bring a chain of love
pairing: adrian chase (vigilante) x reader (gn pronouns)
rating: T
word count: 4,530
one-sentence synopsis: you find out that you're pregnant and you have to tell adrian, but you're not sure how he'll react; luckily, his response leaves you with no doubt as to his true feelings.
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You're trying not to panic, but the feeling in the back of your throat and clawing inside your chest and scrambling up your spine is, if not panic, something far, far too horrifyingly close to it for your comfort.
The notification on your phone from your doctor's office had come through while you were at work. Even though it took up most of your mental space, you'd resisted the urge to tap through and see your test results right away. You knew that, either way, you'd have a reaction, and you'd rather not have it happen at work. Regardless of the outcome, you're expecting to probably be a mess for one reason or other.
You'd been practically buzzing the entire way home. You were almost grateful to find your place empty when you got there, to tell the truth. Adrian—
You couldn't predict how he'd respond, really. He’s a wild card at the best of times.
It has been a few weeks now since your first suspicions arose. You’ve been with Adrian for nearly two years now, and things have been going really well. At least, you think they’ve been going really well. Adrian seems like he thinks the same thing, too, even if you’re often afraid to ask. You don’t want to rock the boat; you’re often not the best at communicating, though you’d like to improve. Especially with those who matter most to you. With Adrian, it's different; you want to communicate, and you're trying to push yourself to be better at it, even if you still have a long road to being completely open with your feelings.
If Adrian didn’t like you, anyways, he probably never would have told you about his alter ego as Vigilante. If he didn’t like you, he never would have moved in with you. If he didn’t like you, he never would have spent so much time telling you just how much he likes you— and, more frequently lately, how much he loves you— with his classic lack of filter. He’s so frank, so blunt, so honest, that you really can’t be left wondering what he’s thinking.
You can wonder, though, if he wants this, now. If he'll want what you’re going to drop on him. It's a change— it's a huge change— and Adrian doesn’t always take well to change when he’s not the one in control of making it happen.
A hysterical laugh almost comes out of you before you swallow it at the last second, dropping your face into your hands. He’s kind of in control of making this happen, you realize, even if he didn’t know it yet.
When you’d first grown suspicious that you might be pregnant, you had initially completely ignored the signs. It was only when you’d barely been able to keep anything down and your body started to change that you weren’t able to hide how you were feeling anymore. When you finally got caught getting sick once again, Adrian had been so concerned that you told him it was probably just a flu and that you’d get medicine from the store.
Instead, when you'd gone down to the pharmacy as promised, you’d gotten a pregnancy test. Just to see.
In the bathroom at the pharmacy, you take the first pregnancy test. You only have to wait a few minutes before you get the results back: positive.
For a few minutes, you’d just sat there in the single-person bathroom, staring down at the positive result on the test. Then, you’d gotten up and half-jogged back into the pharmacy to buy four more, each of which you took in succession, one right after the other. Each one gives you the same result: positive, positive, positive, positive.
In your mind, you’d told yourself that you were going to go home and tell Adrian right away. Then, though, you’d actually gotten home, and Adrian had told you all about how horrible his battle at Chris’ side had been that day, and the way he’d looked at you then—
You couldn’t tell him. Not without being sure, you told yourself. Absolutely certain. If he responds badly, you reason without reason, then you don't want it to be over nothing. It’d been then that you’d scheduled an exam with your actual doctor to take a test with them— a real one, an official medical test of your blood and urine and anything else they wanted to take from you, just to be sure you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. You were sure your doctor would tell you that you were being a total fool, that your symptoms were indicative of something else, something obvious, something that you just hadn’t thought of yet.
They told you you'd have the results in 48 hours, and you did. You've got them.
Now, you're hanging up your coat, peeling off your shoes, doing everything you can to procrastinate checking your phone. Until you check, it's still Schrodinger's cat. Nothing is official, or permanent, or changing, you think. You can live in blissful ignorance, as far as you're concerned.
Finally, you know that you can't put it off anymore. With a sigh, you sit yourself down on the sofa in your living room. Adrian is still out; he's not supposed to be back until dinner. You fish your phone back out of your pocket, palms slick with anxious sweat.
You tap into the notification you got in your medical app. The test results are at the top of the page, and you can feel your heart hammering against your chest as you reach, hesitate, and then finally close the distance to tap and open the results. Your mouth is dry, flicking down until you find the body of the message.
Right away, you find the word 'positive.' You know what that means, even though you go back and force yourself to read the entire thing. It's all very matter-of-fact, explaining the different elevated levels of chemicals in your body, telling you what you've known this whole time. At the end, there's a request for you to schedule a follow-up appointment. You did it absently, going through the motions, following the prompts like a zombie. Your actions are mindless as your mind basically becomes roaring white noise.
You make your appointment, then set your phone aside screen-down on the sofa. You need a minute to yourself, just to— Just to try and think. After a moment, you exhale, leaning backwards into the cushions.
According to the test results, you're almost halfway through your fourth month of pregnancy— So, thanks to your hesitancy in finding out the truth, you're halfway through the entire pregnancy itself, pretty much.
Halfway through, and you're only just now doing anything about this. Halfway through, and you haven't told Adrian anything— He has no idea that he's going to be a father in less than five months.
Halfway through, and, you realize, you're already showing. You've been trying to ignore it, trying to pretend it isn't happening, but you can't anymore. You have to acknowledge that this is happening, because if you don't— you're realizing, with the force of a sledgehammer to the back of the head— then this will come either way, whether you stop ignoring it or not.
'This.' This being your child with Adrian. Someone that's half you and half him. Someone who will make you smile and who you'll make smile. Someone you and Adrian would teach about the world together. Your baby.
As soon as you think the word 'baby,' you start coming back into your own body. It's like your mind is compartmentalizing everything so you can still keep moving forward with this incredibly life-altering change you've just learned about.
You reach down and tug your shirt up, just so you can see what you already know is there. Sure enough, you find the baby bump you've been pretending was nothing more than minor weight gain. Now, it's cast in a whole new light as you're coming to terms with this and accepting what's happening.
It's while you're staring down, hesitantly touching the very tips of your fingers to the skin of your belly in a feather-light touch, that you hear a key jangling in the front door lock. Your head snaps up, shock washing through you in a cold wave that has your heart pounding all over again. It's still a while before Adrian is supposed to be h—
Flipping your phone over, you bite back a curse. More time passed than you realized while you were procrastinating reading your results, then processing them internally. He's still a little early, but it's not outrageous for him to be home now. And you're still on the sofa, your bag by your feet, the sun long since having gone down.
Before you can do much of anything except jerk forward and tug your shirt down, Adrian's pushing his way inside. He's already talking before he's all the way through the door.
"Hi, honey, I'm home!" he calls, just like he does every time he comes back home. "You won't believe what happened today. I went on a jet! I went to another country! I even got you this fucked-up bracelet I found, wait until you see it, it's so fucking u— Wait," he says, finally drawing to an abrupt stop. He kicks the door shut behind himself, twisting his head to spot you on the sofa. "What's wrong? Why are you sitting in the dark, why are you being quiet? It's weird. Why are you being weird?"
You huff a laugh, dropping your head into your hands. "Sorry. I've had a weird day."
"No, don't be sorry." He takes a step, then stops; you can hear the floorboards creak. "Is it— Do you mind if I turn on a light? Would that be okay? Unless it's, like, a sens—"
"No, I just didn't realize," you answer. "Go ahead, you can turn it on."
There's a couple of softer creaks before a light snaps on. You finally lift your head, running your fingers back through your hair when you lift your eyes to meet his in the new golden glow filling your home.
The first thing you think is that he's so impossibly handsome. In a moment, you feel yourself start to relax just for seeing him. It's like everything is okay, when he's here. When it's just the two of you, you know nothing could ever go wrong. The two of you work to communicate so well, so openly, so honestly, that your heart aches just for having a secret that you know and he doesn't, even if there's no helping it, right now. All you can do is— tell him. It's the only way to balance back out.
He must have been wearing his helmet recently, because his hair looks like it's been crushed and dampened before drying and springing back to life again. Even as you're watching him, he shoves his glasses into place on his face and drops his bag of gear by the door. The overall combined effect of disheveled-handsome-man-who-cares-about-you overwhelms you, and you look down again.
"Hey," he says, when you don't speak again in the light. With the front door shut and locked several times over behind himself, he comes to you, crouching down in front of you. "Hey, what's up? You looked super freaked out. Are you not feeling good? You want me to make you dinner? Or help you shower?" He presses the back of his hand to your forehead, then says, "I don't actually know how warm someone with a fever would feel. Do you feel warm? You should lay down, probably."
"No, I'm okay," you tell him. "I'm sorry I didn't make dinner. I lost track of time."
"Yeah?" he asks. He sweeps your hair to the side, tilting his head slightly as he examines you. He has a cutting way of looking through you, as if he can read your mind through your eyes. "That's okay. Don't be sorry. I should've gotten dinner. It's rude of me not to, honestly, I'm not the only one who worked all day." He leans up and in, knocks your foreheads together. "Wanna tell me what's up w—"
"I'm—" you start to confess, then stop, biting it back in a burst of terror. Your embarrassment and fear surge through you, unsure of how he's going to respond. You laugh humorlessly, staring down at your hands again. The embarrassment gets worse when your voice breaks as you say, "Fuck."
"Hey," he says. His voice is softer this time. "Hey, hey, hey, buddy. What's going on? Hey, please don't cry— Well, if you need to cry, you can, but I don't want you to have to need to if you don't have to— If I can fix it, I mean, I will— You're not— Are you okay?" His voice softens slightly more as he asks, "Babe?"
"I'm so sorry," you tell him tearfully. "I don't know what's— Well, I do know what's wrong with me. No, not wrong, just— Ugh. I'm sorry. I don't know how to tell you this."
"Hey," Adrian says. He kneels in front of you, gets his balance so he can cup your face in his hands. He kisses you on your forehead, your cheeks, your chin, your nose. "Hey, babe, I've got you. No matter what it is, just— You know, yoink," and he mimes tearing a bandaid off his arm. "Just gotta tell me. I'll help you with whatever it is. Tell me who I have to kill, I'll do it. Name them. Is it Chris? Because it would be hard, but if you asked—"
"Oh, f— No," you cut him off. "It's nothing like that. I just— I don't want you to be upset. And I don't—"
Your voice breaks again, and you feel absolutely ridiculous. You haven't yet talked about having kids except in a vague sense, and— it's terrifying you. You know logically that Adrian likely won't just get up and walk out and never see you again when you tell him, but you're not thinking rationally at all right now. You're just too worked up, and even more frustrated with yourself for it.
"I don't want you to leave," you confess tearfully.
"Oh, fuck, no," he tells you quickly. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. No! I swear, nothing you could ever, ever, ever do or say would— No!"
Adrian climbs up beside you on the sofa. He smells warm, and he wraps his arms tight around you until you do the same in return, burying your face in his shoulder. His hands stroke up and down the planes of your back, trying to calm you down and succeeding.
"I've got you," he says. "I'm here. You can tell me, whatever it is. I'll fix it. I'll move us to a deserted island where you can— I don't know, be a werewolf or go mad or do whatever it is you're going to tell me about— before I would ever, ever leave you. I promise. If I ever leave, I was replaced by a robot. That's not me. Babe, I swear."
You laugh, separating yourself from him, wiping away the wetness under your eyes with the backs of your wrists.
“Please don’t be upset with me,” you tell him.
“I promise, I won’t be,” he assures you. “Whatever it is. Hit me with it. What is it?”
He’s intense, focused entirely on you, trying to puzzle apart what could possibly be wrong. He likes to pride himself on understanding you and knowing you better than anybody else; it’s throwing him off that he’s struggling to do so right now. You feel bad for worrying him, even if it was just incidental.
“I’m—” you start again, then stop. Taking a deep breath to settle your racing heart, you make yourself meet his eyes to tell him directly, “I’m pregnant.”
For a long minute, he just stares at you. Your heart, rather than slowing, starts pounding faster and faster, harder and harder. You want to prompt him into speaking, but you’re too nervous about his lack of response thus far to do anything except wait, your anxiety ramping up with each moment that passes.
It takes a while before the distant look in his eyes goes away. It’s like he focuses on you again, coming back from wherever he was and whatever he was thinking— if he was thinking anything at all; you remember all too clearly the white noise that rushed through your brain when you found it— to zero in directly on you.
In that beat, he just stares at you, your eyes connecting with his. Then, his whole face breaks open, his expression bursting into a delighted smile as he laughs and surges up to you, sweeping his arms under yours so he can tug you to your feet.
“Holy shit!” he exclaims. He’s laughing when he hauls you in close, and you can’t help the tearful, shocked laugh that comes out of you in response. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy— Oh, holy shit, no, you are not. You are not! You are? This isn’t a joke, right? Please, that’s not funny, I really— It’s not a joke?”
“No,” you tell him, face buried in his shoulder. Your voice breaks again when you tell him, “Not a joke. Very real. Very, very real.”
His arms are tight around you, but they loosen slightly hearing your voice. He pulls back enough to evaluate your face, studying your expression to try and decipher what it is that you’re feeling. Concerned, he asks, “What’re you— How’re you feeling? I’m— I should’ve asked. What are you thinking? How do you feel about th— About it? About this?”
You reach up to swipe your hands under your eyes, but Adrian stops you, catches your wrists so he can do it for you. When he dries your tears, you can feel your eyes burning all over again, more ready to spill over.
“I’m really overwhelmed,” you tell him. He’s nodding already as you continue, “But I want them. I want to have— I want this. With you. I just— I was so scared, I didn’t—”
You get choked off by your own breaths again, your throat catching. You shake your head, looking down, but Adrian catches your face and tilts it back up.
“Hey,” he says, brow furrowing. “What’re you scared of? Wh—”
He cuts himself off abruptly, realization washing over his face. You can see the horror obvious there, the distress that creases his handsome face.
“You said you don’t want me to leave,” Adrian remembers. “You thought I would leave. You thought— You thought I would be upset with you? That I’d be mad enough to— to leave you? Over— I— Wh—” He’s so bewildered, so upset by the thought of you feeling and thinking this way, that he’s beside himself, unable to form the right words. You’re embarrassed, and you can feel shame heating your face.
“I’m sorry,” you tell him. “I’m just not thinking straight, I’m so—”
“Oh, God, fuck, no,” he hurries to tell you. “I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at me, oh, fuck— I’m so sorry. I would never, ever— Over this? This is everything I’ve ever wanted, I never thought—” He stops, then says to you, as serious as he gets, “I never thought I’d have anyone. I always felt like other people kept trying to sideline me, but not you. You’re my everything and you— you make me feel like I’m yours, too. The idea that you thought I wouldn’t want this— or that I’d leave you at all, no matter what happened— I just— I would never,” he’s desperate to assure you. “I want you to know that. I would never.”
You’re overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of this confession. He’s so open, so genuine, so honest, you can’t doubt what he’s saying. You know it’s his complete truth; you know he wouldn’t say it otherwise.
“I love you,” you tell him. “I’m sorry. I’m just so— It’s so much.”
“I know,” he says. He pulls you back into his arms, kisses the side of your head. You can feel him burying his face in your hair. “I know it is. But I love you, too. So, so much. It’s actually kind of sick and disgusting how much I love you. I’d do fucked-up stuff if you asked. To you and to other people. Not the same stuff, though.”
“I hope not,” you murmur, twisting to hide your face more fully in his chest. He tightens his grip around you, embracing you hard.
For a moment, the two of you are quiet, just enjoying the silence together. Of course, silence never lasts very long around either of you, and especially not Adrian. It’s only a few seconds later that he’s asking, “So, when did you find out? How did you find out? You’ve got to tell me everything, I have to know. What is it? Do you know what it is?”
“Hopefully a human,” you say, and he jostles you a bit, jokingly, before stopping in a sudden rush and pulling backwards.
“Oh, fuck, I’m so sorry,” he hurries to say. “I’m not supposed to shake you, right? They can get shaken up?”
“You’re fine,” you tell him. He kisses you again.
“Can’t be too careful,” he says. “You’re both my favorites, I can’t fuck anything up. No, answer me, though, what do you know? I know you know something—”
“I don’t know much,” you tell him. At his incredulous look, you insist, “I don’t! I really don’t. All I know is that I’m about eighteen weeks along—”
“Eighteen weeks? That’s—” Adrian does fast math, then frowns and seems to do it over again. “That’s almost— That’s almost five months! That’s so long! That’s not— Oh, fuck, we don’t have a crib!”
“They don’t need one right now,” you remind him. “They’re not even here.”
“They will be,” he points out. “And they’ll be ours, nobody else will take care of them. That’s our responsibility. Oh, shit.” He seems to process for a moment, thinking, then he says, “Should I get a normal job? Like, should I be an accountant?”
“You have two jobs already,” you say. “And I have one. I think we’re good.” You reach out, reach up, wrapping your hands around his shoulders, stroking down to his upper arms. You hope it feels as soothing when you do it to him as when he does it to you. “You’re getting ahead of yourself. We only just found out, let’s just— Let’s just take a minute to be excited before we fully freak out. I’m sure I’ll be freaking out for the next, like—” You’re about to say two hours, then mentally amend to five months, then correct yourself to, “—the rest of my life, actually. I’ll probably spend the rest of my life low-key freaking out over them.”
“I guess that’s what it means to be a parent,” he says, then laughs softly to himself. “Holy shit. A parent. We’re parents— We’re going to be parents. Oh, holy shit, babe, what the fuck?”
“I know,” you agree, because you do. Your emotions are the same confused mess as his, bewilderment and shock and joy and terror all wrapped up into one brand-new, all-consuming feeling. “But it’ll be okay.”
He nods, separating the two of you just enough so that he could drop his forehead down to press into yours. This close up, all you can see is how happy he is. His wide grin, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the joy written so obviously across every inch of his expression. He presses in closer, lets the tips of your noses brush.
“This is the fucking dopest shit that’s ever happened to me,” he says, choked up with emotion. The contrast between his words and his tone makes you huff a laugh, unable to fight back the widening spread of your own smile. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” you insist. He pulls you in to kiss again.
“And I’m not going anywhere,” he promises you. “I swear. You’re stuck with me.”
“I’m not ‘stuck’ with you,” you argue. “We’re making a family. If anything, this kid’ll be stuck with us.”
“That—” Adrian says, then laughs. “That is so fucking true. I feel bad for them already.”
“I don’t,” you tell him. “They’re already the luckiest kid who’s ever existed because they’ll have you for a dad.”
“I don’t know about that,” he disagrees with you dubiously.
“Well, I do,” you say. “I know you love with your whole heart, and you’ll love them even more than that. You’ll love them more than you love me—”
“Don’t say that,” he says, scandalized.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” you insist. “You love so much, Adrian, I know you’re going to love them more than anything. And you’ll keep them safe, you’ll protect them. You’re giving them a better world. And we’ll teach them together. They’ll be even better than we ever were.”
He takes this in for a moment, the words sinking in. You can see the dawning understanding and budding excitement growing on his face once again.
“You think so?” he asks.
“I know so,” you say.
He tugs you in, kisses you high on your cheek. “I think you’re going to be pretty incredible yourself,” he insists. When you start to disagree, he says, “No, no, I mean it. You keep telling me how much I love, but you love me all the time, too. Even when I’m being, like, totally the worst. It’s okay, you can admit it, Chris tells me all the time—”
“That’s because he’s emotionally stunted,” you tell him firmly. “You’re not the worst. You’re never the worst.”
He grins, reeling you back in. With his hands joined at the small of your back, he says delightedly, “That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” and you snort a laugh.
“I’ve got to work on that,” you tell him.
“Yeah, well, you can—” he starts to say, but then he shifts closer, your torsos pressing nearer together, and his attention cuts off, dropping downwards. You can tell the moment he actually processes that he’s touching the slightly expanded swell of your stomach, the place where your baby is.
For a moment, neither of you move. Then, he hesitantly reaches up with one hand.
“Can I?” he asks.
You nod, taking his hand where it’s hovering in the air, halfway to you, unsure, and press it firmly to your stomach. There’s not much of anything to feel just yet, not much at all really, but he still reacts as if you’ve put the baby in his arms for the first time. He laughs incredulously, burrowing in closer to you, pulling you in close.
“I love you,” he insists. “I love you so much, both of you. I’m not going anywhere, I’m going to fuck this kid up right by your side, I promise.”
You laugh tearfully; it’s the greatest thing you think you’ve ever heard.
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