in pain™ 🧜‍♂️

Adrian was stuck working yet another Friday double at Fennel Fields. This was his third in a row. Dave absolutely had it out for him- maybe he thought Adrian would quit if the hours became too insufferable. Every inch of the busboy's body was buzzing with pent-up energy. He hadn't been on patrol in a few days, too busy with work and A.R.G.U.S. related missions to hit the streets on his own terms. Only thirty minutes until close, and he'd be free to kill criminals to his heart's content.

Wiping down the same empty table for the tenth time that night, he watched as you rested your head on your hand and leaned over the hostess stand. Theresa and Taylor whispered to you across the small counter. Your lips curved upwards at something Taylor said- fucking Taylor, Adrian thought. He was always hanging around you, and it seemed like his mission in life was to make sure Adrian couldn't get too close.

You'd started at Fennel Fields six months ago. The moment you walked in the front doors for your first shift, Adrian was a goner. And he wasn't the only one. Everyone loved you- a social butterfly with a magnetic personality; you made friends with everyone you met. Even Adrian's weird ass. He thought you were the prettiest girl he'd ever laid eyes on. Your curves, your smile, your laugh, your hair, god your hair. It was all perfect to him.

"Adrian!" Your voice snapped him back to reality. Realizing he'd been staring at you for far longer than appropriate, he tried to quickly go back to wiping the spotless table. Wait, shit- you were talking to him. Looking back up, he tilted his head and smiled. "What's up, Buttercup?"

Ignoring the strange nickname, you waved him over. Theresa looked at you out of the corner of a judgmental eye. Taylor leaned casually against the half wall next to him, glaring at Adrian, who hurried over, nearly losing balance on his untied shoelace.

Out of breath from running over at breakneck speed, he puffed out a "Hey guys!"

You peered up at him through long lashes. "Are you coming tonight?"

"Coming to what?"

"I'm having everyone over after work." You chuckled at his dumbfounded expression. "I told you last week, and you said it sounded fun, remember?"

"Holy shit, I'm invited?"

You'd never seen more exposed teeth in your life. His smile was stretched from ear to ear. You couldn't help but reciprocate it despite Taylor's annoyed scoff. "Yes, Ade. You're invited. Everyone but Dave is because he's pissing me off lately and he's not allowed to ruin our fun."

"Woah, I've never been to a party before."

"Bro, aren't you like thirty? It's not a party, don't be weird." Taylor deadpanned as Theresa stifled a snort.

"I'm honored to be hosting your first ever party! I really want you to meet my roommate, Liz."

He basked in the light of your positive attention. Screw patrol- he was asked to go over to your apartment. While you were there. It was his dream come true.

"I like roommates! I'll meet the shit out of your roommate."

You laughed- a genuine, full laugh that wasn't at his expense, but because you thought he was funny. Adrian beamed. "I'll see you there." Walking out from around the stand and past him toward the kitchen, he was mesmerized by the sway of your hips. "Text you the address, 'kay?" You called over your shoulder. Taylor and Theresa scattered to finish closing up the second the warmth of your presence was gone, leaving Adrian to drool into his cleaning bucket. Close couldn't come soon enough.

Part of him was surprised when his phone pinged twenty minutes after he locked the doors with a text from you:

😇❤️🧜‍♀️: 1224 irving court apt. 6B. see u soon<3333

Holy fuck, that was a lot of hearts. His felt like it was beating out of his chest as he climbed the stairs of your ritzy apartment building. He could hear the voices of his coworkers from down the hall, muffled pop music sounding through your door. He knocked, but doubted anyone could hear over the noise. Should he just walk in? He didn't want to be rude.

"What are you doing, stalker?" Taylor pushed past him, knocking both his shoulder and case of beer into Adrian as he entered the apartment, the busboy hot on his heels.

Your apartment was tidy, well decorated, and dimly lit for the occasion. Ten or so people milled around, bouncing from the living room to the kitchen and back again. Alcohol flowed freely as everyone tried to loosen up after a long day of waiting tables. He was one of the last to arrive.

"Adriannnnn!" You squealed, perched on your kitchen island, surrounded by your usual clique of waitstaff. A few of them audibly groaned as he noticed you. Jumping down, you grabbed his hand and started to drag him into the dark hallway towards what he presumed was your room.

"I'm so excited you came!" You gushed, cheeks warm from the beer you'd just finished. "You've gotta meet Liz." His eyes nearly popped out of his skull- so did Taylor's. You'd pulled Adrian right past him and into the back bedroom, closing the door behind you.

"Ta-daaaaa!!!!!" You held your arms out to the side, proudly presenting a large reptile enclosure. "This is Liz!"

A fat bearded dragon lounged under a bright lamp.

"No fucking way!" Adrian exclaimed, pushing his nose up against the glass to get a better look. You giggled, flopping onto your bed. Rolling onto your stomach to get a better look at Adrian's amazement, you noticed how muscular he was. Still in his Fennel Fields polo, his arms flexed beneath the sleeves, balancing himself against the tank.

"How old is she?"

"How many crickets does she eat in a day?"

"Why'd you name her Liz?"

You were used to Adrian's rapid-fire questions when he was excited about something.

Humming, you thought for a moment, mind hazy already. "Two years old...a few crickets, but she mostly eats veggies.....and she's named Liz because I'm not very good at naming pets. My cat growing up was named Kitty, so..." You shrugged.

Adrian stood and began looking around your room. He wanted so badly to tell you about Eagly- Chris would definitely approve of any woman that named her lizard Liz.

He wasn't fully snooping- he'd do that another time. Preferably when you weren't home. You had a desk next to Liz's tank, cluttered with books and picture frames of you and your friends over the years. Above it hung a bulletin board collaged with magazine cutouts of clothes and models and famous actors you liked. Adrian paled. In the middle of the collage was a photo of him. Well, not technically of him, but Vigilante. Clipped from a newspaper and tacked to your wall- right across from the bed that you slept in each night- was a photo of him. Red sparkly heart stickers decorated the edges. His pointer finger lingered on the thin black and white image.

You popped up from the bed, only slightly embarrassed. "We should get back-"

"You...you li-like..." he couldn't find the words. Even if he could, there was no way he would have been able to string them together coherently. His brain turned to mush.

"Vigilante? Yeah. He's my favorite hero." Taking the tack out of his tiny head, you gently placed him in a dresser drawer on the other side of the room. Adrian swore he saw a flash of teal inside. Did you have a drawer dedicated to pictures of him? He'd definitely be coming back here to find out.

"You know he saved me once," you added. "Some asshole was following me home from the pharmacy one night a few years ago, and Vigilante totally kicked his ass. It was so hot." You sighed, cartoon hearts practically forming in your dreamy eyes. "I've been following him in the news ever since."

"Shut up, really?" His head was going to explode. Adrian truthfully had no recollection of saving you. He saved a lot of women in Evergreen from a lot of creeps. He'd give anything to remember. Throwing caution to the wind, he lunged for the super secret drawer. If he didn't see inside, he'd die.

"Wha-Adrian! No!"

Thanks to your slight inebriation, it was easy to dodge out of your grasp. The drawer slid open, shaking the dresser so violently a few knick-knacks toppled onto the carpet. It was obviously your underwear drawer, but he didn't have the mental bandwidth to process that at the moment because on top of the colorful cotton and lace panties were multiple framed photos of Vigilante. Eight or nine tiny, teal rhinestoned picture frames lay in a neat row. Each photo had been printed off from the Evergreen Sentinel's website. The time he was wanted for killing a bus full of pervy priests, the time he was wanted for beating the shit out of a graffiti artist, even the time he saved a cat from a burning drug dealer's house that he'd set on fire- every single headline he'd made was framed. You weren't just a casual fan. No, you were obsessed with him. A twisted sense of pride prickled up the back of his neck and flushed his already warm cheeks. Just as quickly as he'd opened it, you slammed the drawer shut.

Pushing him toward the door and back into the hallway, you scolded the nosy busboy. "Not cool, dude! I told you not to-." His lips captured yours, cutting you off.

The kiss was hungry. Teeth and tongues clashed, fueled by your burning embarrassment and his emboldened confidence. He pushed you against the wall right outside of your bedroom, unaware of the shocked onlookers in the kitchen. Pulling back for air, you gasped, head reeling.

Adrian beamed, "Vigilante's my favorite too." You pulled him back onto your parted lips, smiling into the kiss. He'd seen your creepy shrine and wasn't judging you- if anything, it seemed to make him like you even more than you thought possible. Maybe the alcohol was clouding your judgement, but you didn't care. Adrian matched your freak. Or, rather, you matched his.

The hallway light flicked on, clueing you into the audience you'd acquired. Taylor and Theresa were speechless, looking on in complete confusion. The rest of your coworkers awkwardly watched you untangle yourself from Adrian and rejoin the party as though nothing had happened.

He stayed glued to your side all night, stealing heated glances and possessively brushing his thumb over your hip, arm wrapped tightly around you. In the early hours of Saturday morning, guests finally trickled out of the apartment, finding their way home. As Theresa got in her SUV to leave, she eyed Adrian's silver Sebring and chuckled under her breath. No chance Adrian was coming for his car anytime soon. You'd sunk your pretty teeth into him and just like every guy before him, he was doomed to fall in love with you. Not slowly, but all at once. What Theresa didn't know was that unlike every guy before him, Adrian actually had a shot at you falling back.

I'm hoping to write more for Adrian! I recently fell down a rabbit hole on @vigilantexreader 's blog and I can't stop thinking of ideas for cute Adrian drabbles!

The day after, Adrian can barely bring himself to enjoy killing a human trafficker with a scimitar. You’ve got him in a state, because normally he enjoys these kills the most. He never even gets to use the scimitar, so it’s always pretty magical. Today, his eyes are glazed over. He’s replaying your conversation over and over, thinking about the way your nose scrunched up when you told him the truth. 

Or what he believes to be the truth. Actually, maybe he should say what he suspects to be the truth. No, that’s wrong too. It’s what he hopes to be the truth. 

But do you have any reason to tell him the truth? 

No, of course not. 

You were afraid for your life. He made you afraid for your life, and you surely just said whatever you needed to say to walk away safely. The more he thinks about it, the more sure he is that you manipulated him.

But the kiss. 

You didn’t start it, he did. You softened with his touch, relaxed into it. You let go of that tension for just a moment, because of him. You couldn’t have pretended to do that, could you? He realizes that he doesn’t know what you’re capable of. He doesn’t know you, just from two dates. 

So why does he feel like he needs to see this through? 

It’s been three days now, and not a word from Adrian. You haven’t spotted the Vigilante anywhere other than your dreams. You really start to think about breaking and reaching out first. 

Your phone buzzes across the room, and you scramble for it, flipping it open quickly to see that there’s nothing from Adrian, but there is a message from an unsaved number: 

Main St and Fourth Ave, 4:30 PM. Full gear. 

You’ve been doing these jobs for a while, but you never seem to get used to it. 

The rush of adrenaline that hits with the first message. The way your hands shake while you gear up, your blood-red body armour sliding into place. The deep breaths on your way to the meetup spot, even though they don’t seem to help at all. 

It’s a disaster from the moment it starts. You’ve been doing this long enough to know that a mission that starts bad usually doesn’t get any better, so you try to prepare to manage it, but it falls apart faster than you can catch up with it. 

One of the others meeting you has a message with some instructions. You’ve worked with him a bunch of times - Ryan, you think. He’s quiet, speaking only when it’s time to give orders. He’s usually the one with the orders. He’s on edge today, growing agitated as you wait for the last member, the driver. 

The one who brought the van is pacing, wiping his sweaty hands on his jeans, and muttering to himself. You can’t make out what he’s saying but you catch the words “psycho chick in a suit” and “un-fucking-believable”.

Finally, to the group, he says, “Listen, if he doesn’t show, I’m not driving, ok? I don’t drive. I get the cars, that’s my job. An’ I get rid of ‘em after. I don’t drive, I don’t plan shit, I don’t shoot a fucking gun. I don’t do any of this shit…” 

“Great,” one of the guys, the tall one, sighs, “they sent us another one. Listen, man, why don’t you get the fuck of here? Before you have us killed. We’ll text the number when it’s done.” 

He nods and leaves without a word. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. A panicked team member is worse than being short a person. A liability. The relief doesn’t last long though, because you’re still short a driver and running short on time to keep waiting. 

This is around the moment where you realize that they’re going to make you drive. Three men all turn to you, and Ryan finally says, “Listen, girl…it’s gotta be you.” 

You are not a driver. Never said you were. But somehow you end up behind the wheel, where you are certainly the least useful you could be. You sit in the van, engine idling, hands tapping nervously on the wheel, and you wonder how the driver usually does this shit. You should be moving. You should be sneaking, ducking behind shelves. You should have your feet on the ground, not in this shitty old van, trapped, and unable to alter the course of this stupid mission. 

The crack of gunshots rips you from your spiral. Fucking gunshots. 

The slowest thirty seconds of your life tick by while you watch the direction where the men had headed, disappearing behind an office building. You don’t even know what they’re doing. They’d read the note quietly in the back while you drove to the location and thought about how awful it was to be on this side of “need to know”. 

Finally, two of them round the corner, running towards you, and you sit forward in your seat. There is no third. Where is the third? 

Upon closer inspection, you see Ryan’s hand grasping the other’s arm, dragging him along, and you notice the red spot on his shirt. 

They get into the van, gracelessly, and you start to ask, “Where -” 

“Don’t worry about it, drive.”, Ryan urges. 

The drive to the next meeting point is a stretch of tense, stony silence. There is no tail behind you, no quick, movie-like sequence of fast turns and skidding, near-misses. There’s just the road, and the lights, and you drive only just above the speed limit. 

There’s a stone in the bottom of your stomach, and your lips feel almost cemented shut. You wonder if the third man is dead. They won’t tell you, and you know it’s for the best you don’t know. It’s always for the best not to know, but you can’t help but wonder. 

Ryan and the other man both get out of the van the second you put it into park at the meeting point. You follow, trying to get a look at the red spot on the man’s chest, which he’s been holding firmly, but he’s already walking away, back turned to you. He doesn’t look back.

Ryan’s hand is around your throat before you can register it, pressing you against the side of the van with enough force to knock the air from your chest. Your hands rise to his, but you can’t get any purchase to pry his fingers away.

His eyes are dark, and you find no emotion there, nothing that you can grasp. 

“Listen, girl”, he sneers, “I saw you with that other masked freak in the warehouse. You could have killed him and you didn’t. He could have caught you and he didn’t. I don’t know what stupid fucking game you’re playing right now but if I see it again, I’m going to tell them. Do you understand?” 

All you can do is blink. 

With his free hand, he grabs the front of your shirt and pulls you forward before pushing you back against the side of the van, and you hear the crack of your head against the glass before you feel it. 

His warbled voice above you says, “You’re not going to like what they do to him. Do you fucking understand?” 

Your ears ring, and you rasp out a “yes”, causing him to drop you like you’re hot to the touch. You lurch forward, breath coming in gasps, and you hear him whisper, “Now get out of here.” 

You’re not sure where you’re going, but you move. One foot in front of the other. 

Your heart thuds in your ears on the train home. You never wanted it to end up like this, and you’ll never forgive yourself if Adrian gets hurt because of it. He’s killed his fair share of criminals, but you can’t subject him to something like this. You just can’t. 

You finally send him the text that’s been swirling around in your mind lately. 

Hey Adrian, I don’t think this is going to work out. 

He sees the message immediately, and you wait for an agonizing few minutes while the speech bubble indicates that he’s typing. 

His response hits you like a punch to the stomach. 

I know. 

Three weeks pass by in silence. You do another two jobs that are much easier, and for once, not noteworthy at all.

You stare at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to come, but you feel more awake now than you did when you got into bed. 

You think about texting Adrian. What would you even say? It’s 1am, he’s probably asleep. But what if he’s awake? What if he’s just gotten home from a shift, changed out of his work clothes? Maybe he’s just gotten out of the shower, and he’s getting ready for bed …. 

Your hands are moving before you can stop them. 

You text: 

You: Have you watched the new season of Severance yet? 

A: Duh, I watched it as it aired. 

You: I’ve been thinking about it lately - what it would be like to be separate from my work. 

A: Call me? 

The conversation comes naturally. 

“I don’t know if I want to watch the next season, honestly. I hated the ending.” he says.

“What?!? No way, are you an Innie Mark hater?” the smile pulls at your cheeks. 

“It’s not hating to think that he was heartless. Choosing Helly R was crazy, after that entire conversation with Outtie Mark, he betrayed him. He doesn’t even know Helly!” 

“No WAY you believe that, Adrian. Innie Mark was literally made to forget his outside life! It’s by design. Why should he care about Outtie Mark?!” 

You can’t help but laugh, picturing Adrian’s serious face on the other end of the line, stony silent.

After a beat, he responds, “It’s not about what he cares about. It’s what’s RIGHT.” 

“OH MY GOD, how would he even know that though? It’s so outside of his control, so outside of his own life and understanding.” 

It goes on like this for ages, and you never do come to an agreement, but you both give up fighting, letting the call fall silent for a moment. 

“Adrian?” 

“Yeah?” 

“What are we going to do?” 

“I don’t know, Red. All I can think about is how I want to help you. Wait. Is your name even Red? Or is that a fake name?” 

“Everyone calls me Red, even Liz.” 

“That’s not an answer.” 

“It’s not my name. It’s kinda like my version of ‘Vigilante’. But I can’t tell you my real name.” 

You can almost hear the gears turning in Adrian’s head. He has a million questions, you’re sure. 

He takes a breath before asking, quietly, “Can I ask you something?” 

Your heart beats out of your chest, “Sure.” 

“What do they have on you?” 

What a question. What do they have on you?

You sigh.

“Everything.”

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