain all the way off. Something work-related always managed to find a way in. 

But then, there was the sound of something at your front door: the knob turning with its distinctive scrape that you’d never gotten around to texting your landlord about and the sound of your front door slowly opening. Footsteps approached down the hall and you were, once again in the face of imminent danger, completely frozen. Your first thought was, oh my god, they are gonna find me face down in the river tomorrow. I can’t believe fucking Adrian Chase was right.

Your second thought came out of your mouth at the same time you managed to finally do something, “Adrian?”

He caught the remote you’d chucked at him with alarming ease.

“Oh, hey!” he said calmly, with a lift of his eyebrows. But you could tell he was full of shit by the quick rise and fall of his shoulders as he caught his breath and tried to act like he hadn’t been, what - running? It was almost like he was surprised to see you in your own living room. The kind of delighted surprise of when you run into a friend at the grocery store. The oddity of it all almost tricked your brain into thinking: right, of course Adrian is here in my living room. That was the great con of Adrian Chase - he was so disarming it sometimes made you question your own sanity. And worse still, he wasn’t even doing it on purpose. 

“Uh, hey Adrian, what the fuck?” you gasped. He was a little busy looking at your legs. You snapped your fingers and his gaze latched back onto you. “Hello?”

“Your legs are so shiny,” he said quietly. 

“I just moisturized - sorry, again I ask - what the fuck are you doing here?” 

“Oh I’m here to take you to the bar!” Adrian grinned. 

“Adrian, I’m not going to the bar.”

“You said you had a date but then I looked at your location and I saw you were still at home and I was like well that’s weird! And then I thought your date probably cancelled - not that I can imagine anyone ever canceling on you but why else would you be sitting at home at prime date time - and that you were probably bored and that I should come pick you up.”

Your brain still hadn’t quite jolted out of there’s a stranger breaking into my apartment and into the weird, contorted comfort of seeing Adrian. You would have been more perturbed by Adrian’s absolute misuse of the agency’s tracking system if 1) he hadn’t already done that to you before, and 2) you were stuck on something else.

“Wait, how did you get in?”

“You have a key under your mat.”

“Well, not anymore,” you mumbled to yourself. You crossed your arms over your chest. “You can’t just be breaking into people’s apartments, Adrian.”

“It’s not breaking in if you have the key,” he said, clearly confused. You groaned and slid down the couch until you had practically sunk straight to the floor. For some unexplainable reason that was where you needed to be. 

“Adrian, you stole the key from under my mat.”

“Uh, I feel like if it’s just out in the open it’s not stealing. Besides, isn’t it for emergencies? This felt like an emergency,” he said simply. Somehow, the point was sailing straight past him. You might have been touched by the idea that he thought you being stood up was an emergency, if it hadn’t also involved him busting into your apartment and scaring the shit out of you.

He continued, shifting his weight slightly. “Actually, maybe I should keep the spare. Just in case.”

You sighed and held your hand out towards him, palm up. “Chase.”

He rolled his eyes and then finally came closer, pressing the key into your awaiting hand. He folded your fingers around the warm metal. And then, inexplicably, he sat down on the edge of your couch.

“Are you okay? Is this about your date cancelling on you?”

“It’s not about - 

“I read somewhere that it’s better to be around people when you’re feeling big feelings. I dunno how true that is, but I think we should try it,” Adrian interjected. You dropped your head onto the coffee table with a decisive thud. You knew you should just be honest - you lied because it was easier than saying the strange truth out loud. That you didn’t know how to be wanted.

“Adrian…” you groaned.

“All your drinks are on me?”

You sat up and looked at him. “Deal.”

“It’s a little on the nose for the team, isn’t it?” you asked, staring up at the flickering neon sign for the bar. The Gunner. 

“What do you mean?” Adrian asked, staring back at you blankly, his breath a small white burst in the freezing night air. You cocked your head slightly, waiting for him to process. The moment did not come.

“Like…” You lifted your hands up, fingers bright red from the cold, and made finger guns and pointed them straight at Adrian’s chest. “You guys spend like all day with guns, and then you choose the one bar in Evergreen that’s called that?”

“Oh, yeah,” he agreed with a slight nod of his head. But he did not laugh. The night was not off to a roaring success. “That is kind of funny.”

You frowned and pressed your finger guns against Adrian’s jacket. “Bang, you’re dead.”

His mouth slipped into a wide grin and he just stared down at you for a long, quiet moment. “You’re kind of a fucking weirdo, aren’t you?”

You rolled your eyes. “Ha. So original. So funny.” But Adrian still looked at you in such a peculiar way, like he was considering his next words. That was very un-Adrian of him. You shifted your weight nervously. 

“C’mon. If you’re going to drag me out of my apartment you’re going to make it worth my while.”

“Holy shit!” Adebayo cheered before the two of you had even finished crossing the threshold. She snatched a beer from Chris’s hands and met you two by the door. She pressed the cold beer into your hands and beamed at you. “Please tell me Adrian did not physically kidnap you to get you here.”

You chuckled. “No kidnapping required. Just some good old fashioned peer pressure.”

The three of you joined the group around a tall table and you slid the beer back to Chris. He started to protest but you waved him off. “Please, my tab is going firmly on the credit card of one Adrian Chase.”

Adrian leaned over and murmured in your ear, “I, uh, actually don’t have a credit card. Because of the whole secret identity and everything.”

You turned your head to give him a look. “Adrian.”

He pushed his glasses up. “Is this going to be one of those times that you tell me I’m being pedantic again?”

You nodded slowly and he rolled his eyes. “Well, sorry, for trying to be factually accurate!”

“Adrian, why don’t you go get the girl a drink?” Ads offered with a less than subtle elbow into Adrian’s side. He nodded and took off without even asking what you’d like, but frankly, you’d take nearly anything to take the edge off.

“So, Adrian broke into my apartment tonight,” you supplied, leaning your elbows on the high top. Chris snorted over his beer and Harcourt sighed.

“Yeah, he does that sometimes,” she said with a pointed look at Chris. Chris shrugged. 

“That’s just Adrian,” Chris said, somewhat defensively. 

“One time he took my pants off and laundered them while I was passed out,” John muttered. 

“That’s…”

“Unhinged?” John supplied.

“Deranged?” Harcourt offered.

You couldn’t help but laugh. “Both. And also kind of sweet?”

Chris leaned over the table until he was eye level with you. “Speaking of pants…”

Adebayo punched him in the arm. “Chris, do not!”

“Don’t what?” Adrian chimed in, slipping between you and John, making an Adrian-sized space where there wasn’t one before. He put three beers down in front of you and only one in front of himself and you raised an eyebrow at him.

“I thought maybe I’d get you an espresso martini since you have a serious - and kind of concerning - caffeine addiction,” he started, with a gesture towards the beers in front of you, “but the bartender told me to fuck off, so, I guess they don’t make those here. I didn’t know what kind of beer you like but I brought options.”

You tilted your chin up at him and studied the frantic, wide-eyed way in which he was looking at you. It should have been disconcerting, the ways in which he concerned himself with you, but instead it made you feel sort of warm. And you hadn’t even had any alcohol to blame it on. Was this what it was to finally make a work friend?

You picked up the closest beer, tapped the rim of Adrian’s glass with your own and chugged the entire thing in one go. Chris cheered the entire way and Adrian’s eyes were locked right onto you. You came up for air, gasping, wiping beer foam from your lip and Adrian smiled - something kind of blinding and all consuming and you could only smile back. 

Considering the sour ale taste at the back of your throat, your smile converted to a grimace. “Okay that one was disgusting.”

“Dude, just show her the texts,” Chris sighed, raking a hand over his face. Adebayo, John and Harcourt had all gone off to the bathroom together, leaving you alone with Chris and Adrian. Come to think of it, Adrian hadn’t left your side again since his first drink run. He’d been in the middle of explaining several things he’d seen at work during the day that he’d wanted to tell you about, but you’d been stuck in meetings most of the day.

“I…don’t know what you’re talking about!” Adrian replied through gritted teeth. His eyes darted about nervously, like he was planning an escape route. 

Your brow furrowed. “What texts?”

Chris reached around Adrian with one strong arm and pulled his phone from his grasp. Adrian scrambled for it but Chris unlocked it with ease and opened Adrian’s Notes app before tossing it to you. You looked down at the phone in your hands and your brain tried to make sense of what you were looking at. But utterly devoid of context and a few beers deep your brain was swimming against the current.

“What am I looking at?” you asked as you kept scrolling. Memes, links to articles about various topics - some crime, some celebrity news, one seemingly about seahorse migration? - and fragments of text. Things that didn’t really seem to make any sense at all together, but had a weird kind of familiarity to it. At the very bottom of the (long) note, you read: 

hey hope you’re having fun on your date! but don’t have too much fun if you know what i mean do u own pepper spray btw?

You looked up at Adrian, still squinting in focus, and found him watching you intently. 

“Every time I want to text you something I put it in here instead,” he said simply. “You never gave me your number, so.”

You stared at him for a long moment, trying to parse through the peculiarity of it all before you looked back at the phone in your hand and opened his contacts. Adrian reached for the phone but you brushed him aside. 

“Oh, uh, hold on, wait!”

But you didn’t get very far because there, at the top of his contacts was: ✨🧜‍♂️ Camera Girl 🧜‍♂️✨You held the phone up towards him with a frown. “I thought you said I never gave you my number.”

“I said you never gave it to me. I didn’t say I didn’t have it,” he scoffed. 

You laughed. You couldn’t help it. The whole thing was so, so absurd. Just a few months ago Adrian was perfectly content to insult you to your face and now he was scared to send you a text. You might have been smug about it, but instead it just made you a little bit sad and you weren’t totally sure why.

“You can text me, Adrian,” you said with a slight wince. You knew you were maybe opening the floodgates. 

“I can?” he asked, strangely breathless. You studied the features of his handsome face, the way his eyes had sparked a new fire in them. Oh god, you were going to regret it, weren’t you?

You nodded tightly. “Yes.”

“Okay,” he said. He smiled crookedly. “Cool. Cool cool cool.”

Adebayo returned only to drag Adrian with her to the bar to help transport another round of drinks. You joined the conversation John and Harcourt were having but felt your phone vibrate in your pocket. Your screen glowed in your palm, one unread text message on display.

Unknown Number: hey 🧜‍♂️ 

You looked up and found Adrian grinning at you from across the bar. He gave you a slight wave and you shook your head in disbelief but waved back anyway. Panic crossed his face suddenly and he looked down, his face cast in the blue-light glow of his phone. Your phone vibrated again.

Unknown Number: it’s Adrian btw 

“Do people really think I’m sexy?” Adrian asked suddenly, perched on the edge of your desk. You’d given him a slinky and it had managed to silence him for approximately two minutes.

“‘Sexy’, ‘hot’...other things I’m not going to repeat. You would not believe what my eyes have seen on the internet, Adrian Chase,” you replied, amused, picking up your most-definitely cold cup of coffee.

“Do you think I’m sexy?”

You spit your coffee back into the cup rather ungracefully. You couldn’t say you had ever thought Adrian Chase would be asking you that question. Truthfully, you were uncertain how to answer. It wasn’t like it’d never crossed your mind. Adoring fans on Tumblr were one thing, but you’d seen Vigilante in action in goddamn real life. And better still, you’d had the bizarre pleasure of getting to know the weird, kinda sweet dork behind the mask. Denizens of the internet, eat your heart out.

So, you decided to be honest. Sort of. “Vigilante is sexy, yes.”

“But not me?” Adrian asked, blinking slowly, his head cocked in that way he sometimes did when he was trying to truly understand something.

“I didn’t say that,” you replied, finding yourself oddly uncollected. You didn’t know how to discuss this without offending him, but also without giving him the wrong idea. Because you and Adrian Chase were never going to happen.

A genuine grin spread across his lips. “So you do think I’m sexy?”

You let out a laugh and looked down, realizing suddenly as you gazed at your lap that your knees were awfully close together. You dragged your gaze back up to his face and you watched his expression shift from something you feared was resembling adoration back to his version of neutral.

“I think you’re something else entirely, Adrian Chase,” you said. It was an admission, of sorts. And it was also the truth. How could you possibly put a single adjective on the tornado of a human being that was the man standing before you? He smiled tightly, but mercifully seemed to move on.

“How do they know I’m hot or whatever if they don’t even know what I actually look like?” he asked suddenly.

“You’re a faceless vigilante in a skin tight suit, of course they think you’re sexy. They can project whatever they want onto you. And that’s with you publicly being wanted for murder. Imagine all the dropped panties if they saw you saving a kitten from a tree or something!”

You turned back to your monitor - you owed the Park Service team at Olympic National Park a feature on Eagly by the end of the day. Adrian had actually had a few helpful comments at the beginning, but it had quickly devolved into a disarray of questionably accurate animal facts. 

“We could do that.”

“We could do what?”

“Save a kitten from a tree. Or…I don’t know…something…cute. I don’t know! You’re the genius here, you’ll come up with something good.”

You must have stared at him in disbelief because he continued, “It would get Checkmate some good buzz, and you’d come across like super smart and savvy and I’d get people wet? I think it sounds good for us all.”

“You’d really be down for that?”

“For you? I’d be down for anything.”

“Why’d you delete that post of Judomaster?” Adrian asked, a peculiar lilt to his tone. As it turned out, strolling the streets of Evergreen looking for something good was harder than it seemed.

“What?”

“Was it because he’s a little demon twink?” Adrian asked, turning around so he could walk backwards in front of you.

“First of all, where did you even learn that phrase? Second of all, no, I deleted it because someone kept spamming the comments saying his logo just looks like someone splashed cum on his chest and I was getting annoyed.”

“I mean…it does,” Adrian replied simply. “Is he not a demon twink?”

You laughed so sharply it also caused you to snort. You could see Adrian’s eyes crinkling with a grin even through the red visor of his mask. “I thought you and Rip were finally getting along?”

“We’ll never get along,” he said seriously. His eyes narrowed. “Not really.”

“And why’s that?” you asked, genuinely curious.

“Because he knocked me out one time and then my balls got electrocuted and my pinky toe got cut off!” he exclaimed.

“You’re missing a pinky toe?” you asked, trying to take that very seriously. It was so very Adrian to not let something like that go - no matter how many times he’d been punched, shot or stabbed.

Adrian looked down and kicked at a small pebble. “Well, no. I still have my pinky toe. But I almost lost it and that’s what matters.”

He looked back at you and groaned. Clearly you were not doing a great job at masking your amusement. “It was very stressful!”

“Hey, I believe you,” you said breezily, lifting your hands up in defense. 

“You’re a real sick freak, you know that?” Adrian chastised. You were hard pressed to take it seriously. “Torture is so not funny.”

“What about when you’re doing it?” you asked.

He paused and seemed to give it genuine consideration. “I don’t torture. Usually. I kill. There’s a difference.”

You smiled tightly and tried to consider it in the way you imagined Adrian did. You’d spent enough time around him to understand that to him, killing quickly and efficiently was the more moral thing to do. Torture prolonged the inevitable. A small part of you longed for the days when the things you had to consider looked more like Meyers or Colbert? and less murder or torture?

Unfortunately, you were too wrapped up in your thoughts to side-step the rather large hole in the concrete and you promptly ate shit.

Or, you would have, had Adrian’s fast reflexes not clicked into place and his arms not wrapped around your waist tightly. 

“Holy shit!” you yelped, your fingers clawing at his armor for leverage. You were safe and secure but still basically perpendicular to the ground and you couldn’t help the feeling he’d let go and send your ass straight to the concrete. As if he could read your mind, he stood upright, hauling you with him and planting you straight back onto your feet. But he didn’t let go and, in fact, his hands drifted to your hips.

“You really can’t take me anywhere, can you?” you managed through laughter. 

The look on Adrian’s face, even through the visor, was one of consternation. You patted your palm against his chest plate. “I’m fine. Seriously. Consider me another citizen of Evergreen saved. Vigilante, my hero.”

Adrian’s eyes darted back and forth across your face and his gloved fingers pressed firmer into your skin. Oh. He liked being called a hero. His eyes widened and he released you from his firm grip suddenly and took a step back.

“I have an idea,” he bounced nervously on his toes. “Gimme your phone.”

Like you were positively possessed, you handed Adrian your phone and posed at his side when he ushered you closer to take a picture. He handed you back the phone and you were still laughing as you looked at the photo. You’d both tossed up a peace sign - Peacemaker would love that one. Maybe you’d get it framed for his desk. “Unfortunately, we cannot just post me on the Instagram, Adrian. 

“Why not? It’s a good face. A great face, even,” he said with absolutely zero sense of irony. You ignored the heat that was crawling up your neck.

“Well, thanks. But that’s not really how things are done. We post this and someone recognizes me and then is like ‘wow, so they’re faking content’ and then what?”

“We are kind of faking content, aren’t we?” Adrian asked innocently.

“No, we’re merely looking for a convenient opportunity,” you corrected with a cheeky grin. “Besides, if you’re going to fake content the whole point is to not get caught.”

“Okay,” he said seriously, with a firm nod. He took your phone again and then held the camera high, posing in the same way. Only this time he moved his peace sign-making hand to directly cover your face. You barely managed to keep it together for the photo, certain you were more of a blurry form than anything else, but Adrian seemed satisfied.

You were still laughing, even as he opened Instagram, humming quietly to himself. He flipped to the Checkmate profile and opened a story, typing furiously atop the photo you’d just taken.

“Another…thankful…citizen…rescued…on…the…streets…of…Evergreen. Face covered for privacy reasons. Obviously,” he narrated. “Hashtag agirlwalkshomealoneatnight.”

“You can’t hashtag it that,” you laughed, reaching for your phone.

“And why not?” Vigilante protested, holding the phone high above your head. You were not going to indulge him. “It’s like a PSA.”

“It’s also the name of a movie from 2015, Adr - Vigilante,” you at least remembered to correct yourself.

“It is? What’s it about?” he asked, distracted enough to lower his arms. You took the phone back and moved a few paces away as you cleaned up his typos. Tactical gloves weren’t exactly easy to type in.

“Uh, it’s sort of about this girl who looks like a young innocent woman but really she’s a vampire and she preys on bad guys. I mean, there’s more to it than that but you’d just kind of have to see it,” you replied, distracted by your impulse to delete the imperfection. Normally you wouldn’t post something like this at all, but you felt an argument could be made for a kind of…Instagram Takeover charm. It was spontaneous. It was candid. It was a kind of unpolished insight that people would eat right up. Vigilante: fun and relatable.

“Does she fight crime? Because I would totally fight crime if I was a vampire.”

You looked up at Adrian, catching your own expression in the reflective red visor. “You already fight crime.”

“Oh. Yeah. Good point!”

A notification popped up before you could even close out of Instagram.

adebangyo: adrian give the phone back right now!!!! checkmatehq: don’t worry, phone is safely back in the proper hands adebangyo: girl… adebangyo: why’s this kind of cute? adebangyo: i’m screenshotting adebangyo: saving for later adebangyo: 🙂

“Why are you smiling like that?”

Another notification popped up. 

mrsvigilante: OMG and he’s funny??? 😭❤️🤤 mrsvigilante: who’s the girl tho 😵‍💫😡

Your head snapped up as you pocketed the phone. You were sure your smile was gone now. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. I don’t like it when you smile at your phone like that. A phone shouldn’t make you smile. I should make you smile.”

You nudged his shoulder with yours and grinned, wide and false at him. “Happy?”

Adrian winced. “Ew. No. Your face looks all weird like that. Stop!”

You widened your eyes, fake grin spreading. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re freaking me out!”

“Good.” You stopped smiling and enjoyed the slightly frantic pant of Adrian’s chest. Then you promptly cleared that thought right out of your brain. “And for the record, Vig. Never tell a woman to smile.”

“I mean, I’m pretty sure I was actually telling you not to smile,” he argued. 

“Wow, so you just like telling women what to do with their bodies, hm?” you taunted. 

“Fucking excuse you, I’m a feminist!”

You could feel your phone vibrating repeatedly in your pocket but you just smiled at Adrian (a real one this time) and ignored it.

“Would you kill a vampire?” you asked as your eyes drifted from the movie to Adrian sitting beside you. Adrian hadn’t forgotten about your little A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night anecdote, and had bothered you for two weeks straight about coming over to watch it with you.

“I think the preferred term is a Dracula.”

You nearly choked on your popcorn. “What?”

“I think vampires prefer to be called Draculas.”

“What? I mean, first of all…no they don’t? They’re fictional. And second of all, Dracula is a specific vampire, not like a whole species. He’s just some guy!”

“Ha! Okay, and, I’m about to be sarcastic here: whatever you say,” he said with a wink. You rolled your eyes at him.

“You really are an idiot sometimes, you know that, Chase?”

“Yeah but you hang out with me anyway so, what does that make you?” he replied with a sort of waggle of his head. 

“Oh definitely also an idiot,” you laughed. “But at least I can admit it.”

“That’s actually a really easy thing to admit. You’ve got like, a million and a half secrets - admit one of those to me right now.”

“Why the fuck would I do that?”

“Uh, because we’re friends? And friends tell each other secrets, right?” he asked like he himself wasn’t actually certain. “Like, for example, I have a secret room in my mom’s basement where I keep all my Vigilante stuff and there’s like…a lot of cocaine in there.”

“Why do you have a lot of cocaine?”

“What else am I supposed to do with it after I break up a drug ring?” he asked in a tone of voice that he implied he thought you might be stupid. You didn’t know what to do with that information at all. “Okay now it’s your turn.”

“I don’t have any secrets,” you said simply, ignoring him and turning back to the movie. He huffed and grabbed the bowl of popcorn from your lap. You protested faintly until you looked at Adrian holding the bowl to his chest and rapidly shoveling popcorn into his mouth.

“Popcorn penalty until you tell me a secret,” he said, mouth full, and popcorn spilling all over your couch.

“Okay, okay! Um…oh, Harcourt has been teaching me to shoot!” you admitted. It was true, you’d taken her up on her offer. You didn’t need to be out in the field, and frankly, it was better for everyone if you weren’t, but you thought it might behoove you to at least learn the basics. 

Adrian chewed slowly and then swallowed. A frown pulled at his lips. “I already knew that.”

“What?” you gasped. “How? I didn’t tell anyone and I know for a fact Harcourt didn’t tell you that.”

“Oh, yeah, no, I knew because you stopped wincing at the sound of gunfire so much. And also, every time you two come back you smell like gunpowder. Seemed kind of obvious to me,” he said simply. You leaned forward and dropped your forehead onto his shoulder, giving up.

“You’re kind of terrifying sometimes, Adrian,” you admitted. Up so close you could feel, rather than hear, him inhale sharply.

“But you’re not scared of me, right?”

You lifted your head to look at him, feeling guilt wrenching at you with the tender and quiet way he asked the question. He was so close, your knee pressed against his hip, and suddenly you found that your answer to the question had changed.

“Of course I’m not scared of you,” you lied with a smile. Adrian’s eyes searched yours for a moment but if he detected the falsehood he didn’t press. You grabbed the popcorn bowl from his lap and made for the kitchen to refill. You didn’t have to turn to know that he followed close behind. He leaned up against the counter as you tossed another bag into the microwave.

"You should let me teach you to throw knives," he suggested like it was a normal, casual statement to be making. Though, you supposed, for Adrian it was. 

"Why?"

"Because Harcourt gets to teach you something and you guys are barely even friends!"

"Okay, bold claim to be making right now..."

"Also throwing knives is sick as hell and I think you'd probably look hot doing it," he continued. You crossed your arms over your chest and listened to the popcorn popping for just a moment.

"I'll think about it."

“Would you ever wanna play D&D with me?” he asked suddenly, slamming down his can of Coke on the counter. Sure, a natural segue between knife throwing and table top RPGs. Well, actually, now that you thought about it...

“Oh, I - I mean, isn’t it like, very time consuming? I have a lot of work on my plate right now.” Because you and Peacemaker tag-teamed blowing a man’s brains out in broad daylight last week, you thought but didn't say.

“We’re hanging out right now, though? It’d be exactly that but we’d also be roleplaying. I’ve actually had this idea for a campaign that I think you’d really like!” 

When you don’t say anything one way or the other he continues: “So I was thinking a lot about your skillset in real life and I was like hmm, that kinda reminds me of a bard! Buuut I think it could be cool to have it be so that your bard was, like, cursed by a wizard or something to have their natural charm and persuasion work backwards. Because you’re really clever and charming and smart naturally, so you’d basically have to fight those instincts. Anyway, totally your call when creating your character, but something to think about. If you want to play, I mean. Which, you totally don’t have to.”

It took you aback slightly. You couldn’t really make heads or tails of what he was suggesting but he was excited and that was enough for you. “Okay, sure.”

“Wait, really?”

“Anything for you, Adrian Chase.”.

“Really?” he asked, mouth agape. He pumped his fist and then muttered as you walked back to the living room, “Watch out, Eagly.”

It sounded like something had been thrown against your front door. You sighed and sunk back into your couch, waiting for the sound of the front door opening and Adrian’s voice calling out as had become something you were hesitant to call a habit, but it had happened no less than three times. A few quiet seconds passed and there was no bright, loud…everything Adrian. Something wasn’t right - it was as if someone had plucked a string inside your chest and it was reverberating a song of warning inside your skull. For a split second you considered reaching for one of the knives Adrian had given you. There was one in the coffee table drawer, one tucked into the side of the couch... But you were out of your blanket and practically launching yourself over the back of the couch in a split second. You unlocked your door, fumbling with the chain Adrian had taken it upon himself to install for you. While you weren’t home, mind you. It was just so hard to be mad at him sometimes.

You pulled your door open and Adrian nearly fell on top of you, his body leaned haphazardly against the doorframe. He was dripping blood onto the doormat. He managed a breezy, “Oh hey!”

“Jesus Christ, Adrian!” you hissed out, grabbing him by hooking your hand into the collar of his chestplate. You slammed the door behind him and he was already reaching up to drag his mask off. “What happened to you?”

“How’re your sewing skills?”

“Absolute shit,” you replied, confused. His brow pinched and his mouth quirked like he’d expected that answer. And yet he had chosen your door to bleed all over. “Come on, let’s get you into the bathroom.”

Once Adrian was situated on the edge of your bathtub and you had scrounged out your First Aid Kit you decided to ask.

“Why are you here?”

“I needed somewhere to lay low.”

“And bleed out, apparently.”

“I thought you might be able to help?” he said like he was unsure of the truth of it himself.

You raised an eyebrow. “What’s the real reason?”

“Um, you posted on your Close Friends story like 15 minutes ago so I knew you were still awake.”

“You got shot and your first thought was to check my Close Friends story?”

“I got stabbed, and actually my first thought was ‘ow’, so.”

You froze. “Wait a second, since when are you on my Close Friends story?”

“Since you left your phone on your desk and I thought you’d probably forgotten to add me. Since we only just became Close Friends in real life.”

“Adrian.” But he just flashed you a pained but genuine smile and your resolve disappeared. He wasn’t totally wrong anyway - you had forgotten. “How many times do I have to tell you not to touch my phone!”

“Buuuut if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have known you were awake and that you could save me and I probably would have bled out in an alley somewhere instead.”

“Adrian, you could have gone to a hospital. Or…or, I don’t know! Called Chris, or Ads or Emilia or anyone more equipped to help you than me.”

“Yeah, sure, but I don’t want to die in anybody’s arms but yours.”

Your hand flexed against his wound and he hissed through his teeth. “Fuck! Sorry!”

“It’s okay! It doesn’t hurt that bad anymore!” he said weakly. When you looked up at him again he was pallid, his head lolled against his shoulder. 

“Jesus Christ! Adrian!” you shouted. He didn’t stir. You cursed under your breath repeatedly as you leaned up between his legs to fumble for a pulse. It was there - thready and slow, but still beating. Still, you needed him awake. You fumbled for your phone and started to search YouTube for wound treatment videos just in case, blood smearing across your screen. An ad blared to life and you dropped your phone onto the bathroom sink to wait it out, returning to check his pulse again.

You leaned forward, prepared to pull back and slap him straight out of unconsciousness, when you were halted by the sight of him. Something about him so still, and so, so quiet made your chest hurt. He wasn’t meant to be like that. Not Adrian. 

With 30 seconds still remaining on an ad placement for fucking Purdue University and desperation coursing through your veins, your hand met his cheek hard and he gasped awake, jolting forward, connecting his forehead with your nose. 

“Oh fuck!” you exclaimed, clamping a hand over your nose. You could already feel the warm heat of blood oozing out. 

Adrian’s eyes were wide, frantic. He was alert, even if his posture was still slack. “What was that?” he gasped. “Were you trying to kiss me?”

“What?” you asked in disbelief, garbled through your hand and blood. His abdomen tensed and blood rushed from his wound again. You cursed once more and gave up on your nose, grabbing more gauze from the First Aid kit and pressing it to his wound. He hissed. 

“Whoah…what happened to you?” he asked, one gloved hand weakly reaching for your chin before falling back into his lap. His head rolled back again, like it was too heavy for his neck to hold upright. You grabbed hold of the front of his suit by the neck and yanked him upright. 

“Stay with me, please, Adrian,” you yelped. “I can’t do this without you. You need to talk me through this. Otherwise we’re getting our medical advice from YouTube.”

“There’s actually some pretty good stuff on there,” he slurred. 

“Adrian!”

“Right! Right, okay…” he said slowly. “We gotta get this off.”

He gestured vaguely at his uniform with his chin. You reached for the pair of scissors and he squirmed. “No, no, sewing this thing is a bitch. Just…just lemme…”

He reached over his shoulder and began unbuckling various straps until his armor dropped to the floor. Then he pawed uselessly at the zipper at the nape of his neck. He dropped his arm to his lap, panting. “You might have to…it’s just a zipper…”

“Oh!” you exclaimed and stood up to hastily pull the zipper down his back. You sort of tucked his face into your shoulder, leaning his torso forwards so you could reach. You held the back of his neck with one hand, while you unzipped with the other, your fingers weaving into the matted curls at the nape of his neck. 

Once Adrian was maneuvered out of the top half of his suit and his undershirt had been tossed aside, you had to take in what was actually before you. 

“Holy shit,” you muttered. The blood was actually a good distraction, otherwise you would have had exactly too much time to think about the thick muscle of his chest. 

He looked down at his chest. “Oh that’s not so bad.”

“Not bad?” you asked in disbelief. Blood was oozing from the wound in his side - you came to your senses and grabbed a stack of gauze and leaned forward between his legs to apply pressure. 

“I’ve had worse,” he said. You weren’t sure how that could be true. Sure, his torso was smeared with blood, but you could see that the skin was smooth. A couple of mottled bruises in various states of healing, but no scars. 

“Apply pressure until bleeding stops, clean wound, dress,” he rattled off, his voice sounding distant. You pinched the skin of his arm and he yelped in surprise. “What the fuck!”

“Stay awake, you idiot,” you hissed, but it lacked your usual vigor. It was a desperate sound, and you hated the way it tasted in your mouth. You sat back, taking care to keep the pressure behind your fingertips against his wound. You weren’t sure how long it would take to fully stop bleeding so you tried to make yourself comfortable - well, as comfortable as one could be on the cold tile floor between the knees of a bleeding man. You rested your elbow on his thigh and leaned and let yourself shift some of your weight against his leg. 

“You’re bleeding,” he said again, faintly. You glared up at him through your eyelashes and turned your head to wipe your nose on your sleeve. 

“Yeah, well, getting headbutted will do that,” you replied. You dropped another blood-soaked piece of gauze into the sink basin. 

“What - who the - who the fuck headbutted you?” he asked through gritted teeth. He leaned forward, reaching for your face but you batted his hand away.

“You know you’re a really piss-poor patient for a guy who has made a habit of getting injured,” you muttered.

“Well maybe you’re just a really bad nurse,” he bit back. You arched an eyebrow and sat back on your heels. 

“Yes, Adrian, I am a bad nurse! I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing!” you exclaimed. “They pay me to do PR, and arrange brand deals, and interviews, and sort your public images and, and I don’t know, sometimes make graphics in Canva!”

“Is that what your job is?” he asked with a grimace.

“That’s not the point! The point is you can’t just scare me like that! I thought my best friend was going to die right in front of me and there was nothing I could do to fix it. Fuck you, Adrian! Fuck you for, for getting hurt, and for making it my fucking problem!”

But Adrian just grinned. “I’m your best friend.”

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t really a statement either. It felt like a declaration of something more important.

“And I’m your goddamn fixer,” you muttered, wiping sweat from your brow on the back of your other bloodstained sleeve.

Adrian’s eyes lit up as he repeated, “My fixer.”

“Now don’t go changing my contact name to Fixer,” you grumbled as you peeled the gauze back to take a look. The bleeding had finally seemed to stop, so you made quick work of cleaning it and placing a fresh piece of gauze on top.

“I really think you’re going to need stitches.” 

“Okay,” he said simply. “Do you have a needle?”

“For like…human skin?” You shook your head. “I think I have a sewing kit somewhere.”

“That’ll do,” he replied, looking somewhat lucid and concentrated. You pushed yourself up from the floor and raced into your bedroom, terrified to leave him alone. You scrambled through your desk drawer until your fingers found a tiny, absolutely untouched sewing kit. It would have to do.

You cleaned the needle off with alcohol and handed it over to Adrian. 

“Okay, I’m going to get into your bathtub for this part,” he explained, already in the process of lowering himself in when you grabbed him firmly by the arm and helped him the rest of the way in.

“Is this for the blood?” you wondered aloud. It seemed a moot point - blood was effectively everywhere in your small bathroom.

Adrian managed a kind of wheezy laugh. “No, it’s just easier for me to do it laying down.”

The next five minutes passed in painful silence as Adrian hissed and cursed his way through stitching his own gaping wound back together and all you could do was watch on helplessly. You couldn’t help but wonder what the fuck you were doing on the team at Checkmate after all - PR was one thing, you could do that in your sleep. But saving a life? First aid? Backup? You were useless. Your role was basically perfunctory - Checkmate didn’t need you at all.

“Did you slap me?” he asked suddenly. You exhaled sharply. It might have been a laugh if you weren’t covered in your…Adrian’s blood. You could only nod in confirmation. “You can do that again. Any time.”

“Don’t be weird, Adrian.”

“‘m not being weird. I’m being honest. It was kind of thrilling.”

“Yeah, a real thrill to backhand you out of the grip of Death,” you muttered back. 

“And it was kinda hot,” he said with a slight shift of his hips against the acrylic floor of your bathtub. You dragged your eyes away from his pelvis and found his gaze still firmly focused on his neat stitches.

“Sorry I can’t really help with this part,” you murmured, changing the subject. Adrian paused and looked at you, the thread pulling taut in his grasp. He extended the bloody needle slightly towards you, as far as it could, still tethered to his skin and all.

“You should at least try once,” he said. “What if next time your hot slap doesn’t work and I stay unconscious?”

“Adrian Chase, there will not be a next time!”

“You sound really confident about that.”

“I’m terribly confident. Because I’m going to kill you myself first.”

He grinned at you, a stupid, lazy, half-thing of a smile - and your heart clenched in your chest. His eyes were still heavily lidded, but you could still feel the weight and certainty of his gaze. 

“Fine. Give me that. But you’re going to have to show me how,” you said with a sigh. Perhaps stabbing him with a needle was exactly the revenge you needed.

“Don’t worry, I’ll hold your hand the whole way through.”

Adrian didn’t stop holding your hand, even as you insisted that he stay still after he tied off his stitches and immediately tried to get out of the bathtub. You’d firmly planted yourself on the floor, your torso half draped over the blood-stained edge. He’d muttered something about just needing a quick nap and yanked your hand closer to him. You rested your chin on your arm and didn’t protest. For a little while you watched the rise and fall of his chest, felt the weight of his hand in yours, firmly grasping. If the whole way through meant just a little longer, well, that was okay, too.

You’d awoken in the morning, tucked into your own bed, with Adrian nowhere to be found. Wandering around your apartment as you tried in vain to stretch out your sore limbs (Note to self: sleeping on the bathroom floor was not a good idea drunk in college, and it certainly wasn’t now) you came to the bathroom. It looked like a fucking crimescene. Blood had somehow managed to touch every single surface. You took a look at yourself in the mirror and found your face clean of blood and your hands, too. Had Adrian washed you up before he put you to bed? You tried to imagine him carrying you - you’d never been carried anywhere before - and found it stirred a strange feeling in your chest.

In the middle of your mirror was a sticky note.

brb - Adrian :) 

He came back later that morning - thankfully not bleeding this time - armed with two coffees (both for you, as it should be), a bag full of snacks and a shocking amount of cleaning supplies. 

While he insisted you should leave him alone while he cleaned your bathroom, you still found yourself perched atop the closed toilet lid, watching him intently. You were reluctant to leave him alone. If you were being honest, you were worried about him. And also the idea of Adrian Chase loose and unsupervised anywhere in your apartment was enough to give you heart palpitations. You weren’t sure how disconcerted to be about how good he was at cleaning blood up. It was almost mesmerizingly efficient - it was clear and focused. It was the same way you’d seen him be in the field. 

That, of course, didn’t stop him from rattling off animal facts and asking you to quiz him like you were just two buddies hanging out and not like you were watching a man who’d almost bled to death the day before clean up after himself. You scrolled through an article on manta rays, looking for something good.

“You should let me take a look at those stitches,” you said with a feigned disinterest. You hadn’t stopped thinking about his unblemished skin and now he was here before you very much not moving about like someone who had been nearly gutted not twenty-four hours prior. You also maybe hadn’t stopped thinking about what his torso would look like when it wasn’t stained with blood. How was he hiding all that muscle under every charmingly 90s sitcom dad outfit?

“Oh, sure,” he said simply. He dropped his scrub brush and wriggled free of his rubber gloves. You looked up from your phone and he had already lifted his shirt, exposing his smooth torso to you. “I told you I really just needed to sleep it off.”

You bit down on your lower lip, chewing over the thought that had been plaguing your mind since the night before. “Adrian…have you ever considered you might be metahuman or something?”

He scoffed. “You sound so fucking stupid right now.”

“Adrian, I’m serious. This is like…very healed for a wound you got hours ago,” you said, running your fingers gently across the well-healed skin. He recoiled slightly, his muscles flexing visibly under the skin.

“Don’t touch me like that,” he said tensely. You pulled your hand back but he caught your wrist firmly between his fingers. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to - um, it’s just that - okay, so, it’s like - you know how most people claim they really like being touched gently?”

“Sure…?” you replied, pondering the very specific use of the word ‘claim’. 

“Well I don’t like it.” You waited for more explanation that did not seem to be coming. You pursed your lips and nodded thoughtfully.

“Is it like a sensory thing? Or a ‘you don’t think you deserve to be touched gently’ thing?” you asked quietly. You weren’t sure you’d meant to ask it so directly. 

Adrian’s face contorted into an expression you’d grown to know, one where he was really, genuinely considering something for the first time. His gaze would get far away, like he was searching the middle distance for something tangible. 

“I don’t know,” he finally replied.

“That’s okay, you don’t need to know,” you assured him. You bit down on your lip slightly, trying to stop the words. “But you should know that you do. Deserve it, I mean. If that’s what you want.”

“From you?”

You regretted the tiny shake of your head, but you knew it was for the best. “From anyone.”

“Can we stop talking about this?” he asked, his tone darkening. His chin jutted slightly as he clenched his jaw. 

“Yes, yeah, of course. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to…um…” you looked back down at your phone, desperate for anything to slice the unbearable tension between you. You’d never seen Adrian look like such a storm cloud, and you couldn’t help but feel it was your fault. He moved away from you and resumed scrubbing the sink.

“Hey, um, okay, what kind of feeder is a manta ray?” you asked.

Adrian was still looking away, funneling all his energy into the tangible task beneath his hands. It was a mission of its own kind, and hadn’t you learned not to be in his way in the field?

“A filter feeder, duh,” he mumbled, seemingly responding to the sink and not you. “They strain their food from the water, like how whales use baleen. Except manta rays have these like, built in filters in their mouths, kind of? They swim with their mouths wide open and that sort of rakes the water over their gills which separates the food from everything else.”

“Wait…that was right?”

You consulted your phone one more time just to be absolutely sure and then looked around like you wanted to share your disbelief with someone else, but you were alone in your bathroom with Adrian Chase.

“Well, duh. I know a lot of animal facts.”

“Right. But um…” you cleared your throat. The question that you held back. Did he know he was really fucking bad at animal facts? His brow furrowed.

“You’re looking at me weirdly. Like you’re trying not to say something,” he assessed. He turned slightly towards you, his elbow brushing against your knee as he scrubbed the counter. “Okay, so I know I get things wrong sometimes…”

“So you do know?” you asked, like you were gasping for air.

Adrian looked down. “I just get…I don’t know…overwhelmed? I want to share all these cool ass animal facts that I know I know and then they come out of my mouth all wrong.”

“Well, I’m glad you got this one right.”

“It’s easier with you.” 

Your tucked up leg dropped to the floor with a decisive thud. There were pins and needles in your foot but you couldn’t even focus on that because your brain was busy playing his words on repeat.

“Me?”

Adrian chuckled slightly. “You know you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“‘Me?’” he pitched up his voice in a grotesque approximation of you. You punched him in the shoulder - hard - and he treated you to a smile. “I don’t get why you say it like that. It’s always you.”

“Where have you two been?” Fleury asked with his hands on his hips. Whatever silly thing Adrian had been in the midst of saying was lost as you two emerged from the kitchen into the main area of the office. But all the chairs had been rearranged into one big circle.

“Fuck,” you cursed under your breath. Then you pasted on a smile and tugged Adrian by the shirtsleeve to join everyone else who were already seated and looking abjectly miserable. “Sorry, just needed some extra caffeine!”

You and Adrian grabbed the two open seats, side by side. He mouthed, “What is this?”

You double checked to make sure Fleury’s back was towards you before you mouthed back: “Team bonding.”

Adrian’s eyes widened for a moment before Fleury’s voice made you both jump. He tapped on the whiteboard behind him which just said: TEAM BONDING.

“Team. Bonding,” Fleury apparently felt the need to reiterate. He launched into a spiel and you caught Ads’ eye. She looked rapidly back and forth between you two and then mouthed something you couldn’t make sense of.

“What?” you mouthed back.

She attempted again.

“What?” you said, this time out loud. You clamped a hand over your mouth as everyone turned to look at you. Fleury cleared his throat and you waved him on with a sheepish smile. You shrugged at Ads and she pointed down at her phone in her lap. Your pocket vibrated.

Leota Adebayo: what were u and ade up to in the kitchen? You: we were just making coffee Leota Adebayo: uh huh Leota Adebayo: seemed like a lot of giggling for making coffee 👀

You rolled your eyes and held your phone up slightly in your hand so that Ads could see you actively turning it off - something you never did - just to ignore her.

“Great, why don’t you start us off, then?” Fleury said. You looked around for who he was talking to, only to realize he meant you. “Go around the circle and tell everyone what you admire about them.”

“Right,” you coughed. And then nodded. “Of course.”

You glanced around the circle and found everyone surprisingly attentive for once. Go figure.

“Well, Fleury, starting with you I…really admire your initiative in creating the Team Bonding sessions. So…honored to kick off this first session like this,” you said, sure a little ass-kissing wouldn’t go amiss. 

“Sasha, I admire your drive. Rip, I admire your tenacity. Harcourt, I admire your fearlessness. Ads, I admire your selflessness,” you continued, feeling like you were sort of getting the hang of it. It wasn’t so bad. And none of it was a lie - you did admire them all. “Chris, I admire your persistence. John, I admire your ingenuity. And Adrian, I love your…”

Chris laughed and you furrowed your brow, ignoring him and concentrating harder. There were a lot of things you admired about Adrian, trying to distill it all down into one thing seemed like an impossible task. 

“Adrian, I love your authenticity.”

“Great!” Fleury clapped his hands together. “Who’s going to go next?”

“So,” Chris interrupted. “You love Adrian?”

For a moment you swore your heart had stopped beating entirely. 

“What?”

Chris grinned. “You said things you ‘admired’ about the rest of us but you said what you ‘loved’ about Adrian.”

“That’s not what I - I didn’t mean to…” you trailed off, assessing the expressions around you. They were oddly…cheerful in a way that caused your palms to start sweating instantly. You shifted in your seat, crossing your legs and then uncrossing them. “Well, yeah, I mean, I love Adrian how I love all of you. And besides, you all love each other! It’s not my fault you’re all too emotionally repressed to say it out loud.”

“That’s actually a good point,” Fleury interjected.

“It is?” you and Chris asked at the same time. Fleury pointed at you with his expo marker and then turned back to the whiteboard and just wrote the word LOVE on it. Then he took a step back, examined it and then stepped forward again to underline it before turning back to the group.

“Now you’re all going to have to say something you love about each other,” Fleury instructed. There was a collective cacophony of groans.

“How is that any different than what we were doing before?” Ads exclaimed before burying her head in her hands. You let out a relieved laugh and turned to look at Adrian. But he was staring at seemingly nothing, his eyes wide, his hands gripping the arms of his chair so hard his knuckles blanched. 

“Ade? You good?” you asked, your throat suddenly tight as you touched his arm. His head jerked back to look at you, like he’d been shaken awake from a dream.

“I…” he trailed off, speechless for once. Then he pressed his lips into a firm line, a slight furrow to his brow and nodded.

“You haven’t looked at your phone once tonight,” Adrian said. 

“What?” you laughed around a mouthful of sandwich, and thought, for a brief moment, you were about to choke to death as Adrian slapped your back. You felt for the brick beneath you and steadied yourself on the ledge you were seated on. The roof of the old movie theater downtown had become a meet up spot for you both. Somewhere for Adrian to take a break from patrolling and for you to…well, anyway, the stoned teens who basically ran the place didn’t give a shit, and it did have the best view of Evergreen of all the rooftops you two had tried. The sandwiches Adrian would make for you both were a nice bonus.

“Do I need to do the Heimlich? I’ll do it. C’mere, stand up,” Adrian said, voice rising in pitch. He grabbed at your arm but you shook him off. You placed your hand flat against his chestplate.

“Adrian,” you managed. You reached back for your water and swallowed hard. “I’m okay.”

“Whew! That would have been a really sad way to go.”

“Choking to death on a sandwich on a rooftop with an absolute weirdo as the only witness? Yeah, I’d say so,” you replied. You wiped your mouth on your sleeve. “You know, people would probably think you murdered me.”

“No,” he replied flatly. “Because they’d do an autopsy and find sandwich stuck in your throat.”

“Hmm and what if everyone was like ‘I heard Vigilante killed a girl with a sandwich’?”

Adrian blinked at you, as if he were attempting to genuinely consider the situation. You moved your hand to his arm and shifted slightly towards him. “Adrian. I’m joking.”

“Right. And I knew that!” he replied, nodding a little too emphatically. He shifted slightly too, leaning in towards you. “You know I wouldn’t do that, right? Kill you? With a sandwich or otherwise?”

Your reply came quietly on your lips, “I had a feeling.”

And then your sandwich slid off of your lap and into the alleyway several stories below. You both bent at the waist, peering over the edge. Adrian’s hand gripped at the back of your shirt, like he was suddenly afraid you might fall. When you sat back upright you could only look into his wide eyes and burst into laughter.

“Fuck!” you lamented, eyes watering as you continued to be consumed by laughter. Adrian’s hand flattened out against the small of your back and it did not escape your notice that it lingered. You missed it the moment it was gone.

“Oh no,” you whined. “Ugh, now you do have to kill me.”

“What?” Adrian asked in disbelief. You gestured vaguely to the darkness the sandwich had disappeared to its death into.

“Littering.”

He was quiet for a moment before he burst into his wide, disquieting, strange laughter. He actually and literally slapped his knee. 

“Good one!” he exclaimed. Then his face shifted quickly back to something serious. He lowered his voice like you were sharing some secret. “Okay, but it will bother me if we don’t clean that up before we leave, so - ”

“We will clean it up, I promise.” You held your pinky up to him and he wrapped his gloved one around yours. He looked at your intertwined hands.

“Did you know otters will hold hands while they sleep so they don’t drift apart in the night?” he asked, his voice low and humming with a particular kind of intensity. You actually did know that, but you smiled anyway and shook your head.

“That’s kind of sweet,” you remarked. 

“Do you remember when you held my hand all night in the bathtub because you were afraid I was going to die?” he said quickly, green eyes searching your face for something.

“Of course I do, Adrian. That was like…only a few weeks ago.” You didn’t feel the need to correct him on the matter - he’d been the one to take your hand and not let it go. And you weren’t the one about to die in that scenario, so what had he been afraid of?

“Maybe we’re kind of like otters,” Adrian said.

“Maybe,” you agreed. 

Adrian was quiet for a long moment, and you said nothing else, afraid it’d be the wrong thing and you’d accidentally disassemble the clumsily built something between you.

“Okay, I know I just said we’re like otters and otters just hold hands but I would really like to kiss you right now, so maybe forget the otter thing for a second so we can kiss. If you want to, I mean. Which, you might not want to and that’s okay, too. We can actually just be otters, actually, and forget I said the thing about kissing and - ”

You inclined your head towards him and met his mouth, whatever words he was about to say next dying on your lips. You started to lift your hand towards his face but you dropped it back into your lap, unsure how to touch him, if at all. But before you could give it much other thought at all Adrian had pulled back and was staring at you intently.

“I was thinking about yesterday at Team Bonding? And how you said you love me?”

You didn’t mean to laugh. But you couldn’t help it. It came from your mouth like some kind of defense mechanism. “Adrian, I…”

“Just let me finish. Please? I was looking at you and I was thinking, 'wow, someone should make her sandwiches every day for the rest of her life' and then I thought, maybe that someone should be me. Even if you dropped them all, I'd still keep making them. I don't even know if that makes sense, but I think it does? And, I don't know if that's what love is, but I think it might be?”

You weren’t sure what to say to that. It was equal parts endearing and utterly painful. Something cold and familiar wrenched itself loose in your chest.

“You don’t mean that, Adrian.”

“But I do! I’ve thought about this a lot. Like, more than is probably normal probably.”

You winced. “You don’t know me. If you did really know me I don’t think you’d like me very much at all.”

“Bullshit,” Adrian cursed. Then he threw his hands up. “Sorry. But it is bullshit. All these months - all these late nights just the two of us…I feel like - no, I do know you. I know your favorite foods and your favorite color and how you firmly believe people shouldn’t butter their popcorn, or that the TV volume should only ever be set at an even number or multiples of five, or that you didn’t really have a Hinge date that night you first came out to drinks and that you were totally using that as an excuse because you were afraid everyone would see whatever incorrect version of yourself lives in your head. But you and I both know that person doesn’t exist. The person that does exist is really smart, and funny, and hot, and looks out for me even when I don’t make it easy, and is, like, surprisingly good at D&D.”

He ducked his head slightly, looking away from you. “And above all that you still like me despite knowing me. I can’t say the same for most people.”

The bank alarm blared suddenly, piercing the quiet night and sparing you from having to form your lips around any words at all. You think you may have just asked him to kiss you again. Or maybe you would have said something awful instead - opened your mouth and ruined everything because that was easier than getting what you wanted. You guessed you’d never know.

“Please stay here,” he urged as he swung his leg over onto the fire escape ladder. He paused and looked at you for a moment that may have been an hour, or the space between heartbeats - you really couldn’t be sure. Not when he was looking at you like that. Then he slipped his mask back over his head and dropped out of sight completely.

You leaned over the ledge and watched as Adrian approached the would-be bank robbers with a kind of casual ease. You could tell from his posture and the way he moved his hands that he was talking, and you couldn’t help but wonder what he might be saying. He was always so much more physically animated when he was in the suit. But the leader of the group stepped towards him and he pulled the machete off of his back and sliced the man’s throat in one fell swoop. Your fingers flexed against the stone with each punch, each blow, each impact of the fight below. And you watched on, horrified and impressed and maybe just a little turned on, as he dispatched the rest of them with the same amount of energy expended as if he was just taking a stroll in the park. 

Worse than the bodies littering the ground was the feeling that came over you. Something you’d been able to tamp down for months now. Something that would surely swallow you whole if you let it.

In that moment you knew two things with absolute clarity:

You were in love with Adrian Chase.

and

You needed to leave Evergreen as soon as fucking possible.