Bernthal Babe & Charlie's Angel

“And here's a normal owl.” 

 “A normal owl? What the fuck is a normal owl, Vig?” Chris asks, watching on the tablet Adrian is holding, a picture of an owl.

 “Dude, it's the brown ones with the beaks and shit!” 

 You can't help but laugh, covering your mouth with your hand. 

 “That's most definitely not a fucking thing, Adrian!” Chris says.

 “Well, I'm the owl expert, not you!” Adrian argues, pushing his glasses further up his nose.

 He continues swiping on different pictures of owls. Chris is listening with half an ear, and you are looking at the ceiling of your house. Adebayo and Harcourt should be here any minute now, ready to pick you guys up.

 “And this is a black owl.” 

 “That's a fucking raven, dipshit!” Chris shouts, pointing at the tablet.

 “No, it's not, dipshit! It's a black fucking owl!” Adrian seems determined. He looks at you. “Right, babe?” 

 Chris looks at you, eyes wide open, that seem to say, “Don't you dare agree with him.” You glance nervously between Adrian and Chris, then sigh in defeat.

 “Adrian, I love you, but that's a raven, honey.” 

 “Ah-ah! Get fucked, dude!” Chris screams in joy, followed by his hysterical laughs of victory.

 Adrian pouts at you, looking devastated over this stupid shit, and you mouth a “sorry.” You really do feel a bit bad now…

 “Whatever! Let's keep going…” 

 He swipes on a picture of another owl and another and…

 “Dude, what the fuck?!” Chris shouts, pointing at the screen.

 You turn your head fast to look at the tablet, and your heart drops then. It's a photo of you…no, not a photo, a fucking nude. You are butt-ass naked, legs wide open, and your fingers are on your dripping pussy. You remember sending that to Adrian a few days ago, when he was away from home and you were especially horny. 

 Your entire body is on display as you are lying on your bed, and your goddamn face is as clear as day.

 “Adrian! Turn it off! ADRIAN!” You scream, running to where he's seated.

 “What? OH GOD!” Adrian says, turning the tablet to see what is on it.

 You crash into his body, basically jumping him, as you grab the tablet and turn it off, putting the screen against your stomach.

 Chris is laughing hysterically now, holding his belly as tears threaten to leave his eyes.

 “No fucking way!” He says your name. “Was that your fucking pussy?! Oh my fucking god!” 

 “Shut up, Chris!” you say with a blush so intense you feel your body on fire.

 Adrian is holding your waist, looking up at you as you tower over him. 

 “I'm sorry… I thought I had moved that to my hidden folder,” Adrian whispers with a wince. 

 “I can't believe this shit! Oh my fucking god…” Chris says, cleaning the tears from his eyes. “Just you wait until Harcourt finds out about this.” 

 Your body goes stiff, and you turn around slowly, handing Adrian the tablet. He grabs it as you look at Chris, hands on your hips.

 “Listen to me, dickhead. You aren't going to say shit. Got it?” 

 “Hm… Fuck that?” Chris says with a cocky grin. “Not my fault your boyfriend can't hide your nudes.” 

 “Yeah! Not my fault!” Adrian barges in.

 “Adrian…” you say with a sigh, making him close his mouth. You focus on Chris again. “Okay, yeah, that was my very naked body and vagina. Woah! So fucking exciting!!” You say with heavy sarcasm. “It's not like you haven't seen that before, dickhead.” 

 “Well, definitely not yours,” Chris teases, making you scowl.

 You open your mouth to reply, but suddenly, Adrian has gotten up. You glance at him and see that he seems… proud? Concentrated?

 “Yeah, man, that was a nude of my girlfriend you just saw between the very, very interesting photos of owls. So what?” He shrugs. “You accidentally got a look at what I have every single day… Am I ashamed of that? Fuck no! She's super fucking hot, and if you want to tell the entire world how she sends me nudes of her gorgeous vagina, go ahead.” 

 Your mouth drops open, shock clear on your expression as Adrian stares Chris down. He has a cocky attitude and a smirk on his face that's making you feel something… 

 Chris, who seemed to rule the world a few seconds ago, suddenly seems very embarrassed. He looks at the ground and clears his throat.

 “Whatever, Vig, I was just joking around…” He murmurs like a kid who knows he's lost an argument.

 “I'm glad we cleared that out,” Adrian nods. Then his face softens. “Now who wants to hear more owl facts?” 

 “Me,” you reply, grabbing Adrian’s waist and pulling him closer. You smile victoriously at Chris. “Go ahead, baby.” 

Chris groans loudly.

· · ─ · ✶ · ─ · ·

“That thing you did earlier today was pretty fucking hot,” you say. 

 The mission went by quickly, and you are back home with Adrian. He closes the door behind him and throws his mask on the couch.

 “What thing? Killing those guys?” 

 “No…” You tiptoe towards him and put your hands on the back of his neck. “That thing with Chris. The way you stood up for me.” 

 “Oooohhhh. Yeah, that was nothing,” he says with a shrug. “It was the least I could do after I showed my best friend your vagina…” 

 You chuckle and move closer to his lips. “Well, it got me feeling some type of way… I had never seen you like that before.” 

 Adrian smirks, grabbing your waist and pressing your bodies closer.

 “Some type of way? Like what?” 

 You move your lips to his ear slowly and feel his heart beat faster against your chest. 

 “Like I’m super fucking horny and wet for you, Adrian.” 

 You bite his earlobe, making him groan. You lick his ear shell slowly, and he melts into your hold. 

 “Fuuucckk…” he whispers. You feel his cock harden slowly against your thigh.

 “I think you deserve a little reward after that, Adrian… Don't you think?” 

 Adrian nods rapidly, making you hide a giggle. You kiss his neck once before pulling away and dropping to your knees quickly.

 “Oh fuck yeah,” Adrian says with a smile as you unbutton his pants.

 You pull them down, alongside his boxers. His half-hard cock looks absolutely beautiful, and you lick your lips at the sight.

 “Let me make you feel good, baby,” you whisper, looking up at him.

 “Hm hm,” Adrian says in awe.

 You open your mouth and lick a stripe from the bottom of his shaft to his head. You feel him harden quicker under your tongue, blood pumping in his dick. Adrian groans, grabbing your hair and holding it.

 You flicker your tongue on his slit, tasting the salty precum, and Adrian moans your name.

 “Fuck, baby,” he says.

 You look up at him and then take him inside your mouth. He bucks his hips forward, and his jaw drops open as you completely put him inside your mouth.

 You swirl your tongue on the shaft, driving Adrian insane, and then pull back. A string of saliva drips from your bottom lip.

 “Good?” you ask with batted eyelashes.

 Adrian licks his bottom lip, putting his hand on your mouth and swiping the spit from your lips.

 “Yeah… Always so good, baby.” 

 You smirk and then kiss his finger before he removes his hand. You open your mouth and take him inside again. 

 Sometimes it's a bit difficult to accommodate all of his shaft, so you use one hand to pump the rest. You begin going up and down, letting your tongue flatten so he slides in better.

 Adrian guides your head, not forcing it down but just holding your hair. You moan around him, sending vibrations down his dick. That makes him whimper, bucking his hips. You nearly gag but manage to control yourself as you suck and lick his dick.

 You can feel him throb on your tongue, and by the way his balls are pulled up, it's clear he's going to cum soon.

 Your eyes reach him again. Adrian is breathless, his eyebrows furrowed in pleasure and his cheeks pink. He looks divine.

 “I…Fuck, so good… Ah…” he moans. “I'm going to cum soon… Fuck… You might want to…” 

 You apply more suction to his shaft, making his words die out with whines and moans. Adrian curses, grabbing your hair with more force.

 “I…Fuck! I'm going to cum!” 

 You hold onto his waist, letting him fuck your mouth, and then feel his cum fill your mouth. It's salty and warm, and you moan at the flavor, loving every second of it. He curses and moans your name, eyes shut in pleasure, and head thrown back.

 “Fuck, fuck… Shit.” 

 You swallow every drop and feel his cock pulse. After a few more seconds, you pull away, spit falling from your mouth. Adrian catches his breath, letting go of your hair and letting his hands drop to his side.

 “That was…fuck,” he whispers, opening his eyes.

 He looks down at you, and you lick your lips, showing him that you swallowed every drop.

 “What the fuck did I do to deserve you?” Adrian whispers. 

 You giggle, getting up from your knees. You crash your lips together, and Adrian moans into your mouth as he tastes himself. 

 You let your tongues dance with each other for a little longer before pulling away.

 “Next time Chris is being a jerk towards you, I think I'm just going to fuck you in front of him,” Adrian whispers against your lips.

 “What?” You laugh.

 “Yeah! I have to show him how lucky I am to have you… That's one way of doing it, right?” 

 You shake your head in disbelief, but a smile stays on your lips. 

 “We are not doing that… But you can fuck me now… If you want to?” 

 Adrian smirks, grabbing your ass. “Oh, baby, if I ever say I'm no to that, shoot me dead.”

He’s not even trying to be sarcastic. He’s grinning at you, wide and open with his glasses still on and his hand still in your hair. You reach up, and wipe some of the drool from your chin with the back of your hand. “You’re insane.”

He ignores the comment, shifting to lay a little more on top of you and smiling like he didn’t drink even more than you did last night.

“Do you wanna have sex? I think we probably have a little while before everyone else-“

“We were literally just having a conversation.” Leota says from the kitchen, and Adrian’s grin falls, open disappointment clouding his expression. “What was your plan if she said yes?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t think it through.” His voice is defensive and just a little too loud for this time of morning. You groan miserably, pushing your hand up to weakly cover his mouth. He nips at your palm, shifting you again so he can move your hand and press a kiss to your cheek.

“How do you never get hungover?” You ask, trying to hide your face in his neck in a sleepy attempt to chase the sweet relief of unconsciousness for just a few more minutes.

“I dunno. I’m just lucky, I guess. Hey, when you were sleeping I watched a spider make a web in the corner.”

“Mmph.” You reply eloquently. He’s already moving, rolling on top of you and pressing you between the recliner and his body. Apparently, despite the two other people in the room and your ripping hangover, you’re going to be waking up almost exactly the same way you wake up every morning - snuggled within an inch of your life while he talks about whatever might be on his mind at that moment.

You swat at his back with another miserable noise as the movement jostles your stomach and head, but he just moves the hair out of your face to look down at you as he starts rambling about bugs and birds. You close your eyes, losing yourself in the familiar cadence of his voice and the feeling of his hands on your skin. He’s always touching you, somehow, as absentminded and sometimes a little weird as it may be. His fingers brush through your hair again. His thumb swipes over your jawline. His finger even traces a line between your eyes down to the tip of your nose as he shares a fact about spiders that you’re pretty sure isn’t anywhere near correct. The touching isn’t even in a cheesy romantic ‘I want to memorize every inch of you’ sort of way - he’s already done that ten times over. No, it’s more like he’s just mesmerized by your existence. Like he’s magnetized to you. Like touching you is so second nature he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it at all.

“Can you hit his off switch?” Harcourt asks after a few minutes of spider facts, and you can’t help your affectionate smile as you crack your eyes open to look up at him again.

You reach up to rub at your crusty eyes, tapping your finger against his nose and pushing his glasses a little higher on his face. The contact makes him pause in his rambling, blinking down at you like you really did hit some kind of off-switch.

“Can I get up? I smell coffee.” You ask, voice hoarse and tired.

“Oh, yeah. I got it!” He presses a quick kiss to your cheek and nearly launches himself off of you. It’s only as he’s making his way into the kitchen that you notice he’s wearing Emilia’s robe.

“Where’s your shirt?” You ask as you sit up, only to look down at yourself and rephrase the question. You’re wearing his shirt. “Nevermind. Where’s my shirt?”

“Oh, I ripped it off of you last night.” He says, open and shameless, and you feel your face heat as he continues. “Remember? We came inside to wash the beer off me and everyone was still on the roof so we-“

“Adrian.” You stop him, memories flooding back and making you hide your face in your hands.

“You had sex in my shower?” Emilia sounds pissed, but not surprised.

“Twice.” Adrian says proudly, already looking through the fridge for what you assume is cream for your coffee. Maybe water. You’re not sure. Your hangover is still fogging your brain. “Well, technically once. The second time wasn’t in the shower. I bent her over the-“

“Dude. Stop. For the love of God, stop.” Leota covers her ears, dropping her head onto the table. You climb off of the recliner, wince at the ache in your head, smile gratefully as your boyfriend hands you a cup of coffee, and offer an apologetic look to Emilia.

“In my defense, you’re the one who brought out the tequila shots.”

“That’s the worst defense I’ve ever fucking heard.”

“I’m pretty sure Economos puked in there like, twenty minutes after we were done. So which one is really worse?”

“The sex. The sex in my shower is worse.”

You raise your coffee cup to your lips, knowing without needing to turn around that you’re the only one wearing a guilty expression. In fact, you can already feel Adrian wrapping his arms around you from behind, resting his chin on your shoulder as you lean back against him. The movement is so casual, so normal for the two of you, that it doesn’t even earn a comment from the others, despite the topic of conversation.

Speaking of which, maybe you should change said topic before he decides to start trying to go into detail again.

“What were you saying about crows a minute ago?” You ask, turning your head a little to face him. You feel him light up with excitement, even as Leota and Emilia glare daggers your way. “They stab other crows?”

“Yeah! Not just that, but they use tools.” He begins, releasing you to sit at the counter. Despite your friends’ apparent misery, you love it when he gets like this. You love his rambling. The way he absentmindedly bumps his knee against yours while he shares his fact with Leota like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. You think the sound of his familiar voice might be the only thing keeping this hangover from killing you right in the middle of Harcourt’s kitchen.

It’s not long before Emilia sends him off to ‘check on’ Economos. He jumps up, genuine panic on his face at the idea of the other man choking on his own vomit, and bolts off. You wince at the sound of gagging and arguing, and now it’s your turn to glare.

“If he comes back covered in puke, I’m gonna kill you.” You grouch, sinking back into your chair.

“Well, if he comes back covered in puke, he’s sure as shit not showering here.” She retorts, already beginning to make her way to the roof.

『••✎••』

You smell blood before you see it.

Not the kind that reeks of death or sterile gauze, but something faintly metallic, woven into the sweat on his skin like it's been there long enough to get bored of being noticed. You don’t register it fully at first — too distracted by the scrape of keys against the door, the quiet grunt he makes when he shoulder-checks it open because one of his arms isn’t working.

And there he is.

Adrian Chase, dressed in blood and bulletproof nylon, wearing that same boyish smirk like a band-aid on a gaping wound. One eye is puffed and half-shut, there's a cut above his brow that’s still wet, and he's limping like someone took a crowbar to his knee.

But he grins like it’s funny.

"Babe," he drawls, stumbling into the living room like this is just another Tuesday. "So, weird story. Turns out, you can get stabbed in the same shoulder three times and still do a somersault over a moving car. Science."

You freeze in the kitchen doorway, a half-empty mug of tea cooling in your hands. You’d made it for him. Stupid, you think. Stupid, like warm drinks fix bullet wounds.

Your heart’s hammering behind your ribs—panic, fury, the kind of cold, sharp fear that makes you feel like your bones might splinter from the inside. He sees it, you think. Sees all of it and keeps walking.

He doesn’t sit. Just drops his mask on the floor like it was dirty laundry and starts pulling off the top half of his suit, fingers clumsy with dried blood. There’s a spreading stain on his side, dark and sluggish.

You haven’t moved. Your throat feels tight.

"Adrian," you say, and it comes out too soft. Not angry. Not even surprised. Just small.

He glances up, and there’s a flicker in his expression—guilt, maybe, or something adjacent to it. But it passes like a cloud over the sun.

"Hey, it’s fine. Just a little... hole." He gestures vaguely to his side. "Think I’ve had worse papercuts, honestly."

You exhale sharply, jaw twitching.

"A papercut?"

"Yeah, y’know—big, aggressive paper. Like, militant origami."

His words are candy-coated, tossed out like a deflection grenade. You can feel the heat crawling up your neck, not from anger this time, but from something deeper. Rawer. The kind of helpless grief that’s been piling up like unspoken words between the cracks of each visit, each stitched-up night, each half-lie he’s smiled through.

He keeps talking — something about the guy who did this, how he "kind of respected his dedication to stabbing," how he managed to make a pun mid-fight that he was really proud of — and you snap.

Not loud. Not violent. But something in you gives.

You set the mug down with shaking hands. Walk over slowly. Kneel in front of him. Not to patch him up. Not yet. Just to look.

His hand is resting on his thigh. You touch it, and he flinches — barely, like his nerves can’t quite decide if they’re online — but he lets you. You lift his fingers. Blood under his nails. Calluses from the last time he shattered someone’s jaw.

"You’re not okay," you whisper. It’s not a question.

Adrian stares down at you. The air is too still. You wonder if he’s going to say something flippant, some callback to a joke from two nights ago — "Define okay," or "Baby, I’m invincible." But he doesn’t. Not yet.

You continue. Voice tight.

"You keep coming back like this. And I keep pretending it’s fine. Because you pretend it’s fine. But I’m—I can’t keep doing it, Ade. I can’t keep watching you bleed and smile like it’s a sitcom punchline."

His jaw tightens. There’s a twitch at the corner of his mouth, like he’s still considering the punchline. But he doesn’t say it.

So you keep going. You have to.

"You laugh through pain like it’s a party trick. You get stabbed and joke about origami, and I’m here—every time—I’m just waiting for the time you don’t come back. Or the time you do, but you’re not you anymore. Just pieces of you. And I don’t think I can survive that, Adrian. I don’t think I’d even want to."

You don’t cry. Not really. You just press your forehead to his uninjured knee, breathing, shaking against the fabric of his suit.

Silence.

Then—

"You worry," he says.

It’s quiet. Not a question. Not even a thought, really —more like something that slipped out before his brain had a chance to process it.

His eyes are on you, but not in the way they usually are—no teasing, no deflection. Just that wide, strangely boyish sort of look, like he’s seeing you for the first time and it’s short-circuiting something inside him.

"You worry… about me."

He blinks slowly, as if the sentence is taking up more space in his head than he knows what to do with.

"I mean," he adds, rubbing the back of his neck with his good hand, "I knew you cared, obviously. You're here, you make tea, you patch me up when I’m leaking red stuff—very loving, very Florence Nightingale." He gestures vaguely, trying to play it cool, but his tone is all over the place—like he's trying to match what he thinks he should sound like and completely failing. "But this? This is like… real-deal worry. Like, emotional distress. Because of me."

He lets out a low, breathy laugh, barely holding together. "That’s wild."

You stare at him, stunned. The emotional rawness is still boiling just under your skin, and he’s over here having a mild existential revelation about the fact that someone loves him.

He leans back slightly, breath catching as it pulls at the wound on his side. Still smiling. Not the cocky kind—no, this one’s soft and stunned and almost… reverent.

"You love me," he says again, like he’s trying it out in different lighting. Like it might taste different if he says it slower.

You pull away, just enough to meet his eyes head-on. "Adrian, you’re bleeding."

"I know," he says, bright and breathless. "And you’re devastated about it."

His voice hitches on a laugh, and you don’t know whether to shake him or scream. Maybe both. Because this-this thing he’s doing, this delight in your suffering—he doesn’t even realize it’s breaking you.

"Why is that a joke to you?" you ask, quieter now. Fragile.

And that stops him.

Adrian’s grin falters, like someone blew out the candle behind his eyes.

"I’m not joking about you," he says, and it’s honest—plainspoken in a way that sounds strange coming from him. "I’m just… I didn’t think anyone could feel that way about me. Not really. Not past the first couple dates, anyway."

You blink, the words hitting you somewhere low in the chest. "You think I’m still here out of politeness?"

"I don’t know," he says, voice low. "I guess I thought you just had a hero thing. Or a kink. I don't know, man, it's confusing. I've never been loved before."

The words hang in the air, awkward and too heavy for how simply he said them, like a punchline that forgot to land.

He doesn’t meet your eyes now — just stares a little past you, past the room, past himself maybe. His breathing is shallow, and not just from the pain in his side. There’s something deeper in it. That quiet, jittery type of fear that has nothing to do with knives or bullets.

You blink at him. Slowly. Like, if you do it too fast, the weight of what he just said might tip you over completely.

"You... seriously think that?" you ask, your voice barely a whisper. "That I’m here because I have a kink?"

“I said maybe,” he mutters quickly, defensive in that dumb, knee-jerk way of his. “Could be. I mean—come on, have you seen me in this suit?”

Your expression doesn’t change.

His smirk flickers. Dies as he exhales, looking away again. "Sorry. That was—yeah. Not the time."

A beat passes. You sit back on your heels and stare at him, arms limp at your sides. Not because you’re angry anymore. You’re not even sure what you are. Hollow, maybe. Bone-tired.

"I thought you knew," you say, finally. "That I loved you."

"I mean, yeah. Kind of. You say nice things sometimes. You look at me like I’m not completely insane. You make soup." He gestures vaguely toward the kitchen, then winces. "But I didn’t know it meant something. Not like this. Not in a 'you break down when I’m bleeding' way."

You shake your head slowly. "Adrian… love is that. It means that. It’s not just soup and looking at each other. It’s being scared out of your mind because the person you care about walks into your house full of holes like it’s a joke.”

He doesn’t answer.

You glance down at his side. Blood is still seeping through the half-unzipped suit, slower now, but enough to make your stomach turn. You reach for the med kit on the table beside you, pull out gauze with shaking fingers, and move closer.

He watches you quietly, for once not narrating every second of it.

"I don’t want you to change who you are," you say softly as you press gauze against the wound. He hisses between his teeth but doesn’t pull away. "But I need you to stop acting like your life is disposable. Like it’s fine if you don’t come back one day."

Adrian swallows hard. "It’s not that I think it’s fine. I just… I don’t think about it."

"That’s the problem," you say, your voice breaking at the edges. "I think about it all the time."

He’s silent again. The tension in his jaw twitches under the weight of whatever he’s holding back. You tape the gauze in place and sit there for a long moment, hands still hovering over his ribs.

"I don’t want you to die thinking you’re unloved," you whisper.

That gets him. Visibly.

His fingers curl around your wrist, not hard, just enough to make you look up at him. His mouth opens, then closes. His eyes—glassier now—search yours like he’s trying to memorize this moment, every sharp, fragile bit of it.

"I won’t die," he says, voice cracking in a way he clearly hates. "Not without telling you that I love you too. Probably, like, five hundred times. In a row. In increasingly bad accents."

You huff out something like a laugh, watery and aching.

"I’m serious," he goes on. "You’re gonna get so tired of hearing it. Like, 'Shut up, Adrian, I know you love me, you’ve said it in an Irish accent and a pirate voice and while bleeding out in my kitchen—'"

"Ade."

He stops.

You lean forward, gently pressing your forehead to his. His breath catches.

"I love you," you say, quiet but sure.

And when he says it back—rough and soft and a little terrified—you know he means it.

No punchline. No mask. Just Adrian. Still bleeding, still broken.

But real.