∩^ω^♪＊🧜‍♂️🦭

The first thing that hit her was the smell as she walked into the apartment. 

The second was the fact that the kitchen light was on, and said smell seemed to be coming from the kitchen. Not where Adrian would put take out for them if that was the surprise. 

No, Adrian was standing in the kitchen, in one of her aprons, a mess surrounding him, and his lovely wide green eyes locked in on her as if she was catching him committing a crime. 

Which all of this crazy in her kitchen was. 

“You’re back earlier than I thought you’d be?” he squeaked out, raising his tone near the end making it seem like a question. 

“It’s eight on a Wednesday, if anything I’m later than I should be. What are you doing?” she said, setting her bag down as she walked around the kitchen, observing the chaos closer. 

“I’m doing great, how are you?” he tried. 

“No, Ade. What are you doing - not how are you doing,” she insisted, and he sighed, eyes suddenly more interested in the floor than her. 

“I’m cooking you dinner,” he mumbled, and she couldn’t help but laugh. It came out sharper and meaner than she meant it to, and Adrian’s eyes snapped to hers filled with hurt. “I am! I took a class and everything! Look!” he cried, moving to open the oven. Sure enough, there was a lovely looking chicken atop some (un)evenly cut vegetables. 

“What the fuck, where did you buy that?” she said, looking at him and he furrowed his brows. 

“The grocery store? Are you feeling okay, babe?” he said, moving to press a hand on her forehead, and she rolled her eyes. 

“You’re telling me you cut, seasoned, and spatchcocked a chicken all by yourself?” she repeated. 

“Yes! I did and I just need like 15 minutes and we can eat!” he said, clearly deciding to ignore her negativity as he lovingly bumped her out of the way and closed the oven. “Go change, let me serve the food, please.” 

She watched with a dumbfounded expression as Adrian continued to move through her kitchen with a strange confidence. She had watched the man burn one of those mac n cheese cups after he forgot to add the water, and here he was roasting a whole chicken and vegetable spread like it was just another ordinary day. 

Despite feeling like she’d woken up in another dimension, she moved slowly out of the kitchen and to their room. She changed out of her work clothes into an old ratty t-shirt and Adrian’s boxers that he never wore and really only had for her to wear around the house. 

She moved back to the kitchen, eyes locked on Adrian’s movement as he focused on the food and his plating with more intention than she had ever seen from him. It was once he was moving the plates to where they usually eat dinner that she finally caught his eyes. His smile did not quite reach his eyes as they bounced around from her to the plate. He shuffled ever so slightly as he paused. 

“Are you hungry?” he asked, sounding almost small. 

“Yeah,” she said, simply taking one of the plates from him, admiring. While some of the skin looked soggy, overall, the chicken looked really good. “It looks good,” she said as they walked over to where they normally sat for dinner. Her eyes focused on the plate. 

“It’s a roasted chicken with vegetables and I did use a packet for the gravy so I kind of cheated there. I also cheated because I just grabbed ice cream for dessert, I know you would normally actually make us something for dessert too but in the class I took-”

“Adrian, no this is…great. It’s just unexpected,” she said softly, cutting off his rambling as he watched her take the first bite of her food. She was pleasantly surprised. By no means was it the best roasted chicken she had ever had, but considering Adrian made it, she was extremely happy with it. 

As she kept eating, Adrian seemed to relax more and more, finally digging into his own food. 

“I’m pretty sure I’ve spatchocked a guy in real life,” Adrian said, mouth full of roasted vegetables as she started coughing. He immediately threw his utensils down and moved to rub her back, clear panic on his face as she reached for her water bottle. 

“What the fuck?” she said between deep breaths.

“Yeah, like when I was at the class I realized that this butchering shit is easy, I do it all the time. The actual cooking was the hard part, but the knife skill I had on lock,” he said with a modest shrug and she smiled at him. 

“Why are you taking cooking classes? Adrian, I never mind cooking for us,” she said. “Hell, I never mind when we order out either.” 

She watched him closely. Adrian was never really good at hiding what he was feeling on his face - it was half the reason she was sure he had a mask for his Vigilante costume and not something similar to Chris. He looked almost bashful and nervous for her reaction; she hadn’t seen him so timid with her in such a long time. Sure, she gave him a hard time but now he normally would give her a knowing smile and play along with her, knowing that she loved him instead of becoming a nervous wreck. 

Right now he was a nervous wreck.

“I just…you’re always taking care of me. I wanted to do something for you,” he said gently, eyes not meeting hers as she melted slightly. 

“Oh Ade,” she said, and he shrugged, continuing to pick at his plate. 

“I just never want you to feel like you have to do this for me, I can take care of you and us too,” he said finally looking up, still not at her, but enough that she knew he was watching for her reaction out of the corner of his eye. 

“Adrian, I know that,” she said, her words probably sounding harsh to anyone who wasn’t Adrian. “I know that you can take care of me, and you do, like all the time!” 

“But I don’t cook-”

“Adrian, I like cooking. I enjoy getting to cook specifically for you, it’s like…my love language. Making sure you’re fed is important to me, and if it’s my food, that’s even better. You know what you do for me? You drive me around town, you buy groceries, you wash my hair on days I feel too low, you order food when we have nothing to cook. You take care of me. You don’t have to learn to cook just to do it for me. Besides, if you really wanted to, we can just cook dinner together sometime,” she said, moving so she was able to plant a gentle kiss on his cheek, a grin growing on his face. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes, I’m sure,” she repeated, pulling back in order to finish her plate. “Plus, I’m a little jealous you went to someone else to learn how to cook,” she joked, and Adrian’s eyes went wide behind his glasses. 

“Don’t be jealous! Trust me, you’re a way better teacher and your food is way better. I just wanted something homey and hearty to make for us!” 

“I know, Ade. I know,” she said, laughing as he finally loosened up and started eating. 

“Do you think you could teach me how to make lobster rolls?” he asked, sitting up straight clearly excited at the prospect. 

“It’s funny you think we have the income to play with lobster, absolutely not.”

_

Tag list: 

@trelaney @boogiemansbitch @scarlettrikstr @lanadelreybbgg @sumoattack-gooddog @brianna-merlim @darklandcashpaper-blog @mrsxchase @nbhrhn @kxki-y @jeshomie @countvonklit @nachtfleur @kissesofstars

civilian!reader

Adrian had only answered your ad because he was desperate to move out of his mother’s house, having been at his last straw with the woman he finally moved out. You were a civilian, he wasn’t sure if you were from Evergreen or where you worked but you didn’t ask questions. And that was enough.

He was weird. Like, really weird. Adrian would come home late and sneak out during twilight hours, usually making far too much noise whenever he returned. But bless his soul, he did try to keep quiet. Sometimes you saw red stains on his clothes in the wash. You didn’t ask about it, you didn’t want to. His friend, Chris, was very intimidating with a face you recognised from somewhere. Adrian tried his hardest to keep you away from the 11th Street Kids, but sometimes the apartment was unintentionally used as a safe house; you were told they were just old friends in town for a few nights.

Your friends tell you to kick him out but despite all his weird little behaviours, he was a damn good roommate. He remembered how you liked your hot drinks and made sure to always greet you with your favourite steaming hot mug in the morning. He would let you change the AC to how you needed it, and would cook dinner as an apology for constantly disrupting your sleep schedule. You were definitely on Adrian’s best friend list, even if it was nearer the bottom.

Maybe one day he’d tell you about his life as Vigilante.

coworker!reader

You had been working with Adrian at Fennel Fields for a few months before you realised he still lived with his mum. He didn’t sound very happy to be under the same roof as that woman and as his co-worker/friend/partner in hell, you couldn’t stand to let him be miserable. So of course you let him stay with you.

Adrian hadn’t stopped thanking you since you let him move in rent-free. Your one simple rule was; no secrets. Well, that could’ve been a problem for Adrian if not for the fact that this deal was mutually beneficial. So he told you about Vigilante, about the 11th Street Kids. Sure, you were shocked at first, but you slowly fell into a routine. Sleep schedules were worked around his patrols, work shifts were covered when needed, you learnt the basics of first-aid just in case his healing properties couldn’t patch up an injury and Adrian had decided he would be the one to clean around the house and make dinners as a thank you for your hospitality. 

Your co-workers at Fennel Fields had started to notice your proximity since Adrian moving in and there was plenty of workplace gossip and rumours but that hadn’t phased Adrian in the slightest. You were the only co-worker of his who actually listened to him and understood his feelings and, let’s face it, weirdo behaviour.

vigilante!reader

Having a fellow crime-fighting roommate was incredibly handy and meant that there was someone who understood you and your circumstance. Adrian had met you on patrol, he had detained a few drug dealers until one of them had pulled a gun on him…at least until a gun shot rang through the streets and you basically saved his ass.

Ever since that day, Vigilante hasn’t left your side. And, of course, that meant Adrian had to worm his way into your civilian life as well. Adrian was the one to come up with the idea of living together. You had gotten hurt on patrol one night and that was enough for him to decide he should move in. He didn’t want you to be hurt alone again and that was that; the start of your budding friendship with your fellow vigilante, now roommate. 

Patrols were now done with a certain teal suit by your side, and your cloakroom now had a dedicated wall to a someone’s beanie boo collection, with your shoe cupboard now storing blood money instead of your boots. His subtle companionship made the long, sleepless nights easier to bear. Boring patrols were now chalk-full of atrociously incorrect animal facts and Adrian’s toothy grin and these carried on into life at home. Lazy morning began with a cup of coffee, evenings ended with tracking various crimes.

11th street!reader

Adrian’s favourite thing about having you as a roommate is the fact you work together. He didn’t need to make any excuses for late nights and you understood his working troubles better than anyone. And it meant you had to be nice to him! Adrian was slightly aware of people’s irritation towards him and of course it upset him, but Peacemaker was his best friend—not them! At least until you moved in.

Having a roomie and a co-worker in one meant another friend to his list. Someone who was forced to learn to more than tolerate him; and it was refreshing. You didn’t hate Adrian, you wouldn’t have moved in if you did. Living together came easy, your routines were perfectly synchronised and your relationship on the field had only strengthened. The 11th Street Kids noticed before either of you two did. Adrian and you were a dynamic duo on every single mission, matching each other’s pace to a t. He had your back and you had his. It was like watching two people who could read each other’s minds. It actually freaked everyone out a little.

The dynamic didn’t change off the battlefield, either. There was a shared calendar pinned onto the entryway wall. The house was scattered with splashes of Adrian’s signature teal paired with corners stacked full of your books. The kitchen was in a perpetual state of organised mess and every weekend was full of home baking to match the shared sweet tooth of you and Adrian Chase. Living with Adrian felt easy, and simple. He was your partner in crime and your best friend all in one.

You were one of the few people in his life who actually understood him. You earned that place as his third best friend (below only Chris and Eagly).

Cass sniffled. She moved her crutch out of the way of some lady lugging an overly large floral suitcase, before swiftly typing out a reply. The car was ARGUS property. It’s not really my problem

Oh. That’s good.

Cass stared at the screen for a few seconds. Overhead, an announcement echoed through the boarding area that they would be boarding soon. Another message appeared.

There was a crow by my car. Want to see a picture?

Her mouth quirked as she typed out her reply.

Yes, please.

***

Cass's first month away from Evergreen disappeared in a blur of physical therapy appointments, paperwork, and learning how to exist inside an office again. Despite the crutch leaning against her desk and the standing physical therapy appointments on her calendar, ARGUS still buried her beneath twelve-hour days. John worked only a few floors away, and more than once she found herself eating lunch with him simply because it was nice to see a familiar face. It was through him that she learned Harcourt hadn't been welcomed back after Project Butterfly.

Officially, there wasn't enough evidence to justify her actions. Unofficially, Amanda Waller had used her final days at ARGUS to make sure Harcourt would never work there again. If she couldn't punish her own daughter for exposing her on national television, she'd settle for the woman standing beside her.

It only took a couple weeks for Cass to fall into a simple routine. Every morning started with physical therapy, whether it was in her apartment or in the clinic. Every afternoon she was drowning in paperwork.

Every evening she had a phone call with Adrian.

Sometimes she'd answer to find him deciding between cereal brands at the grocery store. Other nights he was perched on a rooftop somewhere, watching traffic below with a billboard flashing behind him.

The 11th Street Kids group chat stayed active, and Adebayo checked in often to make sure she was healing. Adrian never really called to check in. He just called. Sometimes it was ten minutes. Sometimes it was two hours.

Without realizing it, Cass began measuring her days by those phone calls.

***

It took almost eight weeks before her mother called her. The conversation lasted about five minutes, then Cass hung up. She called Adrian instead.

Even though he was a couple hours behind her, it was late. Cass propped up the phone in her lamp-lit bedroom as she ripped a brush through her damp hair. Adrian picked up on the second ring and the red visor filled her screen. It looked like he was hanging upside down from a fire escape.

“You will not believe the conversation I just had with my mother,” Cass growled out, as he flipped himself around. “She had the nerve to be angry at me like all of this was somehow my fault.”

Adrian’s screen wobbled dangerously and there were flashes of brick as he scaled a building. His next words came with heavy breath. “What was your fault?”

“Everything that happened.” She slammed her brush down on her nightstand, next to the picture Harcourt had taken nearly two months prior. “She’s mad about the breakup with Harry. She’s mad I didn’t call her and personally tell her about the breakup, that she had to find out when all my stuff showed up on her doorstep which is kind of fair, but get this! She knew I was in the hospital and hadn’t bothered to check in at all. As my emergency contact, she got a phone call about it and I’m just now finding out. She said if it had been anything too serious, ARGUS would have called twice.”

“Damn.” It looked like Adrian swung himself onto a rooftop. “Fuck her. Change me to your emergency contact.”

Cass frowned at the screen. “You’re on the other side of the country.”

“So? At least I’d pick up the phone.” There was another heavy breath. “What was work like today? They find someone to replace Waller yet?”

Cass flopped onto her bed, rolling onto her side so she could face the Adrian had stopped running. For the first time since he'd answered, he was actually looking at the screen.

Something tugged in her chest at the sight of the red visor.

Swallowing down a sudden wave of homesickness, she pushed herself up onto one elbow.

“No, but John packed this disgusting smelling lunch-.”

***

The Friday before Thanksgiving, Cass sent in her request to work remotely.

It was denied when she turned on her computer Monday morning. She read the email twice before closing it and opening the first report waiting in her inbox.

ARGUS had no current director. The department was barely functioning. She could wait until things settled down. She'd submit another request later.

***

By the time fall was coming to a close and frost speckled her window every morning, Cass didn’t have to use her crutch anymore.

"Ready?"

Adrian frowned through the screen. He had part of his suit in one hand and a sewing needle in another. So far, he’d only been half-looking at the screen, but at her question, his gaze snapped to hers. "For what?"

Cass grinned so hard her cheeks hurt as she set the phone up on the kitchen counter. She stepped back until her whole body was in frame. "Watch."

Then she walked ten, slow steps across the apartment. No crutch. No cane. No hand dragging along the wall for balance. When she reached the other side, she turned back toward the phone, beaming.

"Holy shit," Adrian said.

"I know!” she laughed.

“Do it again.”

Cass slowly walked back toward the phone. She planted her hands on her hips when she reached the counter, looking unbearably smug.

“Amazing. Ten out of ten. I would totally give you an award for walking unassisted if I was there.” Adrian’s mouth quirked.

Cass's smile faltered. The apartment suddenly felt very quiet. She reached for her phone instead, rubbing her thumb against the edge of the case.

“I would have made a certificate and everything,” Adrian continued, oblivious to her reaction.

“Lame. I don’t want a certificate,” she joked, falling onto her couch. Her leg throbbed slightly. “Having you here would be enough of a present.”

“Yeah.” The sewing needle paused. “I’d like that too.”

Neither of them spoke. Adrian still held the torn glove in one hand, the needle suspended halfway through the fabric.

Cass looked away first.

"So," she said, clearing her throat. "Why are you fixing your suit?"

Adrian held the glove up to the camera. A long tear ran from the wrist nearly to the elbow.

"Chris accidentally shot me."

Cass narrowed her eyes. Irritation flickered through her. “Accidentally?"

"Yeah." He threaded the needle through the fabric with practiced ease. "He said he thought I was behind the other dumpster."

***

The snow was so thick on the ground, Cass had to practically wade through it. It was pretty annoying too, because John was a few steps in front of her, in the middle of a video call that she very much wanted to be a part of.

“Oh thank God. You’re all there,” John was saying as he trudged his way to their car. It was truly unbelievable the amount it had snowed during their time in the office. “You guys won’t believe-.”

“John, wait!” Cass whined, trying to walk in the steps he’d already made. She caught up and grabbed him around his arm to force herself into the frame of the video. She heaved, panting slightly as she smiled at the group. “Hi guys!”

Like her and John, they were all sharing Harcourt's phone. It looked like they were in the living room of her new apartment. Harcourt and Chris were squeezed together on the couch while Ads sat in a recliner beside them. Adrian was half in frame behind the chair, leaning over the backrest to look at the screen.

The moment he spotted her, he smiled.

They'd talked that morning, but Cass still felt a warm pull in her chest at the sight of him.

“Hello, Cass,” Harcourt said dryly. “Are you guys going to tell us your news or can I hang up now?”

“Guess who the new director of ARGUS is?” Cass hissed, aware they were still in the parking lot. “It’s-.”

"Rick Flag Sr.," John cut in, pulling his arm out of Cass's grasp and inadvertently shoving her out of frame. She glowered at him. "They announced it today. You realize what this means, right? Any day now he's going to have access to every classified file his son’s name ever touched-."

Cass grabbed his sleeve again and wedged herself back into the frame. "He's going to know all about Project Starfish!"

“Oh, fuck.” Chris and Harcourt shared horrified looks. Ads and Adrian looked lost. “He’s going to know-.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Adrian leaned further into the frame. It was easier than before because Harcourt and Chris had started a whispered conversation and were only half paying attention to the phone now. “Why can’t he know the details about Project Starfish?”

“Because,” John started, holding the phone away from Cass as she jumped for it. “At the end of the mission, Chris killed-.”

Cass pulled on his arm and jumped at just the right time to snatch the phone from his hands. There was a sharp, painful tug somewhere deep in her thigh, but she ingored it as she whirled away from John and hurried to the car.

“Because,” she repeated, whispering harshly “Chris killed his son! Rick Flag Jr. died during Project Starfish, but only those with access to the files will know that it was because of Chris.”

Adrian yanked the phone from Harcourt’s loose hand. “No fucking way!”

“Adrian! Give me that back!”

“Yes!” Cass flung open the passenger door and fell into the seat. Snowflakes fell in after her. “Isn’t that insane?”

“Adrian Chase, give me my phone back!”

“Get off my nuts! I’m talking to Cass!” The screen moved swiftly, like Adrian was batting someone off of him. “Jesus Christ, why are you so freakishly strong-.”

The call ended. Cass stared at the black screen for a few seconds, before John climbed into he driver’s seat. She gently laid his phone in his outstretched hand. Just as he started the car, there was ringing from in her pocket. Cass dug out her own phone and swiped it open.

Adrian’s face filled her screen. His glasses were slightly lopsided and his hair was atnding up in odd places. Cass bit back a smile.

“Hi,” she said. “I take it Emilia got her phone back?”

“Yeah, but it was an unfair fight.” He perched himself on the arm of the recliner. Ads moved her face in the screen and waved. Cass waved back. “Ads grabbed me from behind, so it was two against one. You should have been here to even it out.”

“Sorry, I wouldn’t have helped you though,” Cass leaned back in her seat as John pulled out the space. “It would have been three versus one.”

“Traitor.”

Cass laughed, but the screen shifted as he adjusted himself, showing the four of them in the living room.

Cass felt a pang of jealousy.

***

Cass hurried up the stairs of her mother’s foyer. The sound of her heels on the dark wood were drowned out from the Christmas party below; cherry music, the clinking of glasses and popping bottles.

She couldn't get enough air.

Every breath caught halfway down, trapped somewhere beneath the pressure squeezing her ribs. She was going to scream or throw up or pass out. She wasn't sure which would happen first.

 She rounded the stairs and found an empty hallway with no guests. She beelined it to her childhood bedroom and threw herself in and locked the door.

Stupid. Why was she so unbelievably stupid?

She knew better than to listen to her mother. She knew when she called, begging her to come to her annual Christmas party because she wanted to start over, it was bullshit. The problem was, somewhere deep down, she wanted to fix things with her mom too. It didn’t help that she was lonely and she had no desire to spend Christmas alone in her empty apartment, so she agreed. She even bought a new dress for the occasion.

What was the worst thing that could happen?

Turns out, it happened while her mother toted her around.

“Yes, this my daughter, Cassandra. She’s been away at work for a while. Isn’t she a doll?”

Cass let herself be dragged around, smiling painfully at politicians and businessmen. She didn’t remember any faces, and she barely said a word. It was a dull way to spend an evening, but was better than being alone and she did really like the new dress.

She wondered if Adrian would like it. She made mental note to call him before she changed later.

“Oh, Cassandra look who it is! How nice.”

Her mother steered her toward the library. Cass frowned. Her mother’s hand stayed tight on her back. A man's voice drifted through the doorway. Then, she saw the black leather glove wrapped around a crystal tumbler. The glove looked expensive, but it didn’t quite hide that two of the fingers sat an odd angles.

Her blood ran cold as Harry turned to look at her.

“Mom,” Cass hissed, heat rising in her chest. Harry’s eyes glinted smugly. “What are you doing?”

Her mother ignored her.

“Evening, Mrs. Wells. It’s good to see you again.” Harry stepped forward, gently grasping her mother’s hand before kissing it. Her mother blushed as he straightened. “I appreciate the invitation.”

“Of course, Harry.” Her mother clutched the side of Cass’s dress and tried to force her forward. “I know you two haven’t had much time to chat and I thought what better time than the holidays!”

Harry smiled. “I couldn’t agree more. That was very thoughtful of you.”

“Mom.” Cass tried again. “Mom, stop-.”

"It's Christmas, Casandra. Enough with the dramatics.” Her mother eyes her disapprovingly as she crossed the room. “There's no reason two people who cared so much about each other can't have a conversation.

Before Cass could follow, her mother slipped into the hallway. The library door clicked shut behind her. Cass stared at it, before turning back to Harry. He was still smiling.

Her mind flashed to the motel room. Harry's weight crushing the air from her lungs. The crack of cartilage beneath the heel of her shoe as she'd driven it into his face.

Blood.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Harry took a slow sip from his glass, studying her over the rim. "You look good."

Cass folded her arms and scowled, but she kept quiet. Something about it must have looked entertaining to Harry, because he chuckled. It was a low, uncomfortable sound.

“Nothing to say?” He took another sip. “You had plenty to say last we saw each other. Is it because your attack dog isn’t around?”

Cass continued to glare. Her arms tightened over her chest.

“Guess you’re only brave when you have other people around to do your dirty work, huh?”

Cass didn’t give him the satisfaction of answering. She turned, arms still crossed, intent on leaving. Her hells echoed on the floors, and she was almost to the door when he called out to her. “I’ll see you around the office, Cassandra!”

She stopped at the doorway and turned. He was still wearing the smug smile and something sick twisted in her stomach.

“What are you talking about?”

“Government clearance. I’m working my way up.” He took another long sip as he slowly walked to her. She took a step back, her back pressing into the doorframe. The smell of liquor wafted from him. “If I ever find myself in your neck of the woods, maybe I’ll swing by.”

His gaze lingered this time, moving from her face to the neckline of her dress before drifting lower with deliberate slowness. Enough so, Cass felt a wave of nausea.

“You really do look good.” He reached for her hair and Cass slapped his hand away. He laughed again, raising the glass tumbler to his lips. “Tell me, did you let the freak in the mask fuck you as soon as I left or was that going on before you tried to end things?”

“Don’t talk about him,” Cass hissed.

“Touchy.” Harry swirled the liquid in his cup. “He must be rubbing off on you. I never really took you for having a thing for lunatics.”

“He isn’t a lunatic.”

“Right. Just a masked serial killer.” He glanced around the room. "Kind of disappointing, really. I’ve been thinking about his threat. I figured he'd be crashing through a window by now."

Cass's fingers curled tighter around her crossed arms.

Harry took another slow sip. The glint in his eye was menacing. “He’s not here is he?"

Something cold settled in her stomach.

Cass didn't answer. It wasn’t worth it. She reached for the brass doorknob instead. The door only opened an inch before Harry's hand slammed against it. The wood rattled in its frame and she froze. His forearm boxed her in, only inches from her face.

"I asked you a question."

She lifted her chin. "And I don't owe you an answer."

The glove wrapped around the tumbler flexed. Two of the fingers remained at an odd angle.

"You know I still can't close these?" His voice stayed almost conversational. "Some days I think I ought to wrap them around your neck for what the two of you did to me, but-" His gaze drifted slowly to her mouth. "I think I'll settle for something else."

Cass moved to shove him against the chest, but he grabbed her wrist with his free hand. Harry leaned forward, the bitter smell of alcohol filling her nose.

“Does he like those little sound you make?” His nose brushed hers and Cass yanked against his grasp, but he didn’t budge. “I always did.”

Before she could turn away, his mouth crashed into hers. It was split second of bitter alcohol and nauseating heat, before she was finally able to get a good purchase on his chest and shove. Harry stumbled back, his grip finally slipping.

Cass scrubbed at her mouth with the back of her hand. Lipstick smeared. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Harry laughed once, wiping the corner of his mouth. He'd managed to save most of the liquor in his glass, and he took another slow sip, his eyes never leaving hers.

Cass's chest heaved. "You're drunk."

"A little." He shrugged. "Doesn't change the fact you look amazing tonight. Hell of a waste, really.”

"Stay the hell away from me."

"Why?" His smile widened. "Afraid your boyfriend's going to hear about it?"

Cass glared at him. “He’s going to kill you.”

“Is he though?’ he gestured back to the wide expanse of windows as he slowly closed the space between them. Cass held her ground. “We’ve already established he isn’t here.”

“He will.” He was in front of her again. Cass held his gaze, putting every ounce of hatred into her stare as she refused to look away. “And the second he finds out you put your hands on me, I’m not going to be able to stop him.”

Cass watched as Harry’s smile faltered, but only for a second, before the sneer was back.

“I still think you’re full of shit,” he whispered, before he caught the side of her face and crushed his mouth against hers a second time.

Cass was ready. The instant he made contact, she planted both palms against his chest and shoved with everything she had. Harry stumbled backward, one foot catching awkwardly on the edge of the rug. Before he could recover, Cass drove the pointed heel of her shoe down onto the top of his foot.

Harry let out a sharp curse, the crystal tumbler slipping from his hand. It shattered across the hardwood, amber liquor spraying across the floor as he lurched sideways into the corner of a heavy bookshelf. The shelves rattled violently, picture frames tipping askew.

Cass didn't wait to see if he got back up.

She yanked the library door open and burst into the hallway.

Christmas music drifted up from the first floor, cheerful and oblivious. Laughter echoed from below as guests mingled beneath the chandelier, completely unaware of what had just happened only a few rooms away.

Cass ran.

Her heels struck the hardwood in rapid succession as she took the staircase two steps at a time. Her pulse thundered in her ears, drowning out everything else.

Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

She rounded the landing and sprinted down the empty hallway, fumbling for the brass knob of her childhood bedroom. Her hands shook so badly it took two tries to turn it.

She threw herself inside, slammed the door, and twisted the lock. Only then did she let herself breathe.

The adrenaline hit all at once.

Her knees gave out beneath her, and she slid down the door until she was sitting on the floor, her black dress pooling around her legs. She scrubbed at her mouth again and again with the back of her hand, as though she could erase the lingering taste of whiskey.

A sob tore its way out of her chest.

Her hands shook so violently she nearly dropped her phone trying to unlock it. She couldn't call Adrian, because she knew exactly what he would do. She pressed Emilia's name instead.

"Cass?" Emilia's voice was immediately alert.The sound of laughter echoed somewhere behind her.

Cass frowned. “Are you busy?"

"I’m at Chris’s house." Emilia's voice softened immediately. “He insisted on hosting Christmas."

A loud crash sounded through the speaker. There was the distant sound of Chris shouting something about a burnt ham.

A watery laugh escaped Cass before another sob followed it.

"Cass?"

She couldn't answer.

"Are you okay?"

She drew a shaky breath.

"My mom-" Her voice cracked. "She invited Harry. She invited him to her stupid party that I didn’t even want to go and he cornered me.”

“What the fuck!” Emilia shouted. There was the sound of something slamming. “That’s bullshit, Cass. What happened? What did he say?”

“Awful things,” she said, not wanting to go into detail. “Awful things about me and Adrian.”

“Ugh, our little freak should have killed him when he had the chance-hey!”

The was a shuffle on the other end. A chair scraped violently across the floor. Cass frowned. “Emilia?”

The laughter and conversation she'd heard in the background only moments ago disappeared beneath the scrape of furniture across hardwood. Someone said Adrian's name. Another voice answered too quickly for her to make out.

"Adrian, wait."

Cass's stomach dropped. “Adrian?”

The room around her suddenly felt too small. Too dark.

Only the glow from the bedside lamp reached the corner where she sat curled against the door. The Christmas lights outside the window blinked softly through the curtains, washing the walls in muted reds and greens. Downstairs, muffled music drifted through the vents, cheerful and distant, as if it belonged to another house entirely.

A beat of silence. Then his voice.

“Cassie.”

It was so calm it made her heart start pounding.

“I didn't know you were there.”

“What happened?”

“Adrian-.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“It's over.” She scrubbed a hand across her face. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Cass.”

She swallowed. Her hands shook slightly. She knew exactly what was coming. “Please don’t do this, okay? It’s not worth it.”

"What did he say to you?”

"It doesn’t matter what he said to me,” she said, a little more firmly than before. Downstairs, someone popped a bottle and there were cheers. “He was just being a jerk and saying things to scare me-.”

“Did he touch you?”

Cass stayed silent.

“Cassie.” There was that eerily calm voice again. “Did he put his hands on you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “He kissed me.” Silence. “And I shoved him off me, but he said awful things and then-then he tried it again.” Her voice cracked. “I pushed him again and got out.”

The line stayed quiet.

“Adrian?”

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Good.”

She let out a shaky breath.

“Please don't do what you're thinking.”

“Cass.” His voice was still impossibly even. “I'm already going to. I’m just trying to decide how long to draw it out for. What did he say to you?”

Cass stared at the floorboards. The varnished wood blurred through fresh tears. Downstairs, another wave of laughter drifted through the vents, followed by the opening notes of another Christmas song.

"He called you a freak-"

"I don't care what he said about me. Did he say anything about you?"

“He asked-he asked if I let you sleep with me after he left or if we’d already been doing that.” She rubbed at her eyes. “He kept saying you didn’t care about me because-because you weren’t there to stop him.”

There was a beat of silence, then he uttered a single word with perfect clarity.

“Okay.”

With no warning, the line went dead.

Adrian didn’t answer her calls for the rest of the night.

He didn’t answer them the next day, when she drove back to her apartment and ignored her mother’s goodbyes.

He didn’t answer them the third day, when she went back to work and John handed her a cup of coffee on the way in. When she called Fennel Fields that night and asked for him, they said he’d taken the week off to care for his sick mother.

He didn’t answer her call on the fourth day. By lunchtime, Harry’s face was on the news. He hadn’t been seen since sometime early the day before.

Adrian finally answered on the fifth day.

Cass paced in her apartment. Snow drifted past the window, softening the yellow glow of the streetlamps. The phone in her hands rang repeatedly and just as she was about to toss it aside as she had every day before, there was click and familiar voice answered.

“Jesus Christ, I have like twenty missed calls from you.”

“Adrian!” Cass gasped, halting in the middle of her living room. “Oh my God. Are you okay? Why haven’t you been answering?”

“I’ve been busy.” She thought she heard him yawn. “How was work?”

“Adrian Chase!” she hissed. “You’ve been ignoring everyone for days. Emilia said you stormed out of Chris’s place and no one ahs seen you since!” She swallowed and lowered her voice. “Harry went missing and I’m not stupid.”

“I know you’re not.” His voice was low, laced with exhaustion. She thought there might be another yawn. “He’s still just missing? They haven’t found the body? That’s crazy. I didn’t hide it that hard.”

Unease settled in her gut.

“You killed him?”

“Yeah, eventually.”

Her grip tightened on here phone. Adrian disappeared five days ago. Harry hadn’t been reported missing until the third day.

“What do you mean, eventually?”

“I don't know.” He yawned. “I just wasn't in a hurry. Had a few things I wanted to say first.”

A knot settled in her stomach as her mind tried, and failed, to fill in the missing days.

Cass waited for the anger and the horror. She waited to feel sick.

It never came. Instead, something in her chest slowly unwound. Relief spread through her instead. The realization hit a heartbeat later.

Oh God. What the hell is wrong with me?

"Cassie?"

She swallowed. "Yeah?"

“Why are you so quiet?”

“I'm just.” She rubbed a hand across her forehead and let out a shaky breath. “I'm trying to process the fact that you disappeared for five days, murdered my ex-boyfriend, and somehow sound like you just woke up from a nap.”

“I did.”

She frowned. “What?”

“I got home like twenty minutes ago.” Another yawn. “I've been awake for almost four days.”

She fell quiet again. She could picture it. Adrian sprawled across his couch, still half dressed in his suit, one boot probably still on because he'd been too tired to take it off. His curls flattened in every direction. Eyes heavy. Barely able to keep them open.

A sharp ache settled in her chest.

She missed him.

She missed him so fiercely it stole the words from her throat and she almost told him, but Adrian mistook her silence for something else.

"I'm not apologizing." His voice was still tired, but careful. “You can be pissed if you want, but you told him to stay away and he didn’t. If he did something to you-.” There was long pause. “If he did something to you, I would never forgive myself.”

Emotion stung in Cass's eyes. She clutched the front of her shirt, and she so badly wished Adrian were there, in front of her, that it was almost painful. Not as an image on her phone. Not a staticky voice in her ear.

She wanted him there.

She wanted to see the slight tilt of his head through the red visor when he was trying to understand her. To hear his voice from somewhere besides the tiny speaker pressed against her ear.

She wanted him close enough that she could reach out and hold him, instead of her own shirt.

The ache in her chest was so sudden, so sharp, that it stole her breath

"I don't want you to apologize," she whispered. "Thank you."

Adrian was quiet.

"You should probably tell everyone you're back," Cass said after a moment. "Ads has been worried sick. Chris too. They've all been looking for you."

A groan crackled through the speaker. "Do I have to?"

Cass smiled. "Yes."

“I’m really tired,” Adrian sighed dramatically. "I'll do it tomorrow."

Cass laughed softly and shook her head. The ache in her chest burned.

"Tomorrow," she agreed.

***

Cass submitted her second request to work remotely on a Tuesday morning in February.

It was denied by lunchtime.

***

By the time Cass finally escaped work, the parking garage was nearly empty.

Twelve hours of back-to-back meetings and deadlines had left her with a headache pulsing behind her eyes. She tossed her bag into the passenger seat, started the car, and hit Adrian's name before she'd even pulled out of the parking space.

The phone rang and rang.

She frowned as it rolled to voicemail. Weird. Usually, if Adrian couldn't answer, a text would arrive before she'd even lowered the phone from her ear.

Working.

Give me ten minutes.

I’m in the shower and I’m pretty sure you don’t want me answering here.

There was always an explanation. Tonight there was nothing. She told herself not to be ridiculous. He was probably in the middle of something.

By the time she let herself into her apartment nearly forty minutes later, there was still no message waiting. Unease settled quietly in her stomach.

She kicked off her shoes, dropped her keys onto the counter, and tried again. The call connected almost immediately and relief flooded through her.

"Adri-."

"Hey, Cass."

She froze. "Chris?"

Chris’s face filled the screen. The video wobbled and shook, like he was moving quickly. She frowned, recognizing the walls and ceiling of Emilia’s apartment. Somewhere off camera, metal clattered against tile.

"Hold still," Emilia snapped, somewhere unseen.

"I'm trying.” Adrian’s voice came out as a groan and slightly muffled.

Cass's brow furrowed. Chris turned a corner, and for half a second the camera dipped toward the floor. Bloody footprints stretched across the outdated linoleum.

Every muscle in her body froze.

“Where’s Adrian?”

Chris sighed so heavily it crackled through the speaker and looked at her like she should already know the answer.

"Currently?" He snorted. "Bleeding all over Emilia's kitchen table after showing up on her doorstep half dead and interrupting our night." He shook his head. "I swear to God, the man couldn't have collapsed literally anywhere else."

The camera caught the room in fragments.

A discarded mask with a flash of red beneath the table. Torn pieces of tactical armor scattered across the floor.

Blood.

Crimson footprints crossed the linoleum. A soaked towel had been abandoned beside the sink. Red drops slid lazily from the edge of the counter, collecting in uneven circles on the floor below.

Then the phone lifted another few inches.

Cass stopped breathing.

Adrian lay face-down across Emilia's kitchen table.

The upper half of his suit had been cut away and tossed onto the floor beside him. His bare back glistened with sweat and blood, a jagged hole just beneath his shoulder blade staining everything beneath him a deep, impossible red. One of Emilia's white kitchen towels had been pressed beneath the wound at some point, but it had long since surrendered, completely saturated.

Emilia braced one hand firmly between his shoulder blades while the other disappeared into the wound with a pair of forceps.

"I think I’m close," she muttered.

Adrian's entire body went rigid.

Every muscle in his back tightened beneath blood-slick skin. His fingers crushed the edge of the table until his knuckles turned white. His jaw locked so hard Cass thought she heard his teeth grind together through the speaker.

A strangled breath escaped anyway.

"Adrian."

His eyes opened.

They were unfocused for a second before finding Chris, and then the phone. Recognition flashed across his face.

“Hang.” The words came out through clenched teeth. "Up."

Chris glanced between the screen and Adrian.

"Cass called."

"I know." Adrian squeezed his eyes shut as Emilia shifted the forceps again. A sharp hiss slipped through his teeth before he forced himself still. "Hang up. She'll worry."

"Don't you dare," she snapped, louder than she'd intended.

Adrian looked back toward the phone.

For just a second, the pain disappeared behind something almost sheepish.

"Cassie-"

"Do. Not. Hang. Up."

Emilia muttered something under her breath and withdrew the forceps. The muscles across Adrian's back finally loosened, though his breathing stayed shallow. A smear of fresh blood streaked across the fingers of her glove.

"What the hell happened?" Cass demanded,

Adrian worked his jaw once before answering. There was blood along his teeth where he'd bitten through the inside of his cheek. "Got shot."

"I can see that,” she snapped. “How?"

He shrugged or at least tried to. The movement made him flinch. "Guy had a gun."

Chris snorted and Cass glowered at the screen. "Thanks, Sherlock."

Adrian closed his eyes, settling his cheek against the table. His fingers had finally loosened their hold on the edge.

"I couldn’t reach it myself." He paused to catch his breath. “Harcourt’s apartment was close."

Chris let out an annoyed sigh on the other side of the screen. "We were having a perfectly nice evening. Emilia made dinner, we were halfway through a movie." He pointed accusingly toward Adrian. "Next thing I know this idiot faceplants onto her welcome mat and starts bleeding all over it."

Adrian cracked one eye open. “I knocked first.”

Emilia adjusted her grip, leaning farther over Adrian until Cass could barely see him beneath her shoulder.

"I can't find it."

Cass watched the forceps disappear into the wound again. Emilia pulled them free with another muttered curse. They were empty.

"It's deeper than I thought."

Chris stepped closer. The camera bobbed with him, giving Cass a brief glimpse of his shoes stopping beside the table.

"Should we just take him to a hospital?"

"No hospital." Adrian's voice was rough.

Cass couldn't see his face anymore, only the muscles across his shoulders suddenly bunching beneath Emilia's hands.

"Adrian," Emilia warned.

"Just-" He drew in a slow, uneven breath. "-dig it out."

"I'm not digging around blind."

Another pause. Cass watched Adrian's fingers curl against the edge of the table again. His forearm trembled from the effort of staying still.

"You'll find it."

Emilia leaned back just enough for Cass to catch Adrian's profile. His cheek was still pressed against the wood. His eyes were half-lidded, unfocused with exhaustion.

"You are the most stubborn person I've ever met," Emilia muttered. On the edge of the frame, Cass saw blonde hair whirl, like Emilia had whipped her head towards the phone. “Cass, tell him I need to take him to the hospital.”

Even as Cass opened her mouth, she wasn’t sure what she was going to say to convince the others not to take him to get help. A hospital would ask too many questions. A hospital would notice, once the bullet was free, Adrian’s body would take care of the rest much faster than normal, but none of that was Cass’s to tell.

Adrian beat her to it. “Just get it over with."

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Emilia muttered, through clenched teeth. Cass couldn't see her anymore, but she could picture the way her lips peeled back from her teeth whenever she got angry. “Fine. Chris, get over here and help me. Cass, keep him talking.”

The camera settled sideways against the tabletop.

For the first time since Chris had answered, Cass had an unobstructed view of Adrian.

His curls clung damply to his forehead. Blood stained the corner of his mouth, and his face had gone an unhealthy shade of pale beneath the freckles. Even lying still, she could see the faint rise and fall of his chest, each breath a little shallower than the last.

He turned his head just enough to look at the screen.

"Hi," he said quietly.

Her throat tightened. "You better not hang up this phone."

One corner of his mouth twitched. "Wasn't planning to."

There was a brief pause while Emilia rearranged the instruments somewhere beyond the edge of the screen.

"You look awful."

Adrian let out the faintest huff that might have been a laugh. “I was going to say the same thing.”

"You've got a bullet stuck in your shoulder."

"Yeah." His eyes settled on her for another moment. "But you've got that line."

"What line?"

He lifted a finger covered in dried blood weakly toward his own forehead. "Right there. The one you get when you're trying not to panic." His hand dropped back to the table. "I hate that one."

A gloved hand slipped into view, appearing on his shoulder. Cass swallowed waiting for the flash of the metal forceps. His hazy eyes focused on her. “Did you know sea cucumbers throw up their guts?”

Cass paused. “What?”

"Yeah." His mouth twitched faintly. "When they get scared, they just... eject their organs."

"That's disgusting."

"It's actually pretty smart." His voice had gone softer now. Sleepier. "Predator gets distracted. Then they just grow everything back."

Emilia's hand shifted. Adrian's words stopped. His jaw locked. A slow breath hissed between his teeth as something just out of frame made him tense. His fingers curled around the edge of the table.

"Easy," Emilia murmured.

Adrian gave the smallest nod. Then his entire body jerked. A strangled gasp escaped him before he could swallow it back and Cass instantly felt like she could cry.

Chris’s hands shot into frame, one catching Adrian across the shoulders as the other grabbed his forearm to keep him from pushing himself off the table. There were muttered words from Chris and Emilia off the screen, but Cass couldn’t make out any of them.

Adrian's breathing had become uneven.

Every muscle across his back stood out beneath the blood.

His eyes squeezed shut. Then, after a long second, they opened again. They found the phone

"Sea cucumbers," he managed through clenched teeth, "are really weird."

“Sounds like it,” Cass said in a weak voice. She desperately tried to keep the tremble away from her lips. “Maybe next time someone raises a gun to you, you should throw up all your organs.”

He let out a huff of laughter. It barely lasted a heartbeat. Emilia moved again. Adrian's hint of smile vanished. His teeth clenched so hard the muscles in his jaw jumped.

Cass's heart lurched.

There was a metallic scrape from somewhere beyond the edge of the frame. Then a strangled yell tore out of him. His whole body bowed off the table before Chris forced him back down. Every tendon in his neck stood out. His hand slipped from the edge of the table, searching blindly until it found purchase again, fingers shaking so violently Cass thought they might give out.

Another broken sound escaped him, smaller this time, swallowed almost immediately behind gritted teeth as he fought to force it back down.

Cass raised a trembling hand over her mouth.

She couldn't help him.

She couldn't even touch him.

All she could do was watch

She wasn’t sure how long it took for the apartment to go quiet. In reality, it hadn’t taken long at all for Emilia to finally find the bullet. Maybe a few minutes, but it had felt like a lifetime of watching Adrian fight against the pain.

Cass wasn’t sure which was worse. What she just witnessed or watching him immediately collapse in a field. Both would haunt her forever.

The harsh overhead light had been switched off. Only the small lamp above the stove cast a warm amber glow across Emilia's kitchen.

Somewhere deeper in the apartment, water hissed steadily through the shower pipes. Emilia had disappeared to shower and Chris was gone, deposing of a blood-stained welcomed mat and towels.

Adrian was still lying on the kitchen table.

A thick white bandage disappeared beneath what remained of his suit, wrapped tightly around his shoulder and chest. Blood still seeped lazily through the gauze, but it had slowed to an occasional crimson drop. Every few seconds one gathered beneath the edge of the table before falling to the tile with a soft, lonely tap.

Resting in the center was the flattened bullet, dark with blood, its edges peeled back into an ugly little mushroom from striking bone.

Cass couldn't stop looking at it. That tiny piece of metal had done all of this, wedged itself so far into him that Emilia had to practically carve out a hunk of his back to retrieve it.

It looked so small.

Adrian hadn't moved.

One arm was folded beneath his head, his cheek resting against it. His curls were damp against his forehead, his freckles standing out starkly against skin that had gone almost ghostly pale. His breathing was slow now. Heavy and exhausted.

Cass thought he'd fallen asleep.

Then his eyes cracked open. They found the phone immediately. “Hey.”

“Hi.” The words were almost a whisper. She didn’t know why. There wasn’t anyone in her apartment. She held her phone closer. “How are you feeling?”

Adrian answered by pushing himself up onto his elbows. A quiet grunt escaped him as the movement pulled at the fresh bandage. His hand instinctively found the edge of the table until the discomfort passed. Then he sat the rest of the way up, carrying the phone up with him, and rolling his shoulder once with a faint wince.

"Adrian." Cass frowned. "Would you stop moving?"

He glanced down at the bandage "It's fine."

"You were shot.”

"It's really not that big a deal." He tested his shoulder again, slower this time. "If it'd been somewhere I could actually reach, I would've just taken care of it myself."

Cass stared at him. His gaze wandered around the kitchen. Cass couldn’t see it, but she knew what he was looking at. The overturned chair. The blood-speckled cabinet doors. The drying footprints disappearing into the hallway.

His expression shifted into something that looked suspiciously like guilt. "I should clean this."

"You should sleep."

"After I clean." He slid carefully off the table. It creaked after losing his weight, and he steadied himself with one hand on the edge before bending to gather the discarded supplies. “I kind of owe her.”

“I guess you do,” Cass agreed, watching as he dug underneath the sink and emerged with a bottle of bleach. “She did a really good job. I couldn’t have done that.”

Adrian let out an unamused laugh. “What are you talking about? You would have done great.”

“You’re delusional. I have zero experience in that kind of thing, and you know that.” Cass shook her head. “What would you want me digging around in your back for?”

“I’d rather have your hands all over me than Harcourt’s,” he said matter-of-factly. “I would have talked you through it.”

“You could barely finish telling me about sea cucumbers.”

“Yeah, but still.” He gave a shrug, like that settled the matter. “You’re like the smartest person I know. Everything would have been fine.”

Cass shifted on the end of her couch, the compliment settling somewhere underneath her ribs.

“Well, next time you get shot, maybe call me,” she said in a quiet voice. “I may not be there to mangle your body myself, but maybe I can talk to you while you do it. Ease the pain a bit.”

Adrian’s head lifted and that toothy grin she dreamed about appeared. There was still the hint of blood on his teeth. “That sounds really dope, actually.”

Cass laughed.

***

Cass fumbled her keys twice before finally managing to get the apartment door unlocked. The bottle of wine tucked beneath her arm bumped against the frame as she stumbled inside.

"Hold on," she muttered, laughing to herself. "My building is fighting me."

Through the phone, Adrian snorted. Cass nudged her apartment door shut with her heel and balanced the bottle of wine against her hip as she fumbled her phone into a better position.

"Happy birthday,” he said, as soon as her face entered the screen. “Did you know jellyfish can’t celebrate birthdays? They’re immortal.”

“I think there might be a couple reasons they don’t celebrate birthdays.” Cass moved through her apartment, kicking off her heels as she went. She left them where they fell.

“Yeah, but the immortality is probably the main reason.”

She still wasn't really looking at the screen, but she caught the shift as his attention moved from her face to the bottle tucked beneath her arm.

“I thought you went out for drinks?”

“I did. John took me to a bar down the street.” She tossed her keys on the counter along with a stack of mail, before taking a wine glass down from her cabinet. “On my way home, I decided I wanted more.”

“How much did you already have?”

She gave him a look as she set the phone against the toaster and whatever she had been about to say disappeared.

Adrian had his phone balanced on a workbench in what looked like a basement. A half-built wooden shelving unit stood behind him, scattered with drills, loose hardware, and a tape measure. He was halfway through fastening one of the brackets into place, looking between the shelf and the instructions he'd apparently ignored.

He wasn't wearing his suit or one of the oversized hoodies or sweaters she'd grown used to seeing him in. Just gray sweatpants and a white tank top.

Cass's thoughts came to a complete stop.

He reached overhead to steady the shelf, and the muscles in his arm tightened with the movement. Her gaze caught for one embarrassing second before she jerked it back to the wine bottle.

“What are you building?” Her voice came out higher than she intended. She internally cursed at herself as she poured nearly half the bottle into a single glass. Carefully picking up her phone and sipping on the rim of the glass to not spill a drop, she padded into her dark room.

“I just need some more storage,” Adrain answered. The drill whined for a few seconds before falling quiet. “I’m running out of room down here.”

Cass propped her phone on her bedside table. “Are you in the super secret lair?”

“Maybe.” One corner of his mouth twitched.

She smiled to herself as she wandered toward her dresser.

"I bet you have a secret entrance."

"I use the stairs."

"That's exactly what someone with a secret entrance would say."

Adrian shook his head, smiling as he reached for another bracket. "I think you had too much wine. How did you get home?”

“I walked.”

His head snapped up. “Alone?”

Cass shrugged, her lips on the edge of her wine glass as she crossed the room. She thumbed through her shirts hanging in closet with one hand. Her body was feeling warm. Overly warm. “Maybe I had my date walk me home.”

There was a sharp whirl as the drill slid somewhere it wasn’t supposed to. Cass pulled a shirt from her hanger and turned to see Adrian facing the camera with a frown. “You had a date tonight?”

“No,” she snorted into her wine glass. She tossed the oversized shirt on her bed.

“Good.” Adrian didn’t elaborate. He was still watching her, the shelf forgotten for the first time since she picked up the phone. “You look really nice.”

Cass tilted her head at him and sipped her wine as his face reddened.

“Not that you don't usually look nice. You do. Like-objectively, you always look pretty. Super pretty. Always.” He gestured vaguely with the drill. “Not that you’re just a pretty object. You’re not. You’re a person. You’re a person who looks really good-I mean-fuck.” The hand holding the drill fell limply to his side. “I really like your dress.”

The warmth she'd been blaming on the wine suddenly felt a lot less convincing.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “You look nice too.”

He glanced down and his mouth turned. “I do?”

She nodded and set her wine on her dresser. She started to unhook her earrings, her necklace, and the bracelet dangling from her wrist. “Why was good that I didn’t have a date?”

Adrian glanced at her as dug in a toolbox. “What?”

“You said it was good that I didn’t have a date tonight.” She dropped the fistful of jewelry next to her wine glass. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” He rummaged around some more. It might have been something off with the camera, but she thought she saw his neck flush a shade of red. “You haven’t been there very long. You don’t need to be dating some guy you just met.”

“It’s been seven months,” she said softly. “You and I only knew each other for eight days.”

“That’s different.”

Cass laughed and grabbed her wine glass. There was another flush of warmth as she took a  sip. “You sound jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.”

Adrian shook his head, still refusing to look at her.

“I’m concerned.”

“Concerned?”

“Yeah. Just a concerned best friend.”

Cass set the wine down and reached behind herself for the zipper of her dress. The bedroom shifted faintly around her. She steadied herself against the dresser until it stopped. A restless feeling had settled beneath her skin.

“A guy hit on me at the bar,” she said. “John thought it was funny. I thought the guy was gross, but maybe I should’ve given him a chance.”

Adrian finally looked up. “Why?”

Cass dragged the zipper down. “I haven’t had sex in forever.”

The toolbox slipped from Adrian’s hand and landed heavily on the workbench. “You would’ve had sex with him?”

“Probably not.” Cass pushed the dress from her shoulders. It gathered around her waist, exposing the lace of her bra.

“But it’s nice to think about.” She worked the rest of the fabric over her hips. “Having someone take care of me on my birthday.”

The dress pooled around her feet.

When Cass glanced toward the phone, Adrian was still watching her. His eyes moved immediately back to her face. “Is that what you wanted for your birthday?”

“Maybe.” Cass took her wine glass from the dresser and took a long sip. “It would be nice to feel wanted.”

“You should have said something earlier.” He grabbed the phone, moving it closer before he sat on the floor and leaned against the basement wall. His project was now completely forgotten. “I would have done that for you.”

Warmth pooled low in Cass’s stomach.

She became abruptly aware that she was standing in front of him in her underwear. Cass grabbed the shirt from her bed and pulled it over her head.

“You would’ve slept with me just because I asked?”

Adrian considered the question more seriously than she expected.

“Not tonight,” he said. “You’re drunk.”

Cass frowned.

“But if you’d asked me before all the cocktails?” His mouth tilted. “Yeah. Probably.”

“Probably?”

“Definitely.” He shifted the phone against his knee. “Then you wouldn’t have to do it with some random guy from a bar who you already thought was gross.”

Cass climbed onto the bed and stretched across the comforter. The ceiling wavered when she looked up at it. She shut her eyes for several seconds before rolling onto her side to face the phone. Adrian was smiling at her.

“Maybe the gross guy would’ve been really good at it,” she said quietly. “Maybe it would’ve been the best birthday present ever.”

Adrian’s smile disappeared. Cass bit back her own.

“No way.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you.” He said it with complete certainty. “It would be better with me.”

Cass propped herself onto one elbow. “You think you know what I’d like?”

“I know I know what you like.” There was no hesitation in his answer. “And whatever I didn’t know, I’d figure out really fast.”

Cass pondered that a minute, studying the screen with a newfound interest.  Maybe it was the wine in her system, or the cocktails she had at the bar, or maybe she was simply just losing all rational thought, but her next question escaped from her lips before she could stop it.

“Do you think it would be good between us?”

“I think it would be fucking amazing.”

There was sharp flash of something low in her stomach. Cass took another sip, her cheeks growing hot. The contents of her glass were running low. “You sound awfully confident.”

“I am.” He rested his forearms on his knees. “We’re best friends. Of course it would be great between us. We know everything about each other.”

Cass laughed softly. "That's not really how that works."

"Why not?"

"Because knowing I hate mushrooms doesn't magically make someone good in bed."

"No, but knowing you hate mushrooms means I pay attention." Adrian raised a brow, like the connection as obvious. "I'd pay attention to everything else, too."

Cass looked down into her wine, suddenly finding the off white liquid incredibly interesting. Her next question she didn’t really even want to know the answer to, because she knew there was a possibility it would hurt her feelings. Trying to her tone as neutral a possible, she kept her eyes on the swirling liquid as she asked. “When was the last time you-you know-you were with someone?”

She couldn’t help the swirling feeling of unease in her chest. Adrian glanced up at the ceiling, thinking, and that was all it took for her imagination to get the best of her.

A faceless woman appeared in Cass's mind, her hands tangled in the curls at the back of his neck, laughing at something he'd said. Someone he'd smiled at the way he smiled at her.

Cass took too large a sip of wine and immediately coughed.

“Uh, a while,” he said, mouth pulling. “I think it was the night before we met actually.”

Cass froze. The unease disappeared as quickly as it appeared and was replaced with genuine shock. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. It was with Peacemaker and some chick he met the day before-.”

“Adrian!” Her mouth split into an amused smile and she shoved her up in a sitting position. “You did not have a threesome with Chris.”

“Yeah, I did.” His brows came together and he looked horribly confused. “Why are you laughing?”

Cass covered her mouth with her palm and swallowed down the giggles that were trying to escape. “I’m not laughing at you, I swear. I just can’t believe you had a threesome with one of our friends and never told me!”

“It never came up,” he said, a little defensively. Cass covered another laugh. “Besides, there’s not much to tell. It wasn’t even very good.”

“Oh.” Cass grimaced. “Did the girl not…” she waved her hand and Adrian understood immediately.

“No, she had a great time. Trust me. I just-.” He looked off from the camera, his mouth turning. “I don’t like it when they focus on me. I always wish that part would go by faster.”

Cass settled on her knees. The t-shirt did nothing to cover her bare legs as she looked carefully at the screen. “Do you not like having sex?”

“No, I like sex,” he answered quickly. “I just like making the other person feel good. As soon as they start touching me though-.” He gave an involuntarily shudder.

Cass considered those words, then finished the last of her wine. She carefully set the empty glass with her phone, before resting her hands by her scar. Her fingers gently fidgeted with the hem of her shirt.

“Has anyone ever asked what you wanted?”

“Not really.”

“What if I asked?”

Adrian’s gaze snapped back to hers. Cass didn’t miss the way his throat bobbed or the way the muscle on the side of his jaw tightened. The imaginary line they’d been playing with for months was finally in danger of being crossed.

Cass supposed she should probably feel embarrassed about her question, but she couldn’t. Not with the way Adrian was staring at her through the phone screen.

It would be fucking amazing.

Adrian’s mouth opened like he was about to answer, when off screen there was a loud groan of metal. His brow furrowed and his head whipped toward the sound before the crash even came. The unfinished shelving unit collided into eh concrete floor. Adrian cursed and the video blurred as he jumped to his feet. Cass got a glimpse of scattered nails, a tipped over box of tools, and even what she thought might have been a handgun.

The screen went dark and the call disconnected.

Cass stared at her own reflection.

Then the screen went black and the call disconnected.

Cass stared at her own reflection.

The empty wineglass stood on the nightstand. Her dress remained crumpled on the floor. The curtains fluttered gently beside the open window, carrying in the first warm breeze of spring.

Cass replayed the conversation. Again. And again until she sank slowly against the pillows. Her skin felt too warm for the cool air moving through the room.

Adrian would pay attention.

He would notice when she became nervous before she said a word. If something hurt, he would stop. He would ask questions. He would make one of his terrible jokes if she became trapped inside her own thoughts.

He would care.

That realization was infinitely more dangerous than his broad shoulders, the curls she had imagined beneath another woman’s hands, or the fact that Cass now knew exactly what his arms looked like beneath all those oversized hoodies.

She pressed a pillow over her face.

The image of Adrian in the basement returned anyway. Gray sweatpants. White tank top. The flush rising along his neck when she accused him of being jealous.

Cass released a muffled groan into the pillow.

When she finally lowered it, her gaze drifted toward the dark phone screen.

She was moving into dangerous, irreversible territory and all Cass could think was that Adrian had been right.

It would be fucking amazing.

***

Cass didn’t have nightmares very often anymore.

Turns out, once the butterfly threat was eradicated and Adrian brutally murdered the only man who scared her, she didn’t have much to have nightmares about, but like anyone else, they still came occasionally.

 She shot upright in bed. Pieces of her hair stuck to her sweaty face and the sheets pooled around her waist. Despite her window being cracked, allowing the late spring breeze to filter in, her skin was clammy. Too warm.

It was too early for the sun to be breaking the horizon. The only light came from the faint glow of her phone, propped against the lamp. She blinked at it once, confused, then remembered the whispered conversation she’d been having as she crawled into bed.

"Cassie?" The voice on the phone was thick with sleep.

"Yeah?" she pressed a hand to her racing heart.

There was a long yawn on the other end of the line. "You okay?”

She nodded, although she realized fairly quickly, he probably couldn’t see her that well. “I’m fine. Bad dream.”

There was a groan, followed by rustle of blankets. “What was it?”

“I don’t really remember,” she answered, honestly. The details were already slipping away. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair, pulling it away from her face. “Go back to sleep.”

“M’kay.”

He didn't hang up. Cass waited, watching his faint outline on the screen. His breathing never deepened.

"You're still awake."

"Only a little bit,” he huffed, voice muffled by his pillow. He shifted and a glimpse of a bare shoulder appeared as he rolled over. Cass wondered if he’d removed his shirt after she fell asleep.

"Just go back to sleep."

"I'm trying if you would quit talking to me.”

Cass snorted, but it wasn't enough to ease the sick feeling in her chest.

The sound of Adrian breathing filled her bedroom. Cass concentrated on it until the frantic rhythm of her own heart began to slow, gradually falling into time with his.

She had become frighteningly accustomed to this.

Falling asleep together through a screen had become part of their routine over the past few weeks. Sometimes they talked until one of them stopped answering. Other nights, Adrian rambled about something incomprehensible while Cass drifted off, only for her to wake hours later and discover the call still connected.

At first, it had helped.

His voice softened the ache that followed every goodbye. His face on her nightstand made the apartment feel less empty.

His voice softened the loneliness that followed every goodbye. Seeing his face on the nightstand made the apartment feel a little less empty.

Lately, it wasn't enough anymore.

Cass watched the slow rise and fall of his back.

She knew this version of him almost by heart now. The curls flattened against his forehead. The way he pulled the blankets almost to his chin before kicking them away again. The crease the pillow left across his cheek every morning.

She knew all these little things She just couldn't reach any of them.

Without thinking, she stretched her hand across the empty mattress beside her.

Cold sheets met her fingertips.

The distance between them suddenly felt impossible. Hundreds of miles. A phone screen. A voice compressed into a tiny speaker.

She knew what Adrian sounded like half asleep. She knew the rhythm of his breathing. She knew how his face softened when he laughed until his shoulders shook, how he absentmindedly rubbed the back of his neck whenever he was embarrassed, and the boyish grin that spread across his face whenever he was ready for a fight. She knew the quiet, almost unsettling seriousness that settled over him when his thoughts drifted away from her and back to the vigilante beneath the suit.

She knew which jokes he laughed at before anyone else. She knew the little sigh he'd let out when he finally relaxed after a long day. She knew him well enough to hear the difference between the voice he used for everyone else and the softer one he saved for her.

Cass knew him.

She just didn't know what it felt like to have him here.

The thought hollowed her out.

She tried to imagine waking up and finding him asleep beside her, curled beneath the blankets a few inches away. Maybe he'd roll over, still half asleep, and blink at her for a second before smiling.

"You okay?"

The same question he'd asked only moments ago through a phone speaker, except h wouldn’t be on the other side of the country. He would just be there. He would be so close she wouldn’t have to imagine what his voice would sound like in her room.

He would just be there.

The thought hit her so suddenly it stole the air from her lungs.

She wanted that.

God, she wanted that. She wanted it so unbeliably bad the thought cracked something inside her chest.

Her throat tightened.

She realized she had spent months convincing herself that what she missed was their friendship.

Friendship wasn't what made the bed feel so unbearably large.

Friendship wasn't what made every goodbye ache a little more than the last.

She wanted him close enough that reaching for him didn't require a phone.

Her fingers curled into the sheets.

She missed him with a kind of loneliness she'd never known another person could cause.

She knew Adrian more intimately than she had ever known anyone. She knew what frightened him, what made him laugh, and which parts of himself he hid behind enthusiasm and terrible jokes.

But every important moment still ended the same way.

One of them hung up.

One of them said goodbye.

One of them fell asleep alone.

Cass looked at the glowing rectangle on her nightstand.

The ache in her chest deepened until it was almost difficult to breathe.

She closed her eyes.

For one impossible second, she tried to imagine that when she reached across the bed, she'd find warmth instead of cold sheets.

She already knew she wouldn't.

That was somehow the worst part.

***

Cass sent in her third request to work remotely on a hot afternoon in June. She was just stepping into a meeting.

When she got out of her meeting, Rick Flag Sr., the director of ARGUS, was waiting at her desk.

“Listen, buddy-” the man started, giving her one more squeeze before one of his hands slipped off of her. He held it in front of him, trying to placate Adrian, but it did no good. Adrian’s brow furrowed the moment the man squeezed her and before she could even blink, he reeled back and punched the man square in the jaw. 

He went down like a sack of potatoes.

She gasped and her hands flew to cover her mouth. 

“Adrian!” she said, reaching for the incensed man, trying to pull Adrian back as he moved towards the man who was cradling his bloody nose. He ignored her hands trying to tug him away as he glared down at the man.

“You don’t ever touch her again, ever. Do you understand me?” His voice was tight, as if he was fighting the urge to do something worse than punch the man, and even though she hadn’t been working with Adrian for more than eight months, she knew he could easily kill him for her, and the look on his face told her he wanted to.

“What the fuck man!” he cried. “You broke my nose!” 

“I should’ve broke your fucking hand,” Adrian spit out. “You don’t touch her, you don’t look at her, you don’t even fucking think about her. Do you understand me?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, yes!” he cried, the man's blue eyes frantic as he avoided looking at her. When Adrian finally looked at her, he was seething. 

“Come on,” he said firmly, grabbing her hand while she was still in shock to pull her out of the club. It was once he touched her that she snapped out of her daze, looking back at the man on the ground being helped up by someone else. 

Then she really comprehended what was happening. 

“Adrian!” she said, ripping her hand out of his grasp, and he looked at her eyes, his were wide and confused. 

“What?” he asked, eyes straining against the light. Clearly trying to understand why she was reacting the way she was.

“That was a fucking lead and you punched him!” she yelled, eyes flickering around to make sure no one was paying attention to them. “You weren’t doing your job! You were supposed to be at the bar watching my back and when I looked over you were gone! How was I supposed to signal you that I had found someone from the dossier?” 

“Him?” he asked, brows furrowed and even though they were no longer anywhere near that man he still tried looking behind her for him. “He’s not a target.”

“I swear to you, he was familiar! I think he was in the dossier!” 

“He’s not,” he said, firmly. She fought the urge to scream as she moved away from Adrian, making her way towards the elevator. “He looked nothing like any of the targets!” Adrian cried as she continued stomping away.

“Okay Adrian! I get it! I wasted my time, fucking move on!” she said as he kept pace with her. 

“I was just trying to protect you,” he said adamantly, keeping on her heels. 

“Okay!” she said, trying to get him to stop. She could feel her temper rising and she wanted nothing more than to just be away from him. 

“Your husband-” he started. 

“Adrian!” she cried, spinning on her heel to face him. “Jesus! I’m not your wife! We have nothing Adrian! Nothing! Do you realize that?” she yelled, she waited a beat before she couldn’t stand looking at him anymore and she continued walking away from him. She could hear him keeping pace with her. As annoying as it was, she was glad she could keep yelling at him. “Our first lead this entire week! You might think he wasn’t in the dossier, but I do, and you didn’t let me do my job! Plus, you punched him, so even if I found him later, he probably wouldn’t talk to me at all!”

“He was touching your ass, sorry for playing the part of your HUSBAND!” he yelled. She pulled at her hair, not understanding why he wasn’t listening to her. 

“Adrian! Are you listening to yourself? You’re not my husband! This isn’t a real honeymoon! We are undercover for our jobs, and I know that to you, your job is all fun and games, but I do care about my job and doing good work. The last thing I need is to lose my job because you don’t know how to act during an undercover mission!” He stepped back like she had physically hit him, there’s something in his expression that makes her feel ill. 

“Right, that’s all this is,” he muttered, and something twists in her. 

“Yes, Adrian. This is my job, I’m trying to do my job. You should fucking try it sometime,” she snapped making her way towards the elevator. He still followed her, a little less close this time, but at least he was silent as they got into the elevator. He remained silent as she hit their floor number and the elevator closed and started moving.

The elevator shook and Adrian gasped next to her, his hand grabbing hers tightly. 

“What was that?” 

“Adrian, don’t start,” she said, rubbing her eyes with her other hand, not finding it in herself to pull her hand out of his yet. All she wanted was to be back in the room and to lock herself in the bathroom. Anything to get away from him for just five minutes. The elevator shook again and out of the corner of her eye she saw him pull out a knife from god knows where. “Jesus Christ, put that away,” she said, hand on his arm as he held it steady and pointed out as he glanced all around the elevator. 

“It’s a trap,” he hissed. 

“It is not, Adrian! None of this is a trap because there’s no way this is even a fucking mission at this point. We’re going back with nothing, and you’ll be fine because you’re tight with everyone, and I’m going to lose my fucking job because I’m a bad agent who can’t even handle a simple under cover mission!” she said her voice shrill even to her own ears, quick to swipe away any tears. She knew she was weak but she didn’t need Adrian to see it even more. 

Before he could say anything, the elevator shuttered back to life, jerking the two as Adrian put his knife back wherever he had grabbed it from.

“See, not a trap,” she grumbled as she released his hand and headed towards the room, her brain still swimming.

The door slammed behind Adrian as she pulled out the dossier, ripping out pages and fighting the urge to scream. She laid everything out on the bed, attempting to take any of it in a new light. 

“This makes no fucking sense!” she cried as she took a step back from the dossier she had spread on the bed. 

“Maybe, we’re missing a page?” Adrian tried, eyebrows tight on his forehead as he looked at the pages with a frown. 

“We’re not missing a page, they’re numbered. Maybe Harcourt left something out? Did she make this instead of Chris?” 

“Chris didn’t say, but I’d assume Chris, based on some of the misspelling.” Adrian said with a hum. She frowned and took a step back.

“I’m calling Harcourt, I know Chris said to limit contact, but we need something,” she said as she clicked Emilia’s contact. She answered on the third ring. 

“Hey, lover girl. How’s your getaway with Vig going?” she said with a teasing tone, and she felt heat creep up her neck, immediately regretting the fact she had her on speaker phone. 

“Listen, Emilia, we’re really stuck here. We think we might be missing a page in the dossier or something. Do you know anything about our main target’s connection to this place?” she said, practically begging for an answer as Emilia stayed silent on the line. “Just anything we can use. We’re running out of time.” 

“What do you mean dossier?” Emilia asked after a beat.

“I know, Chris’s dossiers are terrible, hence this mess, and you can barely call it a dossier but we are really lost, right now and could use-”

“Why do you have a dossier? You two are on PTO,” Harcourt said and she froze, looking over at Adrian.

“No, we’re on a mission. Chris sent us here to bust a drug ring,” she said slowly, the gears in her head starting to turn as she realized what was happening. 

“I’m telling you now that you’re on PTO, there’s no mission,” Harcourt repeated back, just as slow as she did, in almost a mocking tone. “Now go enjoy a margarita for me and please keep track of how many times Adrian says something stupid. I have a bet with Ads that he’s going to ruin this before you even give him a real chance.” Harcourt hung up and left her staring at Adrian who looked at her clearly waiting for her reaction. 

“Call Chris,” she said tensely, and Adrian looked at her with wild eyes as he got his phone out and called Chris. “Speaker,” she said, and Adrian listened.

“Yo, Vig. What’s up?” Chris said she could hear video games in the background, she gritted her teeth as she nodded at Adrian to answer him. 

“Hey, Peacemaker! I was uhhh just wondering if you had any information about our target?” Adrian asked, eyes wide and on her. Her eyes were locked on his phone. 

“Target? What are you talking about?” Chris asked, and Adrian frowned. 

“The mission - the dossier you gave us?” Adrian asked, looking at her. 

“Oh, that…fuck Vig, you’ve been taking that seriously? That was just an excuse to get you guys to the resort - I figured you guys would’ve figured out that it was bullshit immediately. Like on the plane like instantly. I made it all up, just copy and pasted shit from old dossiers.” 

“Why the fuck are we on a fake mission, Chris!” she said, snatching the phone from Adrian. 

“What do you mean why the fuck are you on a fake mission where you guys have to be lovey-dovey? I thought it would finally get you guys fucking started! Do you know how exhausting it’s been watching you two for six months?” Chris said, as if they had truly been inconveniencing the man with their crushes and silent looks.

“That’s fucking insane!” she cried. 

“I’m so sorry for trying to help my friend hook up with the girl he’s clearly in love with and the girl who stares at him all day and acts like he hung the stars in the sky!” 

“I’m going to hang up now,” she said coolly, not giving Chris a chance to say anything as she kept her gaze locked on Adrian, who looked like he was about to be sick. “Adrian, have you actually liked me this entire time?” she asked gently, and she watched him bite his cheek. 

“I need you to define ‘liked’ and ‘this entire time’,” he settled on, and she groaned, throwing herself on the plush bed with all the papers covered in lies that had been haunting her this entire fake mission. She was no longer able to even look at Adrian, she was so frustrated. He had put her feelings through the ringer all week, only for her to find out that he had felt the same way. Apparently he had felt this way long enough for Christopher Smith of all people to try to help him out and set them up.  

“You’ve liked me this whole time? Adrian, I’ve been thinking this is all pretend, and it’s been fucking with my head!” she yelled at him, moving her eyes from the ceiling to not miss his reaction, and she watched him throw his hands up in the air and begin pacing. 

“I thought it was part of the mission! I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable like I’m some creep! I’m a feminist! Same thing when we’re at work! I’m not trying to harass you…ya know sexually!” he said back, eyes wide and wild. 

“You thought me sitting in your lap on an empty beach was part of the mission?” she said, sitting up, as annoyed as she felt she couldn’t help but be endeared by Adrian’s clear panic. “We both knew we weren’t going to spot a single target!”

“Yeah, a really fucking good part of the mission, I jerked off in the bathroom that night thinking about that!”

“Adrian!” 

“What! I fucking did! Or should we go back to lying?” he said, his tone wild as he leaned over towards her. She sighed as she watched his chest heave. His face was red, and his eyes were still having a hard time focusing on her. It was then she realized that Adrian was feeling angry or frustrated like she was - but where she was upset that they both had been so blind to the other’s feelings, he was borderlining a panic attack. 

“Adrian,” she said softly, standing up so she could wrap him up in her arms. He stayed stiff for a beat, just a second, before he melted against her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her tightly against him. 

“I don’t want to go back to lying,” he murmured into the top of her head, and she sighed. 

“This is insane,” she said, still not over what Chris had done. 

“When have our friends ever been sane,” he whispered, shaking his head. 

She sighed, letting herself close her eyes as she tried to digest any of this. It was absolutely insane that Chris would do this to his friend and his coworker, but there was a part of her that was thankful for Chris’s stupidity and dumbass plans. 

“Remember the first night?” he asked, suddenly out of the blue. When she tilted her head, confusion over her features Adrian kept going. “When you asked me what my number one fear is?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s losing you. Well it’s losing everyone, but the more time we spend together, it’s you. The idea that one day, everyone could just be gone? That I could fuck up and lose everyone, especially after how long it took for me to have friends? and you? Whatever you call this where I pine for you and I'm your annoying colleague at worst and work friend at best? I'll take it, as long as I get to have you in my life it's worth it. So losing you terrifies me more than anything,” he said, his face open and vulnerable as his eyes searched her face, almost desperately. 

“Oh, Ade.” she said softly. 

“I’m serious, you’re…you’re everything to me.” 

“You-”

“From the moment you interviewed, I liked you, and I liked you even more when you started putting sour candy on your desk and you were always nice to me and you laugh at my jokes like you mean it and I just…I love you.”

“Adrian,” she said, her breath caught in her throat as she searched for any inch of lying on his face, but she couldn’t find any. 

“Is that too insane? Too much?” he said immediately, looking panicked. “If I had known Chris’ plan, I would’ve planned a way better speech and ran it by Ads too to make sure it was good and I didn’t say anything stupid. But then again if I knew Chris’ plan I would’ve told you immediately because we’ve been working when we should’ve been relaxing. Even if you don’t like me back we could’ve just had a normal vacation. God, I’m so sorry he did this.”

“No…it’s not insane,” she whispered, moving closer to him. A smile broke out on his face as his hands went to her waist, squeezing her gently. 

“Yeah?”

“Love is…a lot for right now,” she said, his smile twitching for just a second. “But I do really like you Adrian. This whole mission has been torture because all I wanted was for all this to be real. For you to look at me and for it to be real and I just…”

“It’s always been real,” he said, voice almost sounding hoarse. “The way I look about you and think about you. I wasn’t acting, if anything I’ve been selfish this whole time.” 

“The way I’ve been with you, it’s been real too,” she said, voice shaking. 

“I am sorry,” he said, suddenly sounding rueful as she looked at him. Confusion all over her features. “For not being there when you needed me, I should’ve been watching and making sure you were safe. I want to do that, not only for missions but outside of all this,” he said, fidgeting with his hands, his face almost looking like he was in pain. 

“It’s okay,” she whispered, realizing how hard Adrian must’ve taken her words. 

“It’s not,” he said, voice firm. “But I’d like to make it up to you if you’ll let me,” he asked, his green eyes never wavering from her eyes. His intensity made her start to well up, this whole time it had been eating her up inside not knowing where she stood with Adrian and to find out that he cared the same for her, if not more, was almost too much. 

“I think I can find it in me to let you try,” she teased and Adrian let out a huff. “And I’m sorry too, I shouldn’t have blown up at you.” 

“Nah, it was hot and I deserved it,” he said, finally a smile crossing his features as he took a step closer to her. 

“Well, either way I’m still sorry,” she whispered as Adrian’s smile grew, his hand coming up to cup her cheek, wiping away a tear. 

“Can I kiss you? Please can I kiss you?” he begged, and she let out a watery laugh. 

“Yes, Adrian. You can kiss me,” she said and he took no time to cup both her cheeks as he was quick to smash their lips together. As far as first kisses went, it was clunky, awkward, a little too much teeth from Adrian, but she wouldn’t change it for the world. 

All because it was real.

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For now, you have a different ritual to follow. The private shows started a few months ago. You had grown jaded from the routine of your life, tired of feeling neglected, tired of pretending the persistent ache in your belly would eventually disappear on its own. It never did, so you found your own way to distract yourself, your own way to make the long nights pass a little faster. First, you put together a playlist composed entirely of the sluttiest pop songs you can find from twenty years ago, songs dripping with nostalgia and bad decisions. Second, you slip into the tiny nightgown you bought last week, the one that barely qualifies as clothing and somehow makes you feel better every time you wear it. 

Waiting has become part of the ritual. You moved to the window. Across the street, every house has its curtains drawn, tv screens flickered behind closed blinds, ordinary people living ordinary lives, already asleep or pretending to be. Your gaze drifted further down the block until it settled on the roof in front of your apartment where the streetlights reflected in his red visor. Right on schedule. 

A faint smile pulls at the corner of your mouth, whatever could be said about him, he was consistent. The first time you noticed him had been an accident. A brief glance through your own window during another sleepless night while your husband worked. But there he was, perched on the roof of the building across the street sitting with his legs dangling over the edge and swinging idly beneath him like a kid. Neither of you waved but you found other ways to acknowledge the other. Maybe seeing you humping your pillow was the highlight of his nights. He obviously liked your little ‘shows’, you could guess it by looking at the shape of his body outlined in the dark, his elbow moving at the same rhythm of your hips.

Tonight, humping your pillow is never going to be enough to quiet the restless frustration inside you, not when the emptiness has been building for days and every attempt to distract yourself has only made it more impossible to ignore. You are already kneeling on your bed, one hand disappearing beneath the waistband of your panties, the movements of your fingers slow and deliberate around your clit as you spread your knees just a little farther apart, making absolutely certain there can be no misunderstanding about what you are doing for the man watching from the other side of the patio door.

After several long, increasingly frustrating minutes, you abandon the last pretense of restraint and push your panties down, impatient with the fabric that keeps getting in the way, leaving nothing to hinder your touch as your fingers move more freely in and out of you. Your other hand wanders over your body, lingering against the soft satin of your chemise as the thin material wrinkles beneath your squeezing grip around your breasts. Your breathing grows heavier while your gaze remains fixed on the figure outside, silently daring him to keep watching.

But it still wasn't enough, you were increasingly desperate for the release that always seemed just beyond your reach. With an impatient sigh, you slowly withdrew your fingers from your warmth before leaning over the edge of the bed, pulling open the drawer of your nightstand. Inside, an assortment of sextoys lay neatly arranged. Your gaze drifted over them only briefly before settling on your favorite without hesitation, vibrant blue, smooth as silk beneath your fingertips and perfectly curved.

You wrapped your fingers around it before returning to the center of the bed, your movements patient now despite the urgency burning inside you. Carefully positioning yourself, you lowered your body with deliberate slowness, allowing yourself to adjust little by little, inch after inch. The work of your fingers earlier had done little to prepare you and you couldn't help noticing the tension in your body as the fullness forced you to pause more than once, the initial discomfort gradually giving way to a deeper, more satisfying sensation as your muscles slowly relaxed around it.

For the briefest of moments, a reckless thought crossed your mind, and you found yourself wondering whether he could hear the moans slipping past your lips from where he sat, despite the distance between you, despite the thick pane of glass separating your worlds, and despite the music loud enough to swallow every other sound. Part of you desperately hoped he couldn't but another, far more desperate part of you wished the opposite, wished the silence between you could somehow be broken. 

You slowly lifted your head in a half-hearted attempt to meet his gaze through the crimson-tinted visor that concealed his gaze, knowing full well you had no chance of seeing his eyes and yet unable to resist pretending otherwise. It was only then, as your attention finally settled on the rooftop where he had been sitting only moments before, that you realized something was different tonight. The silhouette was gone.

A faint crease formed between your brows as you instinctively searched the roof again, wondering if you had lost sight of him in the darkness, but there was nothing there except the empty edge of the building. Your confusion lasted only a heartbeat before a movement below caught your eye, drawing your attention toward the street to see the familiar figure step onto the sidewalk and begin walking with confidence in your direction. He disappeared between the neighboring buildings, leaving you staring into the fog with your heart hammering against your ribcage.

You barely had time to wonder where he had gone. A metallic clang echoed somewhere below, followed by the faint groan of old steel under shifting weight. Your balcony overlooked the building's fire escape, a rusted maze of platforms and ladders that no tenant ever bothered to use. Tonight, however, someone was climbing it. Your breath caught as a gloved hand appeared over the railing, followed by the unmistakable silhouette of Vigilante hauling himself effortlessly onto your balcony. He landed without a stumble, straightened to his full height, and turned toward the apartment as though scaling three stories had required no effort. 

The absurdly cheerful music continued to pulse through the apartment when he reached for the handle and slowly slid the patio door open. Cold air spilled into the room and goosebumps appeared on the skin of your thighs.

"So." His voice carried a hint of amusement. "We've been pretending not to notice each other for weeks."

He rested one gloved hand against the doorframe, making no immediate move to step inside, his masked head tilting ever so slightly before finally settling his attention on you.

"Technically, what you're doing isn't illegal. I checked." He paused. "I mean... not just now. I didn't stop halfway up the fire escape to google it or anything. I already knew."

He simply kept talking with all the confidence of a man delivering a lecture in a courtroom rather than standing in the middle of your bedroom. The sheer absurdity of it left you speechless because he spoke with such seriousness that it almost seemed he had somehow chosen to ignore the fact that a dildo was still buried to the hilt inside you.

"But the music?" He pointed a finger toward the speakers. "That's another story. I'm not saying excessive enthusiasm for early-2000s pop is a crime..." He said, raising a finger like he was quoting an actual statute. "Because legally speaking, it isn't."

He leaned just enough for the red visor to catch the light.

"But I am saying that if I lived next door, I'd probably be drafting a strongly worded letter to the homeowners association. Or starting a petition. Actually, no, petitions are for cowards."

He folded his arms across his chest. "I'm just saying your neighbors almost certainly hate Nelly Furtado now. And by extension… they might hate you."

He let that sink in with all the gravity of someone announcing a homicide investigation. "That's how neighborhood feuds starts." He shrugged. "First it's Promiscuous at full volume on a Tuesday night." He pointed vaguely toward the street. "Then six months later someone's keying your car. It escalates."

His mouth was invisible beneath the mask but somehow you could hear the grin in his voice. "So I'm here as a concerned citizen. A judgmental one."

Even though you had gone perfectly still the moment he stepped through the patio door, your body hadn't yet recovered from the frantic bouncing of your hips and your chest rose and falled with every shallow breath you struggled to steady. You remained dumbfounded, your mind scrambling to make sense of the surreal conversation unfolding in front of you. Your eyes drifted over him and, despite the thickness of his suit and the armor covering most of his body, there was one detail impossible to overlook, his very visible erection shattered whatever illusion of composure he had been trying to maintain and made the situation somehow even more ridiculous.

Against your better judgment, you decided the only sensible response was to tease him  “And what are you going to do Vigilante?” Your breathing was uneven, the adrenaline coursing through your body. “Are you going to call the cops? Are you going to kill me?”

“I’m not going to call the cops. Duh… These guys are lame.” You could see the exaggerated roll of his eyes toward the ceiling, as though the very suggestion had personally offended him. 

"So what are you waiting for?" You continued. "To pull out that big knife of yours and finally make me shut up?" You arched a knowing eyebrow as your gaze dipped toward his  crotch.

Without a word, he reached over his shoulder and unsheathed the sword strapped across his back in one smooth motion, lifting its tip beneath your chin with precision. "It's not a knife." He corrected. "It's a Honshu war sword. That's... pff... that's totally different." 

Then, he caught the innuendo. You could almost hear the gears grinding inside his head as the meaning of your words finally caught up with him. “Oh.” He mumbled, lowering the blade before sliding it back into its sheath with far less confidence than he had drawn it. "Not… Not that kind of weapon."

The slight stutter creeping into his voice was adorable. His now-empty hand rose to replace the sword beneath your chin, the touch surprisingly gentle as he closed the remaining distance between you.

His gloved fingers tightened ever so slightly beneath your chin, firmly refusing to let you look away as you opened the fly of his pants. 

"Hey" He said quietly. "Look at me. Are you sure? I mean, there's a pretty huge difference between putting on a show for some weird guy sitting on a rooftop and..." He made an awkward, circular gesture with his other hand, as though hoping the rest of the sentence might somehow assemble itself. "...and crossing a line you can't uncross."

"My husband leaves for work every single night." You spat, the words escaping with sharp bitterness. "He's an idiot." 

You freed him from the confines of his pants and boxers, your movements unhurried despite the frantic rhythm of your heartbeat. As the fabric fell away you caught the reflection of the rounded outline of his ass in the glass of the patio door. For a brief moment, the reflection felt strangely surreal, as though you were watching complete strangers standing there instead of yourself.

Slipping off the bed and leaving the sextoy aside, you lowered yourself onto your knees in front of him. Almost experimentally, you let a single finger travel from the tip all the way to the base of his cock before tracing the same path upward again. The subtle caress drew an immediate reaction from him, his body giving a sharp, involuntary jolt that he made no effort to hide.

Encouraged by the response, you leaned in closer until your lips brushed against him, taking your time as you began with teasing movements, your tongue tracing deliberate circles. Every measured motion seemed to chip away at the composure he had been clinging to since climbing onto your balcony, replacing his awkward confidence with increasingly ragged breaths.

His eyes drifted shut beneath the visor, his chest rising and falling more heavily with each passing second. His hips lifted almost imperceptibly toward you before he seemed to catch himself, while his gloved hand found its way into your hair, his fingers tangling in the strands and tightening reflexively against your scalp, searching for something to ground himself.

The sounds that escaped him were loud and unguarded. For all his attempts to remain self-assured, the facade crumbled in an instant.

"Fuck..." He admitted between shaky breaths, his voice cracking. "You're so hot." 

You slowly took him deeper, giving yourself a moment to adjust your throat. Every subtle shift was careful, your focus entirely on maintaining the steady rhythm you had chosen. The moan he let out when your nose slightly touched the hairs at the base of his cock was sinful. 

A startled gasp escaped you as he abruptly pulled you back, breaking the rhythm you had settled into and leaving you momentarily breathless from the sudden change. Before you could fully regain your breath, his gloved hand slipped firmly into your hair, gathering it at the back of your head with a possessive grip, holding you in place as he began thrusting deeper into your mouth. His hips continued to drive forward in an unrelenting rhythm, every movement more forceful than the last as he fucked your throat. 

Only when he could no longer hold himself together did he finally draw back, the sudden absence of pressure made you instinctively inhale too quickly and you doubled over as a series of sharp gasps escaped your lip.

"Hey… I'm not... being too rough, am I?"

You looked up at him, still catching your breath, and gave a small shake of your head. "No."

"You'd tell me if I was?"

A faint smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. "I like it."

He encouraged you to your feet before guiding you backward toward the bed, never once taking his eyes off you, and as you settled onto the mattress he followed, his frame enveloping yours until there was barely any space left between you. He nestled his masked face into the crook of your neck, his restless energy replaced by an almost startling tenderness.

"This is a really beautiful nightgown you're wearing." He murmured. "I'll... uh... I'll try not to damage it."

His attention shifted to your body as he carefully adjusted your position, bending your legs before lifting them until they rested comfortably over his padded shoulders and his hands settled against your thighs. He pushed himself into you, dragging his cock inside you inch by inch.

He didn't rush, setting an almost torturous pace, advancing little by little, savoring every passing second. Your fingers instinctively tightened around the sheets beneath you while your back arched. His jaw tightened beneath the mask and his fingers flexed against your thighs with enough force to mark your skin. 

The careful rhythm gradually gave away to something faster, more instinctive, your hips rolling against his. The room filled with moans and gasps, the rhythmic creak of the bed and the muffled sounds of the fabric of his suit, while the music that had once dominated the apartment faded into little more than distant background noise. You weren’t even able to say if it was a Britney or a Rihanna song anymore.

Each time he found the same angle again, another involuntary moan escaped you. His gaze lingered on the rise and fall of your chest before drifting upward to your face, studying every involuntary reaction with complete fascination.

Then his head tipped forward between your tits, folding you impossibly in two, your ankles to his ears, knees almost touching your shoulders. You will surely have burns from his kevlar suit behind your thighs.

"You want me to finish in this pretty pussy of yours?" He murmured, the words tumbling out between ragged breaths before a manic laugh escaped him. "What would your husband think about that?"

"He'll never know." You whispered, reaching up to cup his cheek with tenderness. "It'll be our secret."

A crooked grin spread beneath the mask, obvious even if you couldn't see it. "Hell yeah." He muttered, his voice slipping back into his bizarre enthusiasm. "Gonna put a baby in you."

"We're gonna call him..." He paused, clearly thinking far too hard about it. "...Minilante." He gave himself an entirely self-satisfied nod. "Yeah. Perfect."

With one particularly forceful movement, your head tipped back with abandon, your entire body surrendering to the overwhelming intensity of the moment as his name escaped your lips in a breathless cry, your climax making your back arch and your legs tremble. 

He was impossibly deep, filling you so completely, every movement sending shockwaves of pleasure through you from head to toes, your warmth enveloping him, clenching around his grith. He withdrew almost entirely, leaving only the tip inside your entrance before pressing forward one last time. You felt his length throbbing, spending his release into you in thick, hot ropes and he whined your name while his arms tightened around your waist. 

The two of you remained tangled together on your bed. Vigilante laid close beside you, one gloved hand resting absentmindedly against your belly, his palm lingering there with tenderness, almost directly above your womb.

"Do you feel better?" He asked, his voice stripped of its manic energy.

"Undoubtedly." You answered without hesitation, the corners of your mouth lifting into a lazy smile.

"You're still capable of putting together a word with more than three syllables, so... allow me to remain skeptical."

An enormous yawn escaped you before you had any chance of hiding it, your eyes watering slightly as exhaustion finally caught up with you.

"There it is." He said with satisfaction. 

You laughed softly.

"What about tomorrow?" He continued, sounding suddenly enthusiastic again. "We'll spend the evening together. You'll wear that teal dress in your closet, you know, the really pretty one, and we'll go out somewhere nice. We'll find some cozy little restaurant and pretend we're respectable adults."

You turned your head toward him with an amused smile. "Ok. But not Fennel Fields."

"Alright, alright." He conceded, raising both hands in theatrical surrender. "I'll find somewhere else. No succulent mozza sticks for you."

He reached up and carefully lifted the lower half of his mask just enough to expose his jaw and mouth. "You are tired." He murmured. "You should get some sleep."

His gloved hand slipped beneath your head with gentleness, carefully adjusting the pillow before his fingers combed through your hair in reassuring strokes. Leaning down, he pressed a lingering kiss against your temple before resting his forehead lightly against yours.

"Goodnight Vigilante."

A small smile tugged at the corner of his exposed mouth. "Goodnight Mrs. Chase."

Benjamin Pointdexter; Dex prefers to be alone with you. Like all the time, a little too possesive. Poor baby. He’ll likely buy you one or two gifts that you want. If he doesn’t have an idea he’ll go with a diamond anklet that you probably shouldn’t ask how he got but would indeed look pretty on your ankle over his shoulders. He’ll wake you up with feasting on your pussy and ends the day with your legs on his shoulders.

Adrian Chase; He woke you up with sprinkles pancakes that were a little burnt but made it up with his kisses. He likely got you a dozen of trinkets alongside of your main gift. Maybe a pack of sylvanian family blind boxes or a dozen games for your nintendo. He organizes a small get together with the 11th street kids that ends up with all of you drunk and you with hickeys everywhere. Definitely took you too an aquarium too.

Clark Kent; goes very romantic, letting you wake ip in your own pace. Has breakfast with you on the balcony and takes you to a nice restaurant. Gives you a bouquet of lillies and cutie probably goes to the magazine department and gets all sorts of ideas for gifts and ends up getting you way too much.

Shane Maguire; pretends he doesn’t care too much about birthdays but for your sake is nicer to you throught the day and by that i mean he gets you go cum on his mouth and fingers twice before you get out of bed and gifts you one nice diamond pendant necklace.

the walls are thin, and your voice carries. those are two things adrian notices as he unpacks his boxes in your new shared apartment. you met up once for burgers before deciding to live together; you were new to evergreen and adrian wanted to finally leave his mom's place. this is the first time either of you have lived fully without parental guidance.

adrian smiled to himself as he heard you chat on facetime with your loved ones. he heard you mention the cute dog you got to pet today, and that you're excited to make new friends.

he also heard the buzzing of your vibrator five hours later as you christened your new bed all by yourself. he wanted to be mad, wanted to knock on your shared wall and tell you to keep it down. that is, at least, what he would've done if it were anyone else.

but you were sweet and you smell good and you love bird watching. you've even sent him some funny animal videos over the past few days to try and bond with him. he didn't want to that to get ruined, even if you are making the situation weird and awkward.

in fact, he wanted to bond with you more, as much as he possibly could.

adrian slowly palmed himself over his boxers, already sticky and dark. he gazed at his mirror and pictured how you would look sitting behind him, legs on either side as you wrapped your arms around his torso and stroked him. he wanted to feel your hot breath against the back of his neck, telling him how proud you are of him for being such a good roommate, so independent and strong.

he let out a gasp as he spilled inside his boxers; the vibrator stopped buzzing. the walls are thin.