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Adrian is not the best caretaker in the world, but he tries. It had been difficult the first few times, when you got sick, and he had no idea what the fuck he was doing. He’s never been sick before, not really, so no one has ever taken care of him like that. He has no frame of reference for it.
“You don’t get it Adrian,” you grumble every time you catch a cold or get the flu, more than a little pissy. “You just take a fucking nap and your body fixes itself.”
You don’t have a healing factor like he does, so he has to be your healing factor for you, he realizes. And he takes the job incredibly seriously. Since the beginning of your relationship, he’s taken care of you plenty of times, always reading the back of every medicine bottle obsessively, making sure you sleep, eat, and stay hydrated. Last time you were sick, he’d worriedly googled your symptoms until you yelled at him, even though you just had a head cold.
“The internet says you’re dying,” Adrian reported, sounding worried. You rolled your eyes.
“Get the fuck off Reddit,” you said, your voice hoarse, “and just like. Make me some chicken noodle soup or something.”
“Um…”
“No. You’re right. I heard it as soon as I said it. Don’t even think about touching the stove. Order me some chicken noodle soup. Or better yet, go pick it up from the restaurant, so I don’t have to wait as long.”
A few weeks ago, when you fell into an icy pond on a mission, he dragged you out himself while you’d sputtered ice-cold pond water out of your lungs and struggled to move your freezing limbs. He huddled with you under a shock blanket in the back of the van on the way back, rubbed your shaking, tingling fingers between his hands to get you warm again, stood under the hot stream of shower water until your teeth stopped chattering, cuddled up with you under a pile of blankets on your shared bed to share his body heat.
He doesn’t need a medical degree to take care of you, he’s realized. He just needs to—care. And he does. He loves you, a whole fucking lot.
So while he’s gotten plenty of practice being a caretaker, and he’s become decently good at it—he is, you’ll come to learn, the worst patient.
Adrian doesn’t even think about it, when it happens. He sees the glinting arc of the blade as it slashes through the air, flying right toward you. You don’t see it. He’s got a split second to act.
He heals faster than you; he doesn’t mind it. Feeling a few hours of pain before he can get to sleep, to spare his girlfriend the days or weeks of grueling recovery from a knife or bullet wound. He would take care of you, of course he would, but he hates watching you suffer. He doesn’t like it when you’re in pain. So he throws himself in front of you, pushes you out of the way, braces himself.
It’s not the first hit he’s taken for you, and it won’t be the last.
There’s a searing heat as the blade slashes through the fabric of his suit, digging into his skin and drawing blood, and—something is wrong. It doesn’t usually hurt this much. Whatever fucking alien weapon the asshole used was coated in some sticky green stuff, hot and sizzling like acid. It’s eating right through the armor of his Vigilante suit, sinking into his skin.
“What the fuck,” he hisses. “Jesus—ow. Fuck you, dude!”
He raises one arm, holding his gun, and takes the target out with a shot right to the head. He wants to smile, to gloat, because he won, but his vision is going blurry, and he feels like he’s going to be sick.
“Adrian,” you cry, turning to catch him as he stumbles, and your eyes go wide with worry when you look at him, clutching at his chest.
“I don’t feel very good,” Adrian says faintly, and he passes out, right there into your arms, with the fleeting thought, at least it won’t hurt as much when I wake up.
He was wrong. It hurts worse. It hurts so, so much worse.
Adrian is used to sleeping things off, waking up to closed-up wounds and only the memory of pain. But now, when he returns to consciousness, the first thing he feels is the fiery burning, stretching in a hot line down the side of his chest. He whimpers—it hurts.
The second thing he feels is the nausea, the awful churning in his stomach. He gags, spits up something horrid and acidic, coughing violently.
“Shh,” says a voice, soft and gentle. It’s you. You’re here. He’s safe. He gasps your name, feels your cool, gently hands wiping the sweat from his sticky forehead.
He tries to open his eyes. He blacks out again.
Someone is saying his name, but Adrian can’t focus on it—everything he hears sounds like it’s far away. Some kind of beeping, at regular intervals. Voices. Some loud and frantic, some hushed and concerned. His eyelids flutter, opening just a crack, to the bright fluorescent light on the ceiling of the Checkmate infirmary.
The pain roars back all at once, horrible and all-consuming. He feels a tide of vomit crawling up his throat again, turns over and retches onto the floor, sputtering, before he collapses back onto the metal table they’ve placed him on, shivering, groaning, trying not to sob, but it just hurts so fucking bad. Tears leak out of the corners of his eyes of their own accord. He tries to breathe through it, but every inhale makes things worse, sending a sharp, stabbing pain though him.
There are a bunch of voices talking at once. He tries to pick them out.
“Come on, Vig, hang in there—” Chris.
“What the fuck happened out there, Chris?” Adebayo.
“Someone get me the fucking first aid kit!” Harcourt.
The door slams open.
“Holy fuck,” says another voice, high-pitched and nervous. John? “Is he—is he gonna die?”
A hand lands on his shoulder, starts stripping off his armor, and Adrian’s face screws up with pain.
“Am—am I dying?” he rasps, dizzy with confusion.
“Oh, god,” someone says, distraught, sobbing. Two soft hands touch his face, wipe away the salty tear tracks streaking down his cheeks. “No, no, please, don’t—”
It’s you. His heart rate kicks up, and the beeping machine in the distance gets faster. You’re crying. He needs to—get to you, to help you. He might be hurt, he might be sick, but that doesn’t mean a damn thing if you’re hurt. He needs to make sure you’re okay first. Before anything else, that’s his priority.
Adrian says your name, panicky, tries to get up, but strong hands hold him down on the table.
“I’m here, baby,” you sob, grabbing his hand and squeezing tight. “I’m right here.”
“Chris, just—keep him still—I gotta sedate him—”
The world fades to black.
The next time he wakes up, he’s still sweaty and feverish, but he’s conscious for a little bit longer. He’s in bed, at home. That much feels comfortable and familiar. Everything else, though, feels awful and wrong. His own body is betraying him.
His head pounds, his vision still blurry—his glasses are gone, where are his glasses?—and his clothes, too, for that matter. Someone stripped him out of his Vigilante suit, down to his underwear. He looks down at his bare chest, too fast, and nearly blacks out again. A deep gash, tinged green at the edges, freshly stitched up. He frowns.
“Adrian?”
It’s hard for him to make his eyes work, to force them to look where he wants them to look, but he manages to follow the sound over to his left, zeroes in on you like a guiding light.
Adrian tries to say your name, but any words he might have said are interrupted by the violent urge to throw up. He retches over the side of the bed, into the bucket you shove toward him, and then—you’re there. Your hands run through his hair, soothing, while you murmur comforting words.
“I got you, baby,” you whisper, but you sound worried. “You’re okay, Ade. I got you.”
When he’s done heaving, Adrian slumps back onto the mattress, sweaty and shivering. The wound in his side has reopened from all the movement, and you take a warm, wet cloth to it, cleaning away the blood and green gunk that seeps out of it with gentle hands.
“What the fuck is happening,” he says hoarsely, his head swimming. He tries so hard to stay awake, to hear your answer. But his eyes flutter shut, because he just can’t keep them open anymore, and he sinks back into unconsciousness.
He feels horrible when he blinks awake in the middle of the night, but his mind is a little clearer. There’s a spike of panic when he doesn’t see you sitting at the bedside right away, like you were last time. He remembers that much, at least. But then he hears you, breathing deep and even, asleep, a few feet away from him on the other side of the mattress, and his heart settles a bit.
Everything hurts, but he’s less nauseous, thank god. He still has a nasty taste lingering in his mouth. He wants it to go away. He wants to—brush his teeth. Drink some water. He tries to sit up, and gasps when a hot, stinging pain shoots up his side.
“What the fuck,” he hisses.
You sit up next to him in a flash, startled awake. “Adrian? What—don’t—lay down, you’re going to make it worse—”
“I want—I need—” he says, struggling to get the words out as you hop out of bed. He misses the warmth of you next to him instantly. “No. Come back.”
“I’m right here, baby, I’m not going anywhere,” you say, coming around to his side of the bed. You reach for the bottle of water and painkillers on the nightstand. “You’re okay, you’re gonna be okay.”
“I don’t need—”
“Take the damn pills, Adrian.”
He huffs, but he does what you tell him to obediently, opening his mouth so you can drop the pills inside, letting you tip the bottle of water back so he can swallow.
“How are you feeling?” you ask him. “Let me check—” You pull back the blankets, and he shivers at the cool touch of your fingers against his burning hot skin. When he glances down, he sees that he’s been bandaged up, but there’s blood seeping through them. “I need to change your bandages.”
“Fuck,” he says, closing his eyes, exhausted and feeling—terrible. “Is this what you fucking deal with all the time? When you’re sick? It’s awful. No wonder you get grumpy and yell at me.”
You’re silent for a moment, which gives him pause. He expected you to laugh. You always laugh at his jokes, even when they’re stupid.
Instead, you quietly retrieve a clean washcloth from the bathroom, working with focus to clean him up and recover the wound. Adrian grunts at the touch, gritting his teeth.
“I’m sorry, honey,” you say, sounding distraught. “I know it hurts.”
“It’s okay. Not your fault.”
He forces his eyes back open to look at you, as you finish bandaging up his side again. Your teeth worry at your bottom lip, your eyes are wet.
“Baby?” he says, hesitant. “Is something wrong?”
Then you burst into tears.
Adrian’s eyes widen.
“What is happening?” he says, panicky. “Why are you crying? Are you hurt? Did something happen?”
“Yeah, you got fucking stabbed, asshole!” you cry. “And it is my fault! You took that knife for me! I would hit you if you weren’t still as pale and sickly as a Victorian child. Fuck.”
“You’re crying about—me?” he asks, bewildered, still a little foggy. “I’m fine! I get stabbed all the time!”
“You have been unconscious for four days!”
Adrian pauses. “I have?”
“The knife that guy threw at us—” you choke out. “It was coated in poison, Ade. It’s keeping you from healing like you usually do. It’s gotta work its way out of your system. We didn’t know how long it was going to take. We didn’t even know for sure if—if you’d—”
“Hey,” he says, “I’m okay, baby. It hurts like a bitch. I feel like shit. But I’m gonna be fine.”
“If you didn’t—” you sniffle. “The only reason you’re alive right now is because of your healing factor, Adrian. That poison ate right through your Vigilante suit, and—you’ve been unconscious for days. If you didn’t take that hit for me, I’d be dead right now.”
Adrian’s heart pounds. His hand fumbles for yours, weak at first, but once he’s gotten a hold of you properly, his grip tightens.
“You’re not,” he says, but his voice shakes, because even the thought of how close he’d been to losing you terrifies him.
“I’m not,” you say, but there are still tears streaming down your face, fast and furious. “But I thought—I thought that you were. I thought—”
“No,” Adrian says firmly, cupping your face with his hands, brushing away the tears. He tries to sit up, to hug you, to comfort you, but he winces, and you stop him.
“You’re gonna hurt yourself,” you say, pushing him down. “Just let me—take care of you, okay? The way you always take care of me.”
“Okay,” he says. “Okay. I can do that.”
Adrian cannot do that.
Once the haze of the poison finally dissipates, after another day or two, he gets antsy. When you find him up out of bed and attempting to walk to the bathroom on his own, you scold him and remind him about the gaping hole in his side.
“You are injured!”
“I need to pee!”
“If you don’t wait for me, I will send you home to your mother.”
“You wouldn’t,” he gasps.
It’s strange, honestly, because you would have expected him to enjoy you fussing over him. He loves attention, especially from you, and he’s gotten a hell of a lot of it over the last week. He preens when you help him wash off in the shower, leaning back against you while you shampoo his hair and pressing his cheek against your bare chest. He lays his head in your lap, playing on his Nintendo Switch while you read beside him.
And yes, he does love all of those things. But he also gets unbearably horny, because you keep touching him, all soft and caring, and doing nice things for him. No wonder the first thing you do when you get medical clearance after an injury is jump his bones.
“You’re still really hot,” you say worriedly as you sit on the edge of the mattress one evening and check his temperature.
“Are you flirting with me?”
“No, I’m making sure you don’t have a fucking fever, dumbass.”
“You don’t think I’m hot?”
You sigh. “You’re apparently feeling well enough to act like a little shit again, which is strangely reassuring.”
Adrian grins. “I think you’re hot, babe,” he says, reaching for your waist and trying to pulling you into him. He leans down, kissing you before you can stop him, and goddamn him, but you can’t resist, not when he tilts his jaw like that and nibbles at your bottom lip.
“Are you seriously trying to fuck me right now?” you ask.
“Please?” he pouts.
“No. You can have kisses, and you can have cuddles. That is it.”
“I’ll take it.”
After a few weeks of being coddled, he starts to get antsy, but—he sucks it up. Because he can tell you’re nervous. You keep looking at him like he’s going to disappear at any minute. He remembers, himself, every time he’s ever sat at your bedside after you’ve sustained an injury, waiting for you to wake up. The awful anxiety that something truly terrible has happened, and things will never be the same.
He’s been in that position a few times, and it never gets any easier. For you, this is a first. So he tries to be patient.
A few weeks into his recovery, Adrian bolts awake in the middle of the night with a shout, heart pounding, and he’s almost relieved to feel the twinge of pain in his chest from the healing knife wound. It grounds him, reminds him that the nightmare wasn’t real. That he did get there before the knife hit you, before it could do irreversible damage to the person he loves the most.
You jerk awake at the sound of his shouting, hands reaching for him in the dark.
“Adrian?” you ask worriedly. “Are you okay? Are you hurting? Do you need—”
He tugs you into his lap, wraps his arms around you tightly. “Bad dream,” he says, voice rough. When he blinks, a tear slips down his cheek and into your hair. You don’t say anything, just hug him back, careful not to hurt him. When he finally lays back down, he keeps you close, tugging you as near to him as he can, and you both stay awake for a while, unbeknownst to the other, just listening to the sound of each other breathing, reassuring yourselves that you’re alive and together and well.
As Adrian gets better, you can tell just how much he’s itching to get his hands on a gun and get back out on the streets. Instead, you help him shuffle around to different parts of the apartment for a change of scenery, and you invite the rest of the 11th Street Kids to drop by to check on him.
“Don’t do that shit again,” Chris orders. “It was fucking scary, dude.”
“Aw, you were worried about me, bestie?” Adrian asks, delighted.
“I literally thought you were going to die,” John says. “So yeah, it was scary.”
“I think this wound is gonna actually scar,” Adrian says excitedly, pulling up his shirt to show the boys. “I’ve never gotten a scar before! It’s gonna look so badass!”
“Well, he’s certainly acting like himself,” Adebayo observes from the corner where you’re tucked away with the girls, sipping on beer and trying, desperately, to relax a bit.
“He looks a lot better,” Harcourt says.
“He does?” you ask. “I just—I don’t want him to go back to work too soon, and do something moronic, and get hurt again, and make things worse—”
Maybe it’s because you’ve been there for every day of his recovery, every gradual step of it. Maybe it’s you being overly cautious, protective over Adrian in a way that you’ve never had to be before.
“This is Adrian we’re talking about,” Harcourt says. “He’s blown himself up and gotten shot and stabbed and god knows whatever else more times than I can count. This particular one was scary, yeah. His healing factor didn’t kick in like it usually does. But he’s got us, watching his back. He’s got you.”
“Yeah,” you say softly. “He does.”
“Take it slow,” Ads suggests. “No field work. But maybe he can start training again next week.”
“That cool with you, Dr. Emilia?”
She’s got the most field medic training, so she acts as the unofficial medical professional for most of the Checkmate staff.
“Yeah, he’ll be alright.”
You watch Adrian laugh with Chris and John across the room, and the corner of your mouth quirks up. “Okay. I’ll tell him later.”
Even after everyone’s gone, the light mood lingers in your apartment as you and Adrian clean up and get ready for the night.
“So I talked to Em,” you say, and Adrian raises his eyebrows. “She said you’re good to start up training again next week.”
“Oh,” Adrian says. “Sick.”
“You are not as excited about that as I thought you were going to be.”
“Well, I also talked to Harcourt,” Adrian says. “While you were in the bathroom.”
Your brow furrows. “About what?”
He leans down and whispers right in your ear. “She said I’m allowed to fuck you again.”
You laugh. “You are fucking ridiculous. Here I am thinking you’re all angsty and mopey because you want to get back out in the field to shoot some bad guys, but no, you just want—”
“You,” Adrian interrupts. “I just want you. And also to shoot some bad guys. That’s a close second.”
You kiss him, soft and sweet, your arms reaching up around his neck.
“I love you. Thank you for taking care of me,” he says softly. “Now, will you let me take care of you? In the sexy way?”
You giggle. “Yeah, Adrian. You can take care of me. In the sexy way.”