hold this thread
pairing: adrian chase x f!reader
summary: You and Adrian keep color coordinating outfits at work! What a silly coincidence!
content: no use of y/n, she/her pronouns used for r, stalking, r + adrian work together at checkmate, just fluff :)
note: title from weezer's "undone (the sweater song)." projected a little too hard and gave r a phd in creative writing >:D. minimal editing, please excuse any errors.
word count: 2840
In hindsight, the first time was likely a true coincidence. Probably.
Adrian had rolled over to your desk in his chair, your name leaving his lips in a childish drawl. “It’s so boring. Say, you wanna quiz me on crow facts?”
You didn’t move your gaze from your monitor. “Don’t you have work to do?”
“Well, yeah, but there’s only—” He rolled closer to squint at the time on your screen. “—2 more hours until lunch, and I don’t want to start something and then have to stop. One, it totally disrupts my flow, and two, I just won’t stop and eat, and skipping lunch is, like, one of the worst things you can do.”
You furrowed your brows, but you were no stranger to this Adrian-logic. “Maybe you should divide your work into smaller sections with breaks. That way you can do work and eat lunch.”
He gasped like you told him you’d cured the common cold. “Oh, man, that’s smart! No wonder you’re a doctor.”
You were tempted to remind him that you had your doctorate in creative writing, so you weren’t sure how that correlated to solving his time management skills, but you instead opted to just take the compliment on this one.
Upon noticing he hadn’t rolled back to his desk, you glanced at him.
As if he read your mind, he explained, “Well, I can’t start that now. The day’s already started, and that’d totally screw my flow up.”
You laughed, rolling to face him. “How can you screw up something that’s, like, nonexistent? You don’t even have a flow right—hey!” You looked down at his shirt—a maroon polo shirt—and then down to your own—a maroon blouse. “Look, we’re matching!”
“Oh, no way.” Adrian looked back and forth between your shirt and his own, even tugging it gently from his torso to get a better look.
At that moment, Adebayo happened to be crossing through the office, a cup of coffee in her hand.
“Hey, Ads, look!” Adrian didn’t hesitate to call out to her. “We’re matching!”
You smiled at her, gently holding your own shirt out from your torso.
She smiled back. “Yeah, you are. That’s nice.” Her gaze caught Adrian’s blank monitor. “Adrian, have you done anything since you came in this morning?”
He looked to the ceiling in thought. “Well,” he started. “I googled ‘Do puppies have dreams like humans—”
“I mean work. Have you done any work?”
His lip curled as he thought. A moment passed and he shook his head. “No.”
“Well, do some work!” Adebayo gestured at his desk.
You turned to face your computer, biting back a laugh as Adrian slowly and begrudgingly rolled back to his desk, his head sitting low between his shoulders. You didn’t miss the way his eyes darted down to his shirt, then over to your blouse quickly.
It happened again a few days later. You were sitting with your nose nearly kissing your monitor when you heard wheels rolling. “What’s up, Adrian?” you asked, not looking away from your screen.
He cleared his throat.
“What?” you asked again, not unkindly. “I really don’t wanna lose my place right now.”
He cleared his throat louder.
You sighed, slowly looking to him. He quickly looked away, his eyes darting across the ceiling in the way one does when they are hoping someone would notice something about them. You furrowed your brows, giving him a once over.
Same glasses. Navy shirt tucked into blue jeans. White sneakers.
Your face scrunched in thought. You squinted at his neck—no new jewelry or anything like that. Your sight rose to his face and hair. You blinked.
His lips were curled, and the gentle indent in his cheek was showing. You couldn’t stop your gaze from wandering down to his adam’s apple and the short expanse of his neck that was showing from the V in his shirt.
Not much was showing, but you could still see how defined his chest was. He was a little dorky with his tucked-in sweaters and high waters; it was easy for you to forget how…charming he was.
Curls flopped against his forehead. Maybe his hair was shorter? I mean, it was hard to tell with the curls.
“Did you…get a haircut?” you eventually asked.
He released a breath, shaking his head.
When he didn’t offer any answer, you added, “Well?”
He ran both his palms down his shirt.
“Oh! Is it a new shirt?”
He huffed. “No! We’re–we’re—” He gestured between the two of you.
You finally looked down at your own shirt. A navy long sleeve. “Oh! Yeah. We’re matching again.” You smiled.
“Yeah. We are.” He blinked at you.
“Yeah.” You laughed a little. When he didn’t say anything else, you said, “Okay, well, I’m gonna turn around and do some work now.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, totally. Me too. Gonna totally use that new strategy you taught me.”
You turned around. “That’s good, Adrian.”
“Yeah.”
You didn’t hear his chair roll away, so you glanced over your shoulder at him. You instantly locked eyes and raised your eyebrows.
“Yeah, yeah, just gonna—” He threw a thumb over his shoulder. “Go this way now.”
Then, it happened again the following week.
Adrian strolled into Checkmate that morning, and you noticed his grey sweater bore an undeniable resemblance to the one you were sporting.
“Adrian!” you called, grinning. “You must be snooping around in my closet or something.” You gestured to your sweater, sure he would get a kick out of it.
His brows rose and he blinked at you owlishly. “Uh, no I haven’t. Why would you say that? I’ve only been to your house once, and that was when you hosted Adebayo’s birthday party. I wouldn’t even know which room was your bedroom if I did snoop—”
You shook your head, amused. He always took everything so literally. “I’m just kidding, Adrian—we keep wearing the same color, that’s all.”
“Oh.” He released a puff of breath, making his bangs pop off his forehead. “Oh, I know you were kidding. I was just–just kidding too.”
“Sure, Adrian.” You turned around, smiling, and missed the bewildered look on his face.
A few days later, you greeted him with a tilt of your head, flicking through papers on your desk.
“Oh! Um.” He cleared his throat. “Nice shirt.” He was smiling like he’d said a joke and was now waiting on the punchline to land.
You glanced down at your green button-down. “Thanks. Yours is too.” He was wearing a blue striped shirt.
“Yeah, I said ‘nice shirt,’ like, you know, because we have the same color on and my shirt’s nice, so yours is too.”
You furrowed your brows, looking down at your shirt and then back to his. “Well, I wouldn't say it’s the same color. Yours is blue and mine’s green.” You quickly added, “I mean yours is still nice, though.”
“Okay, mine is teal. But I’d say they’re pretty close.”
You weren’t really sure why you were arguing with Adrian over the color of your shirts when you both had work to do, but stranger things had happened in the Checkmate office. “Not quite.”
“Okay, well, this is all I had!”
Your finger stopped where it was tracing along the page you were reading, and you looked up to squint at him. “What?”
“Nothing. I didn’t—nothing.” He started shaking his head, his lips squeezed tightly together.
He’s so odd, you thought, smiling and shaking your head.
That afternoon, you left for lunch, and Adrian insisted on joining you, as he nearly always did.
The moment the door shut behind you, Economos piped up, “So, what’s his deal? Adrian’s gotta be stalking her.”
Harcourt shook her head. “Probably. It’s Adrian we’re talking about.”
“Should we—do we need to take this to HR?” Economos asked. He stopped abruptly to turn to Adebayo. “Do we even have HR?”
The only sound in the office was Adebayo typing on her keyboard.
The sun had just begun to streak through your blinds as you picked out your outfit for work. In your camisole, you stood in front of your wardrobe, thinking. You pulled out a green shirt before remembering you’d just worn green yesterday, and sure, it didn’t matter, but it mattered to you.
You put it back to pull out a red one. Frowning, you remembered that the fabric was itchy and quickly put it back. You were reaching for yet another shirt when you heard a clunk! against your bedroom window.
You froze, your mind immediately going to the pepper spray in your nightstand. Did pepper spray expire? Surely even if it were expired it would do some damage, right? You slowly backstepped until your fingers reached the drawer, and you fumbled it open. Your fingers had just closed around the tool when you heard a familiar voice say, “Aw, fuck!”
You dropped the pepper spray back into the drawer and walked over to the window. All you could see was someone in a navy tactical suit, face down in your bushes.
You flung the window open.
“Ma’am, uh, nothing to see here! Nothing to worry about!” He wriggled about in the shrubbery.
You recognized the v-shaped blue mark on his suit. “Are you…the masked vigilante they talk about on the news?”
“Vigilante, yes ma’am, that’s me. Please don’t mind me.”
Perhaps if he had been standing at full height in your window, you would’ve been afraid. It was hard to fear someone thrashing around in your landscaping. “Do you, uh, need some help?”
“No ma’am, I have it under control.”
“It doesn’t look like it.”
“Well, I do!”
Something about the whiny cadence of his voice— “Adrian? Oh my God, is that—”
“No.” His voice suddenly dropped ten octaves. “Ma’am, I do not know an Adrian. There’s no Adrian here—”
“Oh my God, it totally is—Adrian, you’re the masked vigilante?”
“Like I said, I do not know an Adrian, but by that name, he sounds like a super cool guy. Also, it is Vigilante—” By this time, he’d finally managed to become vertical again.
“Why’re you creeping outside my house?” You put your hands on your hips.
“There’s been a lot of crime reported in this area, ma’am, I’m just trying to keep you—”
“I think the closest thing to crime in this neighborhood was when Mrs. O’Sullivan’s chihuahua escaped and she thought someone kidnapped him.”
“Dog theft is a serious crime—”
“She found him, like, literally weeks ago.”
“I am just…ensuring that it doesn’t happen again!”
“Adrian, can we just drop the act?” You sighed, running a hand through your hair. “I have so many questions—does everyone at work know you’re Vigilante?”
“Ma’am, again, I do not know an Adrian—”
You reached through the window and began to tug at the mask from around his chin.
“Hey! Stop it!” He was no longer even trying to conceal his voice as he attempted to bat your hands away. “Stop! Okay! Fine, it’s me.” He sounded so dejected you almost felt a little bad.
“What are you doing here, Adrian?”
He looked back and forth at your neighborhood. “Keep your voice down!”
You shook your head, sighing. “Just get in here.”
You moved back towards your bed so he could step into your room through the window. Given his incident with the bush, you were surprised at how easily he climbed in, closing it behind him and even closing the blinds for good measure. He pulled his mask over his head and felt around his pockets until he found his glasses, tucking them onto his face.
“How’d you know it was me?” He sounded like a kid who’d been found during hide-and-seek.
“Your voice,” you said. “Now, what were you doing outside my window?” He opened his mouth to speak, but you quickly added, “And don’t tell me any bullshit about dog theft because we both know that’s a lie.”
He deflated, glancing back to your closet, and in that moment, it felt like lightning had struck you. “You have been snooping in my closet!”
“No!”
“That’s how you’ve been matching with me—”
“I have not been snooping!”
“Okay, then what have you been doing?”
“Just looking through your window and seeing what color you put on.”
“Oh, and that’s not snooping?”
“Well, no, I’ve never actually gone through your closet. I’ve only peeked through the window—”
You gasped, suddenly very aware of the fact you were only in bottoms and a camisole. You crossed your arms over your chest. “Have you been watching me change?”
His face grew red immediately. “No, no, no—”
You sat down on your bed, covering your face with your hands.
“No, no, really, I am not being a pervert—I have not been a pervert. I just—I just want to match with you!”
You huffed, removing your hands to look over at him. He was nervously rocking back and forth on his heels. If it were quite literally any other guy, you would be sure he was bullshitting. What man creeps in a woman’s window without being a pervert?
Adrian, apparently.
You sighed. “Okay, fine. You weren’t being a perv.” You waved your hands at him. “But you have to stop, okay? This is…weird. And crosses, like, so many boundaries.”
He deflated even further as his eyes dropped to the floor.
“How would you feel if…let’s say Economos was looking in my window while I got dressed in the morning?”
Adrian’s head shot up. “Oh, man, Economos is my friend and all but…” He shrugged like it was obvious. “I would have to kill him.”
You held your hands out as if to say See? and for once, it looked like Adrian really did see.
“Okay,” he said, nodding like he was in thought.
“Thank you.”
“I’ll stand out here every morning and make sure no one is creeping in your window—”
“No!” you exclaimed. “No one would be creeping in my window, Adrian—no one but you.”
He looked a little too proud at that.
“That’s not really a good thing!” you scolded.
He deflated again.
You rubbed your temples. You had to be losing it.
You might be the first to ever admit it, but the idea of Adrian looking in your window didn’t really freak you out as much as it probably should have. I mean, it was Adrian. Your coworker who insisted on joining you for lunch nearly every day. Your coworker who lit up like the sun when he noticed you’d color-coordinated outfits. Your coworker who was apparently so excited about matching that he wanted to do it almost every day.
Not to mention you found his dorky ways kind of hot.
Okay, more than kind of.
He said your name softly. “I’ll–I’ll stop.” He was looking everywhere except for you. “It was just…it gave us something to talk about. When we matched.”
You frowned at him. “We talk about other things all the time.”
“Well, yeah, you did quiz me on spider facts that one time, but, like, you looked so excited that first day when we were both wearing red. I just wanted you to be that excited to talk to me all the time.”
Your frown deepened. “I’m always excited to talk to you, Adrian.” Well, that wasn’t entirely true. “It’s just, we’re at work. So we have to, you know…do work.”
“I guess.” He kicked at something on the floor.
“We could…” You swallowed, suddenly bashful. “I mean, we could do something outside of work. If you wanted.”
His head shot up and he locked eyes with you. “Really?”
You nodded, unexpectedly unable to keep eye contact. “Yeah. It would…it’d be fun.”
“Like a date?” he asked, eagerly.
You blinked. “Do you…do you want it to be a date?”
“Uh…yeah.” He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Okay.” You laughed. “Okay, yeah. It’s a date.”
“Yes!” He pumped one fist in the air. “Wait ‘til Peacemaker hears about this.”
You shook your head, still laughing.
“Okay, well, I’m gonna—” He gestured to your window.
“Okay, Adrian. I’ll see you in the office.”
He put his glasses back into…wherever they’d come from and pulled his mask back down over his face. You had moved to stand back in front of your wardrobe when he paused opening your window.
“So, uh,” he started. “What color’re you wearing today?”
Three weeks later
Adebayo entered Checkmate and did as she usually did. She flicked all the lights on and sat her bag down at her desk. She was moving to turn her monitor on when she noticed something in the reflection of the dark screen. She squinted at it before turning around for a better look.
On the wall was a new calendar, with words scribbled onto it.
She rose from her chair and walked over. Each weekday had a color listed on it—some in your neat handwriting, others in Adrian’s scrawl.
She couldn’t do anything other than shake her head, a small smile on her lips.
