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possessed & obsessed [adrian x gn!reader]

prologue: a skelly for your thoughts?

Summary:

Vigilante is head over heels for you, his second best friend and cirme-fighting partner.

You are in love with Adrian Chase, the sweet busboy at Fennel Fields who probably doesn't even know you exist.

Taking relationship advice from Vigilante is probably not the brightest idea you've had, but the hopeless yearning has got to end.

Warnings: none in this chapter

Note: Consider this prologue a taster! More about Vij and reader's relationship will be covered next chapter. The story is currently in development and ~5 chapters have been planned so far. I usually prefer publishing the whole thing in one go but if I am confident that I will not change anything anymore I may post new chapters as I write :) I may also post some snippets of upcoming chapters here on this account.

crossposted on ao3

The parking lot was shrouded in night. Yellow streetlights spilling into your car while cicadas chirped from the inky blackness beyond. You stuffed the last chips into your mouth before brushing any crumbs that might be hiding in the creases of your dark outfit.

Mask up. Deep breaths.

You angled the rear-view mirror so your own reflection stared back at you, eyes bright amidst the chaotic mass of black eyeshadows around them. Underneath, a close-fitting mask concealed the rest of your face. Everything on your body was an elaborate design to help you blend into the night, so you could carry out your missions unseen and unknown.

Holding your binoculars up, you scanned the few houses down the street before spotting your target in a window-- a thirty-something years old man, clad in a white tank and dangling a cigarette from his mouth. The muscles on his body were defined, and he looked like someone people’d cross to the opposite side of the road just to avoid. But he wouldn't be a problem for you.

Or he shouldn't be a problem, and yet here you were, legs bouncing as you tossed the binoculars in the passenger's seat. It'd been months since you'd last donned the costume, even longer since you'd used your power. Admittably, you were a bit rusty. Not to mention there were a hundred different ways things could go wrong, and half of them would probably result in fates worse than death.

Whatever. Fuck it. This man broke your neighbor’s heart, trashed her house and stole her savings for their supposed Tokyo trip. And your neighbor was one of the sweetest people you'd ever met-- she made you cookies for Christmas. He deserved what was coming to him, and you wanted to be the one delivering it.

You laid back in your seat and let a huge breath fill your lungs before closing your eyes. The target’s face and demeanour filled your mind. Brown cut. Tank top. Taking a drag. Walking in that haughty way like you’d just scammed and robbed your girlfriend and gotten away with it.

The low humming of the engine and the cacophony of cicadas began to fade as your mind cleared. The soft air pouring out of the air-conditioner brushed the hair on your arms, and something beneath your skin stirred the way soft waves flowed and ebbed against the shore. Your very soul was coming loose. Escaping your meat cage, as one might say.

For a moment, everything was weightless. You couldn't feel the seat beneath you, or the rise and fall of your chest, or the steady beat of your heart. You were a tiny snowflake suspended in air, a piece of seaweed carried by the current, a weightless breeze blowing over a meadow…

And then the world came crashing down around you, like gravity suddenly started working again. Heavy metal music blasted in your ears and made your head throb. The whole room was tinted yellow under the dusty ceiling lamp, the thick clouds of smoke rendering you a coughing mess within seconds. The cigarette fell out as soon as you opened your mouth.

The first thing you noticed after you'd composed yourself was how damp you felt. Your armpits were sweating, the white top soaked and sticking to your back like a second skin. Looking down at your hands, you saw jagged, bitten nails and thick veins.

On top of that, the space around you was messier than a dumpster. Crumpled beer cans took up half the dining table. Newspaper and nude magazines had been mindlessly discarded on the peeling sofa. Everything that shouldn't be on the floor was on the floor–- dirty clothes, tissue paper, random cardboard boxes, trash that couldn't make their way into the bin three feet away.

This man was gross as fuck.

At least his mind was weak. There was but a split second of confusion before he gave up control over his body. Granted, you still felt like everything was wrong, like your skin was stitched together by a three-year-old or your organs had been rearranged, but it was nothing you hadn't dealt with before. You rolled your shoulders and got to work.

The first step in the mission itinerary was to find where the money was. He'd stolen the whole cookie tin of savings, and it should still be here somewhere. After a few minutes of flinging clothes around and getting on the somehow sticky ground to look under furniture, you found the round tin stashed under his bed along with a few discarded chip packages. You pulled the lid off–

Empty. He must've already deposited it in his bank.

"Asshole." You gave the bird to his reflection as you walked past the mirror. At least his phone was conveniently in his back pocket. Finding the bank app and transferring all his savings over to your neighbor's account was easy–- thank you face recognition–- and extremely satisfying.

When all that was done, you plopped yourself in one of the two seats around the dining table, dialled 911, and put it on speaker. After tossing the phone on the table, the wait time was just long enough for you to handcuff your legs and arms to the chair.

"911, what's your emergency?"

Probably should've turned off the speakers first, but whatever. You strained your voice to be heard above the music. "Hi, I'm calling to turn myself in. My name is Willie Stroker and I'm a piece of shit asshole who robbed my ex girlfriend. Please come arrest me at 124 Sally Avenue, like as soon as possible cause I think I'd die if I don't get my ass in a jail cell within an hour."

"Um, sir-"

"Great, good call, see ya." You brought your jaw down to end the call and used it to swing the phone to the other side of the room. Even if Willie Stroker could somehow move in this state, he'd have a hard time finding his phone in his self-made dumpster hell.

All set. A chill snaked down your spine– the guy was starting to realize something was deeply wrong, which meant it was time to bail. You let your shoulders slump and your head droop, and your spirit began to wander out of your body again...

You landed back in your own familiar body with a sharp gasp. The cicadas were back and it took a few blinks to adjust to the dimness, but it was your own meat and bones and you were relieved to be back, even if the huge blotch of eyeshadow made your skin kind of tight–

"Hey you're back–"

"WHAT THE FUCK!"

"HOLY SHIT!"

You screeched at the voice and the voice screamed back. Only after your nerves were untangled did you realize who you were looking at.

"Vigilante?!"

There he was, sitting in your passenger's seat with your binoculars around his neck. It was dark, but you could make out his eyes behind the red visors, widened with abstract horror. He looked no less the same as the last time you'd seen him. Maybe with less… heartbreak in his eyes. You grimaced at the memory.

"Yea, it's me. Hi!" He waved like you didn’t just scream bloody murder in each other’s face.

"Hi." You replied flatly, shifting your mask. At least the built-in voice changer was still working. "How long have you been here?"

"A few minutes," he leaned forward. "Were you in someone just now?"

"I was taking over someone's body, yes. Did you take my mask off?"

Incredulity crept into his voice. "No. Why would I?"

"I don't know," you murmured, feeling conscious and frankly unsettled about how defenseless you'd left yourself.

After what’d happened half a year ago and the subsequent radio silence on your end (Vigilante continued to leave you calls and texts every few days), you expected awkward silences and tiptoeing around conversations, but he was quick to hop between topics. “You’re lucky I was here, actually. I was making my way home after killing this creep who tried to follow a lady when I heard this non-stop honking- wait let me show you—” he slapped the wheel and the beep immediately pierced the silence.

“Dude, stop!” You pried his hand off, ducking a little while making sure no one was around.

“— so I rushed here and what did I find? You, in the middle of a seizure, your whole face on the horn,” worry laced his voice as he rambled on. “Thank sweet Jesus that your window was rolled down. I came in and restrained you until you were back. I can’t believe you went inside someone without me!”

Ah, yes. Vigilante and his ongoing fascination with your power, which originated from the one time you went inside— no, possessed— him. It was almost endearing.

The truth was getting a bit too embarrassing to bear. Six months of hiatus was all it took for you to throw proper procedures out of the window. Keeping your body safe and in hiding was suppsoed to be one of the most crucial steps.

“Thanks for being here.” You looked into his eyes as you spoke, making sure he received your sincerity.

The corners of his eyes wrinkled. “You’re welcome. You’re my second best friend after all…”

Your lips curled up behind your mask. Maybe you should also apologize for ghosting him, but if he was willing to put that behind him and let things fall back into their normal rhythm—

“…even after you rejected me in front of my other best friends.”

Okay. Nevermind.

Your hands shot out to grip the wheel as an effort to steer yourself. Vigilante was staring straight ahead now, fiddling with your binoculars, no doubt revisiting the very moment that made your skin crawl with guilt.

When he didn’t speak after a few seconds, you threw your hands up. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that in front of everyone but you caught me off guard!”

He shook his legs a few times, shoulders slumping almost imperceptibly.

“Just because I don’t return your feelings, doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, Vij.” You added, although the word 'friends' almost lodged in your throat.

A dejected groan scratched its way out of his throat as he threw his head back. “I know, I know… I’m not mad at you. I just thought we had something, you know?” His voice was quieter now, devoid of the enthusiasm that filled it just minutes ago. “Can you just answer me this? Was all this--” he gestured at his mask. "-- the only reason you rejected me?"

Well. Your eyes roamed over the armored man slouching in your passenger’s seat. Somehow you didn’t need to see it to know he was pouting.

This was a man who was wanted for multiple counts of murder, who would giggle as he thrust a dagger into someone’s guts, who once asked you with a straight face if you wanted to dismember a corpse at your place or his.

But you didn’t care about any of that. He could be… rash, and his morality was definitely unorthodox, but at the end of the day he was a loyal ally. He always watched your back like a guard dog when you’re fighting, and he just jumped into your car to make sure you didn’t get caught by the whole town, no question asked. As for his sadistic tendencies… as long as they were directed at the rightfully wrong person, you had no issue turning the other way.

No, the reason you rejected him wasn’t any of that. It was something much simpler.

Anxious partly from anticipating his reaction and partly from the thrill of admitting something you’d kept close and hidden for so long, you bit out, “I like someone else.”

“Fuck!” Vigilante slapped the top of his head, the very image of distress. “Why did you have to tell me that!”

“You asked!”

“I know, I know…” he sighed. “Who is it?”

You chuckled dryly, “What, you gonna stalk and kill him?”

He shrugged.

“No! I’m not telling you!” You glared.

“Well, does this lucky son of a bitch like you back?” He asked, sitting up straighter.

This time you were the one who shrugged, too self-conscious to admit that you hadn’t even had more than five proper conversations with your crush of, what? A year and a half? Damn.

That seemed to brighten him up somehow. He leaned in, excitement barely contained. “I can give you all the advice you need.”

“What?”

“Yea! I know what you’re thinking, I failed at courting you so that must mean I’m the last person to go to for love advice, but you’re gravely mistaken, Skelly.” You snorted. The nickname might be silly but you couldn’t deny having missed it. “The result was shit, but my methodology was not shit. Everyone else thinks so. Even Eagly.”

The normal and sensible response would be to turn him down, because god knew everyone else did not think so. Even Eagly. But his insane ‘methodology’ might just be what you needed to push yourself out of the door. Go big or go home, right? Or you could take his advice and do it the complete opposite way, and it would probably work just fine, if not better. Not to mention you were frankly sick of hopelessly pining. Something had to change, and if it meant Vigilante was going to be your relationship advisor, so be it.

And so you nodded, “Sure. I'll accept your help.”

He giggled. “Sweet. I mean, not really sweet, since I’m literally helping the love of my life get with someone else, but you know what they say: if you can’t have someone, try to hook them up with someone else so they will fall in love with you in the process.”

You pointedly ignored his flattering words. “No one in the history of the Earth has ever said that.”

“No one?” He tilted his head. “What, did you ask every single person?”

In the distance, sirens were getting closer, splashing red and blue along the road. You closed the car window and started pulling out of the parking lot. Now Vigilante was bugging you to tell him everything about your little mission.

“On a scale of ladybug to eagle, what would you say your out-of-body experience was like?”

You shook your head and drove on, face aching from your concealed smile. Seeing Vigilante again was a huge weight off your shoulders. Working on your cases alone was getting lonely without him around. Not that you’d admit to craving his company without a gun to your head. He was just... a good crime-fighting ally.

Things were back to the way you liked them, and that filled you with a newfound sense of hope. After dropping him off near his home you would notify your neighbor of justice served, and you would get a warm bath and go to sleep. The next morning you would sit down at Fennel Fields and order a cup of hot coffee, and instead of staring at the boy with soft curls and cute glasses like a stalker, you would make sure to tell him “Good morning, Adrian.”

Six months ago—

“Look, Adrian, I’m happy you’re making a move, but do we have to be here?” Leota asked, carrying a box of pumpkin-shaped fairy lights into the abandoned warehouse. They were supposed to be normal lightbulbs, but getting her hands on any in such short notice proved impossible.

Seated on a crate in the corner was John, who was violently tapping his phone with his thumbs. “I, for one, don’t want to be here.”

Adrian, in his Vigilante outfit, jogged over and took the box from Leota. “Yet here you are. I know you’re secretly excited for this. You don’t have to say it.”

“I really, really am not.” John sighed, to which Adrian waved his hand and laughed like he’d just made a joke.

Dusk poured into the place through the tall windows along the brick wall. Adrian must’ve spent the better half of the day cleaning, Leota mused, because the room was spotless, unlike the other adjacent ones with glass shards and layers of dust as carpets. She could press her face to the ground and there wouldn’t be a molecule of dust. Not that she would try it.

As Adrian hummed and worked away, Leota sat down next to John. She wasn't lying when she said she was happy for Adrian, even though she knew next to nothing about you. On several occasions Adrian had managed to get you to help the 11th Street Kids take down some butterflies, so you were no stranger to the group and the unmasked faces, but you were always quick to show up and quick to leave. You never stayed for briefings or drinks. All she knew was that you were Adrian's second best friend (a title shared by you two) and that you were on their side. Also that Adrian was head over heels for you even though you didn't even know each other's real name.

"This place looks like it came straight out of a stupid Hallmark movie," Chris, with his helmet perched on his head, and Emilia were the last to arrive, the latter looking a bit uncomfortable.

"Hey guys!" Adrian waved, a slight hop in his steps. "This is so exciting, everyone's here for my big proposal for Skelly!"

"Wait, proposal?" Leota gaped.

Emilia frowned ever so slightly. "I thought you were just now asking them out.”

"Yea, I'm proposing a relationship with them, so it's a proposal." He replied matter-of-factly.

"Dude, a proposal means asking someone to marry you." John deadpanned.

"Uh, maybe to you it is."

With helping hands the room was totally transformed within an hour. Fairy lights hung from the walls, and blood red flower petals scattered the ground, strangely reminiscent of blood. When John asked about it, Adrian said in a dreamy voice, "This is where we met for the first time and killed a bunch of bad guys. I'm hoping the 'blood' adds to the romance."

After much insistence Adrian managed to get Chris to help him hang a huge banner up. It said: Will you be the teal to my Goff?

"Why are you bringing up the butterflies in your grand confession? And why the hell are you still hung up on what his favorite color was?" Chris questioned, exasperated.

"Fighting butterflies is a shared memory! And I know Goff liked teal because he was literally that color." Adrian pulled out his phone from his suit and gasped loudly. "Ohmygodthey'rehere please everyone keep calm and get your asses behind the crates! We'll do a Surprise! moment after my amazing showstopping speech!"

Leota took a seat on the ground next to Emilia, who shot her a look that said this is gonna blow, to which she returned a defeated shrug.

Adrian was still a bundle of nerves and bouncing on his feet when steps crackled the glass pieces in the corridor, and a moment later you were standing at the doorway, hood up, mask on, eyes sharp in the midst of the vortex that was your eyeshadow. Chris liked to joke that you were Evergreen's Batman after being jumpscared by you hiding in the dark. He was pretty on point.

"Hey–" your footsteps skidded to a stop. "What… is going on?"

Vigilante cleared his throat. "There's no new mission, Skelly, I made that up."

"Yea, I can see that," you inched slowly into the room. Leota couldn't see you very well without giving her position away, but she could hear, even with your voice changer on, the slight tremor in your words. "Will you be the teal to my Goff? Vij, what is–"

"Oh." The air was unbearably thick. "Oh, Vij. This isn't right."

Emilia mouthed the word 'fuck'. Across the room, John was grasping his own hands, looking like he was about to throw up, while Chris was exhaling long and deep through his mouth.

"What? Come on, Skelly, you haven't even heard me out," his voice croaked in a pathetic attempt at a laugh.

"You don't even know my face, Vij. Or my voice. Or my name–"

"I know enough! We've fought together, killed together, driven a stray dog to the vet together. I know the person beneath the mask–"

"You don't know anything–"

"I know that I'm head over heels–"

"No, Vij." You snapped.

It would not be an exaggeration to say the sound of a heart cracking was echoing in the room. Leota lost the fight against her curiosity and peeked out again, only to make direct eye contact with you. She swore, even with only your eyes visible, you looked like you'd just been stabbed in the guts.

"Okay."

"I...I'm sorry." You added feebly. A small bandage for a burn wound.

"Don't be."

There was shuffling, and footsteps getting farther away until there was nothing hanging in the air anymore. Leota crawled out and got on her feet, heart sinking as she stared at Adrian's back, "Adrian?"

The poor guy turned around almost sheepishly. "Oh wow, I almost forgot you guys were there." He sniffled.

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