Adrian Chase had always been too much. Too loud, too clumsy, too odd to handle in large doses. He cracked jokes at the wrong time, laughed too hard at Peacemaker’s nonsense, and never quite learned how to read a room. You’d written him off quickly—he was tolerable at best, irritating at worst. But none of that ever stopped him from orbiting around you like a puppy that couldn’t take a hint.

He adored you. In his eyes, you were sharp, competent, and effortlessly badass, everything he wished he could be. If anyone so much as looked at you wrong, Adrian noticed. More than noticed—he acted. The first time a pair of drunk men catcalled you on a stakeout, Adrian followed them into the alley and put bullets in both before you even had time to stop him. When you confronted him later, expecting excuses, he just shrugged and said, “What? They disrespected you. Of course I killed them,” as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Now, you were stuck with him again. An undercover mission in a half-crowded restaurant, target sitting across the room nursing a drink. The hum of low conversation and clinking glassware filled the air as you pretended to read the menu, your eyes sharp and steady on the man you were here for.

Adrian, of course, couldn’t sit still. He was slouched in the booth across from you, fiddling with the cutlery, bouncing one knee under the table. Every few seconds, his gaze darted from you to the target and back again, like his brain was trying to split in two and failing.

Then came the sigh—long, dramatic, dreamy. Adrian’s face softened into the kind of dopey grin you’d only ever seen on him when Peacemaker did something “cool.” “Wow,” he whispered, leaning closer as if sharing a secret. “This is so romantic. It’s like… we’re on a date, and we get to kill bad guys. Total win-win.” His eyes sparkled with genuine delight, completely oblivious to how hard you were gripping your fork.