Everything should be perfect.
P is back, there is no more threats to the world and they can go back to being P and V, except, Adrian now has an arch-nemesis. Someone who is just as good as retro video games and dance dance as he is.
The best way to describe you was chaotic. Adventurous? Maybe? No, definitely more chaotic. Adventurous went with chaotic.
And you are so bad at keeping secrets.
You don’t mean to be. You are so just so excited to be trusted, to know something, to be in the loop, rather than awkwardly outside of it and trying to keep that big grin up. When someone asks you about a secret you know, your hands get clammy. You avert your gaze, you start to feel sick. You shift your weight, the more people look at you expectantly, the more you itch.
You want to be liked, so desperately you feel that gossip is the only way.
Gossip that gets you in reprimanded. Gossip gets you fired, you don’t understand, not really—if it’s true, then why is it gossip? What is truth? If they tell you, if they tell a group of people and you happen to be included, then why is it wrong if you tell someone else? Your offhanded comments, you don’t mean to get people in trouble. You don’t understand why some things are more serious than any other.
You tell yourself, tomorrow will be better. You’ll stop, you’ll be nice, you won’t feel like crying when people say you can’t keep a secret, even when you know it’s true. You need to be involved, desperately. It’s this toxic combination that leads you to pack up everything you own and move across the country.
It isn’t other people, though it was offhandedly saying your assistant store manager was fucking a cashier that was what got you fired. It wasn’t just that, you knew. It was laughing while telling said assistant manager another coworker had been bitching at your store manager, sayin’ another guy only got the promotion because they were ‘butt buddies’ with him.
You didn’t even really understand what that meant, that it was serious—everyone used that word to describe literally anyone at your job! It was joking with the coworker you had accidentally snitched on, it was going too far when you thought he was joking with you and watching him stomp to said store managers office.
It was not understanding boundaries, it was playfully wrestling with a coworker when you should’ve been working, it was thinking that your shoe being hid was a joke until it wasn’t and breaking a stack of DVDs said coworker had hid to eventually purchase in retribution. You never took anything seriously, you didn’t know how. You would be presented with a moment to pivot from your humor, to be taken seriously. You never took it.
It was rejecting the wrong guy. It was adamantly refusing you would ever be interested him—it was inappropriate, it was rude, but it was fucking true. He was a creep! He smelled bad! He was rude and misogynistic and fucking so weird! it was habit to be rude to him, he wanted to flirt with you more because of it, but you couldn’t just.. let it slide. You were girl bossing!
You hated that part of yourself, that didn’t understand that just because something was true, doesn’t mean you should say it. That just because it’s true, doesn’t mean other people will believe you. You like to think that you are known to be truthful, but you mess around, you joke, you play pranks. You are a joke.
The assistant manager and cashier were fucking—the cashier had shown you the text threads, the other assistant manager was selling mushrooms to your coworkers and had consistently attempted to get you to buy them.
Sometimes, you thought it was the validation you got from being praised for a helpful truth that made you so horrible at keeping secrets—answering something that someone else wanted to know so, so bad. Being praised for being truthful. You wanted to carve that part of yourself out, you wanted to be stoic, someone who was maybe even slightly mysterious, or cool but you were a loser.
You liked lame things, you liked video games and stupid music, you liked reading and comics and info dumping about comics and you engaged in most media passively, not enough to talk a lot like some people could. You went through intermittent phases of playing ten hours of video games a day. You had almost failed out of college because of how much your hyper fixation had consumed you.
You felt a visceral sickness at staying, at moving around a town you knew so well and knowing, everyone knew what a fucking loser you were. How stupid, how immature, you had panic attacks going within five miles of your job, every part of the landscape familiar, bringing back a moment you had looked at the field on your way to work, had stopped at the gas station, looking at the pole and remembering your coworker sitting on it.
You decide the only solution is to pack everything you own and move across the country. That was how you ended up in Evergreen, Washington. It was a decision made by scrolling down towns across the United States and picking whatever one your thumb froze on. You were terrified, crying hunched over and sitting in a sea of cardboard and thinking about how you couldn’t find a stupid remote job where you didn’t need to interact with people and wouldn’t risk your lack of self control. It was forcing yourself to outside to find an actual job, because you couldn’t live off savings forever.
That was how you accidentally ended up working at a retro video game arcade. Key word being accident, because you had applied to the adjacent store that called itself a bookstore, but was mostly comics but they shared the same owner, and he liked you—that was the thing about you, despite your lack of self control—that came later, after you were already embedded in the work culture because you were fucking good, hardworking, a quick learn, but most importantly, friendly. You disarmed people with how cheery you were, how nice you were at first glance.
The owner needed someone to work at the arcade and you desperately needed a job. You mostly organized the warehouse, priced items, helped record media check outs in the bookstore. You hadn’t expected it, but blissfully worked mostly separate from your team, who mingled more with customers and hated most of the warehouse work.
Which was great, until it wasn’t. It was this freaking guy that you overheard your coworkers dogging on, constantly, whenever he came in and spent hours hogging Frogger and playing excessive amounts of Dance Dance, Pac-Man, Simpsons.
He was your nemesis, but not for any of the reasons your coworkers went on about: he was insanely good at all those games, and so were you. You two, inadvertently, were constantly battling for the top spot. He’d push you out, you’d push him out until the scoreboards were only filled with you two: TOS, VIG, VIG, TOS, VIG, TOS, VIG, TOS, VIG, TOS.
The assortment of letters that apparently, ‘haunted him in his sleep and disrupted his crimefighting with his BFF’, whatever that meant.
You would hover by the warehouse doors, close enough to listen to him complain that you had once again, knocked his high score down. It was so fun to hear him whine. To hear his shocked squeak when he saw it, to hear him sweat and pant while trying to set a new one, how long it took for him. You peaked out sometimes, a gentle step between the warehouse doors and watched him: lightbrown curls, wire-framed glasses, hunched over and tongue in the corner of his mouth with a look of utter concentration on his face. The man was a monster in Dance, Dance. You wanted to go against him so, so bad.
You wanted to ask if you could play, pretend to be bad, then wipe the floor with him.
It was all innocuous fun, all games, all silly stupid thought until you wiped his name off of every score board.
TOS, TOS, TOS, TOS, TOS, TOS TOS, TOS, TOS, TOS on Dance Dance, Pac-man, Simpsons, Frogger, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mortal Kombat II, Atari Centipede. Every game that even had VIG on the lower ends of the board.
Then had three days off.
When you came in on day four, your coworker looks haggard. Even more so than usual, her name.. Sonia? “He is so, so upset you wiped him off the board.”
You furrowed your brows, momentarily confused before you heard a “FUCK!” echo through the empty arcade—it was 11am, after all. “VIG.” You stated. “Adrian Chase.” Sonia corrected, you furrowed your brows. It didn’t sound right, Adrian Chase, he was VIG—a name you thought stemmed from not being able to spell VAG until you tested and could, in fact, put your scoreboard name as VAG.
“VIG.” you said again, still not fully understanding the Adrian Chase of it all. Sonia looked on the verge of tears, “W-w-whatever that freaks name is. He won’t leave, he’s scaring everyone and y-you need to deal with him.” She looked genuinely shaken up, as if someone had tried to mug her. “W..what am I gonna do?” You asked, wide eyed, gaze darting from her, to the source of the cursing just out of your eyesight, then to the safety of the warehouse doors.
Sonia threw her hands up, “I don’t know! Something! Please!” She lunged for you, causing you to jolt back as she held tightly onto your arms, hunched slightly and looking up to you with glassy eyes. “Jeez, fine, fine!” You stumbled out of her grasp, uncomfortable, looking at the ground.
That was how you ended up standing behind VIG, who was sweating profusely as he played Dance Dance. The sweat had turned his curls a dark brown, it was literally dripping off of him, sweat puddles on the floors as he became increasingly unable to beat even his own high scores with the imminent risk of falling so prevalent.
You waited until his current round was over before speaking, “Could.. I play a round?” VIG whipped around towards you, absolutely furious with the audacity you had to even think of asking when his entire world was falling apart because of that stupid guy. TOS! TOS could kiss his ASS! It was ILLEGAL to be that good at EVERY VIDEO GAME ADRIAN LIKED!
“Fuck no! Get lost!”
You tensed. immediately deciding that being good cop wasn’t for you. “You’re the one who lost, actually.”
“HUH?” VIG panted, wiping the sweat off his brow, but only succeeding in smearing it. His glasses were crooked, fogged up from exertion. You straightened, he pissed you off. “You heard me. I’m TOS.” He visibly jumped back, barely catchin’ himself from slipping in a puddle of his own sweat and raising a shaking hand to point, “You’re Thoracic Outlet Syndrome?!”
“What? What the hell is that? No, it means T-” he was shaking his head, furious, pacing. “You’re my arch nemesis? I could eviserate you in an arm wrestling. I bet your grip strength is puny and that you litter which is ILLEGAL!”
Oh, he did not just accuse you of littering. You closed the distance between you, hardly a foot away from him with your hands clenched to your side. “I do NOT litter! I drive a SUBARU! With a COEXIST magnet. I clean up litter everywhere I go because I keep trash bags and a vest and a grabber in my car, you SECOND RATE VIDEO GAME CHUD!”
VIG was aghast, “Second rate video game chud?!”
“I didn’t stutter! maybe if you spent less time accusing people of serious crimes you wouldn’t be so bad at video games!”
“I am NOT bad at video games!” His glasses were so foggy, you couldn’t see any semblance of his eyes behind them. “Oh yeah, then why isn’t your name on any of the scoreboards? HUH?” You crossed your arms, leaning back with a cocky grin plastered on your face as you watched him short circuit in front of you.
“You cheated! That’s why! That’s also illegal!”
“Come watch me then! I’ll beat every single high score of mine and yours!” His forehead was almost touching yours, the air between you smelt like a baja blast flavored pez dispenser, which was weird, but you were more focused on how you were gonna make this fucking nerd cry.
-
Adrian threw open the door of the communal kitchen, visibly and comically stomping inside to the fridge where he then thew open the fridge door, causing all of the sporadic condiments to shake in the door.
“What’s his problem?” Chris asked, slouched at the communal table wearing sunglasses to stop the light from worsening his hangover. “TOS wiped every scoreboard and then beat him in real life.”
“Terms of Service? Scoreboard?” Chris got too much pussy to understand what that shit meant, he could already feel his headache worsening, just on proximity to Adrian’s stomping and slamming literally everything he touched down. “It’s this guy’s video game tag. They had this rivalry going on at the arcade.” Economos was opening a fresh bag of corn chips. “Beat him physically?” Ads asked, looking over to where Adrian was now aggressively glaring at the tap as water filled the Brita.
“No, dude made Adrian watch him top every leaderboard.”
“That’s cold.”
-
Adrian knew you did at least one thing that was illegal and enough justification to kill you, he just needed to figure out what that one thing was. That was why Vigilante was currently on the roof of your apartment complex, salivating at the idea of being the one who brought you to justice.
Your complex was in a bad part of Evergreen, one half condemned and one unit boarded up with scorch marks leaking out from behind the boards nailed in place.
He walked along the shingles, til he reached the part of the roof just above your window, laying flat on his stomach to peer over the side into your kitchen, which provided a great view of your entire one bedroom apartment. From his upside down vantage point, he watched you meticulously recycle, always break down your boxes, turn off lights in rooms you didn’t use and then, sit on your couch. You didn’t own a TV and you were surrounded by cardboard boxes.
That was all you did, sit on the couch, read a book, go to bed at 11pm. Sometimes he watched you dig through a box or play switch and hated how much he wanted to knock on the door and ask to play with you. He shouldn’t feel like that, you were his nemesis. You were so skillful at hiding your illegal activities that you almost convinced him there were none, which wasn’t possible.
He started bringing his switch to his stakeouts, tucked in the back pocket of his suit for when you played on yours, he would play on his. A way to potentially lower your guard, you must’ve known he was watching—even if he was super good at being sneaky.
That was just how much of an evil genius you were, you could sense him nearby and played it cool.
This time, when he leaned over and peaked into your apartment, you were hunched over, face hidden from him and shaking. He immediately got excited—finally, you were going to do something illegal, this was the start of your evil villain laughter, your monologue he would burst through your window to interrupt, something he could kill you for. Except, you weren’t manically laughing, you were crying. Adrian thought he must’ve ate something bad, his stomach was twisting.
Adrian told himself it was because he should’ve been the one to make you cry when he beat your high scores, but he had been too busy with saving the world and his stakeouts to beat more than just a few.
He felt uncomfortable, suddenly he didn’t want to watch. Adrian told himself that you were crying because of how good he had been keeping an eye on you—with Vigilante on the prowl, you couldn’t put recycling in the trash or jaywalk, or speed and that must be really hard for you.
He sat up, legs to his chest and stared up at the stars.
He didn’t stake out your apartment the next night, or the next. He felt guilty, you could be committing heinous acts of evil because Vigilante’s watchful eye wasn’t on you. Adrian showed up the third night, a bagged burrito tucked firmly into his belt and slightly misshapen as he stared directly down at the ground, struggling to pull the bagged burrito from his utility belt from an upside down angle.
Then Adrian didn’t know how he would alert you to it. He frowned, eyes catching the glint of a knife as everything snapped into place: a knife!
He dropped the bagged burrito, waiting for it to fall juuuust right before throwing a knife, imbedding aforementioned knife into your door with the now crumpled bag suspended from it. Adrian was quick to stand, rushing to the other end of your unit, dropping to his stomach and peaking in through the kitchen window.
He didn’t dare breathe as you stood at the door, hand shaking over the knob, “Hello?” You looked through the peep hole, nothing, you slowly opened the door and jumped at the sight of the bag, pinned to your front door with a knife, “What the freak?!” You leaned closer, reading the note, ‘pretzels with cheese queso and potstickers is not a balanced diet.’
🎂 a special fic to celebrate Adrian's birthday 30 June 🎂
a/n: a big thank you/credit due to @lil-rigatoni for the original concept of this fic and allowing me to write based off this post!
word count: 11k | ao3 | tags: fem reader, fluff, birthdays, childhood friends, mutual crushes, misunderstandings, flashbacks, reader studies forensics, there is a gross college guy who tries to drug reader - vigilante takes care of him!, smut, mdni please.
synopsis: Adrian is upset when his beanie baby collection gets destroyed by the earth-x portal in the basement/Vigilante secret hideout. At first the Checkmate crew dismiss it, but as his birthday looms, it becomes obvious that this collection means a lot more to Adrian than the monetary value or 90s fad.
Because he collected them all with you.
Adrian didn't grow up with much as a child.
Friends? Non-existent.
Birthdays? Depressing.
Nobody attended outside his mom and brother, despite the fliers he'd print off and hand around his homeroom class.
Instead those hopeful invitations were inevitably screwed up into balls and tossed or spat into pea shooters at his head.
Adrian grew to hate his own birthday, the 30th of June was a cruel reminder that he was the left out weird kid, different, annoying, and destined to be alone.
That was until his 13th birthday party rolled around because he had finally made a single friend.
You.
But this year turning 35, Adrian knew that he wouldn't be able to invite you anymore. Because the sole reason behind your lasting friendship over the years was a pile of ash.
Beanie babies.
Two months ago, in the Chase household basement aka Vigilante’s secret hideout.
“You guys promise this won't destroy my beanie babies collection? They're an investment!” Adrian demanded, pacing around the blood money and seized drugs, he had gotten his Vigilante gear ready to go and rescue his friend Chris from another dimension.
So basically another regular Thursday.
“Yeah sure whatever, it won't!” John rolled his eyes, and Adebayo barged past to put down the device into the closet of innocent teddy bears.
“Okay but just be careful, that’s my beanie baby collection. I’m pretty sure that the market is about to bounce back and they’re going to be worth a shit load.”
“What’s with all the ostriches?” Harcourt asked, arching a brow.
“Stretch? Duh. she’s the cutest of them all!” Adrian laughed and looked over to John for support but he gruffly shook his head, not at all in the mood to entertain him.
A blast of energy blared through the closet and while in Earth-X, Adrian didn’t have much time to think about them, what with the Nazis and everything.
Meeting his alternate self was wild, in this universe he still had a collection but they called them beanie bears, which was super weird and all kinds of wrong. But there was something even crazier, truly insane in Earth-X Adrian’s bedroom.
“Is that real?” Adrian marveled over a framed photograph of him and you, in a special gilded frame.
Surely it was photoshop or something, you were in a beautiful wedding dress with teal accents, and he was in a matching tux.
In the background a cute tiered wedding cake was topped with teddy bear versions of you two. With little YT tags in the shape of a green clover instead of the TY red hearts.
“Well yeah, what you guys aren’t married in your universe?” Earth-X Adrian gave a goofy laugh, but stopped when he saw his other self wince, totally forlorn.
“No…” Adrian said quietly, “we aren’t even dating.” What happened that didn’t in his own universe that brought you both together?
“Hm we figured it out after going to a beanie bear convention. One thing led to another in the hotel room…” He moved on when Adrian cocked his head at what that could mean, “then on my birthday she proposed. If it wasn’t for that convention and our shared love of collecting beanie bears I don’t think we’d ever have become a couple.”
Of course! That explained it, beanie babies were the key to true happiness, he knew it was a great investment and not some fad. But wait what had he just called them?
“Beanie bears?! Ugh yuck.” Adrian scrunched up his nose at that odd turn.
“What do you guys call them?” Earth-X Adrian asked with a casual shrug.
“Beanie babies obviously.” Adrian scoffed.
“But they aren’t babies, they’re bears. Literally bear-shaped.” Earth-X Adrian pointed out, adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses.
Adrian put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, adjusting his own silver, “I guess this is what happens when history is rewritten through war and the wrong side winning, how sad.”
“I mean, there’s a lot worse going on around here if you haven’t noticed…” Earth-X Adrian was a little confused by his counterpart's more blase attitude.
Still they made a great team and stormed the mansion to try and rescue Peacemaker, totally made the right call killing White Dragon and Adrian got back to his own universe.
Upon returning home, once the door closed, device removed, it was blasted with a hit of energy, all of it, beanie babies included, the contents of the closet were reduced to ash.
“You guys promised me.” Adrian snapped viciously, hands pouring through the likely toxic PVC beads. “They’re ruined!” Everything was ruined now, he’d never get married to you let alone be able to look you in the eyes again.
“There's more important things going on!” Harcourt snapped back and sure enough there was, Chris got arrested. Then he tried to run off from the gang, but thanks to the power of friendship and a well placed taser shot, Chris saw reason and Checkmate was formed.
To help make the world a better place.
Current Day- Checkmate Offices, 25th of June. T-minus five days until Adrian’s 35th birthday.
The world was not yet a better place. In fact currently it sucked major dick.
Morosely, Adrian was listening to Bubbly by Colbie Caillat while aggressively slamming down on the mouse at his desk. Every single one of his eBay bids on beanie babies were being outbid by some asshole with the nomenclature xxgreenbowl_cutxx69.
Unfortunately this guy knew how much these were worth as well and along with a user called h0t_ch33t0z_f@n, which weirdly enough Judomaster snickered whenever a bid went through. This second bidder never won anything, just inflating the prices.
And finally the third bidder, who won this bout, Lombard_bombard84 had swiped the lil lobster out of Adrian’s clutches for 3,000 USD.
“FUCK!” Adrian aggressively threw his keyboard aside. “STUPID PRICK I WANT, NO I NEED THAT PUNCHERS YOU FUCKING MOTHAFUCKER!” He tore open his desk drawer, ready to shoot up another monitor with his glock 17.
“Dude, calm down! I don’t want to have to replace your set-up again.” John lectured him, begrudgingly getting out of his chair.
“Too bad! My computer has to die for not being fast enough! Now stand back EconoGOAT, I'm going to overglock my gpu!” Adrian took the safety off and aimed.
“What’s wrong buddy?” Chris wheeled over, trying to stop his homicidal friend from destroying the IT equipment. A quite common occurrence it turned out.
“I'm trying to hunt down a misprint of Pinchers the Lobster!” Adrian grumbled, scouring through eBay again, this time on his phone. He had to get one in time for your visit, or you'd surely be crushed.
It was your all-time favorite find, Adrian hated lying but he couldn't fess up that both your collections were destroyed by an interdimensional portal.
“Dude stop wasting your money away on that shit.” Chris scoffed in the chair beside him. “No wonder you still can’t afford to move out of your mom’s place.”
“Uh no, I don't move out because the Vigilante secret hideout is there, I don’t pay any rent, get dinner made for me every night and my laundry folded.” Adrian waggled a finger out in front of his face, fully in um actually mode.
Spinning around in his chair, Adrian laughed loudly at the very concept of moving out. “Why the fuck would I want to move out and give my money to some scummy landlord? So I can huff mold? The feudal system of rent is stupid and just another horrible crime of capitalism."
“God bless Mrs. C…” Adebayo sighed, she was a true saint to put up with him.
But what they really didn't know was that Adrian didn't grow up with much as a child.
The Chases never had a lot to go around outside of putting food on the table. Charles was a music instructor often failing to get enough work, while Loretta worked as an accounting firm receptionist.
Loretta had an advanced degree in accounting and the qualifications to do much more but taking time off to raise Gut and then again for Adrian ten years later left her bottom of the office ladder’s rung.
Those ‘gaps’ in her resume were detrimental in the cold world of corporate America.
After his father Charles walked out on them, his mother Loretta had to work two jobs and suddenly left Adrian, a rather attached and needy son, alone as a latchkey kid.
His older brother Dorian, who preferred to be called Gut, ten years his senior, simply wasn't in the mood to put up with his strange younger brother.
Adrian tried and failed numerous times to insert himself into Gut’s world of friends and popularity, especially when it came to his best friend, Christopher Smith.
He idolized Chris, soon to be Peacemaker out of high school.
But these attempts never bore much fruit, being kicked out of the house easily by the older boys who wanted to get high in the basement without getting narced on.
Leaving Adrian a latchkey kid, often without a key or anyone to latch onto.
So like a lot of kids left to their own devices and a teenager of the mid 2000s Adrian frequented the local mall as a safe haven.
But unlike other mall rats, he didn't go into Hot Topic or the other department stores. That would cost too much money and he wasn't really into fashion or had a scene per se.
Also he was horrendously bullied any time he tried to fit into a clique, Adrian had all but given up hope on fitting a standard mold.
Or for the longest time the concept of making friends.
No, he usually went into Goodwill and second hand stores, on the hunt for the biggest craze of the 1990s and early to mid 2000s.
Beanie babies.
And that was how he met a single friend.
You.
Adrian could still picture the fateful encounter like it was yesterday.
LeAnn Rimes' absolute banger 2000 hit Can’t Fight the Moonlight was playing on full blast on the dinky Evergreen Goodwill PA system.
Under a lover’s sky…gonnna be with you…and no one’s gonna be around…
In the toy section, Adrian’s hand went for the beanie baby as soon as he spotted the red TY heart tag. Lurching forward to snag the prized PVC filled bear, there was already a hand clutching it.
He was about to get annoyed, ready to wrestle for it from any small child, especially when he realised it was his all time favorite, a Stretch the Ostrich. He only had five of them!
If you think that you won’t fall…well just until, til the sun goes down…
But when he looked up at the culprit, Adrian was left stunned.
You were a vision of beauty dressed in double denim.
Wearing a denim vest lined with bright pins over a zebra print t-shirt, hair decorated in little glittery blue butterfly clips, wrist covered in jelly bracelets and a chunky star one with a seal charm hanging off it.
Teal and silver stars glimmered on your nails, piercing Adrian's heart like a cupid's arrow.
Underneath the starlight, starlight…there's a magical feeling so right…it will steal your heart tonight…
You definitely didn’t go to his school, he would have remembered such a pretty smile filled with braces and beautiful eyes behind those square-framed bedazzled glasses.
“Huh?” He asked eventually, you’d been saying something but he couldn’t hear much past the pounding of his heart.
“Um, I said, sorry you can have Stretch. No biggie.” You repeated shyly, feeling rather frazzled with this boy’s hand touching yours for so long. “I collect them, I’ve got like six already…”
Similarly you were left at a loss.
He seemed really cool, dressed in a purple Spyro the dragon t-shirt, of course layered over with a black long sleeve shirt and a teal collared shirt underneath that. Frosted jeans held up with a white belt completed the ensemble.
He definitely didn’t go to your school, you would’ve recalled seeing such a cute dimpled smile with those green eyes shaped by wire-framed glasses.
And not to mention his gorgeous curly hair.
Adrian tried to think about how he could impress you? Maybe drop to the ground and do some pushups?
Or should he go the sensitive route and compare thee to a summer's day? How could he denote the way his heart strings were being pulled, you lovely skilled harpist.
But instead Adrian yelled at the top of his lungs, voice cracking, “NO YOU HAVE IT!” and he threw the Stretch beanie baby at you before absconding from the store.
Wallowing in regret, Adrian wanted to find a hole to die in but instead wandered around the mall, unable to process what had just happened.
He had never felt that way about someone before, this wasn’t right.
Adrian didn’t have emotions or feel things like everyone else did. Yet his heart throbbed.
Later while Adrian was sitting alone as per usual at the food court, the strangest thing happened to him. Someone actually took the seat across from him voluntarily.
Glancing around quickly, the other booths were still free.
“Uh you must've made a mistake. I’m Adrian Chase.” He said, not looking up from his plastic tray of Panda Express. Awaiting the incoming cruel prank or snide giggling, he received neither.
Instead you were smiling and had your hand out to shake his, introducing yourself. Adrian took it, dumbstruck by the gesture.
“Hi Adrian, nice to meet you properly. I’m glad I caught up with you! I found a bunch more beanie babies after you left and check it out another Stretch!”
When he gazed up at your kind voice, Adrian could hear the song run in his head again as you slid over a plastic bag with Stretch and the other duplicates you’d gotten.
“Maybe we could join forces and collect beanie babies together? Then we'd be sure to get mega rich!” You suggested getting out your Lisa Frank notebook to write down the additions with a sparkly pink gel pen.
“That'd be rad…” He was rendered speechless, your 2004 Britney Spears Curious perfume of Louisiana magnolia, pear, tuberose, and vanilla captivating him.
“Do you like the arcade?” You asked, snapping your book closed.
“Uh yeah I LOVE the arcade, Frogger is my ultimate favorite, I nearly have the high score!” Adrian couldn’t control his volume, much too excited, but neither could you, squealing back.
“YAY, I LOVE Mortal Kombat!” Your eyes shone so beautifully, Adrian stared back into his frozen coke to try and distract himself.
“Awesome! Who do you main as?” He asked, trying to seem more cool he stretched out at the booth and took a sip of his drink.
“Mileena.” You grinned. “Let us dance!”
Adrian nodded thoughtfully at your choice, taking another bite of his orange chicken. “Ahh a true woman of culture I see! I like playing as Sub-Zero.”
“Want to verse each other after lunch?” You offered hopefully.
“Hell yes!”
With that you both darted towards the arcade and a bout of friendly matches ensued.
“There's a Mortal Kombat movie.” Adrian informed you after getting his ass handed to him by your Mileena and then Sonya Blade.
“Really?” You hadn’t seen it yet, “Is it any good?”
“Hm, it’s kinda terrible but in the best way. Wanna come over to my house and watch it with me sometime? My brother has it on DVD.” Adrian suggested, unable to make eye contact with you, he anticipated the rejection but was met with affirmation.
“That'd be so cool! Can I see your beanie baby collection while I'm there, next time you can come over to my house and watch something and see mine!”
You were both so giddy, wandering around the mall together until it got way too late and it was then to go home.
On the way back on the bus, Adrian was marveled when you chose his seat.
“Did you want to be,” He couldn't get the words out.
“Friends?” You finished for him, watching him fidget uncomfortably.
“Yeah, it's okay if not…” Adrian turned to you with a pained wince.
“I'd love to be friends with you!” You beamed back and that sorted things.
You two were officially after-school friends.
“Hi Adrian, guess what I found?” Waiting by the bus stop, you greeted him as always after school with a big wired grin.
“What is it?” Adrian grinned one of his own back, headgear squeaking a little under his wild mess of curls.
You were just like him, parents divorced, wore glasses, braces, too loud for most other left out kids but also too nerdy for the popular kids.
Except for the one remarkable thing that you were a pretty girl, there wasn't really much difference.
Unfortunately you didn't go to his school, he went to Evergreen High and you went to Liberty Park High. So Adrian only ever got to see you briefly after school, but when he did get to hangout it was as if no time had ever passed.
Unzipping your Powerpuff Girls backpack, “I got Pinchers the Lobster with the misprint! Presenting to you, Punchers the Labster.” You proudly showed off the treasure to him.
“Wow, holy moly that's so rare! You're basically a frigging billionaire right now.” Adrian proclaimed, marvelling over the beanie baby and its funny tag.
He got out his otter themed trapper keeper and out sprang his printed out price guides and collectors manual.
“But you should probably get a label protector to avoid creases and put him into a special case so it doesn't get dirty and keep the guy pristine, I'll lend you some.” He offered, readjusting his glasses up his nose.
“Thanks! Whose house should we go to inspect and compare collections today?” You wondered, packing the priceless beanie back into your bag for safe keeping.
“My brother Gut is home, but he's hanging out with his cool friend Chris! So maybe he'll have to be nice to me with a guest over.” Also Adrian wanted to prove that you were real, tired of being called a liar by the duo.
“I got another Stretch the Ostrich!” Adrian thrust the beanie baby right into your face. “But this one is a teeny beanie baby variant from McDonalds! I made my mom take me there for dinner every night last week till I got her in a happy meal!”
“So cute!” You beamed, holding the little bird in your hands.
“She’s all yours! A good luck charm for your track meet!” He grinned, and you shyly smiled back. Then he read off the tag proudly, “many days she runs so fast, looking at the ground go past, with her legs so long and thin, she is sure to always win!”
“Are you sure? Thanks Adrian, it's nice of you to come and support me every time.” You enjoyed running, it got your mind off everything going on at home.
Unlike Adrian who was bullied for being short and not having a growth spurt yet as a boy, you were bullied for the opposite reason. Too short, too tall, if you didn't fit into the rigid high school parameters you were quickly made aware of it.
“Of course, you're so cool! Stretch is totally my favorite. She reminds me of you.” Adrian said those kinds of lines so casually, yet somehow they always took you by surprise.
“Oh thanks Adrian, I actually got you a beanie baby too.”
“Woah no way? For real?” Adrian looked so excited.
“Clubby, limited edition for members only of the Beanie Babies Official Club. I signed us up! Here’s your BBOC Platinum Membership Kit, your card and a giant poster with 136 Beanie Baby stickers.” You handed over the bear and precious exclusive memorabilia, explaining how you two can chat in the forums together online.
“That’s so cool, but we see each other all the time in real life though!” Adrian laughed, your chest tightening.
Soon it wouldn’t be the case but he didn’t know it yet.
“Aww he’s got an official membership badge!” Adrian hugged the bear close to his chest, putting his own membership pin proudly on his chest.
“Wanna watch Inuyasha? I DVR’d the latest episode off Adult Swim last night.” He suggested setting up the VHS player at his Delstar mini television set.
“Oooh yes please!” It was so cool that Adrian got to have a television in his room, thrifted by Mrs. Chase.
You meanwhile hardly had anything in your room currently, it was all being moved out into boxes. But you couldn’t tell him yet, the news was too difficult to convey that you’d be leaving Evergreen and the only friend you’d finally been able to make.
So instead you sat back to watch Inuyasha on Adrian’s hotwheels flame beanbag and tried not to blush too much whenever his shoulder brushed up against yours. “I taped Sailor Moon so we can watch that next time
At your track meet later in the week, your father wasn’t there as per usual, instead at a swim meet for your step-siblings with his new wife. It seemed like he didn’t have any time for you anymore. But there was a small group there to cheer you on.
Mrs. Chase with Adrian, and even his older brother Gut, friend Chris in tow.
“Damn I really didn't think she was real.” Chris shrugged.
“I bet she’s training in running so much to escape being around you all the time.” Gut teased him and Adrian immediately took the bait, face going bright red with anger.
“NO SHE ISN'T!” He yelled.
“Dorian! That’s unkind, apologise to your brother now.” Mrs. Chase snapped and Gut winced at being called Dorian but relented.
“Yeah not very polite of you Prince Charming.” Chris added with a snide grin.
“Do not fucking call me that dude!” Gut snapped, getting more riled up than Adrian at this point.
“Language Dorian! Christopher, why did you give him that nickname dearie?” Mrs. Chase wondered and Dorian looked ready to murder him if he answered truthfully.
“It’s because he’s handsome, I call Adrian thimble because he’s short.” Chris explained, always able to make himself look good in front of older women with his cheesy square-headed smile.
“Aw that’s sweet.” Mrs. Chase pinched his cheeks a little before focusing back on the track race.
At the finish line, everything hit you like a ton of bricks. You were moving away and wouldn’t get to see Adrian anymore. The one support person who always made sure to cheer you on. You truly could rely on him to cheer up your day.
“Are you sad because you didn’t get first?”
“You’re still amazing, second place is really good!” Adrian cheered, “Why are you crying? You can win the next track meet.”
That wasn’t possible, you weren’t ever coming back here again. This was your last track meet, and the silver medal hung heavy around your neck. “Yeah next time…”
“Would you like to come over for dinner dearie? I spoke with your father and he said it was fine, if you’d want to sleep over, we have a spare sleeping bag.” Mrs. Chase said sympathetically, you guessed that your father had told her about the move.
There wasn’t anywhere to run, you had to tell him the terrible news. “I need to tell you something really important.”
Adrian's eyes widened, a hopeful glimmer swirling in the sea of green. Were you about to suggest that he should be your boyfriend?
Or could you read his mind that he was thinking about asking you to the junior high dance? He was allowed to bring someone his own age to it from another school.
But that wasn't at all what you were about to tell him, with a deep exhale you ripped off the bandaid, “Adrian, it turns out that I have to move to boarding school soon.”
“When?” Adrian felt his heart being crumpled into dust and you were holding the vacuum ready to hoover the remnants.
“This summer break, there's no room for me anymore in the house now that my dad's remarried. His new family is moving in and I can't take all my stuff. He's going to throw a lot of it away.”
Adrian couldn't believe it, you'd not only miss out on the dance but all the fun activities he had thought of for summer break.
And his birthday party, it was going to be under the sea themed at the local aquarium. Finally he thought that he'd made a friend who would actually show up this time.
“But that’s so soon and what about your rad beanie baby collection?!” He whined.
You gazed so sadly at him and Adrian wished he could make it all better somehow.
“Well I was hoping, could you look after it for me?” The suggestion was so quiet that he nearly missed it, your voice catching.
“Sure thing! I'll take the best care of them forever and ever so you can come see them when you can visit, I promise.” Adrian quickly reassured you, going through all the steps to preserve them expertly.
“Still I'm going to really miss you.” Adrian admitted, fiddling with his sleeves to try and distract himself from crying.
“I know I seem really cool, but I don’t actually have many other friends.” Yet he never did tell you the names of his ‘other’ friends were at Evergreen High, only that they went to his school. You didn’t push him on it though.
“I'll miss you too.” You said softly, trying desperately not to tear up. “I'll visit every break, whatever chance I get! I won't get much time to leave campus so you'll have to do the collecting for both of us and send me pictures in the mail.”
“Sounds like you're going to prison.” He grumbled, but got out his polaroid and Ben 10 stationery set ready for letter writing, taking down the address.
“It's a remote, strict Catholic all-girls boarding school, so not too far off the mark there.” You lamented. “In Fairfax.”
Adrian’s face fell even further. “That’s so far away!”
Yours fell in tandem, “I know, but I have something to try and help,” rummaging through your backpack, you got out a small gift.
“Here you go, something I made you.” You handed him the beaded BFF bracelet you'd been working on.
When he stared at it silently you started to get anxious that he thought it was a lame gesture. “I can make another one if you don't like the colors, I kinda ran out of teal and used white and black…”
“No, I love it, such a killer color combo! I'll wear it everyday!” Adrian promised, clutching the beaded bracelet like it was made from pure gold.
“Me too, we can look down at them when we get lonely.” You slipped the matching one around your wrist in pink, white and black, holding it up for Adrian to see.
Mrs Chase let you sleep over and called your father to discuss the transfer of beanie babies. Then suddenly the day arrived for you to be shipped off to Fairfax.
“What if this is the end though?” Adrian asked, eyes glued to his New Balance 2002R sneakers.
“The end?” You asked, “of what?”
“Of our friendship, like what if you make a ton of new, cooler friends at boarding school and forget all about me?” He blurted out his worst fear.
“Remember when TY released the End bear in 1999?” You smiled at him.
“Yeah?” Adrian nodded.
“And it wasn’t the end right? They made a hundred more bears! Even if we make other friends, you’ll still be my first best friend.” You grinned when his eyes widened in surprise at that.
“Yeah they made the Beginning bear…” Adrian sniffled, the two of you chanting with a silly giggle to each other, “Beanie babies can never end.They'll always be our special friends. Start the fun because we're here.To bring you hope, love and cheer!”
Those were the last words exchanged, the bus was ready to leave and you had to go.
Adrian never cried much about things like normal people did.
But on that fateful afternoon upon bidding his only friend farewell, watching you sadly get on the bus, he sobbed into his mother's comforting shoulder, waving you goodbye.
However, he didn't have to wait long till your reunion.
“Happy birthday Adrian!” You surprised him the first year, standing at the Chase residence doorstep only a month later.
“Woah! But you only get one day outside of the holidays to leave boarding school right?” Adrian thought you’d miss out on his party for sure.
“Yeah, and I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do this year! I mean come on, an aquarium birthday party for my best friend? I wouldn't miss it.” You handed him his present. “I also found this one for you. It's a Gen 7 release, Sunray the Manta Ray.”
“OH MY GOSH NO FREAKING WAY! I DIDN'T KNOW THERE'S A MANTA RAY BEANIE OUT AND IT’S TEAL?!” There wasn’t a chance in hell that Adrian could control his volume right now.
He had to shout from the rooftops when he saw your present.
In your hands was a beanie baby with a distinctive mottled blue plush design, fuzzy underbelly fins, blue and black button eyes, and a bright orange smiley “mouth.”
“All of my friends call me Sunray. I swim in the ocean everyday, sometimes I’ll jump into the sky…having fun, wishing I could fly!” You read out with a giggle at how absolutely chuffed Adrian was.
He cuddled the fuzzy manta ray plush lovingly right up to his chin. “So awesome, Sunray might be in my top three! Who are you going to take?”
“Hmm, good question.” It was a tough choice but you decided to take Seaweed the Otter around the aquarium.
When he got home, Adrian placed the manta ray up on the top shelf for a place of honor.
That was how you spent every summer break, using your day off to go see Adrian on his birthday in Evergreen.
In college, you went to Portsmouth for Forensics and in the final year of your degree, Adrian went to visit you this time for your birthday.
Present in hand he wasn't really prepared for how many other friends you had now. The dorm room party was really loud and while Adrian tried to not let it get to him how left out of the conversations he felt, it became increasingly difficult when they asked what he did.
“I don’t study, I’m working in hospitality at Fennel Fields back in Evergreen.” He answered, at first oblivious to the glib or snide reactions around him until eventually Adrian found himself on the outer.
One rude guy, drunk off his face, made it very clear. “So you’re her friend she always goes on about huh? I don’t get why, and you're a dishwasher?”
“Yeah, but I’m her best friend and a busboy actually.” Adrian replied irritated, not enjoying how everyone laughed at that. What was there to find funny?
The dude bro jabbed a finger into Adrian’s chest, “I guess she is super nice as well as fine, makes sense she’d take pity on some loser like you.”
Anger boiled, red hot, a sea of blood crossing Adrian’s vision for a moment, like the visor he’d begun to don when patrolling at night for scum to rid off the earth.
But he couldn’t act on the violent impulse, not here at your birthday party, on some douchebag with his daddy’s trustfund
The nepo baby wasn’t worth it. But his cruel words frustratingly barbed in Adrian’s confidence, blooming the anxieties he’d felt recently.
Were you still his friend, or did you just pity him now, knowing he had nobody else? Unlike you, he didn’t grow out of the awkward stage, people avoided him at work the same as in high school.
Ritchie was around your and Adrian's age, in some of the same courses you were studying, but he was finishing a criminal law degree. "Have you thought about my question any further? C'mon don't keep a guy in suspense." He badgered you, last week he asked you out on a date.
A total blindsiding that you didn’t see coming and with your birthday and Adrian visiting, you didn’t really feel like addressing it.
"I just want to enjoy my birthday, I still need a little more time." You were getting exhausted by how he was going round in circles about the topic. There was no breathing room, the weighted answer you had to give tightening at your shoulders.
That didn't seem to go over well, his expression hardened, eyes steely, smile rather like a shark, sharp, cold and without mirth. "Sure thing birthday girl, tomorrow then." At least he left to go get another drink and left you be.
But you were not looking forward to telling him thanks but no thanks tomorrow.
Where had Adrian gone to anyway?
You were too busy to notice something had gone wrong, trying to do the right thing hosting and mingled with everyone. It wasn’t until near the end of the party that you realised Adrian was sitting outside on the steps.
He looked down about something, brow furrowed in deep concentration at the concrete slate. “Hey, there you went! I was looking for you.” You called out to him, holding all the recycling. Nobody had stuck around of course to help you tidy up after.
“Really, you were? For me?” Adrian looked shocked, peering up at you, he jumped to his feet. “Let me help.” He took the heaviest bags from your hands.
“Thanks! And of course, I was hoping you hadn’t left or something. I want to catch up and hear about everything you’ve been up to.” You said.
“I’m not up to anything exciting. I just work as a lame bus boy.” Adrian muttered, throwing the bags over into the communal bins.
You frowned at that, taking in how upset he looked, you knew the signs, hands fidgeting at his sleeves, slight tremble of his bottom lip. Someone had bullied him.
“Who said that?” You asked.
“Nobody.” Adrian lied, and not budging on the matter. “Come on, let's go open your present!” He pulled you by the hand back inside.
“I love him, thank you!” sitting on the bed with him, placing his gift, a Smartest the Owl wearing a little graduation cap on your bookshelf with the others.
“I hear saw-whet owls all the time at my job when I get into the alley for my smoke breaks. I don’t actually smoke of course, but that’s what they call it in hospitality.” Adrian explained, smiling when he noticed prominently you had placed the university beanie babies he’d gotten you, right in front of your fave fantasy books.
As you continued your studies, he went up in beanie babies, first year was Smart the Owl, second Smarty the Owl and now third year was Smartest the Owl.
You had one more semester to go in Forensics and for graduating he was going to give you an Honor Roll the Graduation Dog beanie baby.
“Hey, Adrian I got asked something by a guy named Ritchie in one of my courses recently and I wanted your advice.” You said anxiously, it'd be preying on your mind.
“Sure what did he ask?” Adrian shrugged, still reading the spines of your novels to see if there were any he’d read.
When he spotted The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, he couldn’t wait till it was his turn to change the topic and ask what you thought about the book.
“Well he… asked me out on a date.” You said shyly.
“Oh…” Adrian froze, clammed right up, his blood ran colder than the bud light can he'd cracked out of the fridge.
“I've never dated anyone before or been asked out so I'm kinda at a loss for what to do.” You admitted, “he wanted my answer again at the party but I wanted to focus on celebrating my birthday.”
In fact Ritchie had been very pushy and his attitude completely shifted from the nice guy you knew from your forensic imaging and photography course to an impatient, bitter tone.
“I think, well I think that uh y-you should do whatever makes you happy.” It deeply pained him to say the words, but truthfully Adrian preferred to see you happy with someone else than not happy at all.
“I don’t want to go out with him, but I’m a little nervous to tell him on my own in case he reacts badly to the rejection. Would you come along with me when I do?”
“Of course I will! No need to worry, I won’t let anyone mess with you.” Adrian tried to hide how absolutely relieved and giddy he was that you didn’t want to go out with this other guy, but failed terribly.
He was grinning ear to ear for the rest of the night, even in the dark when Adrian tucked himself in at your couch.
“Hey, I can’t sleep. Can I join you out here for a little while?” You crept in, nightie and fluffy dressing gown on.
“Sure thing! Just like our old sleepovers.” Adrian shuffled over and patted down the fold-out mattress.
You blushed, seeing him in his pajamas, an old Mass Effect N7 t-shirt that slightly rode up and plaid red checker shorts.
He really had gone through a growth spurt since the last time you'd caught up and gotten into amazing shape. While you always thought he was handsome, others surely had to catch on too now right?
Adrian hadn't mentioned dating anyone, but you were still curious. Biting your bottom lip, trialing the question over a couple times you went for it.
“Have you, well, I mean are you, gosh I’m ruining this question it’s like talk much?” You laughed rather high pitched, making Adrian cock his head in confusion.
“Are you dating anyone, or have you uh had you know…” You waved your hands around, the word finally tumbling out.
“Had what, sex?” He asked bluntly.
Meekly nodding, you managed to get out, “y-yeah or kissed anyone.”
You were about to apologise if it crossed a line or was too personal of a question but Adrian didn’t seem to mind.
“No, I haven't kissed or engaged in coitus with anyone before. Outside of my hand for practicing making out or jacking off.” He shrugged casually as if discussing the weather.
“I don't date people either, there’s not a lot of time for relationships with me being Vig-” Adrian paused, pupils dilating.
Oh shit.
He was so comfortable with you, no secrets ever crossed paths, until now. Adrian had become Vigilante this past year, in a prototype suit, taking out the thugs, drug dealers, dirty cops, and worst of all graffiti artists off the streets of Evergreen.
“Vig?” You asked him to elaborate.
“V-vegetarian.” Adrian tried to clarify, his voice cracking.
“But you ate a hamburger at the party earlier?” You saw him shoving pork belly sliders down like chips throughout the night too.
Adrian began to awkwardly cough, anxiety seizing his lungs, “Yeah I’m doing a really terrible job at it, that’s why it takes up so much time.”
“Right, well I’ll try and help cater to it then. No bacon and eggs for breakfast tomorrow.” You knew that Adrian was a terrible liar, because he never kept anything hidden.
But this seemed to be something that embarrassed him, given how red his face was so you didn’t try and pry anything further around the subject.
“I mean, I’ve already broken my streak. Might as well keep bacon and eggs on the menu…” Adrian pushed his luck, jutting out his chin and princess eyes.
You giggled at that and reassured him the menu would not change before heading to bed. It was ridiculously petty but knowing Adrian hadn't dated anyone either made you smile going to sleep.
After breakfast and watching cartoons together like old times, Kim Possible, it was time to go meet Ritchie as organised before class at the college cafe.
Adrian joined you, his presence making you feel safe.
Ritchie was already there waiting inside and when he saw Adrian behind you, his expression went venomous.
“Hey Ritchie, thanks for meeting me here. I've given it a lot of thought,” You began anxiously.
“I'll say.” Ritchie laughed, sipping his latte, before gesturing to Adrian. “What's he doing here?”
“You might've met Adrian at my party last night, look I don't think I can go out with you sorry–” You were cut off swiftly.
“So what, you're rejecting me, for what this guy? Is he your boyfriend or something?” Ritchie demanded.
“Oh it's more that I don't really have time to date and I'm focusing on studying, I mean Adrian is…” You said, unsure of how to describe your relationship, worried about Adrian being annoyed by that.
But were the two of you really just friends?
“We’re friends.” Adrian finished for you, an uncharacteristically serious expression drawn on his face as he glared at Ritchie.
That solidified it for you, a silly notion you got in your head. Obviously Adrian didn’t see you as more than a friend. You two hardly saw each other anymore.
But Adrian’s glare wasn’t aimed at you. This was the same dude that gave him grief for having a job. By the looks of his fancy get-up and rolex watch, Adrian presumed this guy was rather used to getting whatever he wanted.
“But my being her potential partner shouldn't influence your level of respect for her clear and polite answer of no.” He added sharply.
Adrian noticed you were anxiously bobbing your leg up and down underneath the table. Something you only did when truly stressed.
“I knew that he couldn’t possibly be your boyfriend, he’s a total dork.” Ritchie chuckled darkly, “you're missing the fuck out but whatever. I can find chicks like you a dime a dozen.”
“Why don't you, and leave her alone then?” Adrian challenged him.
“Thanks for stepping in there Adrian.” You were glad to have him at your side.
“Sure, what else are friends for?” Adrian smiled, but the word friend twisted like a dull knife in your side.
“Right, yeah, still I really appreciate it.” You murmured, trying to not be upset. Enjoying the rest of Adrian’s visit by showing him around campus and Portsmouth, he was set to leave soon.
Later that week at a study session in the library with your friends, the thought never crossed your mind that Ritchie would still be hung up on you. In fact he avoided you like the plague since rejecting him.
You never thought to guard your drink bottle so closely amongst classmates, going to the bathroom you left it at your desk. But it became apparent that you did need to worry, becoming legless on the way back to your dorm.
It was like being cast off a boat out at sea without a life raft, stumbling to get up the stairs, you tried to call for help but were met with the perpetrator.
“Nobody fucking ever embarrasses me like that, rejecting me in front of everyone. Let alone a frumpy bitch like you.” His voice and hands set out to grab you, yet they never quite reached.
Ritchie was waiting, but so was somebody else in the wings that night, your guardian angel.
Vigilante.
His costume was a myriad of teal, black and white Kevlar, red visor blurring in your double vision.
“Nobody fucking ever hurts her, let alone a spineless, gutless, waste of oxygen like you that would roofie someone for saying no.” The silver glint of steel flashed before settling at his jugular, not allowing for another breath.
Your would-be attacker choked on a cacophony of crimson, dripping, then splattering in a jettison on the pavement soon to be followed by the heavy crash of his body.
Vigilante wiped the remaining slick blood off his honshu blade onto the back of his combat pants before sheathing it. Then he dashed to your side as you collapsed.
“H-he put something in my drink…” You sobbed, still feeling woozy, unable to process everything that just happened, falling into a panic.
“I know, hey you're going to be okay, all right? I'll take care of you.” Vigilante promised, scooping you into his arms and carrying you up to your room.
For a short while you slept and Adrian took care of the body, tossing the asshole in the garbage like he deserved and getting dressed back into his civilian clothes.
Calling the ambulance, he made sure you were taken care of and were going to be okay. Thankfully you hadn't downed the entire water bottle, with some rest you'd be fine, breathing normal and heartbeat stable.
The paramedics were confident that you wouldn't pass out again, but instructed Adrian to stay with you overnight to ensure you were fine. If anything changed with your condition, he was to drive you straight to the hospital.
“Hey, I heard that some asshole drugged you and some masked crusader called Vigilante I think saved you! Thank goodness.” Adrian said, gripping your hands tenderly when you came to.
“Adrian, are you Vigilante?” You whispered, words slurring when you regained consciousness.
“W-what, what makes you say that?!” Adrian panicked.
“You are, aren't you! As your BFF, I can tell.” You wagged a finger in front of his face, settling back on the pillows with a satisfied hum.
There was no use in denying it, you knew him too well and if Adrian was totally honest not having to lie about his secret identity with you was a relief.
“Hey, your suit colors are the same as the bracelet I made you.” You realised in a soft murmur.
“Y-yeah it is,” Adrian soothingly combed a lock of hair out your face gently, sitting with you the entire night.
“I still keep the bracelet on me all the time, it's on my keychain.” He showed you his Sebring car keys and sure enough there it was, battered over the years.
“Mines on my ankle.” You giggled, kicking up a leg to show him, before succumbing to the desperate need for sleep.
Adrian gently tucked you back into the comforter, kissing your forehead goodnight.
Ritchie never turned up for class again. In fact everyone assumed he dropped out. Nobody found any evidence of the real reason why, you made sure of it using all your forensics training to clean up the scene.
But there was a slight rift forming between you and Adrian after you graduated, he wouldn’t admit to being Vigilante, no matter how obvious it was. You decided to drop it, and instead of joining law enforcement opted to go into business for yourself.
Becoming a private forensic investigator for families and loved ones to hire. You dedicated your life to solving cold cases, going to the victims' towns and never lived in one place long, moving to the next job, trying to help people in need.
Adrian similarly got busy with being Vigilante and the alien butterfly invasion, then inter-dimensional travel, now Checkmate.
However, no matter what, you always ensured to take off your one vacation day outside the schedule of unending cases to visit Evergreen for Adrian on his birthday.
Current day, 28th of June, Chase Residence.
“Sweetie, your friend is on the phone checking in about a visit for your birthday!” Loretta called out to her son, who you could hear was in the middle of playing Hello Kitty Island Adventure.
“Hey Adrian, what’s the plan for your birthday this year?" You hadn't heard from him and were getting a little worried.
“I'm sorry but you don't need to come over anymore.” Adrian said glumly. “The beanie babies are gone now. They got destroyed and I can't afford to pay you the millions they were definitely worth.”
“That’s a shame and all but you don't need to pay me back, I could still come over?” You didn't care about the collection, you wanted to see Adrian. But maybe your worst fear had come true, he'd outgrown you.
“Why would you even want to?” Adrian's harsh tone made your heart sink further than an anchor dropped out at sea.
“To celebrate your birthday?” You asked, throat catching past the nerves. Surely there was more to your relationship than just the beanie babies.
“It happens every year. You don't have to make the trip out just for that.” Adrian replied flatly. There was no point, his alternate self spelt it out clearly.
If it wasn’t for our shared love of collecting I don’t think we’d ever have become a couple.
“But it’s important, 35 is a big deal.” You tried again, biting back tears when he sighed.
“Not really, the Checkmate crew are just taking me out for burgers and the arcade.” He frowned, still checking for beanie babies on second-hand realtors.
“Oh, um okay, it's cool I get it. Nevermind then.” Giving up, you supposed that with Adrian making all of his new friends that he didn't really need you anymore.
But you didn't expect him to just come out and say it so blatantly. Adrian was never one to mince words though, completely open and honest to a fault. “Goodbye Adrian.” You hung up, tossing your phone away.
“Good bye.” Adrian similarly shut down his laptop, eyes bleary from staring at the screen and flopped back onto the pillows with a deep sigh.
The next morning, 29th of June, Checkmate breakroom.
“Where's your friend?” Harcourt asked. “Is she on the flight over?”
“Yeah don’t tell me, the girl you were totally besties with that went to another school suddenly moved to Canada?” Rip goaded him with a shit eating grin.
“My beanie babies are destroyed so I told her that she didn't need to visit me anymore. It's just my birthday.” Adrian explained.
“Dude.The fuck kind of reasoning is that?” John scoffed for the collective room of bewilderment.
“What? I didn't want to disappoint her, she only came over to inspect and compare our collections. Now that I don't have any, she wouldn't have any reason to.” Adrian scoffed back, how was that not obvious?
“Adrian, what if she also enjoyed seeing you?” Adebayo ventured, only to be met with total disbelief.
“Pfft, no way!” Adrian laughed loudly, “there's like no way right P?”
“Huh?” Chris was confused.
“Uh DUH girls don't like me! You said so yourself, I'm a total lady-boner killer without the Vigilante suit on and whenever I open my mouth to speak.” Adrian repeated Chris’ line word for word and didn’t notice the death glares his BFF received from everyone else in the room.
Chris sighed, filled with regret for his former self, he put a hand on Adrian’s shoulder. “That was drunk me and for girls we tried to hook up with at the bar…and I was an ass for saying that and in a bad place.” He apologised.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore, you guys want to hear some new manta ray facts?”
But Adrian was stubborn, certain that his alternate self was correct. No beanie baby collection, no sweet babe to take off into the sunset. You weren’t interested, plain and simple. That dogged self assuredness was often both of their downfalls. However when he got home, there was a surprise waiting for him.
“Sweetie you have an early present that's arrived from your friend.” Loretta’s voice was a little clipped, expression in a frown. She had also been unsuccessful in convincing her son to reconsider rebuking your invitation.
There was a package delivered to the door, teal wrapping paper with a bright pink bow. Inside were two beanie babies, one instantly recognisable, Stretch and another a newer beanie baby in the shape of a flamingo.
Fraya the Flamingo, bright fuchsia pink with teal legs and yellow beak, was released as part of the brand's 30th Anniversary collection. Opening the tag, he saw her birthday was also the 30th of June, the poem inside gave him pause.
Come over here and sit awhile, my bright colors will make you smile. When you’re with me you’ll be glad, I’ll make sure you’re never sad!
The birthday card had two manta rays on the front of it with the inscription ‘I hear it’s time for a celeb-ray-tion!’
Happy birthday Adrian! I found this and thought of you, thanks for always making me smile.
Here's the Stretch you gave me and Fraya to keep her company. Hope you can rebuild the collection, it's a shame it got destroyed.
But I'll still keep those memories of us hanging out together and chatting about them dear to my heart. That's really what was worth the most to me.
I'm glad you’ve made some new friends and wish the best for your company Checkmate.
It's okay to drift off from childhood friends, these things happen. I just hope all your future endeavors reward you as you deserve.
You're a lovely guy Adrian, don’t let anyone diminish your bright colors.
From y/n
“Don’t wait up Mom!” Adrian snapped at her before frantically racing to get back into his car.
The plane tickets weren't cheap, you unfortunately couldn't get a refund on them or the hotel. So drinking alone at the Evergreen Pleasant Suites hotel bar felt perfectly in order.
Tomorrow maybe you'd wander around the Evergreen mall for old times sake. Family wasn't an option, none of you really stayed in touch anymore.
Like always there wasn’t any room for you, easily replaced with new, shinier, more interesting and better people.
The Checkmate crew all seemed really cool though, Adrian was happy with his new friends. That filled you with a joy that nearly drowned the sadness.
Nearly, you still needed copious amounts of booze to dull the pain.
Your phone sirened off with Aqua’s Lollipop (Candyman) “Hello? Who's this?”
“Sorry I told you not to turn up tomorrow. I got your amazing present and read the card.” Adrian said breathlessly, sounding like he was running or in a wind tunnel.
“Oh, it's okay you don't need to apologise. You've got a bunch of new friends now to spend the day with, it was silly of me to book my flights and room without checking.” You said quickly, wanting to end the call as soon as possible.
Tears were already trickling down your chin, saltier than the rim of your third margarita.
“No it wasn't! It's a tradition, an important one.” He argued, “and I want you there tomorrow. I only said that because our awesome collection got destroyed. And I was trying to replace them all before you found out. Then when I couldn't, I thought you wouldn't want to visit."
“Also those stupid new friends of mine are why the collection is gone. I was really upset and didn't think about any of it properly.” Adrian explained, you could hear the pelting of rain outside his car on the freeway.
“Think about any of what properly?” You asked, trying to not get too hopeful.
“Us, how much you mean to me, hopefully how much I might mean to you. That kinda thing, I guess. Sorta.” Adrian was sweating bullets, what if in this timeline you didn’t feel the same way?
“You mean a lot more to me than some stuffed animals Adrian.” It came out more snappy and needier than you wanted it to.
“So, our relationship is built on more than just beanie babies?” He asked, having parked the Sebring in the Hotel parking lot. Adrian knew the one you frequented when you visited him.
“Yeah it is…at least I think it is. I still remember when we first met. I felt like I finally met someone who understood me.” You wiped a stray tear away with a napkin. “A-and,” hiccuping you couldn’t finish your sentence.
“And that song was playing,” Adrian nodded, continuing for you, hearing your sniffle.
He wanted to hold you in his arms, too much time had passed not having you there. “Under a lover’s sky, gonna be with you…” Adrian hummed, hands tensing at the steering wheel.
You started to sing Can’t Fight the Moonlight softly along with him, “and no one’s gonna be around…” looking around, nobody outside of you and the bartender were there.
“If you think that you won’t fall, well just wait until…” Adrian stormed past, not caring in the slightest that it was bucketing down rain outside.
“Til the sun goes down. You can try to resist, try to hide from my kiss…” You felt silly, it wasn’t like he was going to turn up here or anything.
This wasn’t some cheesy rom-com. It was nearly midnight, Adrian was probably about to go to bed.
“But you know, don’t you know that you can't fight the moonlight!” Adrian shouted back, and his singing voice suddenly reverberated on the phone. “Noooooo youuuu can’t fight itttt!”
Spinning around, he was actually here, pointing towards you at the bar.
“There's no escaping love…” He was ridiculous, sauntering over with the biggest, dorkiest grin on his face. Dripping wet from the storm outside.
“Once the gentle breeze weaves its spell upon your heart.” You were just as ridiculous, returning it back with a dorky, teary smile of your own.
For a moment you were both transported to that moment in Goodwill, touching hands, butterflies fluttering, their wings beating at your hearts.
That unspoken kismet, familiarity, warmth, unfettered acceptance you’d both been desperately seeking.
“No matter what you think, it won't be too long…'til you're in my arm–.” You cut him off with a passionate smooch to the lips, hands threading through his curly hair, he returned the favor by wrapping his around your waist.
It was a race up the elevator and a fight for whose tongue could delve the furthest as you explored kissing, an ouroboros of touch-stavation finally being satiated.
Getting a hotel towel you started drying him down, but Adrian tossed it aside, picking you up with ease to take you to the bed. The time read midnight on the hotel alarm clock in blaring red as you were pushed into the fluffy pillows.
“Happy birthday Adrian.” You giggled when Adrian’s glasses adorably fogged up as you unhooked your bra as he gaped at the bounty spilling out before him.
“Fuck, best damn birthday ever...” He sighed, nipping at your collarbone, hands greedily cupping your breasts as his desire brushed up against your hipbone. Then he paused, assessing your flushed face, “wait, blow on this?” Motioning downward.
You didn’t expect the plastic breathalyzer tube but shrugged and did it anyway, trying to make the motion sexy.
However, Adrian was in fretting mode ignoring your blowjob eyes, “Oh good you’re not over the limit.” He said relieved, tossing the test into the trash before unbuckling his belt.
“So I can operate heavy machinery?” You snorted, shimmying out of your jeans.
“Something like that.” The impish glimmer in his eye took your breath away, a cocky half-smile you hadn’t seen before crossed Adrian’s face. “Still better to wear protective gear, safety first!” He grinned goofily, crinkling a condom packet out of his wallet.
You giggled at that, helping him roll it down his shaft with a firm, soft motion that made Adrian grit his teeth, eyes flitting open-closed for a moment as you pumped. “I want to be inside you, please?” He begged, so desperate and whiny, the lust-filled expression flooding right down your thighs.
“I want that too,” You agreed, bringing his hand to your core to show you how much, Adrian marveled at the wet dampness for him, shuddering.
Adrian wished that he could live inside you like this forever, pinning your wrists down into the feather weight mattress, fingers locking iron tight. His weight pressed over you, face settled into the curve of your neck, like it’s always meant to be there, leaving hickeys at the soft skin.
You want him to be like this forever, grinding your hips back, mewling in pleasure with every mark he left, his teeth grazing your shoulder, dipping your own teeth to claim the alluring bob of his throat.
Short and deep thrusts, no rhythm to the knocking of his hips, because he can’t focus fully enveloped in your warmth. Buried to the hilt, Adrian groans in utter satisfaction when you call out his name at the stretch of him, rolling his hips so slow, it’s mind numbing.
Kissing your forehead delicately like he isn’t edging you within an inch of your life with every inch of his cock right now, Adrian takes his fingers and plunges two past your parted lips, in tandem with the slow rocking below. When you suck on them, he bites his bottom lip, a sharp hiss of lust still escaping.
Green eyes locked with yours, examining every minute detail, analyzing how your breath hitched, hair splayed on the pillow, back and shoulders arched, hips rolled, thighs tensed, core tightened for him, all of it. Mapping your body with such intensity that you flushed bright hot under his gaze.
Then he dipped to moan in the shell of your ear, “You’re so beautiful, fuck, I love you, always loved, you, fuck…it’s so much better than, fuck, when I’d jack off to you, you’re amazing, fuck more than I ever fucking dreamed!” With every curse he punctuated it alongside a relentless jackhammering that left you drooling, feeling completely drunk, wasted on his cock.
“You’re so handsome, ohh fuck Adrian, I love you too, fuck, it’s so much, please, ohh god!”
He was cataloguing every sound, indexing it and noting when your pitch got higher, sultrier, whinier, each as good as the last and something Adrian desperately sought after, chasing your pleasured tone with the thrashing of his hips.
The release is sweeter for how in sync it is for the both of you, groaning, writhing together, buckling under the peaking pressure of the other's thick heavy climax.
Underneath the starlight, starlight…
We'll be lost in the rhythm, so right…
Feel it steal your heart tonight…
35 was a great year.
The greatest in fact, Adrian decided, coming up for air after another amorous bout, this time his head between your thighs. “Ohh wow Adrian, holy fuck you’re really good at that…” You mewled, hair patched to your sweaty forehead, face flushed and chest heaving. Yet Adrian stared at you lovingly, as if you were the most beautiful renaissance painting ever created.
Birthday blowjobs were overrated, birthday cunnilingus was where it was at. However, he certainly had to reconsider that stance when you deepthroated him later.
Adrian’s phone chorused with Aqua’s Barbie Girl while you were in cow girl. You knew him too well, not nearly half surprised when he answered it non-chalantly. “Hello best friend? Oh I’m currently with my BFF, who is now my GFF and getting my world rocked.”
“Dude what are you talking about?” Chris asked, of course Adrian had turned it on speaker phone. This was Adrian after all.
“She’s riding me like a rodeo!” Adrian said proudly.
“Giddy up!” You laughed, making the mattress squeak and Adrian go an even higher pitch.
“Are they straight up fucking right now?!” John snapped.
“Hell yeah girl!” Adebayo wooed.
“We’re at Big Belly Burger for Adrian’s birthday lunch, they’re gonna hold our table for an hour.” Harcourt said sharply.
“Be there soon.” You said.
“Real fucking soon!” Adrian panted.
“Ugh gross!” Judomaster cringed. “Not in front of my chilli fries.”
Cleaning yourselves up and trying to not get too distracted in the shower, you joined the Checkmate crew for lunch and a day of arcade games. You completely owned him in Mortal Kombat, but Adrian held the record for Time Crisis II and DDR down pat.
“Best birthday ever!” He kept saying, the biggest grin on his face.
“I guess I’ll have to sort out what to do about moving…” You said shyly, unsure if that was too soon or not but Adrian nodded.
“Oh we can give you a job for sure!” Adrian offered and everyone gave him a funny look.
“Wait, what are your qualifications exactly?” Harcourt, ever pragmatic, went right into interview mode. “All we know is you collect beanie babies.”
“I work in forensics for myself, set up my own business, solved a lot of cold cases, and unusual cases, I can provide the dossiers and recommendations.” You explained and saw the table's eyes widen going through your line of work.
“Wow you might be kinda over-qualified! I mean I used to be a busboy, Chris didn’t finish high school, Adebayo ran a dog shelter, Harcourt, John, Sasha and Langston all got like totally fired from governmenting and Judomaster can’t ride most rollercoasters.” Adrian exclaimed, happily slurping on his milkshake.
“Governmenting?” John asked exasperated.
“It’s true, she’s over-qualified and we under-pay. But looking at you, she’s one to make interesting choices, Super Nerd.” Langston chuckled.
“You in?” Adebayo grinned, putting out her hand and you shook it an instant.
Checkmate offices, July 1st
All of your belongings were being shipped across to Evergreen, moving in with Adrian for the moment, his mother was more than happy to have you both.
Heading into Checkmate for your first day, Adrian dropped you off but didn’t stick around for orientation, claiming he had to go pick something up from the post office was super important. After Harcourt and Adebayo took you on a tour of the place and your new lab fully kitted out for forensics work, you were shown by John where your new desk would be.
To the left of Adrian’s desk, which seemed to thoroughly relieve Harcourt, who moved a desk down. Heading over, you were met with a beaming, practically glowing, slightly sweaty Adrian, who’d clearly ran up the fire stairs to try and beat you both there.
On your desk was a little present that paired with his own. “Aww, the 13th generation 2005 I Love You beanie babies!” They were joined at the arms, one red with I, one white with I love you, the word forever embroidered across their joined feet inside a pink heart.
Adrian read out the tag to you loudly, ignoring the childish fart or barf sounds Chris and Judomaster made.
“My dear, my partner, my best friend
My love for you, it knows no end
Forever you and I will be
Together for eternity!”
You snuck up and smooched him on the cheek, making his glasses askew, ready to live, work and be together, best friends, partners and lovers forever and enternity.
series desc; Frank Castle is starting to be more than a neighbor who does you favors without being asked. He knows it; and it terrifies him as much as it thrills you. It's a strange 'friendship'. sometimes he's making you laugh your ribs thin, and other times you could cut the air with a knife. The biggest challenge is keeping him from backing away, while not risking ruining the only relationship you have in your apartment complex.
notes; slow burn, just-neighbors to friends to lovers! Frank is horrible at feelings, very manly (yes plz fix everything in my house and don’t let me pay you back), curtis hoyle makes an appearance, teeeennnsssioooon, rom com esque, banter, eventual smut
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!
You invite your coworker, Adrian to a party and he realizes that you've met before...and you might just be Vigilante's biggest fan.
cw: swearing, no use of y/n, drinking, afab reader, fluff, not proofread oops
word count: 1.9k (its a shortie)
I love bombshell reader x adrian so much
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!
Summary: You've recently moved to Evergreen, and so far, any romantic encounters you've had since you got here haven't exactly been the norm. An unplanned and much needed pit-stop for dinner on the way home from work leads you to Fennel Fields, where you take an instant liking to the cute busboy — despite his quirks. The only thing is, the two of you have met before, and he certainly recognizes you.
Warnings/Tags: 18+ Only, MDNI. Reader is in her 30's (not mentioned). Fluff. Mentions of a past sexual encounter. Mentions of drug use and alcohol consumption. It's implied that Amber bought reader along to Peacemaker's trailer for a foursome (that didn't happen lol). Proof read to a degree, any spelling and grammar mistakes are my own and commonplace for me tbh.
A/N: I wrote this as an alternative to this fic/ask, finished it before I decided to go in a different direction with it, but I found it in my docs and I didn't want to just leave it, so, here you go! Also I'm aware that the tip part in the banner is someone being a dick irl, but dw reader does tip lmao.
-> Do not be a fucknut! I do not give permission for my fics to be copied or fed into any AI software. <-
Note: My readers are written with inclusivity and women of colour in mind, with minimal descriptors or indetifying features, along with actions and intent, however everyone is encouraged to read and enjoy 💜
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Fennel Fields wouldn't be your first choice of places to eat in Evergreen, if some of the yelp reviews you'd briefly looked at were anything to go by, but the long double shift you'd just pulled, combined with the angry rumbling in your stomach meant that you needed to make a concession. Plus Amber had given it a glowing review, so why the fuck not?
Luckily for you the midweek lull meant that it wasn't too hectic inside when your server had greeted you, swiftly guiding you to a mid-restaurant booth where you could actually relax for the first time that day. Tired feet toe off your shoes beneath the table, legs coming up to rest on the empty seat across from you, allowing you a small creature comfort while you wait for your food to come out.
It's past 9pm, the customers are sparse, comprised of a few families who may be busy trying to rally their kids into hurrying up their colouring or to stop picking at the meal they'd insisted they'd wanted, elderly couples and the odd loner here and there, who, like yourself has probably just finished up after a long day and wants nothing more than to eat and crash out into a food induced coma as soon as you get home.
Minutes pass, the waft of garlic and onions and something deliciously deep fried coming from the kitchen only make your stomach growl more, no matter how much you attempt to ignore it, distracting yourself with today's wordle, eager to keep your streak alive.
Sparing a glance up from the screen you lock eyes with a silver-specked busboy several tables away and almost immediately you think he's flirting with you with the way his face splits into a foolishly big, dimple popping smile, waving at you like you knew each other. Cute, you think, if not a little odd? Maybe he's just overly friendly with the customers?
You smile politely and wave back, he seems harmless enough and the last time you had an opportunity to interact with a member of the opposite sex outside of work involved too much tequila and a couple of would-be heroes; and that was weeks ago.
As you divert your attention back to the screen, you still feel his eyes on you, every so often you'll chance a glance, tearing yourself away from the troublesome word of the day only to see him lurking in your peripheral vision.
"Adrian!" A stern voice hisses from across the restaurant, pulling the busboy's focus away from you, letting go of the damp cloth he was pretending to clean tables with as he's beckoned over to the kitchen doorway. "Need you to run dishes the rest of the night, I just had to fire Travis, caught him coughing on a customer's steak, I always knew that asshole was weird!"
Adrian's eyes bug out of his head, tilting his gaze in your direction several times over as Dave laments his problems.
"Adrian?"
The firm and short prompt of his name says Dave is one more warning away from giving him the Travis treatment.
"S-sorry! I can do that, and I'll be better at it than Travis ever was. Do you know, I once saw him drop a whole thing of mozzarella sticks on the floor and then serve them anyway? That dude was crazy."
"You, what?!"
"What?" Adrian bawks, looking around him to see what pissed Dave off now before it clicks. "Oh! No don't worry, I told him not to do it again and it was totally fine since the guy he was serving was a complete asshole anyway, you know the one with the weird nose whistle? He never tips!"
Dave pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers, exasperated and questioning all his life choices that lead up to this moment.
"Just run the dishes, man." Dave pleads, exhaling deeply through his nose as he retreats back into the kitchen to check on the chefs.
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It's been a few minutes since a quick ding of the bell on the pass counter and an 'order up!' were shouted from the back. You knew it was your food, you'd been eying the plate every chance you got, watching the steam rising under bright heat lamps enticing you and just out of reach. You are starting to wonder however, when it's going to come to you, the crowd in the restaurant starting to thin even further, it's not like they're rushed off their feet?
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Adrian should have taken that plate over to you several minutes ago, he knows that, but he's too chickenshit to do it right now, he fights injustices almost every single day, but somehow you're the most intimidating thing he's encountered in a long time, and for good reason!
He'll peak at you through a gap in the kitchen door, allowing himself a moment or two to contemplate on how he's going to approach this.
If you hear his voice, you might recognize it, and if you recognize it, you might realise that the masked hero you'd had between your legs weeks prior also worked as a one-time employee of the month busboy in his day to day life.
Total silence is an option, although he doesn't entirely trust himself not to start yapping anyway.
God you're so pretty and memories of that night hit him full force the second you walked through the door tonight, he's glad for his apron because he knows if he gets too close to you he's not going to be able to control his dick and sporting a boner the rest of his shift isn't something he wants to do!
"Adrian! Get your ass out there before those meals get cold! If we have to comp anything, it's coming out of your paycheck!"
The threat from Dave somewhere in the back of the kitchen makes Adrian jump, unceremoniously bumping his forehead on the lip of the door, skewing his silver frames, making them slip away from his face, fumbling to pick them up as he acquiesces and leaves the solace of the kitchen to face his fears while simultaneously trying not to create a problem in his pants.
Just be cool, Adrian, you don't need to speak, just drop the plate off on her table, smile and scurry away!
Simple, in theory. In practice he's going over every little variable in his mind that could fuck up this problem of his, taking his time to walk the dish over to your booth, avoiding looking at you at all costs now, he can't, he shan't, he mustn't.
He does.
Oh shit, why do you have to be so fucking beautiful?? Are you checking him out?!
══════════════════════
Finally your food is coming over! You're solely watching the plate as the smiley busboy from earlier unhurriedly inches towards your table, mentally making a note not to overtip on based on service alone.
Your eyes are fixed on him, more specifically, the plate in his hand, the lunch you'd scarfed down hours ago in the midst of brief respite from being rushed off your feet, cleary hadn't been adequate enough to see you through the entire day, and boy was your stomach and your dwindling lack of patience reminding you.
After what feels like forever, he finally reaches your table, and now he chooses to hurry up, setting the plate down in front of you a little too sloppily, splattering flecks of sauce onto the table top here and there, you're too hungry to give a shit though, already reaching for the cutlery. You don't entirely forget your manners though, your mom had drummed a basic 'please and thank you' into you from the time you could talk, and despite how hangry you were, you could spare a second. Lifting your eyes up from the much needed dinner in front of you, you find the busboy's name badge, haphazardly pinned to his apron, catching a quick glance of his name before he has the chance to rush away without a word.
"Thank you, Adrian."
You don't see it, already averting your attention to the much-needed food in front of you, but the busboy stops in his tracks, no more than a few feet away from your table, back turned to you, biting his tongue as he fights back the urge to blurt out whatever embarrassing thing his brain is concocting to say in return to you. Hearing his actual name being uttered from those perfectly full lips of yours was enough to send his head into a spin, considering the last time the two of you had met you'd been addressing him as Vigilante; and your tone of voice was a lot more high pitched and wanton than it was just now.
Adrian likes to believe he can think on his feet, he doesn't want to give himself away, but at the same time, he doesn't want to completely ignore you, so he decides to turn himself into a master of disguise on the spot instead.
"You're welcome, ma'am. Enjoy your food!"
He hadn't quite intended to sound like a chronically constipated Kermit the frog, and you didn't even seem to notice, he'd checked over his shoulder when he rushed off to hide in the kitchen once more.
God, even when you're busy stuffing food into your mouth you look sexy.
Seeing you again tonight only solidified to Adrian that fate was reminding him that he should have gotten your number after that night, he chickened out and hadn't stopped thinking about you since, somehow it didn't occur to him that he might bump into you in a chance encounter in a small town like Evergreen.
He needed advice and fast.
══════════════════════
It's almost closing time and you're still here, Adrian's peeked through the kitchen door enough times to know that you're going to be one of those customers that doesn't get the hint until they're sweeping the floors around you, but that's fine by him in this case, you're so pretty and he's totally screwed.
Adrian's managed to duck out into the back alley for 5 minutes while Dave is busy grumbling about grease traps to the overworked and underpaid dishpit worker, that's 5 minutes where he can consult his best friend on how to handle this situation.
"What?" Chris finally answers after the third attempt, coughing and spluttering on the other end of the line.
"Dude, are you okay? If you're dying I kind of need to know, but if it's just a cold do you want me to stop by with some soup or something?"
"I'm not dying! I just ripped a bong and I have company, say hi to Vigilante, Amber."
Amber's slurred hello and shrill giggle makes Adrian wrinkle his nose up. "Yeah, hi Amber." He still can't believe he ever let her put his balls in her mouth. "Look, I won't keep you on the phone for long okay, but dude, I need your help right now, I'm freaking the fuck out!"
"Vig, I'm a little busy, whatever drug cartel you think you've uncovered—"
"No it's not that this time! P, just listen! You remember that girl from a few weeks back? Amber's friend?" Adrian's pacing footsteps echo in the alley, gnawing a raw spot into his cuticle out of nerves.
"The mean one?" Chris coughs and splutters into the phone.
"She's not mean!" Adrian counters, immediately coming to your defence.
"She threw me out of my own trailer so you two could fuck? My sheets were a goddamn mess, dude!"
"Okay? Yeah, maybe she did do that. You and Amber still snuck off and boned in the Vigilante-mobile though! We're getting off topic!" Adrian huffs, quickly glancing back over his shoulder at the entrance to the kitchen, sounds of the dishwasher whirring and the chefs inside chatting loudly float out through the open door. "She's here at the restaurant right now dude! What do I do?"
"Uhhhh, I don't know? Maybe tell her to fuck off?"
"P, I'm serious! I like her and I haven't been able to stop thinking about her for weeks and now she's here and I'm gonna put my fucking foot in my mouth!"
Adrian's whiny rant is followed by a long moment of silence before it's broken by Chris, wheezily laughing on the other end of the phone.
"You're pussy whipped, dude!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Jesus fucking christ Vig," Chris gets out between snickers "We can argue about this all night, but what exactly is your plan here, bro? You can't talk to her. What if she recognizes your voice?" He rationalizes.
Adrian quietly seethes, pouting as if Chris could see him. "I totally thought of that, I just throw my voice a little. Like this; Hi I'm Adrian, I think your hair is nice and your face is pretty cool too, can I have your number?" Reverting back to the same ridiculous voice he'd used earlier, convinced that he doesn't sound insane.
"First of all, we have got to work on your pickup lines, 'Your hair is nice and your face is pretty'? No. Just, no." Chris sighs, heavy with exasperation. "Vig c'mon, the voice isn't going to work, what if she says yes? You're just going to go on dates and keep talking like you've been lobotomized?"
"… Yes?"
"Dude!"
"Alright, fine!" Adrian grumbles, kicking at a loose rock at his feet, resigning himself to letting you go this time. "So I just don't do anything?"
Chris picks up on the downtrodden tone in Adrian's voice, dropping his earlier teasing now. "I think so. Sorry, man. Plenty more fish in the sea, ones who wouldn't recognize your voice and realise you're Vigilante."
From somewhere inside the kitchen, Adrian hears Dave calling his name, searching for him, grimacing at idea of having to watch you get up and leave and maybe never see you again after tonight, but deep down, he knows Peacemaker is right and that it would be too risky to actually follow through with asking you out; dangerous for him, for you especially.
"Okay, I won't do anything stupid." The busboy laments. "I gotta go, Dave is about to tear me a new one."
"Sure. Oh, and Vig?" Chris whispers into the handset, lowering his voice so Amber doesn't hear him.
Adrian perks up momentarily, wondering if his best friend is about to offer him some words of wisdom in a moment of need.
"If you're coming over when you finish could you bring like a fuck ton of mozzarella sticks and marinara with you? We're starving."
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By the time you're finishing up with dessert, you're the only one left in the restaurant, and you know the hospitality industry well enough to know when to not overstay your welcome. With no one around on the floor, you gather your things and wander over to the service counter, dinging the little countertop bell twice in hopes of getting someone's attention in the back.
That's when you see the same wide eyed spectacled face of the cute busboy peaking out through a crack in the kitchen door.
Maybe you're a bad judge of character, he's a little eccentric, but you don't have the opportunity to meet people that often and there's something about him that draws you to him that you can't quite put your finger on. What harm could come from shooting your shot and leaving your number on the receipt?
"Hey, could you ring me up please? I know you guys need to close up and I don't wanna hold you up from going home any longer." You keep it friendly, reserving the flirting for when he gets closer, though you do bat your lashes and throw him an inviting smile to boot.
"Oh, uh, c-coming!" It's like a knee jerk response now, unable to stop himself from talking in that voice around you now.
Adrian reluctantly slinks out of the kitchen, shoulders tense with an equally strained smile on his face as he comes to ring you up, avoiding all eye contact while his fingers fly over the touch screen at the counter.
You lean on your side, elbow on the surface, chin propped up in your palm as you watch him — no ring, that's a good sign, what have you got to lose?
"So, you worked here long?" Okay, maybe your flirting skills are a little rusty, this is just small talk, you're working up to it!
"Yep." A quick one worded answer, it's going well so far.
It's okay, you can still recover, he was staring at you earlier, he seemed to be interested then!
"I'm actually pretty new in town myself, my friend Amber recommended this place, think maybe I'll come back sometime. I'll pay cash, please."
The mention of Amber makes Adrian's mouth go dry, trying his hardest to keep it casual as he finishes up with totalling your bill.
"W-well that would be gool. Cool! I mean… I tried to say good and then my brain mixed it up and said cool and— anyway! Your total's $37.81!" Adrian fumbles with the receipt, snatching it from the thermal printer and smacking it down on the surface in front of you before scurrying off to grab the broom and mop from the back, heat prickling up the back of his neck out of sheer embarrassment.
You watch him hurry away, unable to stop yourself from chuckling to yourself, he's more than a little weird, but apparently that's your type? What's the harm in just going for it? Worst comes to worst he doesn't call or text and you find yourself a new restaurant to eat at.
After settling up your bill and adding a tip, you jot down your number on the bottom of the receipt beside your name and a simple 'call me sometime', feeling emboldened enough to leave a winky face beside it before you hightail it out of there so you don't have to witness the cute busboy finding your message.
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Summary: Adrian Chase has a crush. Everyone knows. Well, everyone but you, the object of his affection, who seems completely oblivious to it all. When the rest of the 11th Street Kids finally reach the end of their respective ropes, they decide to step in.
Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI: Swearing, Mentions of sex, Adrian is kind of a creep, Okay a little more than kind of but we love it, Adrian is head-over-heels obsessed (and so so awkward about it), The team is exhausted with it, Chris is really bad at advice, Mentions of semi-public sex, Please let me know if I forgot anything!
Author’s Note: Thank you to the lovely anon who requested this! This dorky killing machine is so fun to write. As always, please let me know what you think!
-
“Holy shit.” Chris says, watching as you dodge one blow and land another with terrifying precision. A butterfly's head is blown clean off in a single shot, and you seamlessly dodge another attack to slam the blade of your knife into the eye of your next attacker.
“Holy shit.” Adrian echoes, but there’s a breathless, dreamy quality to his voice that makes Chris raise his eyebrows.
“Dude, I know she’s hot, but this is turning you on?”
“What? No! I mean, of course not. She’s just…” he trails off as you grab one enemy’s arm, spinning into the man’s chest and firing his gun from his own hand into the forehead of the man across from you. You spin out, and finish off the first guy with a swift kick to the chest.
“Holy shit.” Adrian says again, even more breathless than before, and he’s fucking smiling now.
“Oh God, I think his eyes just turned into cartoon hearts.” Adebayo nearly groans. This time, Adrian doesn’t answer.
And just like that, the entire team watches Adrian Chase fall in love.
And just like that, it becomes everyone else’s fucking problem.
-
He sits as close to you as possible in every briefing. He laughs way too hard at your jokes, and even at some of your comments that aren’t meant to be funny. He stares at you with his ‘cartoon heart eyes’ every time you enter the room, and looks like a sad puppy every time you leave it.
It gets annoying fast. And you’re the only one who doesn’t seem to notice.
You don’t get irritated with him, like everyone else does. For a while, each and every member of the team wonders what your breaking point is going to be. If one day you’ll snap when he rambles to you about anything and everything under the sun, and he’ll end up with a bullet between his eyes before he can finish telling you a new random fact about owls.
And yet, you don’t break. In fact, you don’t even seem like you’re humoring him. You listen when he talks like you’re actually interested in what he has to say. Laugh with him when no one else does. You smile when he enters the room, and you even have inside jokes with him that make him laugh like an absolute lunatic.
And yet, despite how painfully obvious it is to everyone else, you still don’t seem to notice his crush.
-
Chris hits his breaking point when he borrows Adrian’s phone, trying to look up directions to the new meeting spot after his own gets smashed in a fight.
“Okay, dude. We gotta talk about this shit.”
“What?” Adrian looks genuinely confused, turning to him with a completely innocent expression.
“First of all, your phone passcode is her birthday.”
Adrian is immediately on the defensive, pink tinging his cheeks as he grips the steering wheel and looks directly out the front window.
“I-what? No, it’s not! It’s a random combination of numbers. If it’s her birthday that’s a total coincidence. Who even is the she in question, anyway? Like I said, I have no idea what mysterious birthday you’re talking about.”
“Your screensaver is her face.”
“My screensaver is a picture of the whole team, because we’re all friends! If my phone maybe zoomed in on a particular person’s face, I have no control over that! I’m a crime fighter, not a master of technology.”
Chris does not let up, and Adrian looks like he’d be less tortured if his pinky toe was cut off again.
“Okay, then why did you Google her name like, twenty times?”
“For research. She’s part of the team! Who says I don’t Google all of you, in case someone - other than you, of course. You’re my best friend and so I know you’re not - is compromised somehow?”
“Dude, just admit you’ve got it bad.”
“I don’t have anything bad!”
“It’s fine, man. She’s like, a solid ten. If you want some advice, bro to bro, I can give it to you.”
Chris is Adrian’s best friend - well, outside of you now, of course - and he does hook up with lots of people.
So, against anyone’s better judgement, Adrian takes his first bit of seduction advice.
-
The briefing the next day is weird.
Very weird.
When Adrian sits down, he doesn’t sit next to you. In fact, he sits across from you, eyes boring into the side of your head when you aren’t looking and darting away immediately when you seem to feel the weight of his gaze on you. When the meeting breaks, and everyone begins to grab their various weapons and get their shit together to load up the van, he sidles up to you in a way that’s so purposefully casual it draws the attention of the rest of the team.
He leans against the counter on one elbow, looking at you through his glasses from the side.
“Sup.” And that word does not sound right coming from Adrian Chase. It especially sounds off with how much deeper he seems to be trying to make his voice.
Your brows furrow, and you continue to load your gun as you glance over at him. “Sup.” You mimic, just as purposefully low, and offer him a familiar little smile.
That seems to disarm him, just a little. Just enough to make him seem impossibly more awkward as he collects himself and continues.
“I was uh…I was just thinking about how I went out last night. There was a girl with an awesome ass at the bar. Totally top-tier. She was super hot.”
Your confusion is palpable. Some of the team cringes behind your back. Neither you nor Adrian notice. “…Okay.”
“I mean, you could be hot too. If you did your…hair different.”
“Thank you?”
“I mean, not that your hair isn’t great. And your shampoo smells nice. Not that I’ve like, smelled it or anything. It’s- you wear a lot of shampoo.”
“I wear a lot of shampoo?” You repeat, finally cocking your head to the side and looking him fully up and down, taking in everything from his stance to the odd way he’s trying to speak to you. “Are you okay? Did you drink weird milk again?”
“Huh? No! I just…you know, I was just saying you… smell, you know?” he trails off, looking a little lost, and you nod slowly like you think he might be on drugs.
“Okay, thanks… I’m gonna start loading up the van.” You offer him an awkward smile, pick up a gun, and make your way out the door.
He deflates so much, so quickly, that he looks like a popped balloon.
“Dude.” Chris says, sympathy and horror coating his tone. “What the fuck was that?”
“You said to neg her!”
“First of all, if you took Smith’s advice this whole situation is gonna get ten fucking times more annoying.” Harcourt snaps, rolling her eyes and holstering her own gun. “Second of all, who the fuck thinks negging works?”
“Hey, I’ve hooked up with a shit ton of people. If you do it right and not like whatever the fuck that was-“ Chris starts, only for Harcourt to hold up her hand and cut off the end of his sentence.
“She’s not some dumbass at the dive bar, you fucking frat boy.”
Adrian doesn’t seem to be very invested in the argument that follows. He looks two seconds away from bursting out the door and trying the ‘negging’ thing again, like he might be able to get it right with practice. Peacemaker himself gave him the advice, after all. It should work if he just does it right, right?
“Just be yourself.” Adebayo chimes in, a softer voice cutting against the sharp tones in the room. “She seems to like you plenty as yourself. Not…whatever that was.”
“It was negging. It’s when you insult someone to make them-“
“I know what negging is.” She stops him with a helpless shake of her head. “I mean don’t do that.”
He frowns. Looks toward the door again like his eyes might be able to find you through it. “What should I do instead?”
“Be yourself.” She repeats, emphatic. “If she likes you, she’s gonna like you a lot less if you keep insulting her. Or…trying to. I couldn’t really follow what you were doing there.”
And so, now with better judgement, Adrian takes his second bit of seduction advice.
-
You fall asleep on him in the van. It happens slowly, beginning with your eyes drifting shut to the rocking and bumping of the vehicle and ending with your head thunking onto his shoulder.
He freezes. Completely, totally freezes. He tries to catch the attention of the rest of the team, but they’re all too distracted either drifting off themselves or taking stock of their own wounds.
And then, slowly, like you might vanish if he jostles you too much, he leans his body back against the wall. You go with him, still peacefully asleep with your bloody cheek resting against his shoulder and your body so, so close to his.
Okay, step two.
Though patience has never really been his forte, he manages to move his arm with the slow precision that only stems from the years of training and practice that made him such a skilled killer. In what feels like an eternity, that arm is finally wrapped around you, and he positions you to lie more comfortably against his side, pulling your body closer to his and trying not to vibrate from the feeling of your warmth seeping into his skin.
You don’t wake. You mumble something in your sleep, your own mask off and resting beside you, and turn your head into him with a sigh.
You’re so warm. Still covered in blood and dirt and grime but still so, so unbelievably pretty. Actually, you’re always prettier than usual after a fight. Exhausted and full of adrenaline just like how he gets. Your smile is always brighter. Your eyes hold the same excitement as his own. Shit, he almost wants to wake you up just so he can look at your eyes, though he wouldn’t dream of risking losing this moment.
His hand comes up, and his fingers glide through your hair like he’s mesmerized by the feeling of it - which he is. You hum in response to the feeling, still sleeping as your body melts a little bit more into his, and he feels like every nerve inside of him is on fire.
And then, like a bit of a creep, he turns his head into your hair and inhales. You smell so nice. Like sweetness and spice and blood and dirt. He wants to touch you all over. He wants to pull you all the way into his lap and wake you up by kissing you. Like, everywhere. He wants to study you in more ways than just all of the endless staring he’s been doing over the last few weeks. Like the way you might feel against him, with more than just your head and side pressed against his body. Or the noises you might make when he-
A throat clears.
When Adrian looks up, everyone is looking at him.
“Are you…sniffing her?” Leota asks, nose scrunched up in an expression he doesn’t understand. Whatever. He doesn’t understand a lot of expressions. But he understands yours. And when he doesn’t, you usually explain it to him. It’s one of the many, many things he likes about you.
“Do you have a boner right now?” Chris asks, and that expression might be disgust, though he doesn’t really understand why. Chris has seen you, right? You’re probably the hottest person Adrian’s ever seen. How is he not supposed to get a boner when you’re pressed up against him and he can feel your soft breath against his neck? And now you’re moving, snuggling a little more into his side, and he couldn’t help his grin if he wanted to as he turns to press his nose into your hair again.
“Fucking weirdo.” Harcourt mumbles, and Adrian couldn’t care less.
-
He decides to - finally - ask you out. He comes up with at least ten different plans, and keeps asking for advice about every single detail until the rest of the team is minutes away from punching him if he says another word about it.
And, in the end, he doesn’t follow a single one of those carefully detailed plans. He doesn’t even come close.
This battle was rough. Chaotic and violent and seeming to last for hours until everyone is drenched in blood and covered in bruises and limping their way back to each other to regroup.
You just blew a group of butterflies up with a grenade. You didn’t move back far enough to keep the blood and guts off of you. In fact, you’re still wiping it from your face, grinning like a fucking maniac as you pull your nearly-ruined mask from your face and take in the scene before you.
Adrian is already making his way towards you like a man hypnotized. His own mask is off. His hair is damp with sweat. His face is almost as bloody as yours.
“Holy shit! Did you see that?” You ask, eyes wild as you turn to him. “That was awesome! I mean, I didn’t expect that to-“
He grabs you. One bloody hand fists in your hair, the other wraps around your waist, and he yanks you into him and kisses you so hard the force of it would knock you backward if he weren’t crushing you to him so tightly.
The 11th Street Kids watch, awed. You make a muffled noise of surprise, eyes going wide as his mouth moves against yours.
And then you wrap your arms around his neck, and you kiss him right back.
For a while, no one speaks. Your hands tangle in Adrian’s hair, and his other hand drops to join the first around your waist. He lifts you off of your feet. You wrap your legs around his waist. He groans shamelessly, and presses you up against the nearest tree so hard it almost looks like it hurts. You don’t seem to notice, stabilizing yourself with one hand gripping at his back while you pull at his hair and draw a noise from him that echoes through the forest.
“This is getting gross.” Economos says, and cringes as Adrian’s hands start to rip at your tactical gear.
“They are covered in blood.”
“Does anyone wanna stop them before they fuck in the middle of the woods?”
“I’m not going anywhere near that.”
Armor is beginning to come off, crashing to the ground as cloth rips and Adrian starts to mumble incoherent - and probably wildly inappropriate - nonsense into your mouth and against your skin, kissing and biting his way down your throat.
“Okay, you know what? They can figure out how to get home. My eyes are starting to burn.”
Hours later, you do find your way home, breathless and grinning and covered in new marks from a very different type of battle.
They thought Adrian’s crush was annoying before. Now that he has you, he is so much worse.
pairing: adrian chase x reader
summary: adrian likes everyone except you. a silly situation reveals the reason behind his resentment towards you
word count: 0.9k
tags: gn!reader, oneshot, crack fic (?), f-bombs here and there, forced proximity, really nice guy who hates only you trope, takes place after that rooftop party scene (s2e3)
a/n: shoutout to the anon who requested this! ngl this was a tricky one since adrian practically only hates someone if they physically hurt or done him or his close friends wrong
It was a feat that you of all people managed to land yourself on Adrian's bad side. How? Even you were asking the same question yourself. Your relationship with him before everything went downhill was fairly decent. Acquaintances, as you would describe. You often wonder, did you earn the top spot on the list? Or, did he hate his mum or Judomaster more?
"Relax, dude. You won't die being stuck in the same room as me," You snickered at how he was turning the doorknob furiously. No matter how hard he tried to pry it open, it just wouldn't budge.
Adrian had meant to look for John but instead, he stumbled into you. The second he realised his mistake, a gust of wind blew into the room, shutting the door behind him before he could turn to leave.
"Shut up! I have to check if he's okay!" He snapped, looking livid.
"Why? He looks fine when I walk by the bathroom earlier," You replied with a yawn, blinking your eyes to adjust to the light that filtered through the window.
Adrian glared at you, torn between believing your words or breaking down the door to see for himself. You sighed, wounded he would let his judgment be clouded by his abhorrence.
"Just trust me on this one," You stretched your arms above your head, sitting up to lean against the headboard of the bed.
As much as his brain tried to psycho him into thinking that you were lying, he decided to let it go after hearing what sounded like muffled voices of John talking from behind the door.
"Since we're gonna be stuck with one another for god knows how long. I'm very curious. Why do you not like me?" You confronted him, looking at him expectantly.
"Because you're fucking annoying," He said as though it was a matter of fact.
You gasped dramatically, putting a hand over your chest for extra theatrics. "Surely I'm not that 'fucking' annoying," You replied, pretending to sniffle and wipe your faux tears.
Adrian only stared at you with a deadpan expression. You halted your previous antics and sheepishly laugh, raising your hands in mock surrender. "No, seriously. Please enlighten me," You gestured for him to speak his mind.
A conspicuous silence fell upon you two. You waited patiently for him to answer — only to witness his jaw clenched as if he was holding back from lashing out.
Damn, he really hates me, huh?
"Ugh! You're making me feel all weird again!" He fumed in frustration, fingers pulling at his hair as he slid down against the wall — knees folded to his chest.
"Again? I'm not doing anything except ask you questions?" Your head tilted in interest at his response.
He shot you a glower, grumbling a couple of curse words under his breath but, loud enough to be picked up by your ears.
"Good weird, bad weird or, anxiety inducing weird?" You inquired further, your body leaned forward — no longer resting on the headboard.
"Like butterflies in my stomach! It always happens when you are and I quote, 'listening' to me talk about animal facts. Don't act like you actually care," He replied candidly.
You were appalled, mouth forming into an 'O' shape at the discovery. All of a sudden, you broke into a fit of giggles, only stopping and clearing your throat to apologise for your sudden outburst when he scowled in your direction.
Was he actually serious?
Your eyes scanned his expression and to your surprise, he seem to be telling the truth.
"Adrian, are you aware what that expression could mean?" You stifle a laughter, finding it cute that he had no clue on the most obvious plausible implication.
"Yes! It always reminds me of the butterflies I had to fight when they like seize control some of Evergreen's population! Like, dude, I do not want to imagine one of those little alien freaks to take over my body and go into my brain. That's like a such a lame way to die. Though, technically, Goff was kinda nice after Chris put it into a jar," He waved his arms frantically at the admission in the beginning, only to go off track and docile towards the end.
It was then you realised, why he started disliking you. Could he possibly associated you with a negative reinforcement? Did he also had unexplainable feelings for you to the point he couldn't discern how he truly felt when mixed with the unwitting adverse perception of you? Immediately you shook your head, not wanting to jump to conclusion.
"Okay..... moving on. Is that all?" You asked, trying to squeeze every bit of information from him.
"You're also always correcting me. Which by the way, rude. Just because I'm wrong, you don't have to rub it in my face. And, you're always laughing at me afterwards," He sneered, eyes averting from your frame in annoyance.
For some reason, you found his reaction to be amusing. In your defence, you only chuckled because you found it endearing how he continued to list animal facts ardently despite being wrong at times.
"Why did you think I was making fun of you?" You probed on, not caring if he might lash out.
"Because you are? Chris told me that."
Of course he'd listen and believed Chris. He'd probably even believe if Chris were to tell him that the sky was red. You rolled your eyes, taking a deep breath to prevent yourself from saying something snarky. Instead, you opted to tease him.
"Have I ever told you that you're cute?" You mentioned out of the blue, a smirk playing on your lips. Right away, his ears turned red and, vulgarities were thrown at you. You couldn't help but laugh at how flustered and confused he looked after you gave him a compliment, which, of course, he thought it was a joke. If only he knew the truth.
summary: it’s ridiculous, because matt murdock is just kind. that’s who he is — kind to everyone, sweet to the elderly clients and charming to the young ones. beloved by the whole neighborhood. this smile isn’t special. you’re not special. (wc: 1.5k)
tags: f!reader, mutual pining, i keep writing flangst when i want to write smut... sigh. SUPER UNEDITED, if this has some similarities to my earlier secretary!reader blurbs that’s bc they’re branched off one mega draft… hehh ^_^;
part one of us at the end of the year
You’ve got it bad.
You sniff inwards, nose starting to drip on account of the weather. The bottom of the paper cups sting and dig into your fingers. This is a timed event, a regular one by all accounts. These coffee runs see you return to Matt’s office precisely when his cup sits empty, the faint ring of dried espresso at the bottom the only evidence of his last drink.
He’s never in peril of having to go without. Your eight months as secretary to Nelson, Murdock and Page have seen to that. Like second nature, you’ve memorized the rhythm of his days. You can have his files ready before he asks, organized exactly how he prefers: contracts first, discovery second, correspondence last. And if you’re lucky enough, his lack of vision will be enough to veil it, protect your affections for him a little longer, under the guise of simply doing your job well. All of it banked on your hope that he’s not that perceptive.
So, a losing battle.
To say you’re pushing it would be an understatement.
How else to explain the stupid, painstaking braille notes you started leaving three months ago? The first one itself cost you fifty-five minutes and a headache (not to mention one stolen slate-and-stylus set, courtesy of the rarely-opened file cabinet), fingers aching from all that gripping and punching just for five words—
Made completely worth it by the smile that had broken across his face once his fingers had finally brushed over those dots.
It’s routine now: arriving early, with coffee from the good cart or brewed yourself, and while it cools to drinking temperature on his desk (never too hot, he burns his tongue), you hunch over, punching away at whatever silly thought, whatever sweet contemplation that’s crossed your mind that morning.
Coffee machine plotting against us / Can feel it
Foggy ate all good donuts tragedy strikes NMP
Happy Friday. All done!
You’re working on today’s (Printer can smell fear / demands human sacrifice. Hire intern?) when the door opens and Matt enters, shaking snow from his dark hair. He’s early. December in New York has been merciless, of the particular wet slush kind rather than the cold, postcard-picture type you’d dreamed about as a kid, but Matt at least navigates for himself well enough to still be charming.
“Morning,” you call out, all casual-like as if your heart hadn’t just kicked into double-time.
“Morning. That fresh coffee I smell?”
“Yeah, just how you like it,” you say, quickly finishing up, and stand to smooth your shirt out, cross his office with the gathered files. To watch him hang his coat and fold his cane gives you the impression of a hot spike sinking between your brows; it’s not hard for you to superimpose apartment walls and picture frames onto the sight, imagine it domestic.
Oh, you’re so gone.
Matt luckily doesn’t notice. He inhales and groans appreciatively, much to the prickled pleasure at the back of your neck. “You’re an angel.”
“Hardly!” You set the folder down on his desk, punched-out index card included. “Um, okay, you have a meeting with a Mr. Meyer from BMP at ten, then the people from the Lust—sorry, Lutz—case are coming here to see you at two… They should have those files you requested. And Foggy wanted to go over the plan for the Gillespie deposition before noon… I left some out, but you can check the rest in the file I sent you.” All of it comes in a rush and you’re straight short for air, but still, with affected nonchalance: “Oh, and your note.”
“...My note.” With the way his fingers search the desk and find it immediately, you’d think nothing you said meant anything to him but just that. You chew on your cheek, bouncing on your toes slightly, watching as he reads. His expression softens and a huff of laughter escapes him, the smile tugging at his mouth.
“What? The printer?”
“Yup. Keeps jamming.”
“I didn’t know you had such cutthroat tendencies in you.”
“Consider it, Matt. Lots of kids out of work there looking for something to do.”
You’re backing toward the door before you can do something stupid, like stay too long. He’s still smiling, and it’s so bright and beautiful it makes you feel stripped bare.
It’s ridiculous, because Matt Murdock is just kind. That’s who he is — kind to everyone, sweet to the elderly clients and charming to the young ones. Beloved by the whole neighborhood. This smile isn’t special. You’re not special.
“Okay, then. Let me know if you need anything else,” you squeak, already fleeing.
“Wait—”
You don’t trust yourself enough to turn around.
“Thanks for the note, it’s sweet.”
Fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck.
Heart pounding in your chest, you feel like you’re going to pass out. You should say something witty. Something light, biting. Instead, you mumble, “Okay, s’nothing,” and escape to your desk, thankful he isn’t aware of the flush creeping up your neck.
You pass Karen’s office on your way out, and she glances up with an eyebrow raised. She’s caught you staring at Matt’s office door more than once, but to her credit, she’s never said anything.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Yup! Fine!” You collapse into your chair, pulling up the planner on your screen. “Just fine.”
A printer demanding human sacrifice.
Matt can’t help smiling like an idiot far after you’ve scampered back off to your desk. He knows he shouldn’t encourage it—he knows it’s wrong or at the very least, doomed. You’ve been leaving these notes for months now; he should tell you that you don’t have to.
Exploiting his listening ability isn’t something he’s proud of but he does it all the same. Your heartbeat kicks up whenever he’s near. Call it selfish, self-centered, but Matt knows what that means. There’s a sweetness to your scent when you’re near him, warm and coaxing, and it makes him want to gather you up and just—
And just nothing. He can’t. He won’t.
Ruining good things is what he’s best at. Sweet things, of which you’re the epitome— genuine kindness.
It’s not that he’s a nihilist; in fact, he’s been more optimistic as of late. But even if it were all in good fun, all light and casual—he can’t consider the point of starting anything at all. Maybe if he were younger, he supposes, a little less scuffed and clipped by life, he would’ve risked it for a chance at something like this. But you deserve better than a life of constant lies and waiting up at night wondering if he’ll come home at all.
Still, it’s utterly endearing to him, hearing every muttered curse and frustrated sigh from you first thing in the morning as you work on the notes. You spend your lunches sometimes at your desk, just practicing, and he’s heard you prick your fingers more than once—the whispered ow, dammit—as punctuation to countless mistakes.
To tell you to stop would mean not getting these notes anymore. These little windows into your thoughts he’s intoxicated with.
So, there’s nothing else to do but be kind to you in return without crossing that line. There are no dinner reservations, no lingering touches nor confessions. He can’t covet that much. Only this: kindness, sweetness, a mirror to your own thoughtfulness, perhaps more than he should. That’s all he can do.
The coffee is perfect again, he isn’t surprised by that. Tracing the note one more time, Matt sighs and pulls open the drawer.
The card finds its place with all the others.
One way or another though, illusion must give way to reality.
It’s a Thursday. Business as usual. You’re at your desk, slate and stylus in hand, and there’s nothing clever to write. Not even anything particularly funny or interesting. The well has dried up, and your senses instead dedicate themselves to eavesdropping: the conversation is drifting from the break room, where Matt’s getting water.
“You should ask her out,” Foggy is saying. “She was into you, buddy.”
“Ah, I don’t know.”
“Come on!” You hear a thump, and recognize it for the good old-fashioned Foggy Nelson empathic gesticulating. “A, she gave you her number. B, she’s gorgeous, and B point five, she’s a lawyer, so you’d actually have stuff in common.”
A pause, then Matt laughs, soft and a little self-deprecating. “Sure. Maybe.”
“Maybe meaning you’ll actually call her or maybe meaning you’ll lose the number and pretend you never got it?”
“Meaning I’ll think about it.”
You stare down at the slate, at the empty index card holding nothing of note.
Of course.
There’s a gorgeous lawyer from a bar. Probably sophisticated, brilliant, someone who drinks wine without getting her mouth stained and talks legal jargon and doesn’t need to Google half the terms that cross her desk. Someone who fits into Matt’s world.
It’s not like you were thinking you had a chance. A girl who leaves silly notes and can barely manage basic braille.
You set down the stylus. Even many minutes later, the note sits unfinished on your desk, and you stare at it for a long moment before crumpling it up and tossing it in the trash.
Pairings: Matt Murdock/F!Reader/(Eventual)Frank Castle
Summary: After obtaining your pupillage at Murdock & McDuffie and working beside them for the past 7 months, life couldn't be better. Except, you may have a huge crush on your supervisor, Matt Murdock.
Warnings: Age gap (22/43), Matt is technically her supervisor, no use of Y/N, kind of sweet and fluffy, very minor born-again spoilers, reader is a lawyer. (This is part of a larger work which will have multiple warnings.)
Word count: 2.1k
A/N: I am aware that pupillage is a UK-based thing only; however, I have chosen to ignore that. This will be a larger work, but it can work as a solo fic. I noticed there was a gap in the market for Punisher/Reader/Daredevil fics (aka I wanted to read more but couldn't find more). I've decided to be the change I want to see in the world. This fic and the following chapter are just set up for the world; there will eventually be an overarching plot. If you want to be on the tag list, just comment saying so!
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10
Chapter One: Murdock & McDuffie
There was a soft electric hum echoing off the white marble floors; the hustle and bustle of the day had ended long ago, leaving only the quiet, slow ticking of the wall clock interrupted by the infrequent clicking of your keyboard. You’d been at this for hours, writing two sentences, reading them and deleting one. You groan, throwing your head back against the soft headboard of your chair. You rub your forehead, staring down at your almost-finished closing statement.
“This sounded so much better in my head,” you mumble, placing your face between your palms. You’d written multiple court statements before, too many to count at law school and at least a hundred mock-up ones during your bar course. Sure, you’d written a handful of statements in the seven months you’d been doing your pupillage at Murdock & McDuffie, but you'd never led your own cases, especially in court. Kirsten gave you a simple case to start, a minor thievery case.
You’d been assigned to work beside Matt, who would supervise but not interfere. He had offered to stay late with you, saying he had his own cases to work on. You’d declined at first, worrying your bottom lip as your heart pattered against your ribcage, but he’d insisted.
Matt rolls his chair beside you. “Read it to me,” he orders, crossing his arms across his broad chest. He’s wearing that same smile he always does, as though he’s somehow aware of how painfully handsome he is.
You readjust on your chair awkwardly, taking a heavy breath in. “The evidence shows that Leroy Bradford has been spat out by the same system that promises to uphold justice. There are certain facts in this case that are not in dispute: Mr Bradford stole. However, his lawlessness will not change if the state of New York punishes where it can rehabilitate. We ask that Mr Bradford-” you trail off, unsure how to continue.
Matt nods, his lips stretched in a proud smile. You can smell his citrus cologne at this distance; the scent’s been worn through the day, mingled with his sweat, which makes it even more intoxicating. “I mean, you have the facts down great,” he starts, reaching up to scratch his neatly trimmed beard. “But I think you’ll have better luck trying to get him the 10 days in jail.”
You furrow your eyebrows, shaking your head. “Mr Bradford did what he had to survive; the legal system is meant to be in place to protect him, Matt.”
“I’m not fighting you on that,” he justifies, chest widening as he defends himself. “This is your first case; you can’t expect to rework the entire court.”
“It wouldn’t matter if this was my last case; if our client is put back in jail, we’ll just be doing this song and dance again in a year- if he doesn’t die in that time, that is.”
Matt opens his mouth to argue again, slowly closing it with a smile. He readjusts on his seat, and you watch how tight his shirt is against his arms. He’d long abandoned his blazer earlier in the night, to which you’d practically had to tear your gaze away. “You’re a lot like how I was when I started,” he laughs.
“An amazing attorney?”
“A hard-ass.”
You laugh, rolling your eyes as though he could somehow see it. “Ah, so nothing’s changed in your sixty years of practising.”
He scoffs in mock-offence. “How old do you think I am, young woman?”
“You’re just so good at your job I assumed you must’ve been around when the first constitution was signed,” you watch the way his under-eyes crease; you can see his dark brown eyes jutting left to right beneath his red glasses.
“You better be careful, I can write you up for workplace discrimination,” he jokes, tilting his head towards you. You smile, closing your laptop lid; you’re too tired to even think about finishing it tonight. Anyways, the court date wasn’t set until another four days.
“You have no jurisdiction,” you cross your leg over the other to face him fully; your pant leg grazes his, and your heart flips. “Kirsten’s my supervisor and she likes me a lot more than she likes you.”
“Hearsay.”
You smirk, squeezing your hand tight. You were certain he’d been flirting with you for the last handful of months, but any time you tried to pursue further, he’d politely shut you down. Yet, the next week he would go right back to crowding your space. At first you thought that maybe it was just his personality, and it was, at least half of it was. But you saw how he acted with Kirsten- that same flirty inflection, same handsome smirk, but that’s where it ended.
You weren’t stupid; you knew why he kept you at arm’s length. Close enough to touch, to tease, but far enough to feel as though he was doing the morally right thing. Catholics.
You were half his age. An adult? yes. Capable of making your own decisions? Absolutely. Matt knew this, of course; you knew he was aware of it, but he was still your mentor, partly your supervisor. In five months that would no longer be the case, but he’d still be your superior. Unsurprising for a lawyer to be as hypervigilant as he is.
“Other than a hard-ass,” you start, reaching over to take a sip from the cold dregs of your fourth cup of coffee of the day. “What were you like at law school?”
You watch his tongue dart from his mouth, wetting his top lip in a slick streak your eyes follow. “I was less focused on school than I should’ve been,” he says hesitantly. “Spent far too much time enjoying the ‘college experience’, I’m sure you know the type.”
You can imagine a young Matt Murdock with some outdated long hair, breaking women’s hearts left and right. You imagine being the same age, sitting beside each other in class. You think about him leaning over to whisper some stupid joke to make fun of whatever the professor said. You like to think you’d be able to resist how charming that stupid smile was- but if present-day Matt was anything to go by, you know you’d end up another heartbroken girl.
“I usually tried to stay away from the type,” you confess, feeling strangely shy under Matt’s faux-gaze. “Too focused on getting into the prestigious position I’m in now.” That was semi-true at least; you’d gone on one or two dates at college. The romance was always short-lived, ending with a kiss at the door. You’d never followed up more than that, engrossing yourself further and further into your studies until your date’s pretty face became a ghosted contact. Maybe young-Matt would’ve been your heartbroken boy.
Now, having exactly what you wanted, you realise how much you sacrificed.
“Not that I’m entirely interested in dating nowadays,” you lie, heart stuttering as you look Matt down, gaze catching on his white scars that scatter his arms. You bite your lips to resist asking, terrified of breaking the moment between you.
“You don’t sound particularly convinced,” he says, stopping your breath in its tracks. You awkwardly scratch the back of your head, unsure how to say ‘I’m actually interested in a hot, blind, lawyer double my age’ without him acting as though he isn’t completely aware of this fact.
You look down at your hands, lightly picking at the sides of your nails- peeling off the chrome nail polish you’d painstakingly applied last night. “I would be lying if I said there wasn’t someone in my life.”
“Someone you’re dating or-” he asks hesitantly. He’s stock still in front of you, as though you’d shut down the topic if he moved too quickly.
“No, not dating,” you interject, shaking your head. You tuck a fallen piece of hair behind your ear and try to meet his gaze again. “I think he wants something too, but whenever I try to do something about it, he just..” You drift off, gesturing noncommittally, hoping Matt will still get what you’re trying to say.
“How do you know he’s interested?”
You fight the urge to grip his shoulders and yell ‘Because I’m talking to him’, instead opting to roll your eyes. “I guess I don’t know,” you admit. “I know I find him handsome, and funny, if not a little arrogant.”
Matt smiles at that, finally moving and leaning further back, arms uncrossing from his chest to rest on his thighs. “I understand.”
“Do you?” You retort, warmth flooding your cheeks in a small smile. You watch as Matt shifts uncomfortably in his seat, as though he could feel the heat of your gaze. You feel like a child talking back and forth like this; if Matt’s so much older than you, maybe he should be the one to address you head-on.
“And you understand it would be bordering on unethical if the,” he looks up for a moment, struggling to find the right words. “Receiving party,” he lands on, uncertain with his choice of words. “Were to reciprocate.”
You lift your eyebrows, stifling a small laugh at his avoidance. It escapes regardless, and you bring up a hand to cover it. Matt smiles in response, realising how stupid he must sound. “Yes, I’m aware.”
“And you’re aware the age gap complicates things even more.”
“Matt,” you warn, growing tired of the little game you accidentally started. “You know I’m a grown woman.”
“I’m frustratingly aware,” he all but growls, leaning forward, his face inches away from yours. You watch all the reasons he told himself to stay away from you melt before you. Now replaced by burning hot want. It’s as though even if he told himself again, he wouldn’t listen to reason. His hand reaches up to your face, warmth pooling beneath every place his fingers caress. His callous thumb slowly glides against your bottom lip. You watch as his own pulse thumps against you, loud and quickening, the same as your own heartbeat. You see his mouth move, but you can’t hear anything other than your thudding blood rush in your ears.
Finally, his soft lips meet yours. You sigh into his mouth, fingers reaching up to snake around the back of his neck. You want more. The scratch of his beard sends a tingle down your spine as you push into him further, deepening the kiss. His tongue slides against yours and you fight the urge to moan around it. Matt's hand moves from your face to wrap around your waist. You feel your muscles ache from the way you're tangled around each other. You’re still sat on the very edge of your chair, feet planted firmly down to stop the wheels from pushing you away.
Begrudgingly, you let him pull away, still close enough that his warm, stale-coffee breath mingles with yours. You peel your eyes away from his spit-ridden lips, denying yourself the pleasure of kissing him again.
“Matt,” you mutter, confliction whirling around in the depths of your stomach. Although you imagine its no where near the amount he must feel. You watch as he pulls back, standing up in one swift motion.
“Sorry that was,” he grabs his blazer from the back of his chair, placing a sizable distance between you. Unprofessional, you think. “Can I walk you home?” He asks, changing the subject.
You shake your head, disoriented, packing your laptop away as you explain. “I, uh, live in Hell’s Kitchen. I have to drive home.” You reach for your phone on your desk and extend it out before embarrassingly pulling it back. “I can give you my number, though, if you’d like?” you ask; you couldn’t believe you kissed before you had moved from emails only.
Matt pulls his phone out from his back pocket; it’s an older phone, one with push-buttons. You think it must be easier for him to feel what he’s pressing that way. It looks like a newer model; the screen still takes up half the phone space. He unlocks it and hands it to you; the speaker quietly tells you each thing you press as you enter your phone number. You smile as you hand it back to him. You decide to keep all the phone calls in his history to someone under the contact ‘K.P’ to yourself.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Matt,” you say, throwing your bag around your shoulder. You want to give him a small kiss but think better of it, settling instead to enjoy his scent that wafts as you walk past.
summary: matt murdock is recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. to help take down a trafficking ring run by a new crime organization that rose to power in fisk’s absence. he’s forced to work agent y/l/n, who’s just as thrilled about the pairing as he is. as the investigation unravels more webs of lies, haunting details are uncovered, and matt starts to question who he’s actually working for, especially as he digs further beneath the skeletons of his mysterious partner’s dark past. every revelation leaves matt with the same unsettling question; who’s the real villain?
a/n: there was an idea...and it got out of hand and so here we are. i'm so excited to finally share this with y'all. it's been in the works for quite some time now. if you loved the bodyguard, I really hope you'll love this one. it's another slow burn, so get comfy. there's also going to be a lot of mature themes in this series, as well as spice (duh), but as always, I will post specific content warnings for each chapter as they drop.
if you've been in the daredevil fandom this whole time, it's great to see your beautiful faces again. if you're new here from dd born again, on behalf of all of us, welcome. we're glad you're here.
without further ado, sit back, relax, grab a drink and a snack, maybe some tissues, and enjoy.
»— anything marked with an astrik contains explicit content. minors dni.
»— all work is my own. please do not repost anywhere else without my consent.
18+ cw: unprotected [irresponsible] sex. just the tip (until it isn’t). mutual loss of virginity - slight bleeding. thighfucking. pussyjob. slippery slope. creampie. mutual pining. idiots in love. religious references/guilt. banter as foreplay lol
summary: your friend’s reputation of being good in bed is common knowledge to the entire living-and-breathing student population of columbia. confusion arises when he tells you he’s actually a virgin. (wc: 11k - i know 😔)
a/n: hello. :) this is PURELY self-indulgent wish fulfillment, initially written for the touch prompts “foreheads pressed against each other” + “two fingers against a pulse point,” then i swiftly lost control after the first 2k words. I LOVE LOVE LOVE MATT MURDOCK JUST THE TIP FICS, i love their authors, and so here is my contribution!!! addtl warnings: lots of talk about religion, purity culture talk, matt’s guilt (featuring my favorite: intrusive thoughts of bible verses during sex). matt & reader lose their virginity to each other. that’s it… enjoy my filth…
“No fucking way.”
It’s ridiculous: Matt’s desk isn’t made for two. Not even close. It’s for this reason that you’ve ended up almost on top of him, trying to act like your thigh isn’t pressed to his.
And if your excuse for all this was that you were trying to get any real learning in, you’d be a liar, and a bad one at that.
Because despite your valiant efforts at fighting the stubborn spine of your copy of The Phenomenon of Man flat, and despite Matt’s visibly pained attempts to not cringe so openly at the sound of its pages being manhandled, absolutely no studying has occurred.
The conversation has veered off course. Reliably, you’ve spiraled it toward the hot topic of hookups. It’s an area in which Matt seems to be constantly embroiled, as far as corridor gossip—and Foggy’s colorful commentary—is concerned. It’s also an area that feels masochistic to keep asking about, yet you do again and again with your needling and poking and prodding, for no other reason than to wind up that sick thrill of jealousy in your chest.
Of course, all of it is inconsequential to Matt. He never seems to take offense. He plays along with impeccable composure, which all the more confirms that your chances of getting with him live somewhere in the zip code of Fuck All and Nowhere. It’s your conviction he’s on a much different playing field than you—his revolving door of ruthless future litigators/intense poets/vowelless heiresses. All undeniably drop-dead gorgeous, much so that you weren’t even sure at first who you were jealous of, them or him.
Besides, it’s not that you like to wallow. You’d like to believe you’re fairly attractive yourself, thank you very much—but there’s much ease in giving in to joyless comparison when, like right now, Matt’s face is lit golden from the afternoon sun and he’s so beautiful, the shapes and lines of him so harmonious it’s only natural he’d be surrounded by people just like him.
Not like you.
So, rash girl that you are, you lash out the only way you can. Sarcasm, disbelief.
“You’re telling me,” you say slowly, jabbing your highlighter into the air, “that you, Matthew Murdock, are a virgin. You. You?”
His lips twitch at the corners, amused. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“What the fuck were they doing in and out of your room then? And I quote–‘he was really good’? You giving them confession or something?”
Matt feigns innocence, presses a hand to his chest. With an air of clipped smugness, “Who knows, maybe they were talking about Foggy.”
Your silence must clue him to the fact that you’re gaping.
“What? Girls love him!” he says, grinning wide. You can’t argue with that, at least, that much is true. “Besides, it’s a question of semantics. For one, what the word ‘virgin’ even entails when—”
“Just strangle me if you’re going to quote Wittgenstein again, Murdock. You’re a virgin or you’re not.”
Newly emboldened, Matt holds out a thumb to press it against your arm, pushing you playfully.
“Well, then, enlighten me.”
Enlighten me.
You’re being confronted at your own game and clearly, your prodding can’t hold its own water—embarrassment flooding you instantly at discussing something this bold with someone you’re wildly, secretly in love with. Matt seems to pick up on this, granting you a little reprieve. His mouth quirks, “Alright, I’ll tell you what I think, and you tell me if you agree.”
You have to hope you’re doing a good job of pretending his suddenly stern, even tone doesn’t send your blood pressure skyrocketing.
Calm as ever, he continues, “One would define a virgin as someone who’s never had sexual intercourse.”
One would also define your face as going nuclear, hotter and hotter with each second he discusses this so breezily. Just another day of laying out the facts, like he’s in a debate.
“Yeah,” you manage.
“Sexual intercourse, to mean sexual contact with penetration. Yes?”
“Oh, stop it, Matt,” you groan, hands fidgeting with the page.
“Well—yes?”
“Okay. Yes.”
“Okay.” He leans back, casual, like this is the simplest thing in the world. “If penetration has to be the only metric—then yes, I’m a virgin. Again, if it has to be.”
As if that made any sense, you nod at him, blinking. “Yeah, yeah.” Another blink, upon finally coming to your senses. “Has to be? The fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Well,” he repeats airily, biting down a smile. Oh no, he’s enjoying this—“do you think sex is just penetration?”
It takes you a second.
To be more precise, it takes you three seconds. Your confused gaze flicks from his shielded eyes to his mouth, to the tip of his tongue, that which has darted out to wet his pink, pink lips…
Oh.
“Oh my God,” you utter. Cheeks aflame, you bury your face in your hands instantly, eager to escape his puppylike yips of laughter at your mortification. “Oh my God.”
Jesus. Of course he’d eat pussy like a champ.
“What? What?” His voice has gone high and incredulous.
“Shut up! This paints you more like an asshole in my book, actually.”
He’s grinning wide. “Because?”
“Because!” Dropping your hands, you stab a finger at him. “I’m pointing at you very disapprovingly, by the way. It’s one thing to brag about being good at sex, y’know, the–uh–uh…p..”
Just say the word, goddammit! You’re giving yourself away!
“C’mon,” he teases lowly, that delicious rasp in his voice. “You can do it. P-p-p–”
“Penetration,” you spit. “Ugh, Matt!”
You smack his chest and, scandalously pleased with himself, unbidden laughter escapes him. You have half a mind to simply leave the room; perhaps by doing so, you’ll be spared the punishment of suffering that immaculately handsome smile. Instead, you do nothing but groan.
“You are such an asshole. Anyway—being good at that is one thing, but you’re saying all that praise was for oral? That’s even worse.”
“Worse? How is that worse?”
“You can’t really coast on– on mutual friction with that. You gotta… um… actually be good at it.”
Immediate regret bubbles up as soon as the words leave your mouth. Because consequently you’re now picturing Matt’s face between an array of legs, all immaculately smooth, un-stubbly legs, shapely deerlike legs that aren’t yours.
A grotesque fantasy; it may be the worst thing you’ve ever done to yourself.
Matt raises his hands in mock surrender. “They said it, not me. I don’t kiss and tell.”
“Sure. Right.” Eyes returning to the textbook, you grumble low and bitter words you yourself can’t even make form of. Jealous, though you’d sooner bite your tongue in half than admit aloud that you are. In front of you, the chapter title reads The Season of Life—and Christ take yours now, you’re praying. Matt’s lucky enough he can’t see the withering look you’re leveling at him, but never one to pass up the opportunity to be petty, you utter, “That’s all fiction anyway.”
His head tilts fractionally.
“Sorry?”
“It’s all fiction.”
“Being good at oral is fiction?”
“Yes.”
“As in, not real?”
“Yes.”
Where you’re going with this, you don’t know either. Your brain and your mouth are no longer on speaking terms.
There’s a pause before he speaks again, his voice amused but careful.
“So in the entire span of human existence—through all of time—you’re telling me not one person has been good at going down on a woman? Not a singular one?”
“Yes!” You throw your hands up, giggling. All rational thought has hurled itself out the window, given way to stubborn absurdity. “Because I’m horrible. And egocentric, and I have to see to believe. Or—feel, sorry. So as far as I’m concerned, no, it has not existed.”
A barrage of your thoughts fill the silence that comes after. What are you even saying? What are you trying to insinuate? Are you coming onto him? Why can’t you just control the goddamn words coming out of your mouth?!
“That’s a terrible worldview,” Matt says at last.
“You’re welcome to leave,” you utter, plenty aware that this is his dorm room.
“Mm. Fiction,” he drawls, mouthing the word again like he’s testing wine. You dare to glance up at him and immediately know you’ve made a mistake: he’s got that smug thing going, head cocked and looking too entertained for his own good.
“I don’t know,” he muses, “it seemed pretty real to me. And to the very respectable women you’re currently calling liars.”
You roll your eyes hard enough you’re sure you can see your brain.
“No, I’m serious. Not only is that dismissive of their agency–”
“Oh God.”
“–but you’re also insinuating I was– What? Pity-praised?” Matt leans forward just slightly, that damned tongue darting out again to lick his smirking lips. “You think it was pity praise for the blind guy?”
“What?! No! I think–” You reel back, flailing, face hotter than it’s ever been in recorded history and you tug away from him as if that’ll help. “Matt, fuck you for real.”
Matt’s grinning so hard now, showing teeth and you can’t bear to face him so you rub your cheeks with your palms again.
“Christ. Okay fine, I walked right into that one.”
“Yeah, you did,” Matt repeats your words, mouthing fiction, shaking his head. “I hope that’s not from experience.” He pauses, tipping his head, a funny expression crossing his face. “Is it?”
“I- I– Well.” You swallow, finally slamming your textbook shut.
So as not to give anything away to his freakishly good perception, your next words are as matter-of-fact and carefully enunciated as you can manage:
“Who I put between my legs is none of your business, Murdock.”
Matt raises his brows, frowning and nodding as if to say, ah, alright then, if you say so. Sinking back in his seat, he lets out a sigh so dramatic, you’d roll your eyes again if your entire bloodstream weren’t currently on fire.
“Duly noted,” he says coolly. “And who I put between mine is fair game. Good to know.”
You blink. Fuck.
He’s right. You’re unsure what the etiquette here ought to be. What is it one does when your stupid-smart, obscenely hot crush hits you with an uno reverse that’s technically correct? And now you have to face the fact that you’re the asshole for slut-shaming him when really you’re just…
A little bit, catastrophically, stupidly jealous…?
“I– um– shit…” you answer brilliantly. “Um… Shit… Okay-you’reright-I’msorry.”
But Matt doesn’t have an answer to give you, no quip to shoot back. He dips his head low, and his shoulders start shaking incessantly. You can’t see much of his face like this—only his mouth twitching in a tight line.
He’s… crying.
That made him cry?
No way. You’ve never seen him cry before.
No, no. He’s wheezing.
From laughter.
“Ha!” he says, eyes bright behind his glasses as a full-bodied laugh finally breaks free from him, smug and delighted. “Got you!”
“Oh fuck OFF, Matt!” you snap, the heat clawing its way down your neck. “I thought you were crying! That’s not–!”
“You walked into that one again.”
“That’s not funny!”
.
Ever the asshole, Matt does find it pretty funny, though.
Your outrage, your flushed face, the ridiculousness of it all at your expense. And if he weren’t currently fighting for his goddamn life, he’d have the presence of mind to really savor it. Teasing is what the two of you do, an unconsciously learned dance. Yet for Matt, evidently, this back-and-forth holds more weight for him, it being what he can do to deflect from that… what even is it?
That bite in your voice, every time the topic turns to that.
Disdain, maybe. Disgust. Pity, if he’s being generous.
An indulgent part of him wants to believe it’s jealousy.
But why would it be? You’ve never given him any sign, done anything to be an indication that you’d think of him as anything more than a friend. He knows you: smart, uncompromisingly honest.
The kind of person who’d never waste time on someone who can’t keep his dick in his pants.
Which is clearly how you see him.
So that edge, those jabs and barbs and the snide twist with which you said really good… For lack of a better expression, he’s not blind to the fact that you’re disgusted at how careless he must seem. At the thought of him being cheap, shallow, shameless, all of it. Your image of him must be comical, he’s certain: throwing himself in half-clothed thrill, a meaningless chase of affirmation—since anything deeper would be too much.
Matt likes being your Friend. Loves it, if he’s honest. Which is why he lets you believe what you believe, and he does what he always does: grins, gets on your nerves, then backs off. Just like he’s supposed to.
Still, it’s not so easy, especially not like this. It’s not so easy now when he’s in sensory hell, and he can smell your apple-scented lotion and the ghost of sunscreen warm on the backs of your knees from walking across campus in the sun. He must catalogue it all: your clean sweat, blooming its sweet human humidity in the bend of your elbows; your anklet clinking and betraying your every restless shift; your rapid heartbeat he can’t even begin to dissect.
He can smell all of it, hear it, feel it, and God help him—just from this stupid conversation, he’s already hard.
Be self-controlled and sober-minded, for the sake of your prayers.
Matt exhales, long-suffering, trying to summon some humor for a shield.
“Fine,” he says at last, aiming for flippant and failing spectacularly. “I plead guilty. The rumors are true.”
Your dry snort hits him square, and he can practically feel the eye-roll radiating from you. Still, he goes on, fully aware of what he’s risking. Sentimentality scares you away, he knows this. “The nuns at the orphanage, they’d say it was something special. To share with someone within the sacrament of marriage.” Matt says it grandly, the theatricality making you snort again. Then a little pointedly, because he can sense your mouth already poised for a quip, “I’m not exactly waiting for my wedding night. If that’s what you’re thinking.”
The little hitch in your breath betrays you before you can speak.
“It’s just…” voice dropping, shoulders curling slightly, Matt doesn’t even know why he feels the need to explain this to you. A bid for understanding, maybe, though he knows that’s too much to hope for. “I haven’t found it in myself to go all the way yet, what with the”—he waves a hand vaguely, words quieting down into a mumble—“the words… in my head, and all.”
“What?” Your brow furrows. “What words?”
He shrugs, lips quirking into a cornered smile. “Nothing.”
“What?!” Before you can even finish talking you’re laughing, grabbing at his wrists in mock outrage. It makes him inhale sharply, your two fingers grazing the tender skin there, and he thanks God you don’t have his senses or you’d know how embarrassingly fast his pulse had leapt beneath your touch.
“What words, Matt? Do you hear the Holy Spirit or something? Is that a thing?”
He huffs. “I think it’s called a conscience, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart.
For a second—just a second—your heartbeat skips after he says it. Usually, for anyone else, it’d be that tell he knew by heart: Gotcha. Granted, it’s a useful gift, one that’s gotten him into more agreeable doors and down more girls’ jeans that he’d expect. Only it’s not like that with you. He’s long learned that you’re anything but usual to him, the opposite of an open book.
“Don’t call me sweetheart.”
Just as he’d expected, it’s annoyance. Not interest.
Matt glances away, smile wavering. “Ah. Sorry.”
But like it’s nothing you’re already chuckling and saying, more quietly, “All that repression, Matt. M’starting to believe your rumors now.”
Tilting his head back again, he nods to himself. There’s not much to say anymore, the two of you falling into a sort of ambivalent silence as you bury yourself back into the study material as if it’s suddenly become fascinating. But for him, it’s less studying the text and more studying you, picking up your heartbeat that seems to be beating quicker and quicker in… Anticipation?
Erratic, like a caught moth, like you’ve found something to say that’s titillating, or inappropriate.
He could do you one better. He could do inappropriate. He could ruin your friendship right now.
No, no. He has to bite his tongue, chastising himself. Bad Matt. Friendship. Don’t.
Still, your pulse keeps climbing faster and faster.
“Okay,” you finally eke out, mouselike. “My turn.”
Matt tilts his head.
“I’m a virgin too.”
Oh?
That’s not what he expected, and he’s not entirely sure how to react, brows lifting slightly. Keeping his expression careful, one hand rises to rub between his eyes the way he does only when he’s attempting to buy himself time.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with your admission. It’s not a big deal; it shouldn’t even be one at all. Only, it’s sparked something in him that feels too much like relief. Yet it’s for this reason Matt had shut it down the second it reared its head. He knows himself well enough. If he lets that door open, lets himself want anything from that admission, that greedy part of him will enter and everything else he’s spent so long trying to hold back will come barreling with it.
He can’t afford that. So he shoves it down, hard.
“Okay,” Matt says gently. “That makes two of us then.”
You groan and collapse so far back into your chair it creaks in protest under you.
“Ugh. Actually, I’m like half a virgin too or something. Aren’t you gonna be a little weird about it? I was so weird about yours, I feel horrible.”
“No, not at all. I’m deeply moved by your honesty, actually.”
“Dick.”
He smiles.
You sigh, scratching at your temple. “I know there’s more leniency when it comes to girls, and I kind of hate that that’s a thing. Like, I don’t give a crap about it, which is why I do? Does that make sense?”
Matt nods solemnly, though the smile’s still tugging at his mouth. “No flaws in logic there.”
You swat at him again, but it’s lighthearted and your hand finds his arm and stays there, fingers drumming absently at the fabric of his sleeve.
“It’s not even about the sex,” you continue. “A lot of stuff makes me feel like it’s a lot more important than it actually is—”
“Hey.” He cuts you off, soft and steady, “You don’t have to justify yourself, you know. Not to me. I get it.”
You nod, shoulders relaxing. You’d gotten completely unaware of how worked up you were getting, the heat starting to pool again in your face.
“Thanks. Sorry.” You pause for a bit, thinking. “I’d just… I’d like it to be with someone I like. Doesn’t even have to be someone I love– I think I’d actually prefer that, just so it isn’t that big a deal. Just… not some random asshole.”
Right.
Matt has to chew the inside of his cheek until he starts to taste blood.
He could be that asshole. He really could. He could make this easy, make it soft, careful, good for you. For both of you.
“Mm,” he says, noncommittal. “Yeah, I know.”
“Just do it once—then it’s over.”
“Then it’s over,” he agrees helpfully.
“Stop repeating my sentences!” You laugh and slap his chest again, and by that touch he’s a little breathless. He exhales, tongue running along the back of his teeth. There goes the apple-scented waft from your skin again, mingling with the sun-warmed salt.
“Right,” Matt says promptly, forcing himself to lean back. He places his earbuds back in—a futile effort, he’s unable to hear anything over the blood rushing in his ears—and swipes back at his notes with the pad of his finger to seek where he left off.
The issue, of course, is that he’s hard.
Hard and sweating and stuck.
If God were any bit the merciful being He claimed to be, Foggy would walk in right now. He’d take any easy excuse to stop and force him out of his predicament. But Matt knows he won’t. He knows it’s just you and him, and nothing but his own will could stop him now.
Set a guard, o Lord, over my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips.
You’re murmuring to yourself over the book again, lips shaping out words he can’t hear because all his focus has narrowed down to the sound of your heartbeat. Then you’re leaning closer, pointing something out, and the hem of your top’s brushing his arm. You don’t realize how much he’s shifted, so when you turn to finally look at him, your breath’s fanning his cheek and he stills. You stop laughing, then you laugh again at the sight of his jaw tightening like he’s bracing for impact.
“You okay?” you murmur.
He forces a tired smile, an expression soothed to something carefully neutral. “Just trying to focus.”
“Oh, sorry.” You duck your head, meek, guilty. Suddenly abundantly aware of the weight in the air, you say, “I can move–”
“No, no.” Matt’s hand finds your waist with unerring accuracy, fingertips skimming your side in a featherlight touch. “Stay. I like it when you’re close.”
Something in your chest flutters, and Matt’s more than a little pleased at the shift in your pulse, the way his words had landed and rippled through you.
Christ, Matt. This how you do it?
He’s so close now he can hear every heavy thump of your heartbeat, and he’s listening hard, desperate in his search for anything to prove it’s more than biology, more than proximity, more than his wishful thinking.
But he can’t take it anymore. He can’t care anymore.
His thumb strokes your side.
“Alright,” Matt whispers, breath escaping ragged, “I’m gonna kiss you, okay?”
You nod before your brain can even catch up.
“…Okay.”
For an agonizing second, neither of you moves. Then he tilts his head, closing the distance slowly—almost painfully so, like he’s giving you every last chance to pull away. Your heart’s ricocheting so hard he can hear the shape of it.
And then his mouth is on yours.
The kiss when it comes is soft. His hand cups your jaw, thumb stroking your cheek as he presses his lips to yours. You make a sound—a little hum, surprised at yourself—and that’s all it takes for him to deepen it. He’s clued in infinitely to the goings-on in your body, the stutter in your breath, the way your hand lifts hesitantly before settling against his chest, fingers splayed over the steady hammer of his heart.
There’s the faint tang of your lip balm on his tongue when it dares to flicker against you, coaxing your mouth open. Strawberry, kiwi—no matter, he hungers to swipe all of it off you with his own lips. His tongue slides against yours and Christ, he can’t help the soft noise that rumbles in his own throat. When Matt pulls back it’s only enough to breathe, noses bumping, but before you can think any better of it—before you can even think about what you’ve ruined, what you’ve just begun—you’re already leaning back in for more, and he catches your bottom lip between his teeth in a fleeting, tender bite before kissing you again, harder this time and less careful.
Your fingers clutch at the fabric over his chest like you need something to anchor you. And just as you’re shifting closer and closer, the kiss much deeper, the chair under you creaks ominously and then—
It jerks, slipping sideways.
You yelp and flail gracelessly, but Matt’s faster by years, catching you before the fall can register. His arms wrap around your back, a firm hand finding your thigh to steady you as you land hard against his chest, your body flushed against his. You burst out laughing, breathless and embarrassed.
“I got you,” he murmurs, voice roughening at the edges. His black glasses have slid slightly crooked in the commotion, making him look just a little disheveled. His smirk is nothing short of devilish now that you’re straddling his lap fully, thighs bracketing his own with snug pressure.
It’s then that you both feel it: the heat and the hardness of him beneath you. Even through the barrier of clothing it’s impossible to ignore; by instinct, your body shifts to feed its own want, the hot ridge of his cock grinding against your center through your own clothes.
“Should we…” you start, unsure what it is you’re even asking.
“Yeah,” Matt says shakily, “Bed. Before you fall again and actually get hurt.”
You nod and start to move off him awkwardly, but he catches you again—arms looping around you without effort—and then he’s standing, lifting you against him like it’s nothing. By reflex, your thighs wrap around his strong waist, arms snaking around his neck as he carries you across the room. There’s a second you consider offering directions, murmur clumsy instruction, but Matt moves with complete certainty—exactly where to place you, exactly how to touch you. The surety makes your stomach knot with something sharp and bitter: experience, you think, even as you tell yourself not to—don’t ruin this, don’t rob yourself of how good it feels just to be wanted by him. Fighting against impulse, you swallow it down and let yourself surrender to the moment.
Matt deposits you gently onto the bed: a twin-sized mess of rumpled sheets and textbooks shoved aside. Coming up to between your legs, when he kisses you this time it’s worlds away from the one before—it’s deeper, hungrier, tongue slick and mouths sliding together in a mess of panting breath and soft noises, your fingers curling into the hem of his shirt.
“Can I—?” he asks between kisses, and you nod, already tugging it up. The dark shirt comes off easily, pulled one-handed over the back of his neck. Like an errant magpie, your gaze is caught momentarily by the silver glint of his cross necklace catching the light, just before your eyes slide down his broad chest, lean and defined, the clean cut of his abs tapering down with a trail of dark hair arrowing below.
Jesus.
But you don’t get to ogle him as long as you’d like—it’s your turn then, his hands at your sides, slipping beneath your shirt. Matt’s an impatient man and sure enough, sooner than soon your band shirt comes off, tossed somewhere over the bedframe.
“Goodbye, Nick Cave,” you murmur solemnly.
Matt huffs a laugh, and his lips scorch your newly-bare shoulder, then your collarbone, trailing heat as his hands roam—sliding over your soft stomach, then up to cup your breasts gingerly through your bra, thumbs brushing the edges of the material. You’re tugging at each other again, kissing between whimpers, your fingers fumbling at the button of your shorts, and Matt’s hand covering yours to help.
Cursing under your breath, you kick the shorts off with a frustrated huff, left in your underwear now, damp and clinging. Unfairly so, Matt’s still wearing those goddamn grey sweatpants that make everything impossible to ignore. You can see everything. You can feel everything. Still above you, now between your legs he ruts forward without meaning to, and his cock grinds against your soaked, clothed core through the layers of cotton and elastic. Like the rhizomatic nature of your conversations with him, natural and free-flowing, the both of you move in unconscious rhythm now, tuned in completely to the feeling of his thick ridge dragging across your core.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters into your mouth.
“For what?” you ask, breathless, trying not to fall apart too quickly.
He hesitates. “I just… didn’t know if you wanted to keep going.”
“Are you kidding?” you whisper. “I was about to ask you that.”
A giggle breaks out from both of you, soft and nervous, mouths brushing, and he kisses you again, desperate. “This feels good,” he mumbles against your lips.
“Yeah?” you breathe.
“Yeah. Yeah.” His fingers slide behind your back, fumbling at your bra clasp. You arch slightly, trying to help, but he curses softly. “Fuck—sorry—can’t—”
“Let me,” you say, laughing again, sitting up just enough to undo it yourself. His ears are flushed now, the tips red with embarrassment, and he opens his mouth to apologize again but your kiss finds him instead, as you reach for his hand and guide it to your chest.
Matt groans into your mouth when you place his palm over your exposed breasts, and he wastes no time, pawing at you greedily, kneading and squeezing like he’s starved for it. Fingers finding your furled nipples, pinching lightly, you shudder under him, clutching his wrist. Summer be damned, the velvet feel of his skin on your skin makes your head swim, and you can’t steal enough of his warmth to be sated.
His kisses then trail lower, down your neck now, down your sternum, each breath ghosting sultry heat across your skin, and then he’s at your navel, tongue flicking briefly at the dip there. But just as he ghosts lower, nose nudging at the waistband of your panties, you jerk. Acrid panic comes up your throat; before you can think you’re already tugging him up by his hair and the back of his neck, heart hammering against your ribs.
“Wait. Wait—”
He stills instantly, blinking up at you unseeing. His hair is mussed, lips wet, mouth open like he’d been caught mid-word. “…What?”
“I don’t—” The words knot in your mortified throat, and you can’t find the nerve to look at him directly. “Um—I just—”
It’s a burn not solely from want but from the shadow of uncertainty: the thought of him down there, to see you with such closeness, tasting you, and what if you’re disappointing, what if you’re not worth it, if every rumor you’ve pretended not to care about has been true after all and you’re nothing compared to them—
“What’s this, then?” His voice is low, teasing, sufficient enough to puncture your own spiral. Chuckling softly, he asks, “Gonna keep pretending it’s fiction?”
You flush so hard it makes your ears ring. “Shut up. Next time, okay?”
His brow quirks. “‘Next time,’” he echoes, savoring the phrase on his tongue like it’s proof you’ll never get away from him now.
“Ugh, Matt—just come here—” Flushing hot and annoyed, you yank him up by the necklace, mouth crashing against his before he can say another word, swallowing his grin into your kiss. Slick and consuming, it feels euphoric to slot your own mouth against his like this—lying down, full-body, you could kiss him for hours, your recent indiscretion forgotten—and you’re melting beneath him, your hips grinding up against his, your hands pulling at his pants.
Picking up on your insistence, Matt pulls back, breath ragged, and peels off his sweatpants. They catch at one ankle as you help him tug them off, hands brushing his calves. What’s left then is the stretched fabric of tight black boxer briefs, the full outline of his cock thick and unmistakable, a dark patch of damp where precome’s already leaked through.
You reach for the waistband, teasing it down with one finger. “This okay?”
His voice is strained. Nearly breaking. “Yeah. Please.”
Pulling the briefs down, you have to take a second as his cock springs free, flushed and leaking while it curves toward his stomach, the base nestled in a thatch of dark hair. You swallow hard, because he’s beautiful, Christ, he’s so hard, and he’s already twitching.
You shimmy your hips forward to be closer to him, legs parting, and he groans loudly the second your plush thighs close around his cock. Beginning to rut forward, he grinds against you slowly, dragging the thick length along your clothed slit, again and again, the damp cotton thankfully doing little to dull the obscene friction. The pressure of each hardened pass catches your clit just slightly makes you gasp, makes you rut back up against him. You can feel the heat bleeding off him, your cunt pulsing with how close he is, how much you need more.
It’s everything and nothing and still not enough. Then, as if to notice this, Matt’s hand drifts down, thumb brushing the waistband of your panties.
“These…” he murmurs lowly, fingertips tracing the edge of your panties with the kind of searing touch that makes your lungs forget their rhythm, “describe them to me.”
For a beat you’re not even sure you heard him right. “What?” you manage, though it’s hardly more than a whisper.
That damned smirk of him has made a reappearance, lips glossy from your kisses. The mockery in his tone is pure provocation, prodding at you endlessly, testing your limits. “Tell me what they look like.”
At his demand, the rush of blood behind your ears is instantaneous. You’re not sure whether it’s that or simply the love-addled lens you’re viewing him through, but a ridiculous little giggle betrays you, shy and uncontainable, as though your body is already conspiring with him. And so despite your attempts to suppress, you relent because he’s waiting, and frankly, because his devilish smile has unmoored you completely.
“They’re… white,” you begin, voice faltering as though you’re confessing something forbidden, “cotton. Lace at the sides.”
And because this is Matt, you can’t seem to stop, seizing his hand and tugging it down until his broad palm rests against the soft material, your pulse jumping beneath prickling skin.
Matt tilts his head as if he can see every detail anyway. Savoring the description, tasting it out as his smile curves wickedly. “Mm. Fancy?”
“Not really.”
“They expensive?”
“What? Jesus. No, you perv.”
“Good.” His tone’s dropped lower, thicker with play; its cadence is so warm it flushes heat straight between your thighs, beneath his palm most especially. And as if that singular word has become verdict— his purposeful fingers hook into the waistband sharply.
RRRIP—!
Your thighs jerk, eyes flying wide as the cotton gives under his decisive grip. Matt tears the panties apart at the seam as though they’re paper, unable to find patience to stop himself from wrenching the ruined fabric aside until you’re bared to him completely. It takes you a second to catch your breath, but you finally break into incredulous laughter, shock and arousal having knotted together in your chest so tight it feels like a stone in your sternum.
“Couldn’t wait,” Matt pants, “Sorry.”
“You’re not sorry.”
“No, I’m not.” His grin widens, flashing wolfish teeth. “Not even a little.”
“You’re gonna have to pay for that, Murdock.”
His laugh tumbles directly into your mouth as he kisses you again to shut you up, hot and reckless, and then drags lower once more— “This is okay, right? You’re okay with this?”
“Yeah. God, yes. Oh—” Yet despite thinking you’ve already tamped it down, the reality is that the two of you are now completely bared to each other; hence the voice of reason from inside your head still emerges, causing you to swallow hard. “Wait, Matt. Are we gonna— I mean, is this—?”
Christ, you don’t even need to finish. He knows what you’re asking, he can tell. And the fact of the matter is, it’s not simply the nature of his suggestibility. Matt’s will is strong, mostly unshakable. The only counterpoint is that it’s you. You’re the one offering, wanting, needing. He’s the one with the conscience clawing at him and telling him to stop.
But how the fuck can he stop, when you’re whimpering under him, begging for him so openly?
The thought of whether this is the line he’ll cross, it hammers in his chest and remains. Matt can’t bring himself to say it out loud, can’t let the words be real, because despite all his guilt, all his restraint, he wants it too much. He wants to do it right this time. He wants it with you.
He should stop.
“C’mon,” you whisper, bold and desperate in equal measure. “As long as it doesn’t go in, it’s okay. Right? For you?”
Matt’s breath shudders out of him, chest pressing hard against yours. His lips part on a half-formed prayer you don’t understand, and then he’s nodding, rendered helpless by the way you’ve said it.
“Jesus,” he mutters, breaking. “Yeah. Okay. Yeah.”
Wetting his lips, he pulls back and he pushes your pillowy thighs together slowly, and slides his cock between them, the swollen head dragging slickly between your bare folds, through your wetness. Slow at first, drawing each movement out until he feels like he’s about to die from lack of it. Every pass coats him more, precum mixing with your arousal, smearing the softness of your thighs as his cock glides in tight, controlled thrusts.
You’re wet. So wet he can hear it. The sounds filling the room are lewd and rhythmic, your thighs slick, your cunt clenching around nothing, desperate.
And Matt’s losing it.
He’s not even inside you and already he feels like he’s going to break.
His hands tighten on your hips, heavy enough to remind you he’s holding back by the skin of his teeth. With each pass of his shaft it’s cushioned indulgently by the soft flesh of your thighs, dragging along your folds, hot and wet and thick, the ridge of the swollen head bumping against your clit with every motion and sending zings of pleasure shooting up your spine until you’re breathless, gasping, toes curling.
You don’t realize you’re whining loudly until he leans over you, breathing hard onto your cheek, his chest heaving. Mouth brushing your ear, he mutters, “Mine.”
His claim on you makes your whole body arch, makes your cunt clench down uselessly on nothing, aching.
And it’s true. You’re his, no question now about it. All of it is proof enough: the wetness slicking your inner thighs, your bare pussy glistening and desperate and utterly bare beneath him.
You roll your hips up instinctively, desperate to catch more of him, to press harder against the hot, swollen weight grinding between your thighs, chasing the flash of electricity when the crown of his cock skims your clit. But his grip only tightens, fingers biting bruises into your waist, holding you down like he knows better than to let you move, like he’s the only thing keeping you tethered to sanity.
It feels like sin. This little game the two of you are playing at, it feels better than it has any right to, filthy and exquisite in equal measure. Each rut of his cock through the slick vise of your thighs drags the swollen tip across your folds, every pass smearing you wetter, every sound between you growing louder, lewder. The air is thick with it, every breath you take steeped in sex. It feels so fucking good—all of it, all of it—all building towards something, something you realize to be this conclusion: it’s not nearly enough.
“I want more,” you gasp, the words tumbling out unbidden as your eyes flick helplessly downward, caught on the sight of his cock sliding in and out of the tight press of your thighs. The swollen head keeps vanishing and reappearing, glazed with you, every filthy pass making you shiver harder, “Want you.”
“I know,” Matt exhales, and the sound is ragged, breaking in his throat. He presses his forehead against yours, his feverish skin scorching yours completely. “Me too. But we can’t.”
As if a spoiled child, you whine, “Why not?” high and frustrated as you rock your hips against him anyway, greedy, begging with your body even as he keeps you pinned.
Without needing to speak aloud, the answer to your question comes to him with absolute certainty. A hoarse rasp of conscience: Because I’m an asshole.
“Please,” you whimper, every instinct in your body screaming for more. His hands only tighten to keep you down, yet it finds no success in having you stop; it only makes your need bloom sharper, makes your pleas spill faster. “Please, it won’t change anything. We’re still friends, right? Right?”
And then, just for an instant, just enough to catch at your entrance, the head of his cock slips and pushes blunt and hot and shocking against the swollen threshold of your body.
The air is torn from both of you in the same instant, gasps ripping through the thick silence.
The shock of it intoxicates you, blinds you—just that sliver of him breaching you, and you’re undone.
Beside your head, his arm strains to brace his weight, with biceps taut and straining, veins standing out as though his whole body is about to snap. The silver cross around his neck swings free, dangling above your face, catching the faint light with every tremor.
Matt doesn’t move, shouldn’t, but his cock throbs where it presses into you, every instinct commanding him to push deeper, to sink, to lose himself. To give you what you’re pleading for.
“Fuck—m’sorry,” he grits, wrenching back, pulling himself back out. He’s shaking, chest heaving, the words tumbling from him wild and frantic. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to—I didn’t—You’re just so wet, fuck, I’m sorry—”
And if your hand causes you to sin…
“It’s o-okay—” You’re trembling, nails biting into the meat of his bicep. Your body is buzzing, still lit by the electric shock of him almost inside, and what terrifies you most is the clarity flooding you.
Singular and decisive: you can’t stop now.
“Matt,” you whisper, sordid with want, “what if—what if you put it in, just a little. A little, please. It’s not enough. It won’t even count.”
You sound like you’re begging for your life. Reduced to nothing but a bitch in heat.
Matt’s hand slides up to your jaw, thumb dragging across your cheek in a trembling, sultry caress, and his head dips, unsteady laughter rasping out of him, “Don’t tease.”
“I’m not,” you plead, “S’long as… s’long as it’s not fully in, it doesn’t count, right?”
“Fuck—” Matt exhales hard, head hanging as if the weight of it will break him. His throat works as he swallows, trying to claw the words out of his conscience.
He needs to stop. He knows he needs to stop.
Do not let my heart incline to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds.
But how can he refuse you?
“Fuck. Okay. Are you sure?”
You nod, frantic. For Matt, whose senses are paradoxically both focused entirely on you and tuned out by the intense arousal in his head, this simple gesture is insufficient. He shakes his head. “I need you to tell me you’re sure.” His lips brush over yours as he breathes it, a coded message of him desperately begging you to say stop, to absolve him, control him from his own sin.
You do no such thing.
“Fuck, I’m sure,” your eyes are wet, and you cling to him as if he’s the only thing keeping you alive. “I need you, Matt.”
Need you, Matt.
He squeezes his eyes shut. “Fuck. Okay. Just the tip, okay?”
You nod quickly, almost giddy with relief.
God can forgive him if it’s just the tip. It doesn’t even count. He’ll be forgiven.
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability…
Having made his decision, Matt bites down on a groan, then kisses you so hard it steals the breath from your lungs once more. You have the sense his mouth is fierce and desperate to seemingly smother the truth of what he’s about to do. And, ever obliging, his hand reaches down, fumbling between your bodies, guiding himself to your entrance.
Then he’s pushing forward.
Just the tip—barely inside, barely breaching. Enough to tear the air from your lungs, enough to lock every muscle in your body.
“Mmff—” the sound wrenches from him, low and ragged, almost a growl as your heat swallows the thick crown of him. His head drops, sweaty hair brushing your face. “Fuck—that’s tight. You okay?”
You nod quickly, clinging to his arm, your teeth sinking into your bottom lip as you feel him stretching you out.
“Y-yeah,” you gasp, fighting for your voice not to tremble, “it just… hurts. A little.”
Hurts.
Stop now, Matt. Stop it. Stop it.
If he’s looking for a sign, this is it. He’s hurting you. Right? He should stop. Pull out. Apologize. Pretend this never—
But your body won’t allow him to believe it. Not with the way you’re squirming under him with need. Still, he must keep to his word—just the tip. So he doesn’t move, though his cock throbs thick inside you, just the swollen crown wedged in that slick tight heat that’s clenching and fluttering so helplessly around him.
The moment he’s lodged fully inside your entrance, you instantly wish you hadn’t begged for it. The taste of it is too good, too much, and now that you’ve had it, there’s no way this could ever be enough. You want more. You want all of him.
As if hearing your own thoughts, Matt grunts low in his chest, the sound guttural. He grits his teeth, refusing: he knows better than this.
Instead, one hand braces you at the waist, keeping you still, the other fisting the rest of his exposed length. His hand slides up and down his shaft in a desperate grip, every stroke smeared with the arousal you’re drooling down his cock, wetting him to the base. He shouldn’t be doing this. He really shouldn’t. No condom, no plan, no fucking clue how to stop. All he’d need to do was push forward, slide the rest of his cock in and bury himself to the hilt. And as if to compound his own struggle you’re writhing, too, trying to roll your hips the tiniest bit, trying to fuck yourself on him, his grip on your waist being the only thing stopping you.
“Unfair,” you whined, trying to defy the iron clamp of his hand.
“What’s unfair?”
Jesus. He’s so hoarse he can’t even recognize his own voice.
“You get to—” your chest heaves, words tripping over the wreck of your own pathetic desperation, “—get to jerk yourself off while I—while I can’t even—” Another sharp whimper breaks you off, and for a second Matt thinks you’re going to start completely sobbing right then, with your cunt clenching down helplessly on the head of his cock buried inside you. “I can’t even take it all.”
Christ.
Matt swallows.
This girl is gonna be the death of me.
“S’not—” he tries, but the word shreds out of his throat like gravel, sweat dripping down his temple. His fist works himself tighter, faster, the slide of it wet and obscene from the mess you’re making all over him. You’re so fucking slick; all of it his, yours, both of you, smeared together down his cock and onto his knuckles.
“No, no– see–” As if to abate the mounting tension his fingers find your clit, rubbing in frantic little circles with your own wetness. The effect is instant: your back arching, cunt clamping down on his cockhead.
“See?” he rasps, eyes wild. “See? You can feel good too, sweetheart. Just like this.”
Thumb working circles onto your clit, you squirm helplessly under him, sobbing into his mouth when he kisses you again. Every squeeze of your pussy around him frees another curse from his lips, another jerk of his hips forward without his permission, the thick crown driving a fraction deeper before he can stop himself.
“Fuck—” his forehead drops to yours, trembling with effort, “fuck, sweetheart, I can’t—”
The moment his fingers drag again over your clit, you buck deeper onto his cock with a sob.
“I’m not gonna move,” he pants, nipping at your lip to keep himself tethered, “I’m not gonna—fuck—”
But even as he says it, his hips are already rocking, shallow thrusts plunging his cock just barely in and out of your pussy, every ridge of him catching on the trembling mouth of you. Just the tip, he tells himself. Just the tip. Over and over like a prayer.
The truth is, Matt doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing. A live wire embodied, he’s guided by instinct and need alone, no practiced rhythm, no skill, just messy, urgent biology taking the reins. Having given way to baser impulses, his body moves the way it wants to, chasing what feels good, listening to every slick sound, every clench of your cunt, every gasp from your pretty mouth.
“Shit—sorry—sorry—” he grunts, rocking forward again, every shallow thrust ratcheting up the tension inside him like he’s being wound too tight, like he’d snap if he stopped.
“Matt—” you beg, arching up to claw at his arm. “More. Please. More.”
“I can’t,” he says hoarsely, but he doesn’t stop either, still working the tip of his cock into you with ragged little thrusts. “I shouldn’t.”
But your body’s melting open beneath him already, milking him just from that shallow stretch. Just the tip, just the tip, he repeats to himself, but every second inside you only makes him wonder how much better it would feel if he gave you all of it.
He shouldn’t, but Christ, it’s you.
You. Always you. Not just his friend, not just the girl he teases and studies with, but the one his hands ache to memorize, the one whose heartbeat he knows better than his own.
“Fuck—” the curse shudders out of him, his breath stinging your face, “You’re—Christ, you’re so good to me, my girl—”
Sweat’s beginning to sting his unseeing eyes now as he focuses on the way your pussy squeezes around him. But each time he pulls out, his hips push back in deeper—just a fraction, just a millimeter more. It’s not conscious, not yet, but his cock’s greedy, his body aching for more, and he lets it happen again. And again. And again.
His mouth is everywhere—kissing you hard, biting your lip, licking the sweat from your collarbone as his hips twitch, plunging deeper. Bit by bit. Inch by inch. Until he’s slipping past the point of no return, your walls stretching to take him, your moans soft and broken in his ear.
You gasp when the thick crest of his cock pierces deeper than ever.
“It’s alright,” Matt rasps, between his sultry claims of my girl into your neck. “It’s just a bit, just a little, it’s okay, right? S’okay? Sorry, sorry, shit—”
Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue.
And then suddenly, inevitably, he’s in all the way.
Bottomed out, buried to the hilt, his hips pressed flush to yours. His cock seated deep inside your body, throbbing, pulsing, sheathed fully in your wet heat to the very base. He can’t breathe, can’t think, and the only thing tethering him to the moment is the frantic hammer of your pulse and the tight, fluttering clutch of your pussy strangling his cock like you were made to fit him.
Knowledge with self-control… self-control with steadfastness… steadfastness with godliness…
Fuck off, he thinks viciously, growling it in his head to drown the endless refrain of scripture that batters at him even as he trembled above you. He’s not praying anymore—he’s fighting to silence the voice that tells him this is wrong, that this is sin, when all he wants is to make you feel good.
“Matt,” you whimper, soft and urgent. “Move. Please.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, exhales raggedly against your jaw, and then—hesitantly, testing—he slides his cock out.
It’s too slow. Painfully so. Your swollen folds cling to him desperately, like your pussy is trying to suck him back in, each inch dragging fire across his length until he nearly loses his mind. Your cunt stretches, weeps around him, and when he pushes forward again, even slower, the shaft sinks back inside with obscene resistance, the slick sound of your bodies meeting loud in the overheated room.
“Fuck, so tight,” he gasps, forehead dropping to yours.
He pulls out again. Slides back in again. Every retreat slick, every push met with a bearing down so tight he chokes on his own breath.
And then he does it again.
And again.
And again.
Your thighs tremble against his hips, your back arching, your mouth falling open as you watch him—watch the way his cock disappears inside you, coated thick in your wetness, then reappears glistening, only to sink back inside to the hilt. A ring of wet white clings to the base of his shaft, spreading with every stroke, proof of how thoroughly he’s splitting you open.
“Oh my God,” you whimper, voice thin, eyes glued to the sight. “Matt.”
As if through otherworldly understanding, he says your name back to you, siphoning heat into your mouth—and almost without meaning to, his pace picks up. The slow grind of his hips becomes sharper, his thrusts longer, the rhythm picking up with every drag of your pussy milking him tighter. He pulls back halfway and drives forward again, harder this time, and the sound it makes—the wet slap of your bodies, the squelch of your slick around him—nearly unspools him.
“Fucking hell,” he pants, brow furrowed, eyes shut tight, as if concentration alone can keep him from losing himself entirely. “You’re so—so fucking tight, sweetheart.”
Your hands clutch his shoulders, helpless against the pace as he pumps into you now, faster, deeper, your cries tumbling into the room in a shameless chorus. And still you can’t stop watching his cock slide in and out of your pussy, faster and faster, his stomach clenching, his silver cross swinging tauntingly above you.
One moment he’s easing in, trying to keep that tight rhythm steady, whispering prayers and half-formed apologies against your mouth, and the next he’s simply gone, for lack of a better word. Crossing the threshold of his own control, he’s resorted to straight up fucking you, hips hammering into you, cock pistoning in and out like something feral’s taken hold of him. He’s sloppy, untrained, rutting wildly, but again, biology doesn’t need finesse, and when someone’s fucking you like this—driving into you hard, desperate, needy—the result is still more than enough to make you arch and moan and claw at his back like you’ll die if he stops.
“Fuck—fuck—” Matt pants, forehead slick and pressed against yours, his voice dissolving into hoarse groans each time his fat cock slams all the way in. He’s greedy with it, chasing his own high with reckless abandon. Ever errant, his mouth searches blindly for balmy skin—your neck, your jaw, your shoulder—pressing wet, scorching kisses between bitten gasps. He tastes sunscreen and sweat, your salt and his and that damned apple-scented lotion, the tang so sweet it makes him dizzy, and when your anklet clinks in counterpoint to his every thrust, the tinkling chime fills his ears like music, like a hymn that drives him to thrust harder.
The bedframe protests, the cramped mattress squeaking beneath the combined weight of his body pressing yours down into it. There’s no space left between you at all; he’s smothering you in heat, his musk, his ragged breath against your lips, and you’re drowning in it, in him. His cane clatters to the floor when his thrusts jostle it loose from the headboard, forgotten completely, as though he’s swearing off every marker of restraint with every thrust.
“Matt,” you breathe, and then again, louder, chanting it helplessly, “Matt, Matt, Matt…” with the same fervent rhythm he’d once used to pray the rosary, your cries his new litany.
He can’t get enough. Your cunt is so wet, so tight, clenching around him like it was made to keep him, and he can’t stop laughing breathlessly into your face, disbelieving, “So fucking tight—Christ, you’re so tight—” before his hand’s sliding down again to abuse your swollen clit, your shared wetness slicking his touch until your body jolts violently against him.
Knowing you so well, that’s all it takes—your whole body seizes, your mouth falling open on a silent cry as your orgasm rips through you like a snapped cable. Your vision goes white and you writhe beneath him, clutching and pawing at his back, shaking so hard your knees knock into his hips.
By reflex, Matt buries his face against your neck, his body surging with yours as your cunt spasms around him, soaking him even more. He knows he should pull out. He knows. But the way your pussy’s gripping him, sucking him back in, the soaked evidence of your orgasm leaking down his cock, the way you’re still trembling and panting his name like it’s salvation—
He can’t.
He’s not thinking anymore. Just fucking.
And the bed’s tiny, barely big enough for both of you, and there’s nowhere to go but into each other, sweat dripping off his forehead onto your own, your skin hot and shiny under his, your nails dragging down his spine, and he’s laughing now—breathless, manic—between thrusts.
…That each one must know to control his own body in holiness and honor…
It should shame him, too. Matt catches it: the slight copper tang of blood lacing the air, the sting of your body stretched too suddenly—but instead it makes him shake, makes him rut harder, makes his cock twitch greedily inside you. Some dark part of him finds the trace of blood endlessly alluring, proof that you’ve ruined each other for anyone else. He doesn’t stop to think, finding himself unable to.
…not in the passion of lust.
Was he this much of a fucking freak, that verses floated up unbidden even while his cock was bullying your cervix, stretching you indecently deep?
He’ll be forgiven. He’ll be forgiven.
As long as he doesn’t come inside you.
That’s the line. That’s the last shred of self-control he has left, and he clings to it while his hips rut and slam with abandon, while your body milks him so good he’s dazed with it.
But he wasn’t supposed to go this far, so what’s a little farther?
He doesn’t believe in halfway sins. If he’s going to hell, then he’ll make it worth everything.
“I’ll pull out,” Matt rasps, his voice half-promise, half-prayer. “I’ll pull out, I swear—just a little longer, just—fuck—”
But “a little longer” turns into a little too long. His rhythm breaks down into sloppy, desperate pounding, each slam of his cock inside you wetter, louder, deeper than the last, his breath coming in ragged sobs. His cross necklace clinks wildly above your breasts, slick against your skin where his chest presses you down. His mouth drags open over your lips, teeth nipping, tongue sloppily seeking to catch yours, and when you kiss him back he groans like he’s being possessed, his entire body jolting with the force of his thrusts, helpless as he says again without thinking, “Mine.”
And finally, in acquiescence, you whisper back, “Yours,” clamping down so tight, twitching and moaning under the maddened stroke of his thumb over your overstimulated clit, and he can’t take it, can’t fight it anymore. The thought of pulling out vanishes as though it never existed.
“Oh fuck—fuck—” he chokes, hips slamming forward one last time, burying himself deep as he can go and his cock pulses violently, spilling hot, thick spurts of his seed into your cunt.
It gushes out of him, painting your walls with ropes of it, mixing with your creamy slick as he groans loud and shameless into your open mouth, kissing you through the ruin. His body wracks with it, every muscle seizing, every thrust reduced to helpless little jerks determined to push his spend as deep inside you as he can.
And all you can do is take it—take every spurt, every twitch, your body clenching and milking him desperately as though it refuses to let him go, your name and his name blurring together into moans and gasps until there’s nothing left but the sound of your hearts, hammering in tandem, and the wet, lewd squelch of his cock still seated in your dripping, stuffed cunt.
Matt gasps against your throat, body twitching with aftershocks as his cum leaks out around his cock and down the curve of your ass. You whimper at the warm, slippery sensation, still pulsing around him, still clinging, your cunt reluctant to let him go.
Afterwards, there’s nothing but silence.
Neither of you has any mind to move. His cock is still lodged deep inside you, twitching weakly with every tremor that runs through him. You’re trembling together, not from cold or the heat but from everything, from the enormity of what you’ve just done and the enormity of how right it still feels despite that.
Finally, Matt groans in defeat and rolls his weight just enough to keep from crushing you. It’s not far, though. Not far enough to leave, which relieves you immensely.
His arm slides beneath your back, gathering you against him like he has no intention of ever letting you go, anchoring you to him, anchoring himself to you. Your legs slip apart at the shift and a tiny whimper of protest spills from your throat, but his grip only tightens, grounding you as if to say, don’t drift away from me.
The sheets are damp beneath your back, your thighs tacky where sweat has sealed you together. Matt’s hand spreads broad at your ribs, thumb stroking lazy arcs into your slick skin. His other arm stays firm beneath you to lock your bodies together, his cross cool and sticky where it’s fallen between you.
“…Jesus Christ,” you finally whisper, the words barely more than breath.
“Yeah.”
Your lips are still swollen from his mouth. “That was intense.”
The pause that follows is thin and fragile as an oyster windowpane. He has no desire to break it at all, but he has to for your sake, and you’re aware of the conscious effort he makes to soften his voice, stripped raw: “You okay?”
“Yeah.” You turn your head toward him, brows faintly knitting, heart twisting. This must be it, he’s going to tell you he wishes it hadn’t happened. “...I was about to ask you.”
Oblivious as you usually might be, you know you’re feeling each other out, testing the waters.
“Yeah. I’m okay,” he answers finally, then, so quiet in comparison, he continues, “but you’re not… freaking out?”
“No,” you murmur. Your throat tightens as you add, almost shyly, “I liked it.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
Matt huffs affectionately against your hair, and tilts to nudge his nose against your temple, pressing dazed little kisses along your cheek, your face, your jaw. Tension having snapped, the silence fractures into soft, exhausted laughter—half relief, half disbelief. And for a long moment you’re content to drown in it, until Matt shifts, arm bracing to push himself up, muscles trembling.
Your hands clutch at him before he can slip free. “Don’t.”
“I should—I should get you cleaned up.”
“Later,” you insist, pulling him down again, hooking your leg over his to keep him trapped. Your voice is small but iron-willed. “Let me have this, Matt.”
There’s no fight in him, not when you ask like that. He finds it to be what’s ubiquitous across it all: the inability to deny you what you want, no matter what. And so he collapses back into you obligingly, burying his face in your neck.
A small giggle slips out of you. He lifts his head, curious. “What?”
“I think my brain’s finally coming back online,” you say, stretching enough to wince at the soreness between your thighs.
“Aw, tragic,” Matt drones, “You were so agreeable when it was melted.”
You smack his arm weakly. He catches your hand, presses a kiss to the back of it, and keeps it there against his mouth.
“We should probably get back to studying.”
“Speak for yourself. You’re the one who said you were behind.”
“You’re the one who made me more behind!”
His laugh is a vibrating buzz against your collarbone, tickling you as he nuzzles in closer. “Five more minutes, then.”
You hum, pliant, with no snide retort to shoot back.
For once, you don’t care. For once, you're not afraid of what comes after.
The clatter of dice hits the table, and someone curses irately at rolling another nat one. The campaign pauses just long enough for Marci to look up from the character sheet she’s been only half-invested in, propping her chin in her hand, still a little incredulous that she let Foggy drag her out to D&D instead of spending the afternoon at his place. But he’d been mysteriously insistent on it, and now, watching Foggy grin like a man sitting on a royal flush, it dawns on her what he’d had planned all along.
“They better not hook up,” she mutters idly.
“You might as well just pay up now,” Foggy says without missing a beat, sliding his root beer aside to make room for his pile of winnings. He doesn’t even look at her, oozing smug satisfaction. “I told you it was gonna be today. No way it was gonna take another month.”
Marci glares at him. “How the hell do you even know?”
“I’ve been watching those two make goo-goo eyes since freshman year. It was only a matter of time,” Foggy says, matter-of-fact. “Besides, she was wearing the apple lotion today. That stuff drives Matt crazy. He’s toast.”
There’s a beat of silence around the table before Marci groans, digging into her purse reluctantly.
“You guys are so weird. And disgusting.”
“Yes we are,” Foggy agrees cheerfully, plucking the bill from her hand. He tucks it neatly into his wallet and tips his dice bag toward her in mock toast. “To young love, and finally getting its head out of its ass.”
Love language : physical affection. Bucky Barnes x Reader
Bucky Barnes x Reader
Synopsis : You were one of those who love physical contact. That was your love language. So when Bucky arrives at the compound, the Avengers are surprised to see that you actually keep your hands for yourself and even more when Bucky is almost the one to ask for it.
Warnings : cuties, jealousy (from myself toward them), love love love, kind of slooooow burn, friends to lovers, long a** one shot.
When Bucky arrived at the compound, the first thing he did, without even realizing it, was assess everyone.
It was automatic. A reflex carved into him after decades of survival.
Steve didn’t need analyzing. He was familiar. Safe. A constant in a world that had changed too much.
He knew Sam was already getting on his nerves, no need to check twice.
The others, though… they were different.
And then there was you.
It didn’t take long for Bucky to notice something about you. Something subtle, but persistent.
You needed contact.
Not in an obvious, overwhelming way. You weren’t clinging or invasive. It was quieter than that, instinctive. You leaned into people when you laughed, rested your head on someone’s shoulder during movie nights, brushed against others without even thinking about it.
And the strange part?
No one seemed to mind.
Natasha would casually move closer to you, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Tony didn’t even react when you rested your head against him, just kept talking or watching whatever was on screen. Steve had simply shrugged when Bucky pointed it out.
“It grounds her,” he had said.
Bucky didn’t understand that.
Not at first.
He had spent seventy years learning the opposite, that touch meant pain, control, punishment. That it was something to fear, to avoid, to endure.
Even now, in a place that was supposed to be safe, he didn’t like it. Not really.
And yet…
You understood.
That was the part that unsettled him the most.
Because you never touched him.
Not once.
You never brushed against him in passing, never stood too close, never reached for him the way you did with the others. And it wasn’t out of fear, he would have recognized that instantly.
It was respect.
You moved around him like someone who knew exactly where the invisible boundaries were. Like someone who understood what it meant to have your body used against you. Like someone who knew that trust wasn’t given, it was earned, slowly.
So you didn’t push.
You just… existed near him.
And you smiled.
Every time he walked into a room, your eyes would find him, and you’d give him that same soft, genuine smile. Never forced. Never hesitant. Just… kind.
At first, he didn’t know what to do with it.
Sometimes he ignored it, not because you had done anything wrong, but because he didn’t understand it. Kindness without an agenda felt foreign. Suspicious, almost.
But you never stopped.
And slowly, something shifted.
After a while, he started nodding back. Small, almost imperceptible acknowledgments.
Then, eventually, a faint smile.
Barely there.
But real.
The first time you touched him, it wasn’t intentional.
It happened on an ordinary evening, during dinner.
The compound was loud, everyone gathered in the dining room, conversations overlapping. You had slipped into the kitchen to grab a glass of water, enjoying the brief quiet.
You thought you were alone.
Lost in your thoughts, you turned around with your glass and walked straight into him.
The impact was solid enough to make you stumble slightly.
“Oh my God,” you blurted out, startled. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you.”
Your hand came up instinctively to steady yourself and landed on his metal arm.
You didn’t even notice.
To you, it was nothing. A natural reaction. Normal.
Bucky, on the other hand, went completely still.
“Don’t worry,” he said after a beat, his voice quieter than usual. “I wasn’t very loud either.”
You smiled, a little sheepish, apologizing once more before heading back to the dining room, leaving him alone in the kitchen.
He didn’t move.
Not right away.
His gaze dropped to where your hand had been, like he could still feel the imprint of it.
It hadn’t hurt.
It hadn’t felt wrong.
You hadn’t hesitated. Hadn’t flinched. Hadn’t treated it like something to be careful of.
You had just… touched him.
Like there was nothing to fear.
And the strangest part?
It didn’t bother him.
Not even a little.
That was when things started to change.
At first, it was subtle enough that neither of you noticed.
You leaned closer when you didn’t hear him properly instead of asking him to repeat himself. Your arms would brush during movie nights, and neither of you pulled away. It just… happened. Naturally.
Comfortably.
Every morning, you made coffee for everyone and at some point, you had learned exactly how he liked his.
He noticed that.
Of course he did.
The first time your fingers brushed when you handed him his cup, he almost pulled away.
The second time, he didn’t.
And then, sometimes… it lingered.
Just for a second longer than necessary.
Always by “accident.”
Bucky didn’t know what to make of it.
Didn’t know what he was feeling.
Something unfamiliar. Something that didn’t fit into any category he understood.
And you, you were completely oblivious.
But the others ?
Oh, they noticed.
They noticed everything.
“Twenty bucks says they kiss within a month.”
“Forty-five says she hugs him without thinking first.”
“Hundred says they’re a couple by the end of the year.”
The bets had started quietly. Casually.
But they were very real.
It was October.
And things were only just getting started.
You and Bucky began learning about each other without ever sitting down and deciding to. It happened in fragments, in instincts, in the kind of details most people overlooked.
He noticed the small sigh that slipped past your lips whenever things started to feel like too much, the kind you tried to hide so no one would make a big deal out of it. He noticed it every single time.
Just like you noticed the way his expression shifted when the noise around him got overwhelming, how his brows would knit together slightly, the crease between them deepening as if the world itself pressed too loudly against him.
You learned the way he scanned every room the moment he walked into it, his gaze instinctively flicking toward exits, corners, anything that could become a threat. And he noticed that you did the exact same thing, just more discreetly.
There were other things, too. Smaller, almost ridiculous details. The way your tongue slipped out slightly when you were focused on something. The way his jaw tightened when he was irritated but chose not to say anything. None of it was ever pointed out. None of it needed to be. It settled between you naturally, like a language only the two of you spoke.
By November, something had changed again, something quieter, but heavier in meaning. Bucky felt safe around you. Not just comfortable. Not just at ease. Safe. It was a feeling he hadn’t allowed himself to experience in a very long time, and even now, he didn’t fully understand it. But it was there, undeniable.
One night, Tony decided to throw what he called a “small party,” which, in reality, meant loud music shaking the walls, voices overlapping until they became indistinguishable, and an energy that buzzed too intensely to ignore. Most of the team was drunk, laughter spilling too loudly, movements less controlled. The kind of chaos that filled every corner of the room.
You and Bucky stood apart from it, without ever explicitly deciding to.
You didn’t drink, you never really liked it. And Bucky couldn’t. So the two of you ended up sitting across from each other, not really interacting with the others, not really interacting with each other either. Just… existing in the same space, both too deep in your own thoughts to pretend you were enjoying the party.
Bucky hated environments like this. Ever since HYDRA, loud, unpredictable spaces had a way of putting his entire body on edge, like something bad was just waiting to happen. And you, your day had drained you completely. Every sound felt sharper than it should have, every burst of laughter just a little too loud. You stayed anyway, out of politeness more than anything else, but it was wearing you down.
Then it happened.
A loud bang echoed from the other side of the room.
It was sudden. Violent in the way it cut through everything else.
Both of you flinched instantly, your bodies reacting before your minds had time to process it. Your heads turned toward the noise, hearts jumping in your chests. It didn’t take long to realize it was just Tony and Thor, caught in some ridiculous competition that had clearly escalated too far.
Nothing dangerous.
But the damage was already done.
You let out a slow, controlled sigh, trying to steady yourself, trying to push the tension back down where no one would notice. Across from you, Bucky’s brows were drawn together, his expression tight in that familiar way you had come to recognize.
Your eyes met.
And in that moment, everything was said without a single word.
You tilted your head slightly toward the stairs, the gesture subtle, almost invisible to anyone else. A silent question.
Do you want to get out of here ?
Bucky didn’t hesitate. He gave the smallest nod.
You both stood at the same time, as if it had been planned, moving quietly through the room without drawing attention. No one stopped you. No one even seemed to notice you leaving.
With each step toward the stairs, the noise dulled, the pressure easing just enough to let you breathe again.
When you reached your room, you opened the door without thinking, stepping inside like it was the most natural thing in the world. But behind you, Bucky paused.
It was brief. Almost unnoticeable.
But you saw it.
And, like always, you didn’t push. You didn’t rush him, didn’t turn around to question it. You simply continued moving, giving him the space to decide for himself.
You crossed the room and opened the balcony door, stepping outside into the cool night air. Your hands rested lightly against the railing as you exhaled, this time without trying to hide it. The quiet wrapped around you, soft and immediate, like a shield against everything you had just left behind.
For a second, you were alone.
Then you heard the door.
Bucky stepped out beside you, the hesitation gone, replaced by something steadier. The tension in his shoulders eased almost instantly as the silence settled in.
He had chosen to follow you.
To trust you.
And from that night on, it became something unspoken between you.
A habit. A reflex.
Across crowded rooms, your eyes would find each other, and a simple glance would be enough. Sometimes a small nod. Sometimes, one of you would lean in just slightly, voice low enough that no one else could hear.
“Wanna get out of here ?”
And sometimes, it was Bucky who said it first.
But every time, without fail, you left together.
Trust didn’t come all at once. It never did with him. It was built slowly, piece by piece, in silence more than in words.
At some point, he had stopped tensing when you leaned closer during movie nights. Then, one evening, when exhaustion got the better of you and your head slowly tipped onto his shoulder, he didn’t move away.
He had gone still at first.
Not stiff. Not panicked.
Just… aware.
Aware of your weight against him, of your steady breathing as sleep pulled you under, of how natural it felt despite everything in him that used to reject contact.
And then, after a moment, he let himself relax.
He didn’t shift. Didn’t wake you up. Didn’t even acknowledge it out loud.
He just stayed.
Another time, in a crowded hallway, your shoulders brushed as people moved around you too quickly, too closely. Bucky’s body reacted before his mind did. His hand hovered near your lower back, not quite touching, but close enough to guide you if needed. Close enough to shield you from anyone getting too close.
Protective. Instinctive.
He didn’t even realize he was doing it at first.
And you didn’t comment on it.
That was the thing between you, nothing was ever forced into the open before it was ready. You both let things exist as they were, without questioning them too much.
It was… natural.
So natural, in fact, that neither of you really noticed how much things had changed.
But others did.
Steve was the first one to say something.
It happened one afternoon, quiet and uneventful. Bucky had just come back from training, his movements still carrying that residual tension that never fully left him. You were in the common area, sitting on the couch with a book in your hands, your posture relaxed in a way that always seemed to soften the space around you.
You looked up when Bucky walked in.
And you smiled.
That same soft, genuine smile you always gave him.
Bucky paused for just a second, barely noticeable, before nodding back, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at his lips as he moved further into the room.
Steve had been leaning against the wall, arms crossed, watching the whole exchange with quiet attention.
He waited until you looked back down at your book before speaking.
“He seems less on edge when you’re around.”
His voice was calm, observational, but there was something warmer beneath it.
You glanced up at him, slightly caught off guard.
Steve’s gaze shifted briefly toward Bucky, who was now moving around the kitchen, quieter than usual, more at ease than he had been earlier.
“I’m glad he has someone to trust other than me,” Steve added.
There was no jealousy in his tone. No hesitation.
Just relief.
Because for the first time in a long time, Bucky wasn’t carrying everything alone anymore.
By the very end of December, nothing had officially happened.
You hadn’t kissed. You hadn’t hugged, not really, not in the way people would define it. And if anyone had asked, you weren’t together.
But you were close.
Closer than either of you realized.
Without noticing when it started, you leaned on Bucky more than you did on anyone else. You were still yourself, you still walked side by side with Natasha, still leaned into others during conversations, still laughed the same way.
But something had shifted.
Your head didn’t find Tony’s shoulder anymore during movie nights.
It found Bucky’s.
In crowded rooms, your hand reached for his arm without thinking, fingers curling lightly around his sleeve as if it had always belonged there. It wasn’t desperate, not even conscious, it was instinctive. Grounding.
And he never pulled away.
Not once.
Bucky, in his own way, mirrored you.
Every time he entered a room, his eyes searched for you first. It became automatic, something he did before even realizing it. And once he found you, something in him settled.
Like he could finally breathe properly.
In crowded spaces, his hand no longer hovered near your lower back.
It rested there.
Light. Careful. Always giving you the option to move away.
But guiding you nonetheless.
Protecting you.
Trust, for him, had always been the hardest thing to give.
And yet, one night, you found him in the kitchen, long after everyone else had gone to sleep.
The lights were dim. The compound was silent.
He was standing there, leaning slightly against the counter, his posture tense in a way that told you everything before he even spoke.
You didn’t ask too many questions.
You never did.
You just stayed.
And somehow, that was enough.
Because that night, he told you.
Not everything. Not all at once. But enough.
Enough about the nightmares. About the things that still haunted him when he closed his eyes. About the memories that didn’t feel like memories, but like something still happening, over and over again.
It wasn’t easy for him.
You could hear it in the pauses, see it in the way his jaw tightened, feel it in the way his voice sometimes dropped too low.
But he trusted you with it.
And you didn’t try to fix it.
You didn’t interrupt.
You didn’t look at him with pity.
You just listened.
And when the silence came back, heavy but not uncomfortable, you stayed right there beside him.
That was enough.
It became… normal, after that.
In the mornings, it wasn’t unusual for someone from the team to walk into the living room and find the two of you asleep together.
You, curled slightly toward him, your head resting on his lap.
Him, slouched back against the couch, one hand absentmindedly tangled in your hair, like even in his sleep he needed to make sure you were still there.
Both of you completely at peace.
It was a quiet kind of closeness. One that didn’t need labels or explanations.
And Steve had been right.
Bucky was calmer around you.
The constant tension in his shoulders had eased, the sharp edge in his gaze softened. He wasn’t as quick to withdraw, not as guarded as he used to be.
But what no one had really expected, was that it went both ways.
Because somehow, in the same quiet, unspoken way, Bucky soothed you, too.
Tony, like every year, had organized New Year’s Eve at the compound.
The living room was overflowing, music blasting, people talking over each other, laughing, dancing, clinking glasses. Strangers mixed with old friends, investors, acquaintances Tony barely remembered inviting. It was too much, too fast, too loud. The kind of chaos that usually would have sent both you and Bucky slipping away within the first hour.
But this time, you stayed.
Not out of obligation, but because you actually wanted to.
You wanted to spend the night with your friends, to feel part of it instead of watching it from the outside. And instead of leaving the moment things became overwhelming, you and Bucky found a rhythm. Small breaks. Quiet pauses. You’d drift into the kitchen for a few minutes of silence, or step out onto the balcony to breathe in the cold air, letting the noise fade just enough to reset. Then you’d return like nothing had happened.
Bucky stayed close the entire night.
Not suffocating. Never that.
Just… there.
Sometimes he’d drift off to talk to Steve, a few steps away, but he always came back to your side without needing to be called. Like it was instinct now. Like you were the anchor he didn’t realize he’d been searching for.
At one point, he tilted his head toward the stairs, a silent suggestion, familiar by now.
You looked at him and smiled, shaking your head.
No.
He rolled his eyes dramatically in response, exaggerated enough to make you laugh under your breath. But there was no real frustration in it. His face was relaxed, his shoulders loose in a way that would’ve been unthinkable months ago.
Then the music shifted.
A song you loved came on, immediately recognizable, immediately yours.
Your face lit up before you even realized it, a wide, unfiltered smile spreading across your lips. It was the kind of expression that made everything around you feel softer just by existing.
Bucky noticed instantly.
Of course he did.
He followed your gaze toward the speakers, then back to you. And something in his expression shifted, not a full smile yet, but the beginning of one. Something warm, faintly amused, almost fond.
Before he could say anything, you were already standing in front of him.
Holding your hand out.
“Wanna dance ?”
You weren’t shy about it. Not hesitant. Just bright-eyed, smiling like the night itself belonged to you.
He blinked once.
Then again.
“No,” he said immediately, because of course he did.
You leaned in slightly, widening your eyes.
“Pleaseeeee, Buck.”
That was new too.
Buck.
Something about the nickname alone almost broke his resistance.
He tried to look unimpressed, he really did, but the corner of his mouth twitched despite him. His gaze dropped to your hand, then back to your face.
You were still waiting. Still smiling. Completely unbothered by his hesitation.
With a long-suffering sigh that fooled absolutely no one, he finally slipped his metal hand into yours.
The moment your fingers closed around his, something in him eased.
He didn’t even think about it.
Didn’t think about his arm. Didn’t think about the crowd. Didn’t think about anything except the fact that you were already pulling him forward.
You led him into the middle of the room where people were dancing, laughter and music blending into a steady pulse. You turned to face him, your hands finding their place naturally at the back of his neck, while his settled carefully at your waist, steady, grounding.
Something from The Beatles filled the room, loud and familiar, wrapping around everything like warmth.
You started to sway first.
Bucky followed.
At least, that’s what he told himself.
At first, he kept his expression carefully neutral, like he was only doing this because you had asked. But the longer you stayed there, smiling up at him, moving with the rhythm without hesitation, the more that act started to slip.
Especially when you laughed.
Especially when you pulled him just a little closer.
He made a point of acting annoyed every time you tried to make him move more, every time you encouraged him like this was some kind of performance. But the truth was in the way his grip stayed steady, in the way he didn’t step back even once.
And in the way he started to enjoy it.
It reminded him of something distant. Faded. A version of himself that used to exist before everything changed, before HYDRA, before silence, before he forgot what it felt like to be just a man in a room instead of a weapon in survival mode.
Dancing with Steve, back in a time that felt almost like someone else’s life.
Except this time was different.
Because this time, he wasn’t looking over his shoulder.
He wasn’t waiting for something to go wrong.
He was just here.
With you.
At some point, he spun you once.
Then again.
And again.
You laughed every time, louder each round, until he was laughing too, quiet at first, then more freely, like something had finally cracked open inside him.
The two of you collided lightly into an older couple at one point, earning a sharp complaint that neither of you fully heard through your laughter.
And for once, neither of you really cared.
Because for a moment, just one long, fleeting moment, the world wasn’t heavy.
It was just music.
Just movement. Just you and him.
“Come on, people! The countdown has begun!” Tony’s voice cut through the music, booming over the crowd as he waved his arms dramatically from somewhere near the center of the living room.
Ten minutes to midnight.
The energy in the compound shifted instantly, louder, brighter, more chaotic. People cheered, laughed, rushed to refill glasses, gather closer together, ready to welcome the new year as if it meant something different from all the others.
You and Bucky lingered for a few more minutes, still caught in the afterglow of dancing. The music had shifted into something less familiar, less alive, and you wrinkled your nose slightly at it like it had personally offended you.
Without much thought, you grabbed Bucky’s hand again and tugged him toward the kitchen.
He followed without resistance.
Not because you pulled hard, but because he let you.
The kitchen was quieter, though not completely. The muffled sound of the countdown and distant music still reached the walls, but it was softer here. Manageable. Breathable.
Seven minutes.
You reached the counter first, grabbing a glass and filling it with cold water, drinking almost immediately like you had forgotten how long you’d been moving, laughing, existing in the noise.
Bucky stayed by the doorway for a moment, watching you.
Just watching.
When you finally set the glass down and leaned back against the counter, you were facing him now. He had stepped further inside without you noticing, but still kept a bit of space between you, comfortable, familiar.
For a few seconds, neither of you spoke.
It wasn’t awkward.
It never was anymore.
Just quiet.
Then you broke it gently.
“Are you having a good night ?” you asked, voice softer now, like the question belonged in this quieter space.
Bucky tilted his head slightly, as if considering it far more seriously than necessary.
Then, with a lazy shrug and that familiar half-smirk tugging at his mouth, he answered:
“Worst night of my life.”
It came out dry. Teasing. Perfectly timed.
But his eyes gave him away.
Because there was no bite in it. No edge. Only warmth, hidden carefully under the joke, like something too honest to be spoken plainly.
What he meant was something entirely different.
Best night of my life.
But that stayed where it always did, behind his teeth, unspoken, safe.
You rolled your eyes immediately, a smile spreading across your face anyway, effortless and familiar. Like you’d learned how to read him without needing anything more than a tone, a glance, a pause.
“Liar,” you muttered, but there was no real accusation in it.
Only fondness.
Bucky’s smile softened just a little more as he leaned back against the counter, watching you like you were the quietest part of the entire night, and somehow the most important.
Outside the kitchen, the countdown kept building.
But in here, time felt slower. Quieter.
Like it was waiting for something too.
Five minutes.
“You know… I’m glad you ended up here,” you said softly, your voice honest in the way it always was when you weren’t trying to hide anything.
Bucky’s gaze lifted to you immediately, like the words had pulled him out of whatever quiet space he’d been standing in.
“Yeah ?”
“Yeah.” You nodded once, gentle. “You keep me sane.”
Something in his expression softened, so slight it could’ve been missed if someone wasn’t looking for it.
“Well,” he replied after a beat, voice low, almost careful, “I’m glad, too.”
You blinked once, a little surprised by how quickly he answered.
“Yeah ?” you asked again, quieter this time.
“Yeah.” He mirrored you, a faint hint of amusement in his tone. “You keep me out of my head.”
The honesty of it settled between you instantly, simple, unguarded, heavier than either of you treated it.
Your gaze dropped to your glass, suddenly very aware of your own heartbeat, like it had decided to make itself known at the worst possible moment. Your face felt warmer than it should’ve, and you didn’t quite understand why.
So you stayed quiet.
Three minutes.
“Maybe we should go back before the countdown ends,” you murmured eventually, breaking the silence gently.
Bucky nodded without hesitation, pushing off the doorway. “Yeah.”
You walked side by side back into the living room.
The atmosphere had shifted completely. The lights were lower now, replaced by neon glows and scattered reflections bouncing off glasses and windows. Everyone had gathered in the main space, bodies packed closer together, anticipation buzzing through the air like electricity.
One minute.
People were already counting loudly, voices overlapping in messy unison. Some were laughing, some were shouting, some were already turning toward the people they cared about most.
You and Bucky stayed slightly apart from the center, not fully stepping into the crowd. Not quite retreating either. Just… existing on the edge of it together, like you always seemed to do without planning it.
Fifteen seconds.
Someone bumped into you from behind while pushing toward the center. Instinctively, you stumbled forward slightly.
Bucky’s hand was on your back before you even registered the movement.
Steady. Immediate.
Grounding.
And just like that, your breath caught.
Because it wasn’t just contact.
It was him.
Ten seconds.
He felt it too.
You could tell by the way his hand stayed there a second longer than necessary, not pulling away, not adjusting. Just… present. Anchoring you in place like he’d done so many times before without thinking about it.
Five seconds.
Your eyes lifted.
His were already on you.
It wasn’t loud in your head anymore. Not the room. Not the countdown. Just him.
You didn’t need words.
Not now.
Three.
His gaze flickered, just briefly, to your lips.
Then back to your eyes.
Two.
Your breath hitched, subtle but real. Your hand shifted slightly at your side like you were trying to decide what to do with it.
One.
His hand on your back tightened, not pulling you, just holding you closer without force.
“Happy New Year!” the room erupted.
The sound hit all at once, cheers, laughter, shouting, glasses clinking, kissing, the world exploding into celebration.
But you barely heard it.
Because in that exact moment, you leaned in.
Slow enough that it wasn’t taken from you. Confident enough that it wasn’t uncertain.
Bucky met you halfway without hesitation.
His lips were warm against yours, steady, certain, like something that had been waiting far too long to finally happen. There was no rush, no chaos in it. Just everything you had both been saying without words for months finally collapsing into something real.
When you pulled back slightly, it was only enough to breathe.
Your foreheads almost brushed, your eyes still half-lidded, soft with something neither of you bothered naming yet.
“Happy New Year, Buck,” you whispered.
His mouth curved faintly, breath warm against yours.
“Happy New Year.”
And then, like restraint had finally run out completely, Bucky kissed you again.
This time deeper.
Less careful.
His hand slid fully to your waist, pulling you in like he was done pretending there was any space left between you. Your fingers immediately caught in his hair, holding him there just as firmly, like you had been waiting just as long as he had.
The noise of the world didn’t matter anymore.
Not the countdown.
Not the crowd.
Not anything except you and Bucky, finally understanding that your relationship hadn't been even close to friendship for a long time.
contents (nsfw): Benedict Bridgerton x fem!Reader, Benedict's POV, semi-established but secretive relationship, virgin!Reader (but with some experience gained already), talk of marriage, mild voyeurism, aphrodisiac, first time, mirror sex, love confessions.
synopsis: Benedict's relationship with you blooms in the confines of hushed rooms and away from everyone's eyes. When you ask him to take you to Granville’s salon, he's worried it is to broaden your palate and soon learns he's the only one there. Or: a lousy part two to Touched, but can be read as a separate piece.
word count: 5,9K
a/n: Thank you for the love, Bridgerton fandom ❤︎ Banner is by me, dividers by @pixopix and @uzmacchiato!
Thrill. Excitement so sudden and pleasurable it surprises the recipient, even when they have actively sought it out. It shudders a damp neck, licks warmth up the spine, soggs the backs one’s knees and leaves their bellies blissfully knotted. Elation. Exhilaration. Rapture. It’s everything Benedict lives for. It’s everything he looks for, wandering between parties, bottles, and legs until each blade of joy eventually dulls.
Then, a change finds him. One that doesn’t require him to reform anything about himself, because all the traits his mother lists under redeemable are openly and shamelessly admired. From secretive glances, through teasing about your improper extracurriculars, to outright begging your hands for mercy in a library—you become Benedict’s inexhaustible source of everything perfervid.
The only places he gets lost in now are your neck and knuckles and lips. The only thing he longs for is the deathgrip of your thighs on his ears when your body seizes and mouth forsakes cleverness in favour of sounds entirely unholy. The altar of your legs is the one Benedict prays at, as this is where he lays his offerings for the God who lives in the hedges.
He’s a faithful convert. You manage to sate the appetite he carries for things of lovely kind, like kissing, touching, partial undressing. And things of perverted kind in equal measure: your voice when you read out loud. Your fingers on the piano. Getting his collar fixed by your hands when nobody’s the wiser. A brush of thumb on his mouth.
Even though he knows you do not wander off either, it sheens him with cold sweat when you ask, “Will you take me? To Granville’s salon?”
He’s promised. Once, and twice, and more times than he can count after that. A place where freedom is the only law, where nobody asks questions beyond how do you want me? and where horizons stretch so vast the very notion of return goes thin. He knows refusing a kindred spirit would be wrong, and still the worry lingers. That you will see him plain. A lovesick fool already.
“Have I managed to bore you?” Benedict asks. He looks up from his shelter—his head is cradled on your lap. The library is so quiet he can hear the way your lips smack.
“No,” you say. Your fingers brush his cheek. “Never. But I wish to be with you with less… constraint.”
He seizes the hand and kisses your wrist. It would be a relief, he thinks, to stop living on thresholds. You have done everything else. You have made him shake and beg and bite down on silence. You have taught him the shape of your want with your mouth and your hands, and he has repaid it in kind, careful and patient, stopping only at the one thing that would make it final. The thing that would make you his in a way the world understands, and dangerous in a way the world punishes.
His mouth shifts to your palm. A slow lick across it, and then he draws two of your fingers between his lips and sucks. First gentle, then firmer, eyes never leaving your face. Devotion, in plain action. He lets you feel what he can do, what he means to do, and how well he can mind himself while doing it. Then, he releases you and asks, hoarse and honest, “Are you certain?”
You huff and cover his mouth, defiant. “How do you expect me to have a clear mind when this is what you chose to do?” He smiles under the gag. “But yes. I am certain. My mother leaves for the countryside this weekend, and I have already convinced her to let me be and spend time with Eloise. Opportunity like no other.”
“Saturday then,” Benedict says, your hand clasped in his. “You will need a disguise. A mask of some kind. And we’d have to arrive separately.”
“Oh? Would it hurt your carefully preserved reputation to be seen entering with a companion?”
“My darling,” Benedict says. “Of the two of us, I’m the blackguard. It would simply keep you safe from gossip. And—” He takes a strand of your hair between his fingers. “Would make it easier for you to see all the establishment has to offer. Had someone caught your eye, of course.”
His voice stays light, but the hand in your hair gives him away. Benedict tempts fate—offers you freedom he wants for you and fears it in the same breath. Granville’s rooms are full of beautiful people whose sole purpose is to entertain, to be entertained, to make a want feel ordinary by answering it quickly. Someone will look at you there. Someone will try. He knows it. He hears it in his own pulse as soon as he says it, and his fingers tighten on the strand for half a second too long before he loosens them again. Better, he tells himself, to walk you through it with his hand at your back than to have you slip from him in a crush of bodies and candlelight. Better to be the one who sees, who decides, who can pull you away before anything becomes a story other people can tell.
You watch his mouth as he speaks, then his eyes, and the way only you can, forge scrutiny into tenderness. “Benedict,” you say. “I do not seek entertainment with another. I simply wish for a place where I do not have to whisper about how I want your hands on me.”
Benedict lets the relief come and go without giving it a face. He shifts on the chaise, rises only to resettle himself beside you, closer than manners would ever advise. His hands come together on his lap. He looks down at his knees as if they are suddenly of great interest.
“You know,” he says, voice kept painfully even, “there is a remedy society is very fond of prescribing for precisely this sort of… inconvenience.”
Your hand inches on your lap, nearer to where his fingers are laced. “Marriage.”
“Yes.” He swallows. The word tastes odd in his mouth, too large for his body and this quiet. “If we were married, you would not have to whisper about my hands. You could say it plainly and nobody would blink. They would call it dutiful.”
“I… know.” Your voice softens in candour. “But I am surprised you are the first one to mention it.”
A quiet huff of laughter leaves him, more genuine than he means. “Believe me, the rake is as surprised as you are.” His head tilts a fraction towards you, still watching your hands instead of your eyes, as if that is safer. “You must have thought of it, though.”
“I have. But—” You take his palm into a cradle of yours and set it on your lap. Your fingers begin to play with his, turning them, smoothing them, testing the shape of them the way you test words before you write. “Do not let my answer be misleading about my feelings towards you. I enjoy and cherish every moment with you, and I am certain that if our fates were bound together it would be an exquisite life. But if we marry now I will be expected to bear children and be a wife. And I wish to enjoy being a woman first. Does that make sense?”
Benedict’s throat tightens in a way he does not care to examine. He watches the hands. There’s a vow in the simplicity of it and, by rights, it should meet his every desire.
He thinks it does.
“It makes perfect sense,” he says, and it costs him something to say it without bargaining. He manages it anyway.
He turns his face and presses a kiss to your cheek, gentle and unshowy, then leans close enough to put the words where they belong, private. “I would give you anything you want, and nothing you do not want. I shall have a carriage arranged for you on Saturday, and meet you by the entrance.”
“Fantastic,” you say. “And thank you.”
On Saturday, Benedict is nervous. A juvenile, boyish thing takes up residence in his chest when he sits in his carriage and lets his eyes wander through its small window in hopes of spotting you. The city moves past in indifferent pieces: stone, iron, lamps, the wet gleam of a recent drizzle. He keeps smoothing a crease that does not exist on his glove. Keeps checking the distance as if a man can hurry a horse by thinking at it hard enough.
Then he sees you.
A figure stands by the entrance with the posture of someone attempting to look idle and failing. A full-face Venetian mask turns the head into porcelain. The mouth is painted into a calm that does not belong to you. You raise a handkerchief and give him a theatrical little wave, as if you are greeting him from a stage and not a doorstep that could undo you.
Benedict gets out before the footman can decide whether to assist. He crosses the pavement and you turn your back to him as though this is the most natural thing in the world—allowing a gentleman his proper approach.
He comes close and hums into the edge of your ear, low. “Was it hard to sneak out?”
“No,” you say. “Only because my lady’s maid is an exceptionally good egg. She believes in my best traits.”
“Naïve,” Benedict replies, and reaches for your hand. He sets it on his forearm. “Ready for a dive?”
Your answer is an audible haul of breath. It draws his eyes to the line of your throat and the careful stillness of your shoulders. Then you nod. Benedict laughs, quick and helpless, and it is a good sound on him. It makes the whole thing feel possible.
At the door, a man in livery intercepts you with the ease of someone accustomed to discretion. Not a footman. Not quite a servant, either—something between guardian and gate. “Mr Bridgerton,” the man says, and his gaze flicks once, politely, to the masked face beside Benedict. “A courtesy of the house.”
He places two bonbons on Benedict’s open palm. They sit there, glossy and innocent, wrapped in thin paper, too pretty to be trusted.
Benedict lifts his brows, knowing. “And what, precisely, is the courtesy?”
The man’s mouth twitches, as if he has said this a hundred times and still enjoys it. “A sweet,” he answers. “For those who prefer their courage taken by the mouth.”
Benedict feels your attention sharpen at his side. He keeps his face composed. His hand turns slightly so you can see the pair of them properly. Then, he nudges you with his elbow. “Keep?”
You let out a small, scornful sound. “Poppycock.”
Benedict’s smile turns. “If it is, there is no threat, is there?” His eyes dip to your hand on his arm, then back to the mask. “Or are your feet getting cold?”
You go motionless for a beat. Beneath the porcelain, your eyes deliver scrutiny with surgical neatness. “Keep,” you say at last. With a smile Benedict tries his damndest to not turn smug, he closes his fingers over the bonbons, and pockets them.
“Brave girl,” he hums, proud.
To him, walking past the threshold is crossing the border between the world that allows and the world that does not. Here, everything is permitted, and that is precisely the peril. It takes more courage, more forbearance, to be handed choice in both palms and still steer oneself true than it does to live in the safer places where rules are printed in neat little pamphlets and obedience is mistaken for virtue.
The place is what it always is. Warm lamplight that flatters skin; laughter threaded with music; bodies arranged with an ease that would make a ballroom choke. Paintings and half-finished sketches sit alongside silk and spilled drink, as if art and appetite are the same kind of work. Benedict has seen it often enough to be blasé, and yet a new thrill climbs him today, born entirely of you.
Your gaze widens beneath the mask. Little gasps escape you—small, involuntary, betrayed into the air. More than once you stop short, fingers tightening on his sleeve when something catches your eye, and Benedict has to check his own stride so he does not drag you forward like an impatient guide.
He keeps you in the lee of his body as you move, steering you with light pressure at the elbow, watching your eyes more than the rooms whose ajar doors tempt and promise and dare.
The first door shows a wrist dressed in ribbon, the bow tied with the same neatness one reserves for gifts meant to be kept. The knot is firm, pretty, brazenly intentful. The person bound is smiling as if the constraint has unhooked something in them. Someone else bends to the inside of that wrist and kisses the pulse there with slow care, mouth lingering. Your head tilts, curious. Benedict feels his shoulders ease, one careful notch at a time.
Another door, further down, holds three figures in candlelight. One seated, two standing close, the arrangement practiced enough to look effortless. A hand covers the seated one’s mouth because it is wanted there, palm sealing in sound the way silk seals in heat. It turns muffled breath into a private thing, where it’s not fear being stifled, but pleasure being hoarded. You inhale sharply, and Benedict watches the way your gloved fingers curl, then uncurl, as if you are trying not to touch the air.
He murmurs close to you, “We can leave.”
You keep looking ahead, steady. A minute shake of head is your answer.
A third door gives onto a bed and a mirror. The room looks empty at first glance, and yet it is already occupied; the glass catches you both in the corridor light and holds you there, two figures caught before you have even crossed the threshold. Your masked face turns, your hand tightens on his sleeve, and Benedict watches the decision arrive in you with a steadiness that makes his mouth go dry. He understands, all at once, what you are asking for.
“This one?” he asks.
“Yes,” you say. “But with doors closed.”
Benedict nods, and opens the door wider for you to step in.
Then, the clamour of voices and clinking glasses softens to a hum beyond the wood. He watches you step into the middle of the chamber and reach up to untie the ribbons of your mask. It comes away, revealing a face far more beautiful than any painted porcelain. In the candlelight, Benedict catches the glint of your eyes—bright, ferocious—and his own chest tightens, as if it’s him visiting for the first time.
“And what of your poppycock, hm?” you ask, setting the mask on a table.
His mouth quirks. He takes a step closer, enough that your perfume cuts through the wax-and-candle air. “Poppycock has its uses,” he says. “Granville likes a flourish. Those sweets are part of it.” His hand lifts. Hovers near your hair, and waits. “May I?”
At your assent he finds the first pin and draws it free, then another. Your hair loosens in heavy fall, arrangement giving way to something more tameless. He stands there with a breath held and his face composed by force of habit. Leans in to cover it with a mutter of lips against your neck.
“I have taken one before,” he says. “It does not steal a person’s wits. It only makes the body louder. A warmth under the ribs, a quickening. Touch lands harder. Kisses linger. Everything you already want becomes difficult to ignore.” His mouth shifts, just beneath your ear. “It takes little time. A quarter of an hour, give or take. You will know when it begins.”
He draws back enough to look at you, bare-faced, eyes still bright. “We take them only if you wish it. We stop the moment you ask. You may say it plain. You may say it once. I will hear it.” His thumb ghosts your jaw, brief. “And if you decide you would rather keep your poppycock and leave, I shall walk you out as though nothing happened at all.”
You nod once. Stifle a girlish giggle that might as well be the death of him, and begin a slow stroll. Circling him, as if he were the prey here.
Despite all the consent he needs being handed on a silver platter, Benedict still finds it in himself to seek verbal confirmation. “I am asking for the last time—are you certain?”
“Do you ask your courtesans this?”
“I am not in possession of any courtesans,” he huffs, catching your waist, exasperated with the dance. “Regardless, they do not need to guard their virtue. But I feel that I ought to guard yours.”
“Sweet boy,” you coo, ruining him a little with it. An infuriatingly patronising palm is placed on his cheek, and thankfully you have enough mercy to notice his furrowed brow. “I appreciate the sentiment, Benedict, but I’ve already bled on your fingers—I do not think there is much virtue left to salvage. Let us not be fickle and pretend a fabricated concept of feminine virtue can be vanquished only by something as blunt as a cock.” His eyes widen and the cuss and cheeks fill with blood. “You’ve torn my virtue apart with your hands,” you whisper into his mouth. “You ate it and kissed it and I am grateful for it.”
“Your beautiful tongue makes the foulest things sound hallowed,” Benedict says, rapt. He reaches into his pocket, produces the bonbons onto an open palm. “Here,” he says; you take one. The other he poises at your lips, and rattles, “Let us succumb together then.”
“Sante,” you say, pushing the ball of lust past his mouth and opening yours in the same breath.
A sweet, wicked ritual. You both accept the communion from the God of the wild parts of a person. Assent one can hold between their fingers. It leaves your cupid’s bow powdered with sugar, and Benedict licks it off, eager as a boy who’s been promised he’ll be allowed to run and get mud on his knees past the afternoon tea.
He’s about to kiss you. Rip the layers off you, when you put firm hands on his chest, and command him, “Undress.”
“And you?” he asks, grin crooked.
“I will watch. Then—” You ease yourself off him and take the most inconspicuous stroll towards the bed where you sit, politely, and entirely unfit for the scene. “Then you can undress me.”
“Wilful beast,” Benedict murmurs, fond enough that it comes out rough.
He obeys. Coat first, shrugged off and dropped where it lands. Waistcoat next, the buttons a small battle his fingers win too fast. He loosens the cravat and pulls it free, then the shirt, tugged up and over his head. All the while your eyes stay on him with a steadiness that makes him feel watched in a way no room at Granville’s ever managed. When he hooks his thumbs into the waistband and works his breeches down, the heat in him has nowhere to hide; he steps out of them, bare except for stockings, then strips those too, until there is nothing left to perform decency with.
He is shamelessly hard. Feels the weight between his legs as laden and embarrassingly eager when it kicks against his stomach.
That is when your eyes begin to travel. They drag, corporeally, and Benedict feels it like hands. His stomach tightens on instinct. He draws a breath and makes his chest broader, the old, ridiculous vanity rising to the surface. The more he tries to look like a man worth looking at, the wider your smile grows.
“You think it some kind of an assessment?” you ask, amused.
“Is it not?” Benedict says, and crosses to you. He offers his hands, palms up, and helps you to your feet. Positions you facing the mirror and settles behind you.
In the reflection he sees you shake your head. “No,” you say, eyes on the glass. On him, precisely. “Simply admiring my man.”
He hides his face in your hair at that, bashful and coy like he never is. Ahead of him is a task Benedict’s mind insists on making uncomfortably specific. His fingers go first to the small practical knots and hooks at your back that hold a woman together in public. He works them loose one by one. The gown slackens, the fabric giving up its shape with a faint sigh, and when he draws it down from your shoulders he catches the first glimpse of what has been pressed and held all evening: the fine creases in the top of your chemise where the bodice has hugged you. He gathers the gown at your waist and holds it up for you to step free of it, careful not to let it snag. Once you are out, he throws it over the nearest chair in a loose heap and turns back to the mirror.
You stand there, only looking. “That’s more naked than you’ve ever been with me,” Benedict says.
“In a way,” you tell him. “In a way you’ve seen all there is to me already.”
“That I will never believe,” Benedict says, and smooths his hands over your back.
Your face grows stern with each reveal, serious in the mirror, as if this is an examination you mean to pass on your own terms. The bonbon’s warmth begins to show itself too, not in theatrics but in small betrayals: your lids lowering, the line of your throat lengthening as you tip your head back and give him access without asking. Benedict leans in and breathes you in where your neck meets shoulder, and the scent of you hits him harder than it has any right to. Your hand finds his wrist and guides it, firm. The pressure of your fingers says closer, more, here.
He slides his hands to the drawstring of your short stays, finds the tie and loosens it slowly. The stays relax their hold. He’s grateful to Newton for putting a moniker to the force he has to thank: gravity. It agrees with you, and relentlessly. Makes a woman into a marvel he’ll get to weight in his own palm.
“So gorgeous she has every right to be wilful,” he murmurs.
The last thing to unlace is the chemise. It’s but a ribbon to pull on your sternum to make you almost bare. He opens it on your shoulders like one would a fig when nobody’s watching, and notices things he’s never had to name before, because he’s never been allowed to look this long. He realises he wants to be seen by you as much as he wants to see you. That with you there’s tenderness, always, under the filth.
Then, Benedict sinks. As he should, onto his knees. With the descent he takes final garments: your gloves roll down your arms, stockings gather at your ankles until you step out of them too. Thin skin reveals an even thinner one. His mouth is at your thighs, the backs of them, right where he sets his hands to hoist you onto a library ladder when the afternoon is particularly kind to him.
You hum, a long throaty thing that rattles down your spine to his lips. He smiles. Turns you in his arms to face his favourite place. The circle becomes full, when Benedict husks, “Wilful creature,” and drowns himself in the hair at the apex of your thighs. “What is it in that head of yours that you want?”
Your belly rises against his face when you inhale. A hand finds purchase in the roots at his nape and tilts him so that he’s looking the goddess in the eye. “Touch me,” you say, and pull. Guide him up, up, until Benedict stands. Your fingers wrap around his girth, warm and merciless, and only now he realises how cruelly the bonbon is making him sweat.
He watches your pupils, all blown and wild. Lets you slot him between your thighs and tilt your body closer, so your chest flattens on his and your stomachs kiss. He’s surrounded by you, drowning and happy to not receive aid. You put flat palms to his temples, then stretch your fingers to his scalp. “Take me,” you say. “Show me us when we’re one.”
Brain slow, he blinks. “So the poppycock has taken hold, has it?”
“I cannot tell,” you say. Your tongue darts out to taste the sweat on him and make a small claim of it. “I’ve wanted you the same in the morning. And yesterday. And the day before that, and before that—ah!”
A squeal breaks out of you, high and helpless and outright sweet, when his arms close around you and lift you at the immediate, ugly death of Benedict’s patience. He can no longer bear you standing there, all teeth and want and trembling breath; and himself—a fool who’s promised to show you and guide you, while he feels like he’s the one who needs to follow.
He carries you the few steps to the bed and drops with you onto it, clumsy only in his haste. The landing is on his knees. He sits back on heels, legs spread to make room, to make a place for you to be pulled into. You end up seated in his lap, back to his chest, his thighs bracketing yours. One arm bands your waist and holds you there, kept. His other slides up to your neck and sweeps your hair over your shoulder so he can have the line of it and put his mouth where he wants without swallowing loose strands. Into your ear, he rumbles, “You’ll end me and I’ll thank you. I hope you know how to wield such power.”
“And you’re not disgusted,” you say, eyes all fiery glitter, fingers digging into his thighs with claws.
“No,” Benedict says. “Bested. Enthralled.”
Free hand, generous hand, wedges itself between his belly and your back, then lower, finding where you leak as though your body has decided the matter without you. He drags a slow, testing touch through the testimony of it and has to bite down on a gasp. Searing heat, the amount of you, the blunt urge. “Mad and ruined by you,” he breathes, venturing past another threshold.
Wet one. Hot one. It resists delicately and welcomes ardently. Your mouth gets torn by a salacious sound, head tips back onto his shoulder, and he gathers all the vigilance his mother tells him he possesses none of to still and whisper, “No. Watch.”
The chuckle you give he feels in his chest. “Look at you,” you say. “Commanding me.” Audacious in mouth as you are, you still snap your face back to where he wants it.
And good. Because there, reflected in silver, you can see. Him, for what he truly is: a beggar, pleading and ready to please, to be loved, to be taken and kept and slain if you so chose.
“No,” Benedict says. “I beseech you.”
Eyes meet in the mirror. The coil inside him grows close to snapping. Your hand reaches back to cup his cheek; a gesture so gentle it makes him feel new to his own skin. You smile at him with a softness that breaks and rebuilds.
“Benedict,” you say.
Your gaze drops in the glass, precisely to where he strains, and returns to his face with that same stern steadiness you wore through every layer he loosened. Your thumb strokes along his cheekbone.
“Have me,” you say, quiet as a blade. “I will witness every moment. Take me as your own. Properly, this time.”
“My darling,” he whispers, shattered. “Take me in kind.”
He watches your face, utterly spellbound, and empties you for just a breath. With a hand slickened and poised at his root, Benedict enters where only his fingers and tongue have been before. The very heart of you, narrow and throbbing like that of a rabbit. He pushes, preposterous enough to believe the gentleness is for you, whilst it is partly for him to not snap on the spot.
And you’re as ferocious there as everywhere else. You tease him, squeeze him, claim him for yourself. One second he thinks you might banish him, the next you’re pulling him deeper.
In the mirror your features bleed through expressions: focus first, then furrowed brow, then mouth a round moue and eyes rolled back before you remember to look. You take all of him, greedy and bold, breathe deeply and set your hand to your belly where he’s under the skin.
“There you are,” you say. “You feel—”
“Good, hopefully?” he offers, kissing your shoulder.
“Right,” you tell him. “You feel right.”
“It is you who feels right,” Benedict says. The tedium of stillness grows in his spine and spurs his hips to move. He rolls them once to see how you take it. “You make me feel right,” he says, holding you by the waist while his thighs do the honest work of emptying and filling you again.
To that, your body answers with tightening. Your palms find his forearm and grip. After a few thrusts you find it in yourself to bolden and offer your own rhythm: slow and heavy, with your buttocks pressing into his lower abdomen and thighs widening on his so he’s angled exactly how you want him. He witnesses you become a thing he doesn’t deserve and still dares to want. In the mirror he sees exactly what a boy you make out of him. A ruined boy.
“Yes,” you breathe. “Oh God, yes—”
It makes him lose himself with a grace so vulnerable it feels indecent in a room like this. He lets you use him. Lets you take what you want and set the tempo, and the shock of it is how little he resists. How quickly he grows back into a man built to be handled.
The reflection gives him the most unforgiving kindness he has ever been granted. It lays the truth before him of what it is to meet someone who hears ‘rake’ and does not recoil. Who sees past the slur and expects everything but a pretty nuisance or a moral lesson. Who has enough curiosity in them to unpeel the outer layer and rejoices at what’s found underneath: appetite, yes, and the restless need for it, but also a person who has been starving for someone to say, I like this. I like you.
The result should have been freedom. Instead it turns into a craving for its opposite. Benedict wants to be bound, suddenly and fiercely, by a thing he did not expect to want from anyone. To live right here, with you, in you, and find solace in a mind that clocked him, a body that speaks the same language, a heart that opens without asking him to become smaller.
“You beautiful, wicked thing, I—” he stammers. The pleasure climbs him like fever. His breath turns ragged around his teeth upon the rising heat. He tightens his hold on your stomach, restraint battling instinct, and he forces himself to slow. His free hand moves, deft despite the tremor, and finds your centre.
Your answer comes at once. “Good God—” you breathe. “Benedict—Lord—I—”
“Just like that,” he mutters. Times the circles he draws with his fingers with the stutter of your hips, until they set as a heavy dead weight on him. They grind ineptly, muscles rebelling, and he gets to experience you in all dimensions. In front of him, where you quake and coil and fall apart on the glass surface. Against him, where your shoulderblades sharpen on his chest. Around him, and that’s the hardest of tests: tightness, inexorable. Sucking the very soul out of him.
His name loses shape when you spit it. There, he gives himself a final moment of bliss inside you, before reason sinks its claws in his back and draws him out. The tension breaks, pouring out of him in egg white and it lands on your apple-shaped loins, while he mutters, “Yes, yes, take me, take me—”
“Benedict,” you murmur.
Spent, slicked, he gathers you at once and wipes the drops jewelling your lashes. Places his thumbs on your eyelids and soaks the moisture up with his skin.
“Speak to me,” he says. “Anything at all. Are you well?”
Laughter bubbles out of you alongside the fresh downpour of tears. “I have surpassed ‘well’,” you tell him. “There is no word for how I feel, but it is nothing ill.”
“At a loss for words?” he says, soft. He brushes your lips, and adds, “This mouth? How very unbecoming.”
“Tell a soul and I will ruin you,” you say, grinning through hiccups.
You have, Benedict thinks.
He falls with you in his arms onto the plush maw of the mattress. Reaches to the bedside basin for a damp cloth and gently wipes what’s wasted on your back. “There,” he says. “Unscathed.”
You turn solemn. Say nothing. Your hands come up to his face and map him with your fingertips—brow, cheekbone, the corner of his mouth, as if you are keeping him in a way ink could never manage. He closes his eyes and drinks the small, stunned peace of it.
When he opens them again, it hits him, hard and plain.
“What if—” The most transgressive thought takes a seat on Benedict’s tongue. What if his search is concluded even before he’s put his mind into the pursuit? What if the contentment he feels underneath the euphoria is a way to live? What if, when he binds himself to one that has no intention in taming him, it is not gaol, but amnesty?
“What if I were yours, truly? Would you want me?” Benedict asks.
“Oh, Benedict,” you sigh, and wrap yourself around him. “You are mine. Do not ever let my lack of haste to marry and reluctance to produce offspring just yet, mislead you into thinking you are not spoken for.” You take his face between your palms and the seriousness of it turns his marrow cold with shame for ever doubting. “I am not giving you to anyone. Nor am I giving myself to anyone but you.”
His smile has nowhere to go between your hands, and still it tries. “Does this mean—?”
“I love you.” you tell him. “As plain as I can say it.”
Benedict knows it in the only places that matter: in his heart of hearts, in the pit of his stomach, in the tips of his fingers. It is no poppycock, no sweet-induced madness, no fevered invention of the moment. He has felt the same thing in the clear cruelty of morning light. Yesterday. The day before that, and before that, and before that, until it has become as constant as breath and twice as necessary.
“Thank God,” Benedict says. “Because I feared I had been loving you all on my lonesome.”
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