Adrian Chase and the Ethical Dilemma of Inter-Dimensional Love
Adrian Chase x fem!earth-x reader
summary: When Adrian Chase stepped into his BFF's quantum unfolding storage chamber to help dispose of a body, he wasn't expecting to find the girl of his dreams.
cw: swearing, blood, canon level violence, guns, references to addiction and recovery, reader is Chris's sister, tiny mention of nausea, adrian can't read the room, hero!reader
3.4k words
Chapter 1: Portal Some Sugar on Me
“Come on, man, please,” you begged, voice thick with frustration.
“No way. Nuh-uh. Not a chance.”
You pouted like a petulant child, gripping your phone with white knuckles and pressing it harder against your ear. “Chris, it’s six numbers. You don’t even have to give ‘em to me in order. You’ll have plausible deniability! Help me out here.”
He paused on the other line, considering you.
“That would totally betray dad’s trust. I can’t fuck up again. Sorry, Birdie”
“Don’t call me that,” you snapped. “Fuck!” You kicked the edge of your father’s large oak desk.
Chris sighed. “Look, I’ll be home soon and we can talk to him together. Don’t do anything stupid before I get back.”
He’d always had a soft spot for you- his baby sister. It was hard for him not to immediately fold at your request. Even over the phone he could hear how far your lower lip was jutting out. Your lack of response was worrisome.
“Okay?” He pointedly questioned, trying his best to sound stern.
“It’s not stupid if I don’t get caught.”
“You know that’s not what I-” You ended the call. Throwing your phone onto one of the gaudy leather lounge chairs, you paced around the dimly lit office and ran your hands over your tired face. Every so often your gaze snagged on the illuminated keypad next to the portal door. It was taunting you. Calling out as if it knew you didn’t have access anymore.
Beyond the looming oak door was the answer to all your problems- your Silver Sparrow suit. Each stitch had been hand-placed by your father, August Smith. He brought it into this world, a labor of love created for his only daughter, and he apparently had the ability to take it out. Well, out of this dimension anyway. You knew he didn’t destroy the suit like he’d threatened to do years ago. He was too proud. No, it was carefully tucked away outside the confines of space and time. Waiting for you. If only you could get to it.
August Smith was an organized man. Calculated, some would say. The Top Trio didn’t achieve their status as superheroes by accident. It was by design- Auggie’s design. A patriotic father and his two golden sons working together to save America from threats both foreign and domestic. A picture-perfect reputation created by August’s hard work and sacrifice. His children were trained from a young age in weaponry, tactical defense, and hand-to-hand combat. There was an expectation to be great or to be nothing. Chris and Keith- Peacemaker and Captain Triumph- were great. You, on the other hand, were nothing.
Trophies and framed articles of the Trio’s victories lined the walls all the way up to the vaulted ceiling. Auggie had taken down any that mentioned you a long time ago. This was his sacred space- where he went to feel pride in his family’s accomplishments. The Top Trio had more accolades than space on the walls. There wasn’t room for you anymore, even if you had done anything of merit lately, which you hadn’t.
Chris would be home any minute. You gave up pacing and settled in front of the keypad for what felt like the hundredth time that day. Think. August was smart. He’d make the code personal enough to him that he’d easily remember, but not obvious enough for anyone to guess- not even his own child, apparently.
You didn't drive all the way from Vancouver just to meet a dead end as lackluster as not knowing a stupid fucking passcode. You had shit to do. Revenge to take.
Chris’s voice boomed from down the hall. Preparing to see your brother in person for the first time in three years, you perched yourself gracefully on the corner of the desk and waited. You needed him to believe you were better. It was your only hope at convincing him to help. Footsteps made your heartbeat quicken, suddenly anxious about lying to the one person who always gave you the benefit of the doubt. Damn, he was moving fast. It sounded like he was running through the house. Your eyebrow quirked in surprise as he rounded the corner into the office. He must be really excited you’re home.
He ran right past where you sat, not sparing you so much as a glance. A second set of heavy footsteps approached and you ducked out of sight, not wanting to be caught in the office by your father who didn’t yet know you were home.
Chris screamed as you heard the familiar beeping of the keypad and bubbling of the portal expanding. Two throwing stars whizzed past your head and buried themselves into your brother’s shoulders. The blades shredded the flesh away with an agonizing ripping sound. Crawling beside the desk, you took a peek at his assailant. What the fuck?
At the office entrance, was Chris. Dressed in his Peacemaker garb, he was armed and ready to execute himself, following him into the storage chamber, jaw set in determination. You took a breath, not realizing you’d been holding it. The door. It was open. Its golden hinges expanded into a promising unknown.
There wasn’t time to think out your next move- the door was on a thirty second timer and you’d already wasted twelve. It would shut behind you, locking once more, but that was a problem for later. No time like the present.
The quantum unfolding chamber was cold. The kind of cold that forces your teeth to chatter. It didn't help that you'd slipped out of the office in just a tank top and leggings. You’d only been allowed here a handful of times in your life. It looked exactly like you remembered. Everywhere you turned was almost identical, the only real difference between doors being what lay beyond them.
In front of you were racks upon racks of Peacemaker helmets and Blue Dragon armor. Jackpot.
beep beep beep…click.
The door to your father’s office slammed shut, effectively locking you out. You turned on your bare heel to check the knob, just to be sure. Locked.
Chris screamed, alerting you that the conflict with what you assumed was a shapeshifter had escalated. Not your problem. Shapeshifters were relatively harmless creatures- more of a nuisance than anything else. He’d dealt with them before. Your brother could take care of himself.
You wildly threw open cabinets and drawers- anywhere your suit might be tucked away. You found endless ammunition, gear, and more fucking helmets than you thought possible. The gunmetal silver bodysuit was nowhere to be found. This was a bust. And a stupid one at that. No suit, and you were stuck between space and time with no way home but your idiot brother.
Chris’s jetpack roared to life and your neck snapped up to watch as his body propelled upwards onto a thick spike. Squeezing your eyes on impact, you struggled to keep down your dinner at the squelch of his organs being punctured. He crashed to the ground. Shit. That’s not good.
As quietly as possible, you crept alongside the trail of blood the shapeshifter’s shoulder wounds left behind. A strong metallic tang settled in the air, making it harder to breathe as you approached the scene. Peacemaker was drowning in a pool of his own blood, sputtering and clawing at his doppelgänger’s petrified face. You clamped your hand over your mouth in shock. Chris was dead. Flashes of your last mission clouded your judgement. Not again. This can't be happening again.
He held himself in his arms, as though staring hard enough at his glazed over eyes would breathe life back into them. He scanned the body for any differences to his own. Something to differentiate this version from himself. A sixth finger, a weird freckle- anything to make it feel less like he’d murdered himself. There was nothing.
A mangled sob startled Chris from the storm brewing in his mind.
“What did you do?”
About ten feet away, you stared with eyes wider than his own. Wild gaze taking in the scene before you, shifting from Peacemaker to Chris and back again. He swore under his breath- a fucking witness.
It was as though the thought dawned on both of you at the exact same time. Taking up the mantle of his dead self, Chris was now the hunter and you were his prey.
Not-Chris was hot on your trail. You bobbed and weaved between doors and metal contraptions, doing your best to evade him. He wildly snatched at the air, never quite able to make contact. His lungs were burning, begging him to stop. The wounds in his shoulders tore deeper with each stride. Slipping in blood, he crashed to the ground and smacked his head hard. You’d ran him in a circle, leading right back to the murder scene. His body hurt too much to even try chasing you again. He sent a silent prayer that you wouldn’t tell anyone what you saw as he watched your retreating form, still running for your life.
Chris wondered if he was doomed to only bring death and destruction into the world. Here he was, preparing to roll his own corpse into a tarp to dispose of later. Hell, he almost just killed an innocent bystander. The other Chris, the one he killed, seemed to be a real hero- a summation of everything he had failed to become in his dimension. He wondered if this was an opportunity to step into a role he’d always wanted. Maybe Peacemaker died so that Chris could replace him. If that was going to happen, he had to be certain no evidence was left behind.
──────•✦•──────
You weren’t sure how long you stayed hidden. Time moved differently here. Any tears you’d shed had long since dried up- numbness had taken over. Your brother’s body lay partially obstructed by a black tarp not far from where you'd tucked yourself away, out of sight from his doppelganger. Slowly, you crept over to take a look at his petrified face. His eyes bulged in an unnatural way. Relief washed over you, twisted with grief and guilt. You loved Chris, but the sibling bond you two shared was a complicated one.
You weren’t exactly close. His struggle with addiction was hard to watch and even harder to ignore. For as long as you can remember he’d lied, cheated, and killed to satiate his earthly desires. Your father and brother didn’t seem to give a shit as long as he managed to show up somewhat sober for public appearances. He relapsed again six weeks ago. You only knew because the first part of his twelve-step program was to admit his wrongdoings to his ‘loved ones.’ It was an awkward phone call to say the least- more of a one-sided confessional than an actual conversation. You hoped that in death he would find some semblance of freedom. He may have sported Stars and Stripes, the symbol of total independence, but he was just as much a slave to the machine as anyone else. You’d always resented him for it.
Footsteps sounded alongside faint bickering in the distance. You scrambled to hide again. You needed to think. He was your ticket out of this hellscape. No way you’d wait around for your dad, or worse, Keith, to save you.
Chris approached your hiding spot, urging you to press your back further into the freezing metal doorframe you were crouched behind.
"Dude, believe me, you don't want to meet yourself. It's chilling as fuck."
He got that right. Chilling was the only way to describe it. Watching Other-Chris kill your Chris was probably the most insane thing you'd ever witnessed.
"Well, yeah sure, if you kill yourself," a man with sandy hair and glasses accompanied him.
"I'm talking about before that, man. Looking into your own eyes, it just fucks you up."
"No way."
"Way, man. And to make things worse, I'm pretty sure that chick witnessed the murder…wait, suicide? Whatever. She saw me."
"Was she hot?"
"Why the fuck would you ask that, Adrian? I wasn't exactly paying attention, dude, I'd just killed my alternate self!"
Alternate self? You mouthed the question silently.
Adrian mumbled, "I was just asking, bro."
"Here it is."
They were right behind you. Coming to deal with Peacemaker's body, no doubt.
“We gotta get rid of it,” Chris explained. “I don’t want my other-world dad and brother finding it.”
Not a shapeshifter. Was it possible that Other-Chris was actually from an alternate dimension? With every door in here being a portal, it was entirely plausible.
“Yeah, they’d probably come after you in our world if they did.”
They were definitely from another dimension. Freaky.
Chris shot Adrian a look. “What,” the man shrugged. “You said the door code was the same. They could totally hunt your ass down no problem.”
You had to bite back a gasp- the door code. Other-Chris couldn't be a shapeshifter. He knew the code to open the portal. And that meant he knew the code to let you back into your house to keep searching for the suit you so desperately needed.
The pair made quick work of sawing the body apart and burning it. You remained hidden as they cleaned up, needing as much time as possible to form a plan. If you were smarter, you’d have grabbed a weapon from your father’s stash. If Other-Chris’s door was protected by a keypad, you could wait until he finished the clean-up job and watch him type in the code. All you had to do was stay out of sight a little while longer. It should be easy enough.
So, you sat and watched over your shoulder as Other-Chris and Adrian mopped the remaining blood. Once finished, they stripped off their coveralls and goggles, preparing to go home. Adrian was spinning his goggles on a slender pointer finger, impatiently waiting for Chris to pack up. Ever the klutz, the clear plastic eyewear smacked into the side of his face, sending them flying across the room. They landed right next to your bare foot.
“Ow!” Adrian whined, “That hurt like a bitch.” Huffing over to retrieve them, he bent down, oblivious to your face just inches to the left of his own. His shirt rode up on his toned back, exposing a gun tucked into the waistband of his dad jeans. Goggles in hand, he turned to show Chris that he’d found them, but instead locked eyes with you. “Oh, fu-” he started, but you didn’t let him finish.
Grabbing the gun from his pants, you released the safety, and thanks to the element of surprise, easily maneuvered your free arm around Adrian’s long neck. The gun kissed his temple, earning a squeak from his parted lips.
“Hey, Chris?” He rasped, hands loosely grabbing at your forearm.
“What, Vij?”
“She’s totally hot.”
Chris whipped around so fast it looked painful. Abandoning the duffel bag full of bone saws, he put his hands up in surrender.
“Woah, hey- let him go.”
You pressed the gun harder against the man’s head. Excitement bubbled low in your stomach. You hadn’t held a gun in so long. The rush of feeling the metal, warm from Adrian’s skin, against your palm was enough to make you light-headed despite the somber context.
“Hi, Chrissy.”
“You know me?”
A sharp laugh bit past your bared teeth. “I know you killed my brother.”
Surprise flashed over Chris's face as he slowly stepped toward you in the same placating way one would approach a skittish stray dog. You tightened your grip on Adrian and instead pointed the gun at Chris. He froze.
“Give me the door code and I won’t blow this idiot's brains out like you did my brother’s.”
“Well, technically, he blew your brother’s guts out. Not his brain.”
You and Chris looked at each other, puzzled by Adrian’s need to correct the person holding his life in their hands.
“What?”
“I’m just saying,” he continued, oblivious to the mood shift he’d caused. “The big spike thingy went through your brother’s back. I know it’s pedantic, or whatever, but it’s an important distinction because from what I heard, it was a pretty sick kill…like top ten for sure.”
He was buzzing with untapped energy so intense you could feel it vibrating beneath his hot skin. How was he so warm? You were freezing. If he was causing a distraction on purpose, you couldn’t tell. His awkwardly loose posture didn't change, confirming his sincerity.
“Shut up, Adrian!” Chris chastised, rolling his eyes and dropping his hands.
“Dude, I’m just trying to help!” His face contorted in offense in a way you’d only seen in cartoons.
“How do you think that was helping, man?'
They continued to bicker back and forth, insults hurling at a rapid speed. You pressed the gun back to the vein bulging at Adrian’s temple. “Shut the fuck up, both of you!” The room stilled. “Give me the code, Chris. And then we can pretend this never happened. We walk away.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.” He shrugged, turning back to his duffel bag to reach for his weapon.
Chest heaving with anxiety, your trigger finger shakily hooked around the lever. This wasn’t supposed to happen. You’d lost control of the situation so fast you had whiplash.
Adrian noticed the hold around his neck loosening ever so slightly at your hesitation and took it as an opportunity to overpower you. He grabbed the gun’s slide and yanked downward, tipping your center of gravity. You were on the ground in seconds, Adrian’s strong thighs straddled your hips, his gun pressed to the back of your head. You thrashed violently, trying to buck him off, but he easily pinned one of your wrists with his knee and the other with his free hand. The icy floor stung your cheek and the smell of cleaning chemicals made every breath sting.
“What do we do with her?” Chris asked.
“I don’t know, man. She was shaking like a leaf. I don’t think she was gonna kill me. Are you sure we can’t just let her go?”
Had your hesitation really been that obvious to Adrian? You were out of practice, sure, but you’d always prided yourself on being difficult to read.
“Fuck! I don’t know! She saw me kill myself, bro. I can’t be leaving behind a witness. That’s like, the golden rule of murder.”
“You think I don’t know the golden rule of murder? Bro, come on I’ve murdered way more people than you have. Shits not even close.”
“Just let me see her.”
Adrian pulled you to your feet, presenting you at gunpoint to his friend. Chris was finally able to see you plainly. The family resemblance was there. Different mom, maybe? You held your chin high, attempting to mask the uncertainty shifting within you.
Chris sighed. “We can’t let you go back home. No one can know what happened here. We have to kill you, I'm sorry.”
The gun cocked at your temple. Your lip pouted ever so slightly and Adrian watched as it quivered almost imperceptibly. It was cute, he thought.
“Let’s just take her with us.” The words tumbled out of his mouth before his brain processed what he was saying. That wasn’t abnormal for Adrian. What was abnormal, was suggesting not to kill someone. He’d never advocated against murder before, it was his favorite thing.
The look on Chris’s face was almost comical. What had gotten into Vigilante? Had he been replaced by an alternate version as well?
Adrian lowered the gun, “I mean, if she’s in our world, no one would even believe her if she told somebody you killed Other-Peacemaker. ‘Cause you’re alive! And we’re the only people who know about this place. I wouldn’t believe her! I don’t want to keep her alive because she’s pretty or anything. That would be weird. I’m not some kind of pervert or something-”
“I get it, dude.” He ran his hand over his face, tired from the day’s testing events. “I can’t deal with this right now. Either we kill her, or we take her back and she’s your responsibility until we figure out what to do with her.”
“No fucking way, you’re letting me pick?” Adrian seemed far too cheery about the decision. “She can stay in my basement. It’ll be so awesome.” Chris reached into the duffle bag and tossed over a pair of silver handcuffs.
The pity in Chris's stare was sobering. “You’re gonna wish he killed you.”
Here's the first chapter! I haven't written a multi-part fic in a bit, so I'm looking forward to having a reason to stay consistent! Let me know what you think:) I have the first five chapters so far. See you soon!
let me know what you think!
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