why do i feel like adrian would shamelessly tackle you right after showers bc you smell good and he will not let go for a good hour or more idk i feel like he has very specific bouts of clingy affection and if u try to squirm away hes like baaabe dont be like that gimme hugs :( until you give in and hes like a cat nuzzling you and giving u kisses like hes one step away from purring and kneading biscuits on you cuz hes so happy to just Be with you and touch you. anyway im sane and normal
ADRIAN CHASE & beating up white suprema— wait… hold up. hold UP. oh my god. oh my fuckign god are we seeing this. his ARMS?? his arms. god help me, his arms 😳🥵
since adrian is obsessed with friendship and the whole bff thing i was thinking what if his partner picks up one of those cute bff necklaces that are very obviously meant for children? they like “hey, you wanna wear bff necklaces?” i can imagine him lighting up and they’re CONSTANTLY wearing them. he even wears it under his vig stuff. how would the 11th street kids react as well? also would it be possible to get little situations involving the necklace? i need to get this out of my head but i’m picturing them grabbing his and pulling him down to kiss him. obvi you don’t have to do any of this i just thought it was cute 😭
best friends forever
pairing: adrian chase x reader (gn pronouns)
rating: gen+
word count: 2,228
one-sentence synopsis: you're not expecting adrian to have this strong of a reaction to a simple gift, but the response he ends up having is nothing short of life-changing.
author's note: i wrote and uploaded this entirely on my phone before breakfast on this lovely saturday morning so please excuse any madnesses
read on ao3!
You didn't think it was going to be a thing.
You at least thought it would be a thing— that Adrian would think you're thoughtful, and he'd wear it a couple of times because he's loving and silly, but he'd ultimately end up forgetting about it. You'd just seen the matching BFF necklaces up near the counter when checking out with your groceries, and you'd thought, I bet Adrian would like that, and so you'd gotten them.
The matching necklaces sparkle with rainbow glitter, each of the necklace half of a heart that says BFF through the center. Though the word is visible in its entirety when you put the halves together, it's easy enough to guess what they are when separated. They're not the prettiest; they're gaudy, and cheap, and tiny, and you didn't really expect it to be a Thing, but—
—But when you get home and say, "Hey, Adrian, I got you a present!" and he came bounding out to find the two necklaces in your hands, he'd frozen completely, which was— unexpected, to say the least.
It's an entirely unanticipated response, and you stop now, too, confused.
"You got me a present?" he asks, with a strange inflection, like you'd somehow mean the other Adrian sharing this apartment with you.
"Yeah," you tell him. You tear the tag holding the necklaces together, then turn the charms so he can see the heart they form together, BFF sparkling inside. "See? They're BFF necklaces. One of the best friends wears one half, and the other wears the other."
You offer him one of the halves, the chain dangling from your fingers. He takes it like it's going to detonate somehow, his eyes all wide and focused down on it, his face pink. You're impossibly endeared by his reaction.
"You're my best friend?" Adrian asks, holding his half of the heart in the center of his palm.
"I mean, I was hoping so," you tell him. "Unless you want to give the other half to Ch—"
"No!" he hurries to say. "No, I don't— I want—" His fingers curl up tight around the necklace. "No, I— Thank you."
He's not often at a loss for words, so you take it as a good sign that he liked his gift. It might be a little silly, and his reaction a little strange, but he does seem excited about it overall. He holds it out delightedly, asks, "Will you put it on for me?"
You grin and say, "Yeah, of course." He spins, and you reach to bring the necklace around his throat, clasping it together against the back knob of his spine. You adjust the necklace; he tugs it forward so he can look at it, held securely in his palm, locked around his neck, pressed over his heart.
He examines it for a beat longer, face pink, before he looks up and says, "Let me help you put yours on! Since we're best friends."
You laugh, and he smiles, but he does seem like he actually means it, that he's not joking. You hand him the necklace, and he turns you, bringing it up so he can fix yours on your own neck. When the charm settles in place over your sternum, you place your hand over it for a moment.
"You sure we can be best friends?" Adrian asks. It's like he's pushing you, testing your cracks, seeing if there's any way you might not mean this. You wonder how many times Adrian has thought he had a best friend that he didn't have before, his strong emotions unreciprocated by people who don't understand him.
You do, though. You tell him, "Of course we can."
"Even though we're together?" Adrian asks hopefully, skeptic.
"I think that's even part of it," you tell him. "We wouldn't want to be together if we didn't get along, right?"
Adrian considers this, then asks, "So… You're my partner, and my best friend?"
"Yeah," you tell him, a thrill running through you. "If that's okay."
"Okay?" Adrian repeats incredulously. "I— Fucking yeah! Oh, my God, fuck yeah, you're, like, the coolest friend I've ever had."
"Poor Chris," you say, teasing.
Adrian looks surprised for a moment before he tells you in a rush, "You cannot tell Chris, okay? He thinks we're best friends and I don't want to bum him out."
"You could always get him a necklace, too," you point out. Adrian seems downright offended by that. "What? I just meant, if you wanted—"
"No, this is our thing," Adrian insists. He steps in close to you, lifting your necklace charm and his between his fingers so they pull together into one heart. "BFFs, see? It says right here." He examines the heart, then says, "Chris would think this is dumb, anyway."
You frown slightly. "Oh. I—"
"Not that this is dumb!" Adrian hurries to say. "Oh, no, I mean— Chris thinks lots of really awesome stuff is dumb because he's afraid of what people might think about him, you know. But I don't think this is dumb, I'm just saying Chris doesn't appreciate it! Wouldn't, he wouldn't, but— But I do, I really do, I— I didn't mean it, please, please don't take it back."
"What?" you ask, bewildered. "I'm not going to take it back, babe, it's a gift. It's yours now." You smile, adding, "And don't worry about it, you dingbat. I know what you mean."
Adrian flushes all over, at that. When he ducks in to kiss you, his necklace clacks into yours, and he grins so wide he can't even manage to kiss you properly.
From then on, the necklace isn't just a Thing, but A Thing. Adrian never takes it off, ever. He has it on with his work uniform, pulled proudly forward to rest over the top, uncaring of who sees and what they think. He has it on with his street clothes, gaudy rainbow glitter sparkling against warm sweaters and soft t-shirts. He has it on under his Vigilante armor, pressed tightly to the hollow beneath his throat, a protective talisman. He has it on when he has nothing else on at all, his necklace swinging down between you when he fucks you into the mattress.
He always has it on, always. Every time you see it, you can't help the little zip that goes through you, a smiling thrill when you remember you have the matching half. He's wearing it because of how much he cares about you; he never stops wearing it because he never wants to stop being your best friend. Neither of you can stomach the thought of losing the other, not even as friends. Adrian is a man who cares so deeply about his relationships with others, who gives so openly and freely, that you're not surprised by how obviously delighted he is by your expression of friendship and love. In fact, you probably should've expected this, but Adrian really is a wild card.
It takes a little while for the rest of the 11th Street Kids to realize he has it at all. He's got his clothes on more often than not, and the necklace tends to slip beneath his clothes just by virtue of its placement. On the few occasions the chain will break, Adrian gets pissed off until he finds a replacement, twitchy and agitated without his necklace, but nobody seems to put the pieces together as to why.
When one of them does finally notice, you're not surprised that it's John who says something. You'd partially expected Emilia, since you think she noticed a while ago, but she has slightly more tact— or she just didn't see any purpose in bringing it up.
"What's with the stupid necklace, man?" John finally asks. "It looks like something a 13-year-old girl would wear."
"People are always so shitty about 13-year-old girls," Adrian says, continuing to clean his knife without pausing or lifting his head. "But if they're open enough about their feelings to wear best friend necklaces, then, fuck yeah, this is something a 13-year-old girl would wear, you dick."
You snort a laugh, then look down quickly when John glares in your direction.
"I actually agree with him on this one," Leota says from the front seat.
"Thanks," Adrian says, resheathing his blade. "You're my fourth best friend now, Adebayo."
"Where's your brother on that list?" Chris asks, and Adrian whistles, dropping his hand all the way to the floor of the van.
"Ninth circle of Hell," he says. He snaps out another knife and starts cleaning blood off of this one, too. "Down in the pit with Sloth."
That starts a new thread, the topic of conversation shifting away from Adrian's necklace. When you look up, though, you see Emilia already looking at you, her eyes unexpectedly connecting with yours.
She motions to her own throat, and your hand lifts automatically to yours, your hand going up over your own charm under your clothes. A smile flickers across the corners of her lips before she returns her attention to cleaning her gun. She doesn't say anything, but she's— knowing.
Adrian never takes his necklace off, so you don't, either. It's a constant reminder of him, of the two of you. You like to feel it and remember your connection with him. When you're together, when you're apart, it doesn't matter; you're stupid in love with him. You're happy to have him close to your heart, even when he's not.
When you're captured on a mission and everything is removed from you, you don't think you'll ever see the necklace again. Adrian is the one who saves you, and, at first, he's only focused on getting you out of there. When he sees you don't have the necklace anymore, though, he tears apart the facility you're being kept in until he finds it and can lock it around your throat again.
When Adrian is injured and he gets his armor torn off of him by a doctor, examining the wounds underneath, Adrian slaps away their hands from his necklace. He groggily tells them, "That's mine," and gets more and more upset until you step in and take the necklace yourself, promising you'd wear it with your own and give it back when it was allowed again. It was only then that he'd settled down enough to be treated, you waiting by his side the entire time, clutching your necklace with his.
When you're out with the rest of the 11th Street Kids and Chris finally notices that you have the matching half of Adrian's necklace, he's— You hesitate to say flustered, but he so obviously is. He ends up stepping aside, saying to Adrian, "But I thought I was your best friend," to which Adrian replies, "You've got Eagly, dude. Let me have this." You laugh, and Adrian bounds back to your side, winding your hands together again.
When you're both taken prisoner, and your captors realize you have matching necklaces, you wonder if this is going to be it. They can tell there's an obvious link between the two of you, even without the way Adrian loses his fucking mind any time they threaten you instead of him. They tear the necklaces off of both of your necks, toss them into the corner, and Adrian screams himself hoarse telling them all the things he's going to do to them. When he eventually rips free of his bindings while they're torturing you, he makes good on his promises before returning your necklace to you and his to himself, carrying you out of there without hesitation.
When you wake up one day and realize your necklace isn't on, you immediately start to panic. You fumble in the sheets, desperate to find it, but it's nowhere to be found. You're halfway through tearing apart your nightstand when Adrian finally comes in and asks, "What the fuck are you doing?" and you have to tearfully admit that you lost your necklace, but you swear you went to bed with it on—
Which is when Adrian sheepishly pulls the necklace from his own pocket and says, "Sorry, I just needed it for a minute," before turning it back over to you. Your brow is furrowed, bewildered by what he might have needed, but that confusion evaporates completely when you actually look down at it and realize he's strung a ring through it, too. Your heart races, fingers closing around the charm and the ring together as your eyes snap up to meet Adrian's. His face is all pink, but he's grinning wide enough that you start to smile instinctively in return.
When you reach out and pull him in by his necklace, Adrian goes easily, stepping right into your space and allowing you to reel him down. You use the leverage of your grip on his necklace charm to tug him in for a deep kiss. He reaches out blindly, takes the necklace from your hand.
When you separate, he asks, "Best friends forever?" in such a hopeful tone, his face all lit up, that you can't help nodding right away.
When you say, "Yeah," and let him clasp the necklace on you again, "Best friends forever," he pulls you back in again, your necklace clacking against his between your chests to form the full heart once again.
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