Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Don’t get into any trouble and be home before midnight!” Yoongi’s aunt shouted after him.

Yoongi waved her off, shoving his earbuds in and flipping his hood up. He swung his backpack over his shoulder before gently closing the apartment door behind him.

It was lightly drizzling as Yoongi trekked through the streets of Seoul, and he hummed absentmindedly to himself as he hopped up the concrete steps of the large brick building.

He dodged around a couple crowds of people to get to the doors, and he maneuvered around several bustling groups of students in the hallways before finally releasing a small sigh as he reached the classrooms in the west wing. Yoongi pushed his hood off with one hand and adjusted his backpack on his shoulders, his eyes scanning the crowd for Hoseok.

“Hey, Min!” a voice yelled from across the hallway. “Do anything fun last weekend? Hang with some friends?” Hyejun held his chin thoughtfully in mock consideration. “Wait, you don’t have any friends, do you?”

Very funny, Yoongi thought darkly, it’s like he can’t even hear himself speak. Poor guy. He ignored the taunt and serenely unwrapped a protein bar.

“Shut the fuck up, Jun-Jun!” Hoseok screeched, suddenly bounding up to greet Yoongi. “What’s up? Do you have any food? I was in a rush again and I fucking forgot. I’m gonna starve to death!” He laid one hand dramatically on his chest. “Hey, what’s that?” Hoseok pointed at the protein bar briefly before swiping it out of Yoongi’s hands, hastily taking a large bite out of it before Yoongi could even open his mouth to protest.

“I swear to God, Jung Hoseok, if we weren’t friends,” Yoongi muttered while pulling out a second protein bar. Hoseok said a muffled Thanks man, you’re a lifesaver through a mouthful of protein bar before running off to his morning class. Yoongi shook his head in amusement.

“Freaks,” Hyejun scoffed.

Yoongi shrugged and watched his only friend disappear down the hallway before gathering his things. He pushed Hyejun aside and ignored the latter’s protests of indignation, heading up the stairs to his first morning lecture: Chemistry.

***

Yoongi didn’t consider himself a bad student by any means. He just didn’t have the energy to attempt to be a good student early on a Monday morning.

He absently doodled a little hexagonal shaped design as the teacher droned on and on about something to do with polar qualities in chemical compounds. He had long since given up on paying attention and taking good notes through the lecture, knowing that he could probably just get the notes off Hoseok later.

“Mr. Min,” the professor suddenly said very loudly, clearing his throat in an offended manner. “Care to give us an answer now?”

Yoongi raised his head up slowly and resisted the urge to yawn. “I’m sorry, sir, could you repeat the question?’

“I said, what is the standard unit of temperature used when gauging the relationship between pressure and energy?”

“Kelvin,” Yoongi replied easily, head already tilting downwards to complete his doodle.

The professor looked kind of pissed. Yoongi was glad. The rest of the class held their breaths for a couple moments.

“Pay more attention next time, Min,” the profesor finally said irritatedly, not bothering to acknowledge that Yoongi was right. Figures.

By the time he was running off to his third class of the day, Yoongi was already prepared to throw the towel in and just go home, but he knew his aunt would kill him for skipping class.

Even if it was just gym class. Why he had chosen to enroll at the one college that required all freshmen take a physical education course, Yoongi didn’t know.

Yoongi groaned as the gym teacher told them that they were evaluating everyone’s fitness today, meaning that they were going to be forced to do a series of dumbass fitness trials to determine whether they were “in shape” by the government’s standards.

Hoseok sent a side-eye look at Yoongi as the teacher announced that everyone needed to pair up for this bullshit. Yoongi nodded at him mutely.

Hoseok plopped a giant yoga mat down in front of Yoongi. “You can go first,” he grinned.

Yoongi exhaled annoyedly as he laid down onto the mat. “Ok, start the fucking timer.”

For the first ten seconds of Yoongi doing sit ups, Hoseok didn’t say anything, but inevitably, Yoongi’s overly excitable friend had a couple things to get off his chest.

“Okay, so did you hear about the party Kim Taehyung threw last weekend? Park Jimin was there!” Hoseok whisper-yelled from his position kneeling on the floor, his hands wrapped firmly around Yoongi’s ankles.

Yoongi hoped Hoseok didn’t notice the stutter in Yoongi’s breath at the mention of Park Jimin. “Wha-What?” he huffed out mid-sit up.

“The party! Last weekend, at Taehyung’s house? I mean, we weren’t invited but anyways…” Hoseok stared off into the distance longingly. “I heard it was pretty wild…”

Yoongi rolled his eyes, inhaling and exhaling slowly. “How many am I at right now?”

“I lost count like twenty seconds ago.”

“I don’t know why I’m even friends with you.”

“Because I’m awesome and lovable and I also have all the information on Park Jimin?”

Damn, he’s right, Yoongi thought as the timer finally went off. They switched positions quickly. “Wait, so what’s so important about this party? Don’t they throw one like every week after their big soccer matches?”

Hoseok rested his elbows on his knees. “Right, but this one is important because Jimin got hammered and started talking about—”

“What the fuck, Jimin?!” Yoongi heard Kihyun scream from the other side of the room. “Of all people, fucking Spiderman!?”

Yoongi’s eyes widened at Hoseok. “What—”

He watched as Jimin started blushing, like actually blushing, as Taehyung made a gagging noise. “Bro, you don’t even know what he looks like! He could totally just be an ugly ass middle aged weirdo with a special affinity for parkour!”

“He’s not a middle aged weirdo!” Jimin protested. “He’s a hero! It’s...it’s admirable, okay?”

“You straight up told me you wanted him to shoot a web up your ass. What the fuck does that have to do with you thinking he’s ‘a hero?’ He’s a random vigilante—”

“Who saves people everyday,” Jimin cut Taehyung off. “So yeah, maybe I find his incredible strength and agility hella attractive—not to mention if you’ve seen him in that spandex suit—but I mean, he’s a good guy. He helps people; that’s what counts.”

Hoseok poked Yoongi’s cheek. “Stop staring. People are starting to notice.”

“...right.”

“So yeah, I was gonna tell you about Jimin drunkenly confessing that he has a crush on Spiderman, but I guess I don’t need to anymore…”

“What the fuck—Hoseok!” Yoongi forcefully released the younger’s ankles from his grip. “He likes...Spiderman? That’s…” his voice lowered to an panicked whisper. “I’m fucking Spiderman!”

“Exactly,” Hoseok rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what this means for you, though. Unless you wanna go waltzing around telling everyone you’re Spiderman...I don’t know how you can tell him and have him believe you, much less date you.”

Yoongi pouted. “Yeah, you’re probably right. At least it’s good to know he likes strong, agile guys who look good in spandex.”

“Apparently he had a lot more to say last weekend about why he finds Spiderman hot. I guess he thinks those webs are good for more than just crime fighting,” Hoseok winked.

Yoongi felt himself blush, but he tried to hide it with a shrug. “...Maybe.”

***

When his final class finished at 2:30, Yoongi hastily waved goodbye to Hoseok, throwing all of his things haphazardly into his bag before rushing down the school steps. He stopped by his favorite deli to buy a sandwich (a guy’s gotta eat, okay?) before taking off again.

As soon as he found a mostly deserted alleyway a couple streets down, Yoongi threw his backpack on the ground and started pulling his shoes off.

It took a couple minutes of struggling, but the spandex was ready and so was Yoongi.

“Welcome, Spiderman,” the automated female voice greeted as soon as Yoongi pressed the centermost button on his chest.

“Hey, Suit Lady,” Yoongi muttered back. “How are you today?”

“I’m doing fine,” the voice responded. “Thank you for asking.”

Yoongi laughed before flicking his wrist and shooting a web at a nearby building, counting to three in his head before he released the trigger and let himself fly forwards.

He kept slinging webs and moving from building to building until he reached his usual lookout point. It was one of the tallest buildings in the city, and he sat down on the roof’s edge and carefully watched the people below him.

Nothing ever seemed to happen at this time in the afternoon, and Yoongi sighed before pulling some notebooks and textbooks out of his backpack to idly work on some homework.

Once he had finished everything, he heaved another sigh and briefly considered taking a nap before shaking his head at himself. No, he needed to keep watch in case something happened. No one knew when crime could strike in this capitalist economy.

He ended up listening to music for a couple more minutes before he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was a group of hooded men walking into a store.

Yoongi squinted while pulling his earbuds out. His eyes widened as he saw one of the men pull out a gun, aiming at the cashier behind the counter.

He pulled his mask all the way back down and rolled his shoulders. It was go time.

He scanned his surroundings as quickly as possible, using the automatic mapping and trajectory device implanted into his suit to find the best spot to shoot a web at so he could land in the alley behind the store without catching the attention of the burglars.

Yoongi dropped in the alley within a couple seconds, pausing to press his ear against the door in the back to listen to what was going on inside the store.

“Just give us the money and no one has to get hurt,” a gruff voice was saying. “And hurry up. I’m feeling impatient today.”

“I don’t have access to the safe. I can only give you what’s inside the cash register right now,” a trembling voice responded. “S-sorry.”

“Bullshit!” the first voice shouted. “You think I haven’t heard that dumbass excuse before? Give us the fucking money before I blow your fucking brains out.”

Yoongi pried open the back entrance of the store and silently snuck in. He crept in with his knees bent and his torso hunched over so that the burglars wouldn’t be able to see him behind the counter.

The cashier’s eyes widened exponentially when he saw Yoongi, and Yoongi swiftly pressed a finger to his lips to tell the cashier to act naturally.

“O-okay. I’ll see what I can d-do,” the cashier said before disappearing to the back room.

“Make it quick,” the main burglar shouted after him, letting out a cruel laugh that was soon echoed by his cronies.

Yoongi held his breath and waited, his body pressed against the back of the counter as he tried to find the perfect time to strike.

“Well boys, I guess we’re getting rich today,” the man from before was saying.

The chime above the door went off and Yoongi pressed his lips together in confusion.

“Yeah, Tae, I just want a pack of gum or some candy or something, I dunno—”

Yoongi’s heartbeat picked up instantly. He knew that voice. What the fuck was Park Jimin doing here?

He heard the sound of feet shuffling and the click of a gun. There was a small gasp that seemed to echo in the store.

“Got any money you’re willing to share, kids?” the burglar said. “Hand over your wallets.”

There was more shuffling as Jimin and whoever was with him (Tae? Taehyung?) undoubtedly handed their wallets to the burglars.

“Look, we don’t want any trouble—” Jimin said.

“Sure, sure,” the burglar interrupted in a pseudo-polite voice. “But you probably understand that I need you two to stay here, in case that goddamn cashier needs some extra persuading…” he trailed off sinisterly. “Speaking of, where the fuck is he? Where’s our money?”

Yoongi heard more shuffling as the burglar walked towards the counter. “We haven’t got all day!” he screamed. “What are you doing back th—”

That was when Yoongi leaped up onto the countertop to punch the burglar in the face, his left hand swiftly reaching out to swipe the pistol out of the man’s outstretched hand.

The two other burglars were trying to pull their guns out as well but Yoongi pinned their hands to the walls and shelves with some of his short-range webs. Then he slowly jumped down from the countertop, leisurely walking over to pull both of the burglar’s guns out of their coat pockets.

He pulled out a pair of handcuffs and secured the main burglars hands together before straightening up and walking back up to the counter.

“It’s safe to come out now, dude!” he shouted towards where he knew the cashier was cowering in the storage room. “Did you call the cops already? They have three criminals to pick up over here.”

The cashier looked close to tears as he emerged and shakily nodded to affirm that yes, he had called the police while hiding in the storage room and that yes, they would be here any minute to collect the three burglars.

Yoongi gave the cashier a thumbs up and a pat on the back, whispering “You did good, man” before turning to face Jimin and Taehyung.

He rubbed his neck awkwardly, hating the way his heart was starting to beat faster at the sight of Jimin. They had clearly come here straight after practice; they were still in their soccer uniforms, their hair sweaty and matted to their heads.

Yoongi reached down and searched the first burglar’s pockets, quickly locating out their wallets and tossing them to Jimin and Taehyung.

“Uh, you guys are free to go,” Yoongi said awkwardly. “Sorry about the mess. Hope you aren’t too shaken up. Police should be here any minute now so you’re in safe hands.”

He turned to leave as Jimin and Taehyung continued to stare at him open-mouthed. Fabulous; Yoongi could embarrass himself in front of his crush in his alter ego form as well apparently.

“T-thank you!” he heard an angelic voice shout after him as he shot a long-distance web to propel himself back to the roof of the building two blocks away.

And as Yoongi zipped through the air later that night to stop many other crimes, he thought about that voice a lot, his heart fluttering each and every time he pictured the bashful words escaping Park Jimin’s beautiful lips.

***

The news of Yoongi’s daring rescue of Jimin and Taehyung spread through the college campus like wildfire. Yoongi would hear people gossiping about Jimin’s now public crush on Spiderman and how strange it was that Park Jimin, the campus sweetheart and star athlete who could have anyone he wanted, was chasing after someone whose face he’d never seen.

Yoongi ducked his head in the campus cafe, pretending to be studying as he listened to the conversation at the table beside him.

“Oh god, Tae…” Jimin was saying. “I like him so much and I’ve really only ever spoken with him once? I don’t know why I just—”

“You got a thing for spandex and webs, I get it,” Taehyung sighed.

“And the way he punched those dudes and took them all down like it was nothing. Holy fuck, Tae, have you ever seen anything hotter in your life?”

Yoongi could feel the tips of his ears turning red at Jimin’s words as he buried his face deeper into the book he was pretending to read.

“What I still don’t get, is that you’re head over heels for this dude and you don’t even know what he looks like,” Taehyung replied. “Also, control your thirst. We’re in public.”

“You saw the spandex!” Jimin retorted defensively. “But god, he just seems so...brave, strong, hot, flexible, good at manhandling people…”

Taehyung made a choked noise. “Well, that escalated quickly.”

“Well forgive me if seeing the sinful spandex suit up close brought about—”

Yoongi felt a sudden hard pinch on his upper arm and yelped in surprise, dropping his book onto the table with a loud clack! sound. Jimin and Taehyung both fell silent to stare at Yoongi, who gave them an apologetic half smile, before returning to their conversation.

“What the fuck, Hoseok?” Yoongi muttered while rubbing his arm. “Why’d you pinch me?”

Hoseok grinned. “It’s St. Patrick’s Day and you aren’t wearing any green, dumbass!”

“It’s St. Patrick’s Day?” Yoongi questioned. “Huh, I thought I had it marked on my calendar…” He trailed off in mock consideration. “Oh wait no one fucking celebrates that holiday! Why the fuck does it matter if I’m wearing green or not as how the fuck does that give you the right to physically assault me in public?”

“It’s a tradition,” Hoseok sniffed with his nose held high in the air. “Deal with it, you grouch.”

Yoongi glowered darkly and pulled open his book again.

“Dude, stop pretending to read a book. It’s weird and—”

“How did you know?”

“For one, you’re holding it upside down—”

“Oh shit,” Yoongi fumbled to reorient the book.

Hoseok narrowed his eyes at Yoongi. “You were eavesdropping on someone, weren’t you? Care to share?”

Yoongi shook his head but it was too late. Hoseok’s eyes scanned the crowd around them, instantly noticing Taehyung and Jimin engaged in energetic conversation just a few meters away from them.

“Oh, I see,” Hoseok said with a knowing grin. “Feeling extra good about Park Jimin’s big ass crush on you? Or I mean, the other you?”

Yoongi tried valiantly to suppress a blush and failed. “Yeah whatever.”

“You’ve been pining after the dude for literal years. How are you going to make your move?”

“Um, never?” Yoongi replied with a sigh. “My identity is a secret for a reason and like, I feel like he would be disappointed if he knew who I really was. I’m not as cool or hot or brave as he thinks I am. Or thinks Spiderman is, I should say.”

“But don’t you get it?” Hoseok gestured towards Yoongi. “You and Spiderman are the same person! He likes you. Maybe don’t tell him about the crime fighting, but try to approach him in other ways? I’m sure you can ‘show’ him how many characteristics you share with Spiderman and how similar you two are and make him fall for you.”

Yoongi slouched in his seat. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t approach people! That sounds terrifying and torturous!”

“Then you’ll nurse this hidden crush on Park Jimin forevermore.”

“That’s the plan.”

“You’re no fun,” Hoseok pouted.

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Fun is for the weak.”

Hoseok guffawed before leaning over to pinch Yoongi for the hell of it.

Yoongi just sighed and dreamily watched Park Jimin from the corner of his eye.

***

Yoongi was patrolling the streets later that night very carefully and cautiously. People tended to get super smashed and blackout drunk on St. Patrick’s Day, which led to a lot more crime and violence throughout the city.

So far, he’d broken up two fights and stopped three robberies, but the night was still young and who knew what could happen by the time the sun rose again?

He paced along the edge of the roof of a random apartment building, keeping his eyes on the ground to watch everything that was happening down below.

He glanced up to the apartment building he knew Kim Taehyung lived in (the kid was a fucking legend on campus, okay? Everyone knew his address; it wasn’t like Yoongi was being extra creepy in his pursuit of Jimin’s love and affection…) and felt a pang of loneliness. He knew most people, including Hoseok, were partying inside and celebrating St. Patrick’s Day together.

He sighed. He’d never been one for parties, but Jimin was probably the first person who’d ever made him want to try it. Yoongi hated that sometimes he fantasized about going to one of Taehyung’s legendary parties: how he would style his hair and wear his best and tightest clothes, how he would confidently approach and start a conversation with the soccer star, how he would sweep Jimin off of his feet, how he would end the night with Jimin’s number or some way to contact him again after it all…

Fuck, he was kind of pathetic, wasn’t he?

There was a sudden stir of activity in the corner of Yoongi’s vision and he fixed his gaze back on Taehyung’s apartment building. There was a group of students bursting out onto the rooftop, many of them drunkenly stumbling around and clinging onto other people for support.

As quietly as he could, Yoongi shot a web out and landed onto the roof beside all the activity. The streets were peaceful for now; he could spy on some of his classmates for a little while, right? It was the second best thing to actually going to the party.

“Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance!” the students were shouting in sync, forming a semi-circle around one student and egging them on enthusiastically.

Yoongi used the zoom in feature of his mask to magnify what was going on. The student in the center of the semi-circle was...Jimin?

Yoongi gulped as Jimin began moving, his torso and hips rolling and twisting in ways that should have been illegal. Yoongi could feel his entire body heat up as he watched, his throat almost completely dry as Jimin danced for the crowd on the rooftop.

He was clearly a little tipsy, some of his spins and turns a little wobbly and shaky, but even so, Jimin was good. A little too good, if you asked Yoongi. God, he already knew that images of Jimin’s dancing would haunt him for the next month or so.

Jimin kept twisting and turning, the crowd’s chanting seeming to only grow in volume as he went. And then Yoongi noticed something. Jimin was so tipsy that whenever he spun in place, he would lose his balance slightly and end up just a little bit closer to the edge of the roof…

Yoongi was running before he heard the screams. He quickly dived off the side of the building, his left hand shooting a web out to anchor himself to the side of the apartment building. Jimin was tumbling, arms flailing in the night air helplessly.

Yoongi felt his heart race as his right hand grabbed the back of Jimin’s shirt. The web connected to his left hand pulled taut and Yoongi grunted as he tried to reposition Jimin so that he was resting against Yoongi’s body.

“You okay?” he panted into Jimin’s ear. He could feel Jimin shaking slightly in his arms. “Shh, it’s okay. I got you, I got you.”

Jimin seemed close to tears and wouldn’t respond.

“I’m going to lower us to the ground now, okay?” Yoongi said. “I’ll go slow, so don’t worry or freak out.”

He swung towards the building so that the balls of his feet were pressed against the brick. He turned on the slow release function of the web shooter on his left hand and began to lower them to the ground like a rock climber, his feet pushing off from the building as the string-like webs lowered them inch by inch to the ground.

Once they were safely on the ground, Yoongi gently placed Jimin back on his feet. His arms and chest felt the loss of Jimin’s soft warmth immediately but nonetheless, he forced himself to take a step back away from Jimin, his right hand patting the top of the frightened athlete’s head reassuringly.

“You okay, man?” Yoongi repeated. “You’re safe now, I promise.”

“Y-yeah,” Jimin replied shakily. “T-thank you...Spiderman.”

“No problem.”

They stood in awkward silence for several moments.

“Well, I guess I should be going…” Yoongi said stiffly, using his thumb to gesture behind his shoulder. “See you around?”

“D-Do you remember me?” Jimin suddenly asked. “You saved me about a week ago too, you know?”

“Yeah, of course I remember you,” Yoongi answered without hesitation. “How could I forget about someone as pretty as you?”

Oh fuck. Mayday, mayday, may—

Jimin face was almost completely blood red, although it could have just been the alcohol in his system. “I—pretty? Really? Thank you.”

“Uh, yeah. No problem,” Yoongi repeated dumby. “Anyways, I gotta…”

“Can I have a hug?” Jimin said with a pleading look in his eyes. “Sorry if that’s creepy but just—I want someone to hold me right now. Is it stupid that I feel so safe in your arms?”

Yoongi instantly took a few steps forward to wrap his arms around Jimin. “No, not at all. I’m really glad you’re alright, Jimin.”

Jimin went rigid in his arms. “How—How did you know my name? I never told you my name…”

Yoongi wanted to slap himself in the face. Why couldn’t he stop fucking up today?

“Um…” he fumbled for words. “I heard the students chanting it earlier?”

Jimin’s brows furrowed. “No, I don’t think they were chanting my name...are you a student at the same college as me? Is that how you know me?”

Yoongi froze. Fuck, Yoongi. Do something. Lie. Deny. Run away. Anything.

Jimin’s eyes lit up. “You are! Oh my god, you’re a college student! Wait no, you’re a student at my college! Holy shit!”

Yoongi wanted to claw his eyes out. “Okay, listen. I’m trying to keep this whole Spiderman business on the down low so let’s just forget about this conversation, alright? You don’t need to know who I am.”

Jimin pouted. “You don’t trust me?”

“No, I—” Of course I trust you. I’ve been pining after you for fucking eons. “I just think the safest policy to just not trust anyone.”

Jimin’s face fell and Yoongi felt his chest squeeze uncomfortably. “Oh, I see.” Jimin looked down at the ground. “Have a nice night then, Mr. Spiderman. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.”

Fuck, Jimin was pouting and looking sad and Yoongi was so, so weak.

“Jimin,” Yoongi found himself saying. “Yes, I’m a college student at the same school as you. Will you just...stop looking like an upset kitten and giving me that look?”

Jimin beamed. “Okay!” He started giggling and Yoongi swore the way his heart leaped into his throat at the sound was probably very unnatural and very unhealthy.

“I’m going to head back inside now, Spidey,” Jimin announced. “Good luck fighting crime tonight and hopefully we’ll see each other around? Either on campus or whenever I inevitably get myself into some trouble again?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi replied. “I’ll see you around.”

Jimin gave him one last warm hug and Yoongi found himself reveling in the warmth of Jimin’s embrace. They pulled away and Yoongi opened his mouth to bid him farewell when Jimin suddenly surged forward to press a soft kiss to Yoongi’s cheek over the mask.

Yoongi stood there, staring ahead dumbfoundedly, as Jimin flashed a blinding smile at him before heading inside back to Taehyung’s party.

His heart was beating unnaturally fast as he pressed his fingertips to the spot Jimin’s lips had been just a few moments ago.

He felt a wide, giddy grin stretch over his face.

Park Jimin had just kissed him. Granted, it was on the cheek, but it had to count for something, right?

Yoongi’s grin didn’t leave his face for the rest of the night, and as he settled into his bed well past four AM, he brushed his fingertips over the spot where Jimin had kissed him a few more times before falling asleep with a soft smile on his face.

Chapter Text

“Why are you smiling and looking really fucking demented so early in the morning? Who possesed your ass?” Hoseok asked Yoongi the next morning.

Yoongi playfully slapped Hoseok with a notebook. “I do not look demented. And it’s none of your business. Let me live.”

Hoseok hummed. “But that’s not nearly as entertaining.”

Yoongi didn’t dignify Hoseok with an answer, instead focusing his energy into relaxing his facial muscles so he didn’t look like he was in pain or feeling joyful, since both of those expressions kind of looked the same on his face.

The truth was, Yoongi was feeling kind of happy. For one, the little peck Jimin had given him last night was still fresh in his memory. Add that to the fact that Yoongi was on his way to his favorite class, Introduction to Musical Composition—which just so happened to be the only class besides gym that Yoongi shared with Jimin—and yeah, Yoongi was pretty happy that morning.

He bid a quick farewell to Hoseok before stalking off across campus to the music building while idly nibbling on a protein bar. He slid into his usual spot at the back of the classroom and started unpacking his things, thoroughly ready to observe two of his favorite things in action: music and Park Jimin.

While his professor droned on and on about how to create harmonies and tasteful dissonance, Yoongi doodled in the margins of his notebook. He was sketching a boy...well, not just any boy. Yoongi glanced up occasionally to furtively stare at Jimin, who always sat in the front row, from his spot at the back of the lecture hall

It was only once he heard a grumble of whispers and groans that Yoongi looked up at the Powerpoint presentation the professor was projecting at the front of the room. He squinted to make out two words:

Partner Project.

Okay, Yoongi thought while trying not to freak out, who the fuck am I gonna work with? I literally don’t know anyone in this class.

It was then that the universe decided to make Yoongi’s life a living hell.

“Settle down,” the professor announced wearily. “I have already placed you all in pairs based on overall grades in this class.” There was a pause as the professor began shuffling around with some papers in his hand. “Ahem, pairs for this class are…”

Yoongi listened with bated breath, praying that he didn’t get stuck with one of those slackers who only took the class for art credits and didn’t know shit about music.

“Min Yoongi,” the professor called, and Yoongi held his breath for a moment. “And Park Jimin.”

Oh.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck—

“You have the rest of the lecture time to meet with your partner, plan out the basics for your project, and schedule time to work on it together outside of class. Get to it.”

Yoongi stood up, knowing full well that there was no way that Park Jimin knew who he was, and slowly made his way to the front of the lecture hall.

“Uh, Jimin-ssi?” he said awkwardly after tapping Jimin on the shoulder.

Jimin whipped around in his seat, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Yoongi held his hand out. “Hi. I’m Min Yoongi. We’re partners for this project.”

Jimin’s eyes lit up immediately. “Oh good! Do you have a topic in mind for the project already?”

Yoongi felt his face heat up as he shook his head. “I was uh...hoping you had one…” The truth was that Yoongi hadn’t been paying attention and he kind of didn’t have a single fucking clue what this project was about.

Jimin smiled, and for a moment, Yoongi felt like he had been blinded by the sun. “I do, actually! I was thinking we could research some early jazz music and write our paper about that?”

“Sure,” Yoongi replied, still feeling a little bit dazed. “Early jazz. Research. Paper. Perfect.”

Jimin gave him a strange look. “Well, um...do you want to get started then? We still have like half an hour left, and I can meet with you in the library from like three to five whenever?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi said slowly. “Yeah, we can do that.”

Jimin smiled again and Yoongi honestly felt like dying. “Okay, can I have your number then? So we can arrange to meet up and stuff?”

Yoongi froze before he hastily forced himself to pull his phone out of the pocket of his hoodie. “Here,” he said while thrusting the device towards Jimin—

—and completely missing. The phone made a thumping noise as it landed on the floor. Both of them stared at it for a second before Yoongi reached down to pick it up, wishing the floor would just swallow him whole.

“L-Let’s try this again,” he sputtered while handing Jimin the phone again, this time taking care to do it in a much gentler fashion.

Jimin giggled while entering his phone number into Yoongi’s contacts and sending a text message to himself.

Yoongi seemed to realize how awkward and flat out weird he was being and forced himself to take a seat in the chair beside Jimin.

The rest of the lecture period passed in silence, with both Yoongi and Jimin gathering sources and topics to cover in their paper on their laptops. They promised to meet up again the next day before Yoongi was running out of the lecture hall, feeling strangely giddy and excited at the prospect of working closely with a certain pretty boy for the next couple of weeks.

***

“Come on! It’s just one night!” Hoseok whined to Yoongi over lunch. “Surely missing out on one night won’t hurt anything?”

“I don’t know,” Yoongi muttered. “You know, saving people and keeping the city safe is a pretty important job…”

“Right, but I think the police can handle one night without you,” Hoseok retorted. He sighed before screwing his face into his best pout. “Please? For me?”

Yoongi looked away as soon as he could, but the damage had already been done. “F-Fine. I fucking hate it when you make that face at me.”

Hoseok grinned. “Yes! It’s about goddamn time you come to a soccer match!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Yoongi mumbled darkly under his breath. “Just don’t make me regret this.”

As they piled into the crowded stadium just a few hours later, Yoongi couldn’t help but start to regret everything, his ears already pounding from all the noise from the rowdy students.

“It’s so fucking loud!” he shouted in Hoseok’s ear, and Hoseok nodded briefly while wincing after some of the students began to engage in some sort of chant that just sounded like a lot of high pitched screaming to Yoongi.

Hoseok was saying something, but Yoongi could only see his lips moving, no sound coming out. He motioned towards his ear, mouthing I can’t hear you to Hoseok.

“I WAS ASKING IF YOU WANTED TO GET FOOD,” Hoseok screeched into Yoongi’s ear. “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?”

“YES, I CAN HEAR YOU,” Yoongi screamed back. “I ALREADY ATE AND I DON’T WANT SHITTY JUNK FOOD RIGHT NOW.”

“YOUR LOSS,” Hoseok replied while getting up, presumably to go purchase some of the said shitty junk food.

Yoongi rubbed his arms and tried not to shrink into himself as he waited for Hoseok to come back. He scrolled through news updates on his phone, unable to help himself, before he sighed in relief. No major incidents so far.

By the time Hoseok came back, the game was about to start. Truthfully, Yoongi had never really watched a soccer match live, preferring to enjoy the excitement from the safety of his couch.

As the players came running out, Yoongi felt his head swim as students got up to cheer and scream. The noise was definitely something he was going to have to get used to, and Yoongi swore he could feel his ears already starting to go numb.

He heard the announcer's muffled voice shouting out the team names and the names of the team captains and head coaches, but he mostly tuned it all out and let his eyes zero in on the one person he was there for.

Somehow, Jimin looked even more ethereal in a soccer uniform, his hair carefully swept back by a headband and a bright smile on his face. Yoongi felt his breath stutter in his chest temporarily as he took in Jimin's glowing, bronze skin exposed by the soccer uniform, visible even from so far away.

Yoongi could hear Hoseok emphatically cheering alongside most of the student spectators, but he was so engrossed and fixated on the handsome soccer star that whenever he opened his mouth, no sound came out. His throat felt weirdly clogged and tight. He tried to make up for it by clapping enthusiastically though.

When the university team scored a goal, everyone around Yoongi started standing up and screaming, and he found himself standing up too, since his view was being blocked by celebrating students.

"Did you see that?" Hoseok nudged him. "Oh my god, did you see that fucking hat trick? Amazing."

Yoongi ignored him and kept his eyes trained on Jimin, as if afraid that if he looked away for one second, he would lose sight of the soccer player forever.

Even more screams erupted towards the end of the first half, when Jimin was running down the field, rapidly dribbling the ball between his feet before swiftly passing it off to another player. A defender tried to chase after Jimin, but Jimin was simply too fast, sprinting down towards the end of the field like a graceful gazelle.

Yoongi's eyes weren't fast enough to keep up with everything that was happening, but suddenly, the ball was sailing across the field and was back between Jimin's feet, before Jimin kicked the ball into the goal with ease.

The screaming was almost unbearable, but Yoongi found himself smiling and clapping more vigorously as the first half closed out. The university's team was leading 2-1 and all of the fans in the student section were in good spirits as the intermission began.

Hoseok elbowed his side. "See? I told you that you needed to come watch a game. They're incredible, you know."

"Yeah..." Yoongi said in a slightly dazed tone. "Incredible..."

"And don't think I didn't see that you spent the entire time drooling over Park Jimin."

"Yeah..." Yoongi repeated himself in the same dazed tone, before the words suddenly registered in his mind. He shook his head quickly. "Wait, what? I was not drooling—"

"Yes, you were. Don't worry; this is a judgement-free zone."

Yoongi huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. "Whatever. Leave me alone."

"Leave you and your giant ass crush alone? Yeah, that's probably not going to happen any time soon. You being super whipped is like, entertainment gold."

"I hate you. I'm getting a new best friend."

"Good luck with that," Hoseok replied genially. "But for now, the second half is starting and that means that you need to get back to drooling over a certain hot soccer player."

"I do not drool—" Yoongi started indignantly before the announcer's voice was booming throughout the arena, signaling the start of the second half.

If the university team had played well the first half, then they played at a godlike level of soccer mastery during the second half. It seemed that no ball was able to get past any of the defenders, and that no ball was not hastily returned by the team.

Jimin was simply everywhere, and Yoongi could hardly keep up with him, his eyes darting left and right as Jimin sped around on the field, somehow intercepting and shooting the ball at almost every turn.

It was no surprise when the university's team ended up winning the game 4-2 and Yoongi found himself cheering, actually cheering, with all of the other student spectators as the soccer team exited the field afterwards.

"Pretty amazing, huh?" Hoseok said slyly as people began filtering out of the stadium.

Yoongi nodded with a little reluctance. "Yeah. Thanks for convincing me to come out tonight."

Hoseok seemed to notice the begrudging note in Yoongi's voice and smirked. "No problem. We should do this again sometime. Soccer games are fun, right?"

"Right..." Yoongi replied while narrowing his eyes at Hoseok. "But I still have other duties to attend to in the evenings, so I can't promise anything."

"You're such a Debbie Downer," Hoseok muttered. "But okay, go out and save the fucking world I guess. I'll just be here, sitting alone in the student section, no one to scream and cheer with me as a binge eat a disturbing amount of cheese and chili-covered nachos."

Yoongi laid a hand on Hoseok's shoulder. "As much as I hate to say this, my friend, I think you seriously need help. I saw the nachos. No human being in their right mind would consume all of those in one sitting."

Hoseok nodded while pouting. "I know. I'll admit, I have a problem..."

They both cracked smiles at each other before a loud boom echoed in the stadium, followed by a cracking sound.

Yoongi's head immediately whipped around towards the source of the noise. It had come from around the door where the soccer players had exited the field.

His mind reeled as the announcer's voice came over the speaker system. "There has been an explosion. I repeat, there has been an explosion. All persons need to immediately evacuate the area. The explosion occurred in proximity to the home team's locker rooms. Do not move towards the source of the explosion. Security should be available to help guide you to safety. Police and other law enforcement have been called to the scene. Do not panic and evacuate the arena in an orderly fashion. Once again, there has been an explosion..."

Yoongi felt like the world was moving in slow motion as he grabbed Hoseok's wrist and rushed out of the student section and into the nearest bathroom.

Thankfully, the bathroom was empty and Yoongi glanced around quickly before placing his hands on Hoseok's shoulders.

"I'm going in," he said simply. "Be careful and stay safe and don't worry about me, alright?"

Hoseok stared at him. "Yoongi, how are you..."

He trailed off as Yoongi began pulling off his clothes, revealing his suit underneath. "Can you hang onto my street clothes?" he asked casually as he dusted off the spider suit and pulled the mask over his head. "Thanks."

Hoseok glared at him. "I fucking knew it. It's always this whole 'Stay safe' and 'Oh yeah, here are my clothes' and 'I'm just going to go jump into a super dangerous situation, no biggie.'"

"Hoseok," Yoongi said while starting up his suit and checking that all his web shooters were sufficiently loaded. "This is what I do."

"I don't see what that has to do with an unexplained explosion—"

"People could be seriously injured or worse, trapped. I'm going to help them. It's not all about fighting, Hoseok. Sometimes it's just helping a random old lady's cat climb down a tree or bandaging up a kid who fell off his bicycle. I help people, not just save them."

Hoseok pouted. "You always have all the fun without me. And you're always acting so responsible and noble and reasonable."

Yoongi let out a short laugh. "It's what I do," he repeated again before pushing open the bathroom door. "Look after yourself and remember to hang onto my clothes!"

He heard Hoseok start to shout something in reply but he was already swinging through the air, using his webs to launch himself to where the entrance to the home team's locker rooms were. He checked his surroundings before exploring around the area.

There was about ten feet of open space above the ceiling of the locker room, and Yoongi leaped onto some of the support beams so that he could have a better view of the damaged building structures below.

The ceiling was caving in, and he could faintly hear screams and yelps coming from underneath the crumbling concrete.

"Hey, Suit Lady," he said in a low voice. "How should I go about preventing the ceiling from completely collapsing."

"Place adhesive substances here," the suit answered back, showing him a diagram of the ceiling with a few structural points highlighted. "This will temporarily keep the ceiling up, but a laser scan has shown that the only exit in the room has been blocked by fallen concrete. You will need to create an opening in the ceiling to get civilians out."

"Well, shit," Yoongi muttered. "Should I go ahead and sling a bunch of webs over it to keep it from collapsing any second?"

"Carefully attach all large pieces of concrete together in a supportive fashion. Then I would suggest lifting portions of the ceiling up and out to begin hoisting civilians out of the area."

"Gotcha." Yoongi hastily shot webs in every spot marked on the diagram, and the creaking and cracking noises stopped temporarily. "Which portion is easiest to maneuver?"

"You need to lift the whole ceiling. Pull it up from points near the center." A new diagram of the ceiling flashed in front of Yoongi, marking two points for him to attach extra strong webs to. "You should be able to get them to rest against the structural beams framing either side of the area. The hardest part will be just lifting it. You may not have enough strength..."

"Well, I gotta try, right? How long do we have before the ceiling give in and collapses for real?"

"Approximately three minutes."

Yoongi cursed again and shot a web at the two points on the ceiling with each of his hands.

He braced himself against the beams below him and starting pulling.

"Ahhh!" he grunted out. "Is there any other way? They're too heavy; I don't think I can handle it."

"No. There is no other viable option, Spiderman."

"Great. That's very helpful. My fucking arms are gonna fall off."

He pulled again, letting out a scream of pain as he felt his muscles protest and something in his shoulder pop awkwardly.

"Short bursts will not help. Scientific data has shown that if you..."

"Shut the fuck up," Yoongi screeched. "I get it. Don't stop. I'm working on it."

"Well, that certainly was quite rude."

Yoongi felt admonished. "Sorry. I'm just stressed, you know, Suit Lady? Trying to save a bunch of people, including the love of my life, that's all..."

"Modern day slang dictionaries dictate that my proper response would be to say 'chillax.'"

"Chillax," Yoongi repeated with a little smile on his face. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

He tugged again, crying out in pain once more but this time, he didn't stop as he pulled harder and harder on the webs. He could hear the concrete groaning underneath him and he kept pushing back on the heels of his feet to gain more traction as he tugged.

Yoongi screamed as he felt his arms giving out on him, the pain almost unbearable as he forced himself to keep going. By this time, law enforcement and reporters had arrived at the scene, and the extra shouting and bright camera flashes were not doing wonders for his stamina and resolve.

He looked down and saw that the slabs were almost vertical in the air, and he could see some of the soccer players gaping and pointing at him in awe. He gave one last heave and finally pulled the slabs into the right position.

He did as Suit Lady suggested and rested the slabs on the support beams framing the area, after making sure to breathlessly ask her one more time if the beams were strong enough to support the weight of the concrete first.

Yoongi hunched over, his hands on his knees as he precariously balanced on the edge of a beam. Any normal human would have fallen over, but his feet were like, sticky, like his webs and ever since he'd been bitten by the radioactive spider, Yoongi had never encountered another problem with balance and coordination.

He panted a few times before pushing himself into a standing position.

"Alrighty," he announced to the dumbfounded soccer players below. "Who wants to get out of there first?"

***

It was tedious process as Yoongi lifted players and coaches and other staff members out of the mostly destroyed locker room, one by one. Thankfully, it didn't require nearly as much strength and energy; the weight of one person was truly nothing in comparison to twenty-meter-long slabs of concrete.

Yoongi had to try really hard to not show any sort of reaction as Park Jimin came bounding up. His hands shook slightly as he shot a web towards Jimin's torso. Jimin wrapped two hands around the web as Yoongi skillfully lifted him up and out of the locker room.

There was a bright smile on his face, his expression equal parts grateful, relieved, and star-struck. Yoongi felt himself blush from underneath his mask as he quietly cleared his throat and focused on getting the rest of the people out of the room.

Once everyone was safe, Yoongi jumped into the room and cleared out the entryway so that investigators and police could sweep through and inspect the locker room. Some of the police officers grunted, offended that a "simple vigilante" had taken over their jobs, while others, including the chief, stopped Yoongi to thank him for helping rescue all those people.

Yoongi shook their hands and told them it was nothing before launching himself right back to where he had been perched before on the support beams. He took a second to catch his breath and process everything, his eyes following investigators as they tried to find pieces of evidence to preserve and run tests on.

So far, they had come across nothing, and Yoongi's brows furrowed before he tilted his head up to scan the concrete slabs he had pulled up. He saw a tiny bit of black on the right slab. Could it be residue of some sort from the explosion?

He carefully jumped onto the slab, scrambling up to where the black spot was. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was some sort of electronic device, its surface smooth and glassy underneath his fingers.

He glanced around. No one had noticed him frolicking about yet. Good.

Yoongi gently ripped the device off of the concrete. He held it in his hand and gazed at it curiously, not sure what to do with it.

He looked around again, spotting three other black dots on the concrete slabs.

He hopped around on the slabs, collecting all the little black devices to hand over to the investigators. These were probably the explosives.

Yoongi balanced the four of them in his hands, before making a split second decision to stuff one of them in the pocket of his suit.

Something told him to hang onto it himself, to not turn all of the devices over to the police and investigators just yet.

They would probably find tons of pieces of evidence and clues about the explosion from the three devices, he reasoned with himself. And besides, he could run tests on the fourth one with Hoseok later.

He was too curious for his own damn good. He needed to know what had caused this, and if whoever had done it was planning on creating a similar explosion again any time soon.

He jumped down into the locker room and handed the three devices to the chief, whose eyes bulged as he thanked Yoongi profusely, saying that they probably would have never noticed such tiny things on their own.

Yoongi laughed good-naturedly. The radioactive spider had given him enhanced vision too and had greatly increased his ability to observe and notice minuscule details.

He left the scene about five minutes afterwards, the device tucked against his ribs feeling unnaturally heavy as it jostled slightly while he walked.

He pulled his cellphone out from one of his other pockets and texted Hoseok, letting him know that he needed his clothes back now. Hoseok sent him back a string of enraged emojis before saying he would meet Yoongi on the northwest corner of campus, near Yoongi's aunt's apartment.

"You're a lifesaver," Yoongi said with a yawn as Hoseok shoved his clothes back into his hands. He looked around them quickly, but the campus was pretty much deserted since it was so late at night. He dived behind some nearby bushes to pull on his street clothes over his suit.

"So how'd it go?" Hoseok asked lightly. "Did you save a bunch of people's asses out there?"

Yoongi nodded. "You know it." He reached under his shirt to pull the tiny device out of his suit. "I found this, though. Mind coming in early to the chem lab tomorrow to run some tests on it with me? I think this is one of the explosives from tonight, so if we can maybe trace its origin..."

"Is the Min Yoongi, badass superhero and genius Min Yoongi, asking for my help to solve a crime? Hell fucking yes!" Hoseok fist pumped the air. "I've been waiting for you to ask me something like this for months! I can't believe it's happening!"

"Whoa, why are you so excited? It's not that big of a deal..."

"It is! You know, every superhero needs a sidekick, and I'm glad you've chosen me—"

"I wouldn't say that—"

"And I'm more than happy to help."

Yoongi finally cracked a smile. "I'm glad to hear that. You're better at analyzing origins and tracing technology than me, so I figured I would ask."

"Promise me one thing though?"

"What?"

"Don't keep me out of the loop anymore. This shit is so sick!"

"It's really not, Hoseok, I don't know why—"

"Please, please, please, Yoongi?" Hoseok pouted extra hard and Yoongi wrinkled his nose in disgust, absolutely done with how often Hoseok was pulling that face lately.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll try to keep you in the loop and keep asking you for help on certain things if you really want me to," Yoongi ignored the way Hoseok squealed and clapped his hands happily at the words. "I just don't wanna burden or endanger you, so don't get mad if I don't get you involved in every little thing."

Hoseok beamed. "That's fine. Being not-burdened and not-endangered sounds fantastic. Ah, I can't wait to be like, a legit crime fighter. Oh my god, what if we bust an international drug ring? What if we uncover a giant conspiracy? What if—"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here," Yoongi cut Hoseok off. "It's late, though. Go home and get some sleep. We'll talk more tomorrow, okay?"

Hoseok nodded, shouting a cheerful "Good night, Yoongi!" before practically skipping off into the night.

Yoongi shook his head at his crazy best friend's antics before heading home. He turned the device over and over in his hands as he laid on his bed after painstakingly removing his suit, wondering how a device so tiny could cause so much destruction and why someone had targeted the university soccer team.

He sighed before stuffing the device into his backpack and falling into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

The next day, Hoseok and Yoongi entered the chemistry lab bright and early, before the professor had even unlocked the doors. Thankfully, Yoongi had stolen a key a while back (one of the many perks of being both super sticky and super stealthy) since he liked to come in and mess around in the lab by himself sometimes.

"Are you s-sure this is okay?" Hoseok asked for the nth time. "This isn't like...illegal or anything, right?"

Yoongi snorted. "I highly doubt using a college campus chemistry lab for research purposes is illegal. Besides, we have a good reason to be here." He fished the small device out of his pocket. "We gotta trace this sucker."

Hoseok swallowed before nodding slowly. "O-okay. Yes; good reason and all that jazz. Gotta find out which asshole thought it would be cool to blow up the soccer players..."

Yoongi hummed and started setting up the lab, pulling out different tools to disassemble the device and some swabs. He had made sure to find an online database listing the fingerprints or identifying marks left behind by technology companies on explosive devices, and he had looked up a procedure of swabbing and testing electronics to match the devices to their original creators.

Once all the chemicals and tools were properly set up, he asked Hoseok, who was much more careful and gentle than him, to disassemble the device. Just as Yoongi had suspected, there was a small circuit board inside. The explosive had been detonated remotely.

Yoongi carefully swabbed the entire circuit board with an indicator chemical. It didn't take long for the identifying mark to show.

A small red circle appeared in the upper right corner. Yoongi checked the database, raising his eyebrow as he found the name of the company known for leaving the small red circles.

The device had come from Kim Enterprises, no doubt about it.

Hoseok looked over Yoongi's shoulder as the vigilante hastily pulled up Kim Enterprise's online store and product list, his eyes scanning for any name with the word "explosive" in it. There were no explosive or dangerous products listed, only small things like smartphones, laptops, smart watches, security cameras, and remote-controlled vacuums. He scrolled through again and couldn't find anything remotely resembling the device, save for maybe the new, tiny security cameras the company had just launched.

He looked up the words "Kim Enterprise explosive device" and found nothing. He looked up "new remote-controlled explosives" and couldn't find anything relevant to the device resting in the palm of his hand.

Yoongi stared at the device for what felt like eons, wondering how a company could have successfully developed the explosive without putting it out on the market or publicly discussing it with their investors. Then again, many of the large corporations in the city had been getting and shadier and shadier, and the city council mentioned something about relaunching their corporate corruption campaign.

Still, no explosive like this device had ever been seen or used before in the country. Yoongi wondered why it would be used now, on a university soccer arena, no less, and what the bombers goals or targets had been.

Hoseok elbowed him, saying he needed to get to class, and Yoongi nodded blankly in response, quickly muttering out a "Thank you" before returning to pensively staring at the device.

He wasn't sure what exactly was going on, but he was determined to find out.

***

In the afternoon, Yoongi found himself hunched over a random table in the library, hastily scribbling down information about the city's explosives industries and who the biggest developers of explosives were. He tried to find a connection between the coaches and main staff members of the soccer team and Kim Enterprises, but in the end, he found himself empty-handed.

A hand tapped Yoongi's shoulder, startling him out of his crime-fighting research-induced haze.

"W-wha—" he gasped out eloquently, spinning around rapidly in his chair with his eyes comically wide in surprise, only to come face to face with a certain Park Jimin.

"Yoongi, right? Hi, I'm here. To work on the project. Like we talked about yesterday morning." Jimin rubbed his neck sheepishly. "Sorry for scaring you. I didn't realize you were that absorbed in your—" He gestured at Yoongi's messy pile of notebooks and crumpled papers. "—work."

Yoongi felt his face flush red and he began rapidly stacking everything together and moving it out of the way. "Hello. Sorry. I, uh, lost track of time. Feel free to sit." He pointed at the chair directly across from him at the table. "Let me just get all this shit out of the way and we can get started."

Jimin gave him a friendly smile before setting his backpack down on the floor and taking a seat, cupping his face with his hands as he waited for Yoongi to organize all his shit and make room for Jimin's shit.

When Yoongi was finally done, he took a deep breath and looked up to make eye contact with Jimin, only to freeze up immediately because who the fuck had such pretty and sparkly eyes?

"Okay, so I was thinking that maybe we could—" Jimin started before an obnoxious voice from a few meters away cut him off.

"Park!" Hyejun yelled at full volume, despite being inside a fucking library. "How's it going, my dude? Still killing it on the soccer field and tearing up the dance floor at frat parties?"

Jimin stared at the burly man strangely. "Uh, yeah. Sure. I'm doing pretty well. Uh, how about you, Hyejun?"

"Please, call me Jun!" the man shouted, and seriously, Yoongi didn't understand why the idiot needed to shout in a library. He gritted his teeth to keep himself from snapping at Hyejun.

"Uh okay. Jun. Whatever." Jimin looked uncomfortable as hell, and Yoongi had to suppress a smug smile.

"Anyways, are you free tomorrow evening or sometime this weekend, my dude? Would love to hang out again sometime!"

"I..." Jimin floundered for a moment. "I need to uh, vacuum my cat. Yeah. Sorry. Maybe some other time..."

Yoongi bit back a laugh. Vacuum his cat? He was starting to like Jimin more and more with each passing second.

"Whoa, uh..." Hyejun looked stumped, as if finally getting the message that Jimin didn't want him there. "Alright, my dude. But anytime! Seriously...anytime...I'm Gucci with clearing my schedule and all that...yeah..."

Yoongi felt kind of bad, seeing how pathetically desperate Hyejun was acting. But Hyejun was a fucking asshole so he could suck Yoongi's dick (and preferably, choke on it too). Wait no, he didn't want to get any shred of Hyejun's genetic material on him so scratch that. Hyejun could...shove a pole up his ass? Yeah, that sounded better and it wouldn't involve Yoongi getting contaminated or anything.

"Wait, wait, wait," Hyejun blurted out suddenly, holding his hands up in the air dramatically. "Park, you're here with—" He pointed at Yoongi's scowling form. "—him? Did you kill someone in a past life or something? What did you do to deserve something so unfortunate?"

"I'm right here," Yoongi muttered. "Asshole."

"I'm much better company than that grumpy old lump of a human!" Hyejun continued, completely ignoring Yoongi, who continued to glare at him. "You should really be hanging out with me, you know? Not this...pond scum."

Yoongi made an indignant noise. "Hyejun, will you shut the fuck—"

"Oh, it speaks!" Hyejun gasped, clasping a hand over his mouth in mock disbelief.

Jimin's eyes narrowed. "That's unnecessary. Yoongi and I are project partners, so no, I cannot 'hang out' with you right now. We're trying to work. If you could back off and give us some space, that would be awesome. Also, please refrain from referring to my project partner as 'pond scum' and 'it' in front of me. It's really over the top and unneeded."

Hyejun's mouth snapped shut, and Yoongi felt a satisfied smirk spread over his face.

“Oh, I…um—“ Hyejun floundered for words. “Whoops. My bad. Sorry about that, Park.”

Jimin rolled his eyes. “I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”

Yoongi titled his head and stared up a Hyejun expectedly. He watched in amusement as a tidal wave of emotions passed over the other man’s face, ranging from surprise to embarrassment and then to complete and utter humiliation.

“S-Sorry,” he finally mumbled under his breath.

“What was that?” Yoongi taunted. “Forgive me, my hearing hasn’t been all that great as of late.” A total lie. Yoongi’s hearing was enhanced by the spider venom running through his veins and was far better than any human’s.

“Sorry,” Hyejun said again, voice pointedly louder than before. It seemed like Yoongi had pushed the man just a little too far as a glare settled on Hyejun’s face, as if he was trying to say Watch it, punk.

Yoongi smiled and turned back to his work as Jimin said, “Alright, now you can leave” dismissively to Hyejun.

Once the unpleasant man was gone, Yoongi cleared his throat. “Um. Thanks for that, Jimin. You didn’t have to.”

“Nah, it was nothing. He was being an asshole,” Jimin replied.

Yoongi shrugged. “Yeah, but normally I just let it slide. Doesn’t really bother me that much anymore.”

Jimin furrowed his brows, looking concerned. “Anymore? Does this happen a lot or something?”

Yoongi shrugged again. “I mean…I guess? Hyejun’s the main one, but I’m used to people being less than gracious with me. It’s whatever.”

“But why? What the fuck is their problem?”

"Eh. I'm just not that likable. I've accepted it." Yoongi coughed awkwardly and busied himself with shuffling some papers and books around.

When he looked up, Jimin’s face was kind of pinched like he was still bothered by Yoongi’s words but thankfully he chose to drop the topic.

They spent the rest of the afternoon working in silence before parting with the promise of meeting again in a couple days.

***

Between schoolwork and patrolling the streets, Yoongi still worked with Hoseok to research the explosive devices as much as possible. They still hadn’t determined a possible motive for the attack on the soccer team, but Yoongi had a feeling that they would figure it out sooner rather than later.

He was always on edge these days, worried about having to swoop in to intervene in another explosion or attack, but without more information, there was nothing he could do except wait it out.

It was about 5 PM, and as per usual, Yoongi was sitting on the roof of a random building, his notebooks and textbooks out as he rushed to complete a chemistry lab report. His suit was tuned into a local radio station so that if anything happened within the city, he would know about it as soon as possible.

So far all he had heard was some weather reports and shitty pop music, and Yoongi sighed before slamming all his book shut and shoving them back into his backpack.

“Hey Suit Lady, can you turn it off? I’m not in the mood to listen to the latest trendy manufactured music right now.”

“Alright. Turning off 100.8FM.”

The buzz of the city was the only thing Yoongi could hear as he laid down on the roof and tried not to fall asleep. He’d been having a lot of trouble sleeping at night lately, with the stress of university and the music project and the whole crime-fighting alter ego thing really weighing down on him.

There was a sudden cacophony of shouting, and Yoongi immediately scrambled up to his feet from where he’d nearly dozed off. The monitors on the inside of his mask indicated that the noise was coming from his right side, from a nearby alley, and Yoongi stretched briefly before taking off to the source of the shouting.

“What do you want from me? Leave me alone!” a high-pitched voice was screaming. “Please! Do you want my money? Here!” There was a thudding sound as something was thrown and Yoongi crouched down to observe everything from above, leaning his head slightly over the edge of the building.

A man dressed in black began to laugh. “Money? Your pocket change means nothing, Park. Don’t think for a second we don’t know just how much money you have under your name, especially coming from a family like that.”

“Is that why you’re here? Because of my family?” Yoongi used the monitors inside his mask to carefully zoom in on the panicked face of Park Jimin. “I swear I don’t know anything about the operations of the company at all! My family never tells me anything! I don’t have any information for you.”

“We’re not here for information,” another shorter man cut in. “That’s not that hard to obtain.”

“Then what—“

“You know, the explosion at the stadium was just a warning, kid,” the first man said. “It would be unwise of you to underestimate what we are capable of.”

“What do you want?” Jimin asked again, cowering into the walls of the alley. “I don’t understand—“

“Relax; we’re just here to deliver a message,” the man interrupted. “Although it might be a little unpleasant for you.” He let out a small chuckle before suddenly lashing out and punching Jimin square on the cheek.

Yoongi’s eyes widened in surprise before his instincts kicked in and he was swooping down from the rooftop and pushing the men away from Jimin.

“Oh, you again,” the first man muttered darkly. “Always sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

Yoongi didn’t answer before jumping up to kick the man across the face and shooting webs to cover the face of the second man, who staggered around as he tried to claw the adhesive material off of his face. Both men wore face masks to obscure the bottom parts of their face, and Yoongi’s monitors couldn’t conclusively identify them using the city’s databases.

The first man spat out a mouthful of blood onto the pavement before shouting, “You’re an idiot, Spiderman! You don’t want to get involved in this; it won’t end well for you.”

Yoongi narrowed his eyes, even though he knew the man couldn’t see it. “Yeah? See if I care,” he replied before punching the man in the face again.

The man clutched onto the wall for support before screeching, “This is bigger than your little vigilante mind could ever imagine! If you know what’s good for you, stay the fuck out of it. It’s none of your business—“

“If it’s in my city, then it’s my business,” Yoongi said darkly. “Especially if it involves harming or targeting someone like this.”

“You fucking fool!” the second man, who managed to get the webs off of his face, screamed. “We’re just trying to tell you to save yourself before you get yourself into even more hot water. You have no idea—“

“Shut the fuck up,” Yoongi seethed before shooting another web at the man’s eyes, who promptly screamed in outrage.

The first man reached into his coat. “When you’re lying in your grave a few weeks from now, just remember that we warned you not to continue to protect Park Jimin from what’s coming for him.” He threw a small object onto the ground and smoke immediately curdled around them as the men hastily ran out of the alley and away from Yoongi’s awaiting webs and handcuffs.

“Dammit, fucking smoke bombs,” Yoongi muttered as his eyes watered painfully and his hands swatted the smoke in front of his face. He coughed before turning around to face Jimin, who was curled into a ball in the corner of the alley. “You okay there, Jimin? That looked like a nasty punch earlier…”

Jimin looked up, and sure enough, Yoongi saw a red mark on Jimin’s cheekbone that was rapidly turning purple and blue. He pulled Jimin up and whispered “Wait here” before using his webs to hurtle himself back onto the rooftop. He ran across the roof and jumped onto the next building where his backpack was still laying. Yoongi practically ripped open the backpack and pulled out a beat-up first aid kit before running back to the alley he had left Jimin in.

Jimin was quiet as Yoongi swiped ointment over the areas where Jimin’s skin had broken on his hands and knees. He was still in his soccer uniform, and the force of the punch had made him topple onto the pavement of the alley and scrape up his legs and hands.

Yoongi cracked an instant cold pack and pressed it against Jimin's cheek. "Keep it iced until you get home," he told the other boy, whose eyes were still wide with fright. He bit his lip awkwardly before gently asking, "Do you want me to walk you home?"

Jimin nodded meekly. “If that’s okay with you.”

Yoongi hesitated before placing an arm on Jimin’s shoulders, hoping that the gesture would reassure the boy. “Alright, let’s go then.”

They walked in silence and Yoongi’s mind wandered, a million questions swirling inside his head. He would need to do more research into Jimin’s family. He knew they were well off, but in all honesty, he didn’t have any idea about what the Park family did for a living. And he would need to go back to the alley and look for any pieces of evidence left behind. He already picked up the shell of the smoke bomb the men had used, and he would probably ask Hoseok to try to trace the device tomorrow.

At least Yoongi had a clear motive for the soccer stadium explosion; whoever had planned the explosion was trying to target and threaten Jimin. Which meant that Yoongi needed to keep a close eye on the soccer star from now on.

They arrived at a very lavish and expensive-looking apartment building ten minutes later, and Yoongi coughed into his hand after finally removing his arm from where it had been resting on Jimin’s small shoulders.

“Um. Have a nice evening, Jimin. Stay safe.”

Jimin’s eyes were glassy. “Thank you.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “I—I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t shown up in time…”

“Don’t think about it,” Yoongi replied easily. “You’re okay. Nothing too bad happened. Just make sure to keep icing your cheek and keep your scrapes clean.”

Jimin nodded, his bottom lip trembling slightly. “Yeah, I will.”

He leaned forward suddenly and wrapped Yoongi in a tight hug. “Thank you,” Jimin whispered again. “I don’t think I can thank you enough for protecting me today.”

Yoongi hated how irrationally fast his heart was beating. “Uh, don’t mention it. It was nothing. Just…doing my job.”

Jimin just hugged him more tightly. “It’s not nothing. I—I owe you one, okay?”

“Seriously, don’t worry about it,” Yoongi said. “It’s just what I do. Just make sure to try to stay out of trouble in the future though, Jimin. Maybe consider hiring a bodyguard or something. I don’t think those men are planning on going away any time soon.”

“Hmmm,” Jimin hummed. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s really that big of a deal.”

“Well, talk to your parents and see if you can get a bodyguard. I would feel a lot better knowing—“

“I don’t want to worry them,” Jimin quickly interrupted. “I’m sure it was just a one-time thing. Besides,” he pulled back to look into Yoongi’s eyes, “why would I need a bodyguard when I have Spiderman watching over me?” He cracked a small smile, and his eyes sparkled in the faint light of the setting sun.

Yoongi was speechless. “I, um—“

“Thank you again, Spiderman. I’ll…I’ll see you around.” Jimin blushed a furious scarlet before running inside the apartment building, leaving a completely stumped and confused Yoongi behind.

***

Jimin still had a bruise on his cheek when Yoongi met with him again a few days later in the library, although thankfully, the bruise was yellow at the edges and rapidly healing.

“Are you alright?” Yoongi asked as he unpacked his things onto the library table. “What happened to your face?”

“Ah, it’s nothing,” Jimin quickly lied. “I fell down during soccer practice a little while ago and hurt my cheekbone.”

Yoongi gave him a skeptical look but didn’t question Jimin any further.

They worked in silence again until Jimin left around five to go to soccer practice again. Yoongi waved to the other boy before taking off for the laboratories, where Hoseok was waiting for him.

Yoongi had talked to Hoseok the day before about the attack on Jimin, the smoke bomb, and the plausible motive behind the soccer stadium explosion. As expected, Hoseok had immediately brightened at the idea of running more tests on the smoke bomb and researching more about Jimin’s background.

Yoongi had also made sure to keep checking the news frequently, and just a few days ago, he saw a report that said the police were unable to conclusively determine the motive and perpetrators of the soccer stadium explosion.

When Yoongi arrived at the laboratory a few moments later, Hoseok was already staring at something underneath a microscope. Yoongi shrugged on a lab coat and joined the other boy at the lab table.

“Hey, so I’ve been looking at some of the chemical residue from the smoke bomb. Its origins are untraceable,” Hoseok said. “But there’s still a little red circle on the inside of the device. It’s definitely from the same manufacturer as the last bomb.”

“Huh,” Yoongi muttered. “Whoever is after Jimin isn’t being too subtle by marking all of their things like this.”

“Have you figured out why Jimin is a target yet?” Hoseok asked while prodding at the remnants of the smoke bomb again.

“All I know is that he’s rich,” Yoongi answered while pulling out his laptop. “But I’m sure there’s more to the story than that.”

He quickly typed in “Park Jimin” into the search bar of his browser and was startled as hundreds of results popped up immediately.

“Park Industries Heir Seen at Local Charity Event: Exclusive Pictures”

“Park Jimin, Heir to Multibillion-Dollar Corporation, Chooses to Stay in Korea for College”

“Park Family Heir Announces Plans to Major in Business”

Granted, Yoongi knew about the last headline since they had been forced to introduce themselves on the first day of class in Introduction to Musical Composition. He always wondered what a business major was doing in a music class; Jimin was probably just trying to get some easy art credits for graduation.

Yoongi narrowed his eyes before opening up another window in his browser and typing in “Park Industries” instead.

The first thing that came up was a Wikipedia page.

“Park Industries is a multinational corporation specializing in technology development and innovation. It is South Korea's second-largest technology company.”

“Whoa,” Yoongi said aloud. “What the hell…”

Hoseok leaned over to peek at Yoongi’s screen, letting out a low whistle as his eyes scanned the contents. "Loverboy is loaded.”

“Don’t call him that,” Yoongi muttered without much bite while desperately suppressing a blush.

“I mean, you didn’t hear Jimin go on and on about how badass and flexible Spiderman is in the campus café today. That flying kick thing you did the other day left a very visceral impression on poor Jimin, who said he wouldn’t mind if you decided to kick him in the face and choke him next—“

“Shut up,” Yoongi snapped, burying his red face into his hands. “Oh my god, shut the fuck up.”

Hoseok laughed. “Jimin also had a few things to say about the possibility of being restrained by your webs, you know…”

“Fuck,” Yoongi mumbled. “Just kill me now.”

“If I kill you, then poor Jimin will never get to experience any of those things—“

Yoongi’s hand darted out to clamp over Hoseok’s mouth. “Oh my fucking god, Hoseok. Shut the fuck up.”

Hoseok just offered a wry smile and Yoongi gave him his deadliest glare, which in all honestly probably didn’t have an effect on Hoseok anymore, before releasing him.

Yoongi continued researching in silence while Hoseok scrolled through something on his laptop.

“Hey, Yoongi, you’ll want to see this,” Hoseok said after several moments. Yoongi leaned over to read the contents of the laptop’s screen over Hoseok’s shoulder. It was a list of newly discovered chemical substances and their patent-holders.

“I found a couple traces of a patented substance on the inside of the smoke bomb,” Hoseok explained. “The substance is listed as a Kim Enterprises patented product. I guess that doesn’t come as a real surprise considering the red circles thing, but it’s really something…”

Yoongi furrowed his brows. “Do you think Jimin is being targeted in some kind of fucked-up corporate war between Park Industries and Kim Enterprises?”

“Maybe. Kim Enterprises is the largest technology company in the country, and Park Industries are their only real competition, except for maybe Choi Multinational Corporation. It doesn’t make sense that they’re trying to somehow take out the Park heir though…I mean it would be totally shitty if Jimin disappeared or something but the company would go on, if you catch my drift?”

Yoongi nodded. “Yeah, the company doesn’t necessarily need the Park family. But I feel like we’re not seeing the whole picture here. They must be after something, and they’re trying to get to it through Jimin…”

“Either way, this is super shady,” Hoseok muttered. “And kind of stupid on Kim Enterprises’ end. Like it was ridiculously easy to trace this shit back to them.”

“I dunno, Seok; the police said they couldn’t figure it out—“

“You’re saying that as if Kim Enterprises doesn’t have the means to silence and control the police if they really want to.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Yoongi said. “I feel like you’re buying into this idea of corporate conspiracy just a little too much. It could just be people trying to find ways to get to Jimin so they can a fraction of his wealth. Wouldn’t be the first time someone tried something like that…”

"Yeah, but you said the people who attacked Jimin told you that everything was ‘bigger than you could ever imagine' and that they would kill you in the end, so I mean…" Hoseok trailed off before shrugging. "I'm really leaning in the conspiracy direction for this one."

“Still, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Someone could have easily planted all this evidence to throw us off, you know.” Yoongi sighed before running his fingers through his hair. “Guess I’ll just need to make sure I keep a close eye on Jimin from now on.”

“Especially since the kid is so stubborn and won’t even hire a bodyguard for himself,” Hoseok muttered. “That just screams dangerous to me.”

Yoongi shrugged. “Jimin has his reasons. He doesn’t want his parents to worry.”

Hoseok stared at Yoongi incredulously. “Sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m like 99.9% sure Jimin is going to get attacked again.”

“I know. That’s why I’m going to watch over him.”

“Is it going to be like your personal ‘Try Not to Drool Challenge?’”

Yoongi smacked Hoseok on the arm. “I don’t fucking drool!”

Hoseok shrugged innocently. “And yet I’ve seen it happen on more than one occasion.”

“His face is just very visually appealing, okay?” Yoongi covered his face with his hands. “Leave me alone.”

Hoseok barked out a laugh. “Whatever. Just make sure Jimin stays safe, you lovesick fool.”

Yoongi nodded with his face still in his hands.

“And enjoy the eye candy while you’re at it.”

Hoseok just chuckled when Yoongi reached over to smack him on the arm again.

Chapter Text

A week and a half passed before it happened.

Yoongi had taken to walking Jimin to practice after working on the music project together. Jimin had warmed up considerably to Yoongi, often bringing an extra latte with him for the elder and smiling at him so much that Yoongi became accustomed to the feeling of perpetual butterflies fluttering in his stomach whenever Jimin was around.

Hyejun had tried to approach them again, but Jimin had quickly dismissed the boy so harshly that Yoongi had almost, almost, felt bad for him.

It was almost six o’clock when they left the library. Yoongi shifted slightly in place, making sure his suit was still in place underneath his clothes so he could take off for a quick dinner before starting to patrol the streets again.

Just as Yoongi was about to say goodbye and dash away from the library, Jimin turned to ask, “Hey, are you doing anything right now?”

Yoongi’s head whipped in Jimin’s direction, eyes widening slightly in surprise. “Uh, not really.” Just trying to get that quality vigilante time in. “Why?”

“You wanna grab dinner or something? It’s getting kind of late…” Jimin trailed off and his foot pawed on the ground anxiously, as if he were unsure of himself.

After a brief pause, Yoongi mumbled out a soft “Sure” and tried to ignore the way his heart flipped when Jimin immediately beamed and smiled widely, his eyes curving at the corners adorably.

Yoongi figured it’d be a good idea to keep a close eye on Jimin whenever he could, considering all the danger the boy found himself in lately. He had most certainly not agreed just because he wanted to be in close proximity to a certain Park Jimin for an extended amount of time. No, that would be unprofessional and—

Yoongi’s brain short-circuited as Jimin looped his arm around him and excitedly dragged him off to a nearby campus diner, rambling something about how good the milkshakes and fries were as he went.

How the fuck can one human being be so cute and attractive and a literal ray of sunshin—

“Yoongi!” Jimin waved his hand in front of Yoongi’s face a few times. “Are you listening to me?”

Yoongi startled in place and glanced around briefly, brows furrowing in confusion as he realized he was sitting in a booth with Jimin across from him. When had that happened? Did he somehow blackout while Jimin pushed him into the diner?

He blinked several times to steady himself, noticing that he was gripping the menu in his hands rather tightly, crumpling the paper slightly. He forced himself to relax before saying, “Oh. Um, sorry? What were you saying?”

“I was asking if you’d been here before or not.” Jimin tilted his head to the side slightly, his innocent eyes blinking up at Yoongi in a way that made Yoongi want to rip his hair out strand by strand. No one’s eyelashes should have been that distracting.

Yoongi pursed his lips and tried to recall if Hoseok had ever dragged him in here before. “Hm…I don’t think so. I don’t really remember all that well.”

“Oh well, from 6 to 7 they have happy hour for specialty milkshakes, which are on the back of the menu. Everything is twenty percent off and—“

Yoongi was ashamed to admit that he tuned out the rest of what Jimin said, too engrossed in watching the other boy’s soft and plump-looking mouth rapidly form words. He swallowed hard and forced himself to gaze at Jimin’s eyes, which wasn’t much better, because who the fuck had such intensely sparkly and pretty and wonderful-looking eyes? Which classical artist had sculpted Jimin for him to appear to ethereal and beautiful and just so goddamn ho—

“And that’s about it,” Jimin finished before breaking into a shy little smile. Yoongi unconsciously felt himself smile back, but knowing him, the smile probably made him look like a huge creeper or as someone who was a serious pain (both of which were partially true). “Have you figured out what you’re going to order yet?”

Yoongi tried not to panic as he realized he had totally missed out on everything Jimin had said. If he asked Jimin to re-explain, then he would look like a massive dick with the attention span of a squirrel (which wasn’t completely untrue, but it wasn’t a flattering look). He fumbled and flipped the menu over on the table hastily, wincing as his hand accidentally connected with the surface of the table with a little too much force and made a loud slapping noise.

Yoongi swore he could feel the tips of his ears turning red as he sputtered out, “I-I’ll have the, um…um…” Shit shit shit just fucking pick something, you dipshit! “The classic combo meal with a chocolate milkshake.”

It was only afterward that Yoongi realized how fucking basic and unsophisticated his order made him seem. Who orders classic meals at specialty diners? Yoongi felt like slamming his head into the nearest wall in humiliation.

“Good choice,” Jimin replied easily, clearly not quite seeing the intense gay panic Yoongi could feel himself experiencing internally. “I think I’ll get the same thing.”

And then Jimin’s eyes curved back into that soft smile that definitely would’ve made Yoongi keel over if he wasn’t seated.

Yoongi forced himself to look down at his hands, praying that his face didn’t appear as warm and red as it felt.

Fortunately, their waiter approached them soon after, before Jimin could comment on Yoongi’s flustered behavior.

Yoongi only stuttered two times while ordering, which he considered a massive success.

Once the waiter left to go take another table’s order, Jimin turned to Yoongi, the same small smile from before still curling his lips upward. Yoongi had to remind himself to breathe.

“Do you live on campus?” Jimin asked lightly.

“Uh no; I live with my aunt downtown actually,” Yoongi answered.

“Ah, I live off campus too actually.” I know, Yoongi wanted to say, remembering the luxury apartment building he had dropped Jimin off at several days ago.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, but my apartment isn’t too far away from campus thankfully. I would hate having a long commute every day,” Jimin replied just as the waiter returned with their milkshakes. After thanking the waiter with a friendly smile, Jimin reached a hand out to swirl his milkshake with the straw, the creamy liquid forming a small spiral. From this close, Yoongi could see the soft slope of the Jimin’s nose, the roundness of his cheeks, the sharpness of his jawline, the plump curve of his lips, the—

Yoongi took a large gulp of his milkshake when he realized Jimin was looking directly at him with a teasing glint in his eyes, silently telling Yoongi that he’d been caught.

Yoongi winced when he swallowed the freezing substance and received a throbbing sensation in the head in return. “Fuck!” he cursed and clutched at his head, which was wracked with pain caused by the most intense brain-freeze Yoongi had ever had the misfortune to experience.

Jimin giggled, and the sound somehow warmed Yoongi’s cold insides. “You okay?”

Yoongi’s face was still pinched with pain as he coughed and muttered, “Yeah. I’m okay. Just…had a horrible brain-freeze, s’all.” He rubbed at his temples as the agony from the brain-freeze gradually faded away.

Jimin’s face was still full of mirth when Yoongi’s eyes eventually refocused on his surroundings. Yoongi hunched his shoulders slightly and tilted his head downwards in embarrassment. He felt like a walking disaster, the way he always was whenever he was around Jimin apparently.

Yoongi just focused on taking small sips of the milkshake, making sure to keep his head down so that, hopefully, Jimin wouldn’t see how pink his cheeks were.

Yoongi was spared the awkwardness of having to start another conversation with Jimin when their food arrived at their table. He tried to make himself appear very engrossed in eating his burger and fries, and a brief silence fell over their table as they dug into their food.

“How’s your burger?” Jimin asked after a few minutes of silence had passed.

“It’s pretty good,” Yoongi replied while hesitantly looking up to meet Jimin’s eyes.

“Oh.” Jimin’s brows furrowed. “You have some ketchup—“ He gestured towards the corner of his mouth, and Yoongi’s eyes widened as he immediately rushed to grab a napkin to wipe at his mouth frantically.

“Is it gone?” Yoongi questioned while still furiously rubbing the napkin all over his mouth.

“Yeah, but there’s a little—“ Jimin reached over to pull the napkin out of Yoongi’s grip and gently wiped at a spot on Yoongi’s cheek. “There. All gone.”

Yoongi blinked a few times before he registered just how close he and Jimin were huddled together. Jimin was still hunched over the table with the napkin in his hand outstretched, as if he had been freeze-framed right after wiping Yoongi’s face off.

Yoongi wasn’t sure how long they stared at each other before Jimin sputtered awkwardly, mumbling something about sparkles and coffee-colored eyes, as he sat back down on the other side of the booth. His face had bloomed into a pinkish color, and Yoongi’s brain struggled to process everything that had just happened.

“Oh. Um.” He blinked a few more times in confusion. “Thank you?” Say something, holy fuck—

Yoongi cleared his throat. “Thanks for, uh, fixing my face for me.” Could you have said it any more awkwardly? Get it together, you—

“No problem,” Jimin replied, his face still a little pink in the cheeks. He glanced down and played with some of the leftover fries on his plate awkwardly.

“Um, so when do you want to meet next to work on the project and stuff?” Yoongi asked, trying to break the suffocating silence that had settled over them.

“Does next Tuesday work for you?” Jimin said. “I have a soccer tournament this weekend and some random event I have to go to on Monday, so…” He trailed off before reaching for his milkshake, which was just about empty already and made an obnoxious sound as he sucked at the straw. Yoongi tried to not to linger too much on how nice Jimin’s lips looked while wrapped around the straw.

“Yeah, I should be good that day,” Yoongi said once he had forced himself to look away from Jimin’s mouth, which was still vigorously trying to slurp up the last dregs of his milkshake. I’m gonna fucking die, he thought to himself distantly. Park Jimin is going to fucking kill me and I’m going to love it.

Jimin finally separated himself from the milkshake, his lips shining and gleaming in the fluorescent lighting of the diner. Yoongi felt his heart skip a beat in his chest as he struggled to breathe normally.

"Great. The usual spot in the library on Tuesday?"

Yoongi swallowed harshly before croaking out a small “Yeah. Sounds good.”

They both got up to pay their separate bills at the counter of the diner. As Yoongi waited behind Jimin in line, he noticed the way Jimin’s fingers were curled around the bill in his hand. Yoongi couldn’t help but think that Jimin’s hands were just as beautiful as the rest of him, so small and delicate and adorable. He imagined wrapping his own hands around Jimin’s, how his hands would probably swallow Jimin’s hands whole and how he would carefully caress and kiss each and every fingertip, every knuckle, every freckle, every—

There was a sharp prodding at his side that startled Yoongi out of his trance. “You going to pay or…?” Jimin trailed off awkwardly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to nudge you that hard.”

“Oh. It’s fine. Um…” Yoongi scrambled to pull his wallet out and quickly slid a few bills along with his bill over the counter to the cashier. “Sorry. I spaced out.”

Jimin hummed, and Yoongi had a suspicion that Jimin knew exactly why Yoongi had been so distracted a few moments ago. The thought alone made him want to die a slow, painful death.

After Yoongi tucked his receipt into the back of his wallet, Jimin grabbed his wrist and gently pulled him out of the diner.

They walked side by side in silence for a few moments, and Yoongi had to consciously tell himself not to stare and to keep his gaze fixated on his shoes and the concrete beneath his feet.

“So what are you majoring in?” Jimin suddenly asked. “I feel like I don’t know anything about you. You don’t talk about yourself much, do you?”

Because I’m boring as fuck, Yoongi wanted to respond, but that wasn't a socially acceptable answer, so instead, he said "Biochemistry. With a minor in music production." He decided not to point out that they had all announced their majors to each other on the first day of class; he didn't expect Jimin to remember.

“Ah. That’s cool,” Jimin replied, a little stiffly. Yoongi started counting the cracks in the sidewalk to distract himself from the awkwardness of the whole situation. “I’m majoring in business, but I’m taking Intro to Musical Comp. for fun, since I’ve always liked music a lot.”

“Business?” Yoongi feigned surprise, as if he hadn’t been pretty much obsessed with Jimin from day one and he didn’t have basically Jimin’s entire course-load memorized. (He wasn’t a stalker, alright? He just tended to spend a lot of time accidentally listening into other people’s conversations, since more often than not, he had no one to talk to himself. As a result, he possessed a wealth of unnecessary and trivial information about people he barely interacted with on a daily basis.) “That’s…cool.”

Fuck, I literally just repeated what he said earlier, didn’t I?

Jimin let out a tiny, uncomfortable chuckle. “Yeah. My parents certainly think so.”

“Oh.” Yoongi wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. “Did you want to major in something else?”

“Literally anything else,” Jimin muttered. “I swear to god, there’s way too much math and statistical stuff we have to learn and half the time I feel like my head is about to cave in. Ugh. If I had my way, I would be doing something in the arts.”

“Ah. That makes sense,” Yoongi replied, his shoulders feeling strangely tense and a weird jittery and prickling feeling settling into the pit of his stomach. It was an all too familiar feeling. People didn’t just talk to Yoongi unless their name started with "Ho" and ended with "Seok.” He kind of hated how awkward and out of place he always felt whenever someone tried to talk to him about something remotely personal. Maybe it was because he avoided personal conversation like the plague. Or maybe it was because he was just really bad at expressing empathy and emotion through verbal means.

After a long silence, Yoongi cleared his throat. “I’m sure that you’re great at business. And that it’s going to get easier as you go,” he said in what he hoped sounded like a light tone, although he knew he was much too tense for his voice to sound anything but uncomfortable.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jimin muttered dispassionately. “Right now it’s just a giant pain in the ass though.”

“You could add a minor that you enjoy or something?” Yoongi suggested.

“I suppose so. I’m just kind of hesitant to get a degree in something I won’t use in the future, I guess. I’ll think about it, though.” Jimin shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “It is what it is. I’m not complaining; I have it pretty good, all in all.”

Yoongi mulled over what to say next for what was probably an excessive amount of time, but he never quite got the chance to respond because at that very moment a group of masked men and women were approaching them.

“Holy shit…” Jimin said in a choked voice. "Not again." He turned to Yoongi with wide eyes. “You have to run! Get out of here before things get nasty! They’re here for me, not you.”

In a split second, Yoongi considered his options. There were only about four people in total heading their way, and he knew he could easily take them. The real question was whether or not he wanted to reveal his true identity to Jimin. What would Jimin think if he knew the Spiderman he loved and admired was him?

Yoongi decided he didn’t want to know. At least, not yet. And so he ran.

He ran about a block at full speed before stumbling into the nearest alley he could find, hastily pulling his shirt and pants off as he panted harshly. He pressed the button on top of his chest to bring the suit to life, barely even stopping to hear Suit Lady’s greeting before taking off again, pulling the mask on as he ran.

He absolutely hated the thought of leaving Jimin alone, even for just a few moments, but he’d had no other choice to protect his identity. In hindsight, it wasn’t even just Jimin he was hiding from; anyone would have been able to see him, and Yoongi didn’t want that, especially not from those masked people who probably growing tired of Yoongi’s efforts to save Jimin. They could come for not only him, but also his aunt and even Hoseok. He shouldn’t underestimate what they—whoever they were—were really capable of.

The masked people had already cornered Jimin into an alley by the time Yoongi arrived at the scene. One of them was holding something that looked a whole lot like a police baton out in a threatening manner. Jimin was cowering into himself, covering his face with his hands as the masked people slowly got closer and closer and—

Yoongi was quick, using the back of his knuckles to hit the necks of the two people closest to Jimin. They tumbled to the side while letting out gasps of pain and surprise, but Yoongi paid them no mind as his eyes zeroed in on the other two people, who were holding weapons Yoongi had never seen.

He shot a web at one of the men’s hand, successfully knocking the strange device out of their hand, before leaping forward and snapping a pair of handcuffs on one of the man’s wrists. The man wrestled his way out of Yoongi’s grip before Yoongi could secure the cuff onto his other wrist, and Yoongi was forced to jump aside as the remaining attacker, a woman, charged at him, her weapon held out in front of her.

Yoongi dodged as she tried to charge him again, but he rapidly shot a hand out of grab the wrist holding the weapon, twisting it until she was forced to drop it. She let out a cry of rage before attempting to punch Yoongi in the head, which he successfully ducked away from. From the corner of his eye, he could see the two people he had hit first were slowly getting up and recovering.

Yoongi maneuvered himself so that all four people were in his line of sight and Jimin was behind him. The monitors inside the mask were going crazy, zooming in on each of the attackers and analyzing possible weaknesses, but Yoongi was too full of adrenaline to properly pay any attention to any of it.

“Step aside, Spiderman,” one of the women finally said after several moments of a tense standstill. “Give us the boy and you can walk home scratch-free.”

Yoongi didn’t hesitate. “No.” He did another quick once-over of all the masked people. They were all still disarmed, since Yoongi had hastily scooped up their weapons and tucked them into his suit earlier, but a four-on-one fight didn’t exactly give him good odds.

“However,” Yoongi added contemplatively, using what he called his “alter ego” voice to sound more authoritative and intimidating, “I would really appreciate if you all walked away right now, although I can’t promise I won’t follow you.”

One of the men let out a sharp laugh. “You’re a fucking idiot, aren’t you? You don’t even know what we—“

“Hush,” the first woman quieted the man. “There’s no need for that right now. Let’s try to be reasonable about this, Spiderman. You can’t seriously think you can handle all four of us at once. It would be best for you to just leave quietly now and spare yourself the pain and embarrassment.”

“I think the only embarrassing thing here is your continued attempts to harass and harm an innocent college student,” Yoongi snapped. “So forgive me if I’m not in the mood to listen to your rationale.”

The woman shook her head slowly and let out a small chuckle. “Well, this is disappointing, but certainly not something I hadn’t expected from you. You vigilante types always love the thrill of danger, without consideration of the consequences at all. Foolish, that’s what you all are…”

Well, I guess this conversation is over now.

Yoongi glanced behind himself at Jimin briefly, making sure he was still safely hiding behind a nearby dumpster before jumping into action.

He shot large webs at the two men farthest from him, pinning them to the wall of the alley. The other two had apparently gotten the message loud and clear and were running towards him. Yoongi grabbed the woman's arm as she tried to punch him yet again before jumping up and kicking the other man charging at him in the chest, forcing him to the ground.

He released the woman’s arm and dodged a few more times as she tried again and again to land a hit on him. Unfortunately for her, the spider venom had given him enhanced speed and agility, something that always seemed to come in handy in these types of situations.

The sound of sirens rang out distantly, and all four masked people immediately froze at the sound. Yoongi smirked from behind his mask; he knew he could count on Jimin.

“Watch your back,” the woman hissed at Yoongi before hastily running to free the two men pinned to the wall. She dropped something on the ground and suddenly Yoongi was enveloped in smoke again as the four masked attackers quickly ran out of the alley.

Yoongi coughed and hacked. “God fucking dammit! This suit can do everything except let me see through fucking smoke! Fuck!”

He briefly thought about running out and trying to chase after the attackers, before he heard a small noise from behind him.

“Are you—Are you okay?” Jimin asked in a small voice, his eyes filled with fear.

Yoongi instantly dropped the idea of leaving the alley and was by Jimin’s side in an instant. He quickly cupped the other boy’s face in his hands, turning it gently as he quickly inspected for injuries (although admittedly, Yoongi did get a tiny bit distracted by how Jimin’s cheeks and lips puffed out so adorably in his grip). Upon verifying that, in fact, Jimin was unharmed, Yoongi released a small sigh of relief and dropped his hands.

“Oh thank god they didn’t hurt you,” Yoongi muttered. “Or are there injuries that I can’t see?” He gave Jimin’s body another once-over.

“I’m fine, I swear,” Jimin said. “I’m glad you didn’t get hurt either. I—I dunno. I’m not sure what to think. I’m just really glad you showed up when you did.” Jimin’s face flushed and he rubbed his neck awkwardly. “T-Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me,” Yoongi replied, hoping Jimin couldn’t hear the nervousness in his voice. “I’m just doing my job, that’s all.”

Jimin pouted slightly. "No, but—I keep getting into trouble and—“

“And it’s not your fault,” Yoongi finished. “So don’t go around feeling bad or anything, okay?”

Jimin’s lower lip jutted out just a tiny bit more (what wouldn’t Yoongi give to kiss that fucking pout away…) before he nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

Yoongi fiddled with his mask, feeling slightly sweaty after the fight, before giving up and pulling it up slightly to rub a few stray beads of sweat gathering on the nape of his neck away.

Jimin let out a tiny surprised sound. “Oh! You, uh…is the mask very breathable? You seem kind of…sweaty.”

Yoongi snorted. "The mask is honestly super suffocating sometimes. The rest of the suit is super breathable and cooling and whatever but for some reason, the fucking mask is always—like the fabric is more sensitive and stuff so it’s a lot easier for the holes in the fabric to close up or get fucked up somehow if I don’t wash it constantly and shit. Fucking pain in the ass.”

He pushed the mask up further so that his lips and chin were exposed, the rolled up fabric resting just under his nose.

“Sorry, that was kind of TMI about the washing and sweatiness…” Yoongi added belatedly.

Jimin giggled into his hand. “It’s so interesting to me, though! What kinds of things can the suit do?”

“Ah, um…” Yoongi rubbed at the sweat on his upper lip nervously. “I kind of have like this built-in Siri that helps me with stuff sometimes.”

“Try ‘all the time.’” Suit Lady corrected helpfully.

Jimin jumped back slightly at the sound of a new voice.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m lost without you and all that shit,” Yoongi muttered.

“That sounds about accurate to me. Although I would personally use less vulgar phrasing.”

Yoongi rolled his eyes, even though Jimin couldn’t see him. “Anyways, she’s pretty cool.”

Jimin’s eyes were filled with wonder. “Whoa, that’s so cool!”

For some dumb reason, Yoongi was blushing. Maybe that had something to do with Jimin calling his suit, and hopefully by extension, Yoongi himself too, cool. It wasn’t a word anyone ever really used to describe him.

“Um, anyways…it’s getting kind of late. Do you need help getting home, kid?” Yoongi asked, noticing that the sun was already low in the sky and casting a greyish hue over the sky. “I can walk you home again, if you’d like.”

“Oh no, I actually called one of my friends to come pick me up earlier. They should be here soon,” Jimin answered, cheeks still bright pink for some reason.

A honk sounded from several meters away.

“Ah, that must be Taehyung,” Jimin said. He looked so shy under Yoongi’s gaze, and Yoongi wasn’t sure if he would ever get used to Jimin acting so flustered around him all the time. He was practically blushing all the way down to his toes as he softly murmured, “Um…I gotta go.”

“Yeah, see you around,” Yoongi said, lifting a hand up to wave before Jimin suddenly darted forward.

Yoongi half-expected Jimin to envelop him in another bone-crushing hug like last time, but instead, Jimin stepped closer to Yoongi and leaned forward to whisper, “Can I—Can I get a good night kiss before I go?”

When Yoongi didn’t immediately respond (probably because his brain was going haywire because Park Jimin was going to fucking kill him someday), Jimin hastily added, “I mean, not if it makes you uncomfortable or anything, I don’t know why I said that, haha, just ignore—“

“Sure,” Yoongi said, even as his mind screamed at him to shut the fuck up. “I’ll kiss you if you want.”

What the actual fuck, Yoongi. Are you fucking stu—

“Oh really? Oh my god,” Jimin breathlessly giggled. “O-Okay. Um.” There was a second of silence before Yoongi mentally kicked himself to get a move on.

He leaned forward to kiss Jimin on the cheek and then—

Instead of soft, smooth skin of Jimin’s cheeks, Yoongi was met with the pillowy and plump flesh of Jimin’s lips. Yoongi startled and immediately pulled back, an apology on the tip of his tongue. The fucking mask had distorted his vision and made him aim all wrong and now Jimin was going to fucking kill him for this, because what the actual fuck had he just done, pecking Jimin like that and—

Before Yoongi had the chance to get a single word out, Jimin reached two small, delicate hands up to pull Yoongi down by the neck to connect their lips again.

It took a full five seconds for Yoongi to register that he was kissing Park Jimin. Kissing the boy he had loved from afar for so long. Kissing the boy with the beautiful eyes and adorable voice and the most precious smile…

It was just a chaste press of lips, and yet Yoongi felt like he can about to internally combust from the sensation. Jimin’s lips were so, so soft, softer than he could have ever imagined, and they felt so nice against his and—

Jimin pulled away with a tiny giggle. The kiss could’ve lasted ten seconds or sixty, Yoongi wasn’t able to tell, still too dazed from both the kiss and the blinding smile plastered on Jimin’s face.

“I’ll see you around!” Jimin shouted happily before taking off, waving rather excitedly before disappearing out of Yoongi’s line of sight.

Yoongi wasn’t sure how much longer he stood in the alley, staring at the brick walls of the alley while occasionally reaching up to brush his fingertips against his still tingling lips.

Chapter Text

When Yoongi got home later that night, the first thing he did was call Jimin.

The phone rang three or four times before Jimin picked up. “Hello?”

“Hey, um, Jimin. It’s me, Yoongi,” he said, hating the way his voice was quaking slightly. Jimin would probably think it was out of fear and not because they had kissed just a few hours ago. “Just wanted to ask if you were, um, okay and stuff. I’m sorry about running off earlier.”

"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine," Jimin replied in a slightly dazed voice. “Luckily Spiderman saw and saved me from those people.”

“Oh? That’s good,” Yoongi said, feigning surprise. “Glad he was there to help.” Yoongi felt a strange mix of elation and humiliation. Jimin probably thinks I’m a fucking coward…but at least he seems to like Spiderman enough.

Jimin hummed dreamily. “Yeah, he’s…so cool…”

“Uh…sure,” Yoongi muttered. “Anyways, see you around?”

“Yeah. See you.” Jimin still sounded out of it as Yoongi hung up.

Yoongi sighed, not quite sure why he felt disappointed all of the sudden. The night had turned out pretty great, hadn’t it? Jimin likes you, Yoongi. Jimin kissed you, Yoongi.

“No,” Yoongi said aloud to himself. “Jimin likes Spiderman, not me. Right?” But you are Spiderman.

He wasn’t quite sure where the line between Min Yoongi and Spiderman was anymore.

***

Yoongi was waiting in their usual spot in the library on Tuesday with two coffees and a pile of snacks when Jimin burst in, panting and red-faced and over twenty minutes late.

"I'm so, so sorry!" he yelled loudly, which was a rather risky move considering they were in the library, but the librarian, like just about everyone else on campus, had a soft spot for Jimin and often let his outbursts slide. “Practice ran kind of late and I had to stay back to talk to coach—“

Yoongi waved him off. “Don’t worry about it!” He gestured to the drinks and snacks on the table. “I grabbed some refreshments while I was waiting. I figured you’d be tired after practice.”

Jimin looked strangely touched. “I…thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

Yoongi shrugged. “It’s nothing. Go ahead and help yourself.”

He riffled through some papers as Jimin dug in like a starved man.

Yoongi didn’t even realize he was staring until Jimin turned a bright pink and covered his stuffed cheeks and mouth with a small hand. “Didn’t—I didn’t eat lunch today…”

“What?” Yoongi’s eyes widened in alarm. “Why didn’t you eat lunch?”

“I was working on some assignments and then I lost track of time and next thing I knew, I had to run off to my afternoon lecture and then I had practice right after so…yeah,” Jimin finished sheepishly, face still flushed a pretty pink.

Yoongi stood up immediately, quickly shoving papers and notebooks into his backpack before pointing at Jimin. “We’re getting some real food right now. You can’t survive on—“ he squinted to see what snacks Jimin was clutching in his hands, “—cheddar Pringles and Kit-Kats.”

“B-But the project—“ Jimin protested.

Yoongi waved him off. “The project is just about finished. We can always work on it some more later...” he paused briefly before adding, “but only after you’ve eaten a real meal.”

Jimin pouted but didn’t resist when Yoongi gently hauled him up from his seat and out of the library. Not long after, they were seated in a booth in the diner that they had visited the previous week.

“Um, you really didn’t have—“ Jimin started.

“Shhh,” Yoongi hushed him. “What milkshake do you want?”

After their orders were taken and their menus were cleared from the table, they sat in silence. Yoongi twisted his hands in his lap nervously, not sure if he should say something or not. Was it really creepy of him to get so worked up and concerned about a skipped meal? He knew it wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence for college students to skip meals and forget to take care of themselves (it was something he struggled with too at times), but something had bubbled up inside of him upon hearing Jimin confess to skipping lunch. It was this inexplicable urge to protect and take care of others, probably the same emotion that had motivated Yoongi to become a vigilante in the first place, he supposed.

“Thanks,” Jimin finally said. “Thanks for dragging me here.”

“Don’t mention it,” Yoongi answered automatically. "Just don't skip any more meals in the future, okay? I'll get worried."

Jimin’s cheeks turned a faint shade of red as Yoongi slowly realized what he had just said.

“I mean!” Yoongi nearly shouted. “Just take care of yourself and stuff! Eating is good for you and good for keeping organisms alive and healthy so I, like, highly recommend it. As a good Samaritan, I worry for the health of all living creatures so promoting eating is important to me and so it would be really cool if you…did that too…” Yoongi gulped and took a deep breath. “Um. Yeah. D-Don’t skip meals?”

Shit. What the living fuck was that?

Jimin blinked a few times, a brief look of confusion passing over his face. “Okay. I’ll…be really careful in the future. Don’t worry, Yoongi.”

Yoongi forced himself to nod and stared down at the table in humiliation. Thankfully, their milkshakes arrived soon afterward and saved Yoongi the pain of trying to salvage their previous conversation.

As Yoongi busied himself with stirring and sipping his milkshake, an unfamiliar girl approached their table.

“Jimin!” she called with a bright smile on her face. “I didn’t know you’d be here!”

“Oh. Yeah, I’m just having a bit of an early dinner.” Jimin glanced at Yoongi briefly before turning his attention back to the girl. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m fine!” the girl replied in her bubbly voice. “How about you?”

“I’m…good,” Jimin answered slowly, his face pinched into a fake smile that clearly said that he really wasn’t in the mood for small talk right now.

Yoongi watched with bated breath as the girl’s eyebrows furrowed, a tiny crease forming in between them before it eventually smoothed out again.

“That’s good,” she finally said, the same sugary smile still on her face. “I was a little worried when I first saw you come in.”

Jimin narrowed his eyes. “Really? Why?”

“I mean, I certainly didn’t expect you to walk in side-by-side with—“ she jerked her head towards Yoongi slightly, “—much less share a meal with him. Is this part of some, like, campus charity event or something? Was it another one of those auction things where you can pay to hang out with someone for a little bit?”

Yoongi’s mouth went dry, and he hated the way he unconsciously drew into himself at her words. He guessed that spending so much time with Jimin lately had caused him to forget that people like him weren’t really supposed to be friends with people like Jimin. Hyejun hadn’t directly spoken to him since the last time Jimin had reprimanded him, but Yoongi still heard whispers in the hallways and as he walked across campus sometimes.

“What? No!” Jimin looked shocked at the other girl’s words. “Yoongi’s my project partner for a music comp. class!”

“Ah, project partner. Guess that makes a lot more sense,” the girl said, a satisfied gleam settling in her eyes. “At least it’s not like you’re going out of your way to—“

“What the fuck is your problem?” Jimin suddenly hissed. “It’s really fucked up that you’re speaking as if Yoongi isn’t right there.” He pointed to Yoongi, who only shrunk further into himself. “And you’re being kind of rude and intrusive right now.”

“Jimin," the girl said in a soft voice before glancing back at another table. "I'm here because I and the others want to make sure you're making informed decisions."

“What the fuck—“

“He’s not someone you want to be associated with, Jimin. You have a reputation to uphold.”

Jimin breathed in deeply before exhaling slowly through his nose. “What. Exactly. Is. Your. Problem. With. Yoongi?”

She lowered her voice to a whisper, although Yoongi could still hear every word loud and clear. “Jimin, he has no friends except for that weird and obnoxious chemistry major. He barely even speaks and is basically a ghost on campus. And like…Hyejun really doesn’t like him.”

“That’s the biggest load of bull I’ve ever—“

“He called the cops on a party a couple of months ago too, you know. Got a bunch of people arrested and shit.”

Yoongi gritted his teeth. He had been handling an armed robbery in the same neighborhood as the party; the police had shown up to take the perpetrators away, but they encountered the raunchy college party along the way. Right after he had changed back into his street clothes, Hyejun spotted him walking around the neighborhood and had immediately concluded that Yoongi must’ve been the loser who’d gotten their party shut down. Word had spread quickly, and ever since, Yoongi had found himself ostracized and hated by many students on campus.

“He’s a loser, Jimin,” the girl said with a sense of finality to her words. “You shouldn’t let yourself get dragged down by—“

Yoongi pushed himself up from his seat, a mixture of rage and humiliation simmering beneath his skin as he slapped a couple bills onto the table and stormed out of the diner.

He speed-walked a couple of blocks before stopping. He ran a hand through his hair angrily, tugging slightly at the strands as he breathed out a soft “Fuck.”

Yoongi wasn’t one to be overly bothered by these kinds of things. Some of the things the girl had said definitely had some truth to them; for one, he really was like a ghost on campus, considering he spent all of his time outside of class fighting crime and taking care of the apartment for his aunt, who worked long hours to pay the rent and Yoongi’s tuition.

But for her to have said them so cruelly to his face and in Jimin’s presence like that? Yoongi swallowed hard and tried to distract himself by counting the cracks in the pavement underneath his feet.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, head bowed towards the ground and lips pressed tightly together, before he heard the sound of pounding footsteps and a voice yelling “Yoongi! Yoongi! Wait up!”

Yoongi startled as Jimin suddenly appeared in front of him, his hands on his knees as he bent over and panted loudly for a few moments.

“You—Yoongi—“ he wheezed out before coughing slightly. “Are you okay?”

Yoongi blinked at him blankly. “Uh. Sure?” Why is he here? I left money there and everything, so why is he still—

“I’m sorry about all of…that,” Jimin said in a much steadier voice. He stood up straight and took a deep breath. “That was really uncalled for and I’m sorry you had to listen to that bullshit.”

“Oh…It’s okay,” Yoongi replied slowly. “I’m used to it.”

A crease formed between Jimin’s eyebrows. “That’s so fucked up. On so many levels.”

Yoongi shrugged. “It is what it is.”

“I don’t understand…all of this is because of one incident from months ago? Why are they still—“ Jimin shook his head in frustration. “People suck. I hate them.”

That’s relatable. “It’s fine. Like I said before, I’m not the most likable person.” Yoongi sighed. “Normally it doesn’t bother me that much but…” Yoongi trailed off, not quite sure what he wanted to say next. “…it’s just been a long day. That’s all.”

It was only a partial lie. Yoongi hadn’t been getting much sleep lately between schoolwork and crime fighting and making sure Jimin was safe at all times.

Under other circumstances, Yoongi probably wouldn’t have batted an eye at the girl’s words. He had mastered the art of not giving a shit about what other people thought about him a long time ago. But…

Yoongi felt a hollow ache settle in his bones. Yeah, he didn’t care what most people thought about him, but this was Jimin. Jimin wasn’t “most people” to Yoongi. Somehow that made all the difference.

“I really hate people,” Jimin repeated, a prominent frown still pulling at his lips. “This is so fucking shitty.”

Although Yoongi definitely agreed that the whole situation was really shitty, he decided to respond by repeating, “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

Jimin’s frown deepened, but he let the topic drop. He exhaled softly and pushed his hair back in a way that was far too attractive for Yoongi’s weak heart. “I hope our food’s not too cold.”

“Huh?” Yoongi was still distracted by how Jimin’s hair was settling back down in soft, fluffy waves over his forehead.

“Our food. Do you wanna…go grab it? We don't have to eat there, especially since apparently a whole group of disgusting people is in there right now, but I mean, I'm starving and I might have already asked them to put everything in takeout boxes before running after you…?"

There was an uncomfortably warm and heavy feeling settling inside Yoongi’s chest. He wasn’t quite sure why he felt so choked up as he stuttered out, “S-Sure,” and allowed himself to be dragged away by Jimin’s soft and gentle hands.

Yoongi waited outside the diner as Jimin grabbed their food, pointedly ignoring the students who had harassed Yoongi earlier, even after they had tried to get Jimin’s attention several times.

When Yoongi asked him about it afterward, Jimin had shrugged. “I think it’s safe to say that I’ll never consider myself a friend of theirs anymore.” And that one simple sentence was enough to make Yoongi’s heart warm and make his stomach swarm with butterflies.

Jimin dragged them to a nearby park, where they found an empty bench to share.

Jimin had been right; their food had gone a bit cold. But Yoongi didn’t care as he munched on cold fries and listened to Jimin talk to him about anything and everything, mostly small things like funny stories about his friend Taehyung had said and how frustrated he was with this one character on this one TV show he was really addicted to. His hands moved frequently as he spoke, and his voice became higher and faster the more excited he got, traits that Yoongi found so endearingly cute and adorable that it felt like his heart was about to either explode in his chest or melt into a puddle. Yoongi was certain that he could listen to Jimin talk for days on end without getting bored.

When the sky started to turn grey and dull, Yoongi quickly checked his phone to see what time it was. His eyes widened as he realized they had been in the park together for over two and a half hours. He supposed he had been so enraptured by Jimin’s…everything that he had completely lost track of time.

Jimin also seemed surprised by how quickly time had flown by, his cheeks flushing red as he thanked Yoongi for taking him out to dinner and waved a quick goodbye before taking off.

As Jimin walked away, Yoongi felt an almost painfully wide smile spreading over his face, the uncomfortable warmth in this chest growing exponentially as he let out a lovesick sigh.

***

The weapons Yoongi had recovered from the attack in the previous week had turned out to be untraceable. Hoseok had run several tests on them in triplicate and had turned up with nothing, although both Yoongi and Hoseok guessed that the devices were probably some unreleased technology from Kim Enterprises again.

It was nearing the end of the week and Yoongi found himself sitting on the roof of a high rise building, idly listening to a local radio station while typing up the finishing touches to the research paper he and Jimin were writing together.

At this rate, they were going to finish over a week early, although they still needed to meet up to proofread and create a works cited page.

Yoongi sighed and shoved his laptop back into his backpack once he felt like he couldn’t physically write anymore, his mind feeling absolutely drained of energy and motivation after a long week of classes.

He swung the backpack over one shoulder and used a web to lower himself into an alley beside the building. Nothing had really happened for hours; maybe he should just call it a night and head home.

Yoongi let out a small yawn and adjusted his backpack so it was resting snugly on both shoulders. He checked his phone and decided he would hang around for another half an hour before going home, since it was already well past nine in the evening.

He wandered around mindlessly in the city, somehow finding his way back to campus in a few minutes. It was surprisingly empty, and Yoongi didn’t encounter anyone until he made his way towards the athletics buildings.

Yoongi dove behind a line of bushes as a group of soccer players walked by, laughing loudly about something as they went. He held his breath as they passed. He exhaled in relief after their rambunctious laughter and chatter faded away.

“Spiderman? Is that you?” a voice suddenly called from behind him.

Yoongi, ever a smooth and graceful superhero, promptly keeled over from where he was crouched behind the bushes, landing on his side as he let out a loud sound of surprise.

“Oh my god, did I scare you?” Jimin asked, a faint note of amusement in his voice. “Are you okay?”

No, because you just scared the living shit out of me, Yoongi wanted to say. Instead, he replied, “Yeah. I’m fine. You just…surprised me.”

Jimin giggled. “Sorry,” he mumbled, although he didn’t sound sorry at all. “That was kind of cute, though.”

Yoongi felt like keeling over again.

“What are you doing here?” Jimin asked, sparing Yoongi the embarrassment of having to formulate a response to being called “cute” by the Park Jimin, aka the cutest person on campus (or on the planet). “Oh wait, you’re a student here, right? Did you have practice or something too?”

A voice in the back of Yoongi’s head vaguely warned him that giving out too much information about himself was a bad idea. “Nah, I’m allergic to sports. I’m just wandering around.”

“Oh, really? But you’re so strong and flexible and agile and ho—“ Jimin cut himself off, his ears turning red.

Yoongi raised an eyebrow, although Jimin couldn’t see it, before shrugging. “It’s just the radioactive spider venom.” He fiddled with the web shooters on his wrists for a few seconds. “Anyways, I guess I should be goin—“

“Do you want to take a walk with me?” Jimin suddenly blurted out, before slapping both hands over his mouth in embarrassment.

“What?”

“I mean. Um. Are you doing anything right now? Are you busy?”

Yoongi shrugged. “I guess not.”

“Can you…I’m gonna walk home right now, and I was just wondering if…”

“Yeah, I can walk you home,” Yoongi answered with a confidence he would have never possessed without the mask covering his face. “Sure.”

Jimin beamed, a bright smile spreading across his face. “Okay! I’ll lead the way then.” He bounded up to link his arm with Yoongi’s before beginning to walk along the main path of the college campus.

Yoongi tried not to let his mind linger too much on the warmth radiating from Jimin as they walked side by side through the streets of Seoul.

Jimin was chattering about something, but Yoongi found himself more interested in the sparkles in the other boy’s eyes than whatever Jimin was saying. How the fuck were his eyes so goddamn pretty?

They curved into crescents as Jimin grinned sheepishly after telling Yoongi a long-winded story about something that had happened in his finance class earlier that day. It felt like a punch to the heart, and Yoongi consciously reminded himself to breathe and to not let himself get so overwhelmed by how fucking cute Jimin looked when he smiled.

“You’re so cool,” Jimin suddenly said. “Sometimes I wonder if I know you. Or the other you, I should say. The normal college student you.”

Yoongi shrugged, decisively choosing not to answer, lest he reveal too many details about his true identity.

“I know you can’t tell me but I hope that if we know each other, we’re friends. You’re really cool.”

“Ah, I’m really not,” Yoongi replied. “It’s just a façade created by a mask and a spandex suit.”

“I don’t believe you.” Jimin shifted so that they were almost completely pressed up against each other, his face disturbingly close to Yoongi’s as he whispered, “You know I really like you, right?”

Yoongi swallowed hard. “Yeah, I know.”

“What about you, though? I mean, after what happened last time…I guess I just thought—“

“Yeah, I like you too.” Yoongi felt his heart pounding in his chest, a jolt of nervousness running through his veins. Under any other circumstances, Yoongi would have never ever ever said anything out loud, and yet—

A soft smile appeared on Jimin’s face. “Good.”

Before Yoongi could register what was happening, Jimin leaned in to press his lips to Yoongi’s cheek. Yoongi could feel the warmth of Jimin’s lips even through the mask’s fabric.

An inexplicable happiness rippled through Yoongi’s chest. “Jimin, I—I’m—“

There was a sudden flurry of shouting and movement as a masked group jumped out from the shadows and surrounded them.

Yoongi instinctively pushed Jimin behind him and readied himself for a fight, his feet spread a shoulder’s width apart and his fingertips covering to the triggers of his web shooters as his eyes quickly scanned over the group. There were at least seven or eight of them. Way more than last time.

“Walk away right now, and maybe I’ll consider not snapping all of your bones in half,” Yoongi said in a low voice.

There was no response, although one of the masked people reached into their coat to pull out a something that definitely looked like a weapon. Yoongi squinted but still couldn’t quite make out what the device in their hands was before three people suddenly lunged for him.

Luckily, Yoongi had been anticipating the attack and easily dodged the first two people, one hand reaching out to grasp and twist the arm of the third person.

He heard a small cry of pain and turned to see a masked person gripping Jimin’s arm tightly, the other boy’s face contorted in a grimace as he struggled in their hold.

Yoongi released the person whose arm he had been about to break and moved quickly to shove the other masked person off of Jimin. But in his haste, he hadn’t paid attention to a moving shadow in the corner of his vision and—

It felt like a thousand knives were digging into his body as someone jumped onto him from behind and pressed something into his back. His muscles convulsed before he lost his balance and fell onto the sidewalk, small gasps of agony leaving his lips.

Yoongi lay on his side, his vision blurry for a few moments as the group of masked people leaned over him, observing his pain silently.

His shut his eyes tightly for a few seconds before forcing himself up, shooting five webs at the faces of the people near him. They staggered back and began clawing at their faces as Yoongi turned to see Jimin standing several meters away, out of reach of any of the masked people.

Yoongi glanced around. There were too many of them; he wasn’t sure he could get the both of them out of this situation unscathed. He made a split-second decision.

Just as another masked person was about to lunge at him, Yoongi turned to scream at Jimin, “Run! Jimin, get the fuck out of here!” Jimin jolted in surprise, still not moving from where his feet were planted on the ground of the sidewalk. Yoongi kicked the person reaching for him in the chest. “Fucking run, Jimin! RUN!”

Yoongi last desperate scream seemed to register in Jimin’s head as the other boy’s eyes widened. Yoongi watched as Jimin gave him one last terrified look before racing down the sidewalk, his pounding footsteps echoing in the chilly night air.

Yoongi exhaled loudly when he saw that none of the masked people followed Jimin, but his relief was short lived when he was promptly shoved into a wall, his head making a sickening crack! sound as it connected with the brick of the building behind him.

It slowly occurred to Yoongi that perhaps no one followed Jimin for a reason. Maybe they wanted him alone for this.

“This is your final warning, Spiderman,” a woman said in an ominous tone. “Do not protect that Park boy any longer.”

Yoongi felt a small shiver run down his spine, a sudden coldness settling in his body. It was a kind of fear he hadn’t felt in a very long time. They had used some kind of powerful Taser on him earlier, and the muscles in his arms and legs wouldn’t stop tensing up uncontrollably, small shocks of pain from the area where his head had hit the wall racing through his system every now and then.

The other masked people approached closer and closer, and Yoongi resisted the urge to curl up and pass out. He swayed on his feet slightly, the throbbing in his head growing incessantly as he tried to force his eyes to clearly focus on his surroundings.

He saw a shadowy figure move from the corner of his eye and blindly spun to shoot a web towards it. He missed by several centimeters, the web landing somewhere far away on the sidewalk as someone grabbed him by the shoulders.

The ringing in his head grew louder and louder as Yoongi viciously shoved his elbow under the ribs of whoever was holding him from behind. He wriggled out of their grasp and punched the nearest masked figure in the jaw.

From there, everything became a blur of limbs. Yoongi kicked and punched and shot as many webs as possible, but there were so many of them.

“Suit Lady, get those fancy spider robots out,” Yoongi murmured as his eyes struggled to read the words on the monitors inside his mask.

“You have to give them an order first.”

“I need them to claw these motherfuckers’ eyes out,” Yoongi gasped out as someone suddenly socked him in the stomach. He felt five or six spider bots scuttle out from where he had stored them inside the sleeves of his suit. They immediately went to work, crawling up the nearest masked person and tearing into their clothes to claw at their skin.

But it wasn’t enough. The masked people let out shouts of frustration before ripping the tiny spider bots off of their body, flinging them onto the ground and crushing them beneath their boots. Yoongi wanted to scream as one by one, they were all destroyed.

“Fuck, what do I do, what do I do,” Yoongi muttered as he dodged punches. “Suit Lady, a little help would be awesome.”

“Calculating…calculating…”

“Hurry up!” Yoongi hissed as a fist collided with the side of his face, causing another wave of agony to tear through his head. He clutched at his head and tried to focus on breathing.

“Run away. You can’t handle this many people at once. Your best option is running away.”

“Great. Just fucking great,” Yoongi muttered to himself as he narrowly dodged another fist headed towards his face.

As soon as there was an opening, Yoongi shot a long range web towards a building several meters away, preparing to launch himself into the air. Just about as he was about to hit the retraction button, he felt a familiar metal device being pressed into his back.

There were black dots forming in his vision as wave upon wave of pain spread throughout his body. Someone had cut his web and was throwing his convulsing body onto the ground.

One. Two more shocks of electricity through his system and Yoongi couldn’t find the strength in his limbs to get up anymore.

There were people around him, kicking and stomping and leaving bruises all over his body. Yoongi closed his eyes and curled into a ball he took blow after blow, letting out small groans of pain whenever the pain became especially unbearable.

After what seemed like an eternity, they finally stopped.

“You’re lucky we’re stopping here,” the woman from before said darkly. “This is your last warning, Spiderman. Next time…Let’s just say you better hope there’s not a next time.”

Yoongi groaned and squeezed his eyes shut tightly as the sounds of the masked people’s footsteps gradually faded away.

He wasn’t sure how long he laid in the dingy alleyway, curled into himself and resisting the urge to completely pass out from the pain engulfing from every inch of him.

Eventually, he forced himself to sit up, lips pressed tightly together to muffle a gasp of agony as every muscle in his body protested. He scooted slowly and leaned against the brick wall of the alley he had been tossed in.

After taking a few moments to catch his breath, Yoongi whispered, “Suit Lady, c-call Hoseok.”

He was eternally grateful for the built-in phone call feature of his suit. The phone rang three times before Hoseok picked up.

“Yoongi? What’s up?”

Yoongi groaned as he tried to sit up straighter against the brick wall. “Can you—Can you come get me?”

“Oh my god, what happened? You sound—“

“I left my backpack in the bushes by the main athletics building too. Can you grab that so I can change back into my street clothes?”

“Yeah, but what—“

“Bring a first aid kit if you have one too,” Yoongi muttered with his eyes half-closed. “Please hurry.”

“I’m on my way to get your backpack. Send me your location.”

Through his haze, Yoongi managed to command his suit to text Hoseok his location. He tugged the mask off while waiting, his fingertips gently prodding at what was probably a split lip and a black eye.

Hoseok nearly screamed when he saw the state Yoongi was in, but he calmed himself down enough to help gingerly slide Yoongi’s street clothes over his suit.

Hoseok dragged Yoongi to his apartment, which was a feat since Yoongi kept stumbling over his feet every couple of steps, and patched him up the best he could.

Once all his injuries were clean and his body was pumped full of painkillers, Yoongi finally let himself drift off into a fitful sleep, his dreams filled with images of masked people and Jimin’s terrified face.

Chapter Text

The best thing about the spider venom running through his veins was probably the rapid healing, Yoongi thought to himself as he lay in bed, sleeping and resting the weekend away.

It probably could have been a lot worse, all things considered. For one, he was still alive. Sure, he had a black eye and a split lip and a couple broken ribs and a multitude of bruises and scrapes littered over his body, but he was still living and breathing.

His aunt had nearly had a meltdown when Hoseok had brought him home the next day, but Yoongi had brushed her off, mumbling something about it looking worse than it felt before locking himself up in his bedroom to let the spider venom do its thing and heal his aching body.

Most of the cuts had closed up and were fading into thin lines of red and white, and the edges of his black eye had faded into a sickly yellow and green color. Hoseok had made sure to set his ribs in place to heal, and Yoongi was pretty sure the bones were at least fused back together, although they still felt kind of sore whenever he breathed in too deeply.

There was a knock on his door, and Yoongi shifted underneath his blankets to sit up slightly, blearily glancing over with his good eye at his aunt hovering in the doorway.

There was a tray of food in her hands and a furrow between her brows as she sat down on the end of Yoongi’s bed.

“You can’t stay cooped up in here and avoid me forever,” she said playfully, no real anger or annoyance in her voice. She set the tray down on her lap and clicked her chopsticks together, picking up some pickled radish and holding it out to Yoongi. “Now eat.”

Yoongi groaned as he sat up fully and opened his mouth obediently, allowing himself to be fed like a child by his aunt despite being a nineteen-year-old man.

Once his aunt deemed him to be sufficiently fed, she set her chopsticks down and turned to face Yoongi, a gentle but firm look on her face.

“Alright, I’ve given you enough space today,” she said. “Now talk. What happened to your face?”

“Failed plastic surgery,” Yoongi deadpanned, letting himself fall back onto his pillows.

“Now why would you do that? You know you can’t be beautiful without a little bit of hideousness too.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Sure it does,” his aunt replied amusedly. “But you’re not quite hideous, Yoongi. We probably share some portion of common DNA, so you can’t be that bad.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

His aunt shrugged. “I’m not here to coddle you.” She shifted on the bed slightly. “So cut the bullshit. Why did you show up to the apartment at 8AM on a Saturday looking like hell on earth?”

Yoongi pressed his lips together slowly before simply saying, “I got into a fight.”

“With who?”

Yoongi shrugged. “People.”

His aunt narrowed her eyes at him. “Right. These people wouldn’t happen to have names, would they?”

Yoongi shrugged again in response.

“So you got into a fight with a bunch of unnamed strangers.”

Yoongi yawned. “That’s a good way to put it.”

His aunt set her lips into a thin line. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

Yoongi thought about it for a second.

“I lost the fight.”

His aunt let out a small chuckle, using a hand to gesture to his face while saying, “That much is clear to me.”

Yoongi hummed. “I’m okay. Hoseok patched me up last night. I’ll be good as new in a couple days. Don’t worry.”

A few creases appeared in between her eyebrows. “How can I not worry when you’re lying in bed looking like death incarnate?”

Yoongi didn’t have an answer to that. “Don’t worry about me,” he repeated. “I’m okay.”

“I know you think you’re too old to ask me for help, Yoongi,” she said, a soft sadness to her words. “But there’s a reason why I’m here. I know I’m not around that much, but I want you to know it’s okay to talk to me.”

Yoongi felt a lump form in his throat as he slowly nodded, feeling just as small and fragile as he did when he had first shown up on her doorstep when he was ten years old, right after his parents had died in a car accident.

“I also want you to know that I’m ready to dropkick whoever ganged up on you,” she continued. “I can be pretty scary when I turn into 155 centimeters of pure fury.”

“153,” Yoongi corrected, a small smile curling at his lips as he pictured his petite aunt, who refused to kill flies in their apartment because “they have families to return to just like us,” gearing up to fight someone.

“I’m 155 with my shoes on,” his aunt replied. “It counts.”

Yoongi let out a laugh at that, which caused his still aching ribs to protest. He winced slightly before taking a slow breath.

His aunt’s face was contorted with concern as she immediately leaned forward to lay a hand over Yoongi’s forehead. “You’re burning up. I’ll be back with some painkillers and some water.”

Yoongi stared up and counted the cracks in the ceiling. Part of him felt guilty for keeping so many secrets from his aunt, who was nothing but kind and supportive of him, but he also knew that things were better this way. Safer for both him and her.

His aunt returned some pills, a glass of water, and another plate of food. “In case you get hungry in the middle of the night,” she said before Yoongi could say anything. “Take these and get some more sleep, kid.” She set everything on Yoongi’s nightstand and ruffled his hair (which caused Yoongi to wrinkle his nose slightly) before leaving and closing the door softly behind her.

Once she was gone, Yoongi reached up to gingerly run his fingers over his swollen eye and split lip, wincing slightly as twinges of pain emanated from the areas he touched. He reached over and swallowed the painkillers quickly before laying back down, exhaustion overtaking his body as he fell into a dreamless sleep.

***

Although Yoongi felt significantly better by the next Monday, he still looked like complete and utter shit (as both Hoseok and his aunt had helpfully reminded him that morning). He had gotten several stares throughout the day, even though no one actually approached him to ask about his bruises or fading black eye.

When he showed up to the library later that day, Yoongi watched as Jimin did a double take at his appearance.

“Oh my god,” Jimin breathed out once he had finally closed his mouth again. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Yoongi shrugged. “Got into a fight over the weekend.”

Jimin’s eyes widened. “Oh wow. Really?”

“Yeah. You should the other guys though,” Yoongi lied. “I’m alright.”

“Ah. I’ll take your word for it.” Jimin shifted awkwardly. “Are you sure you’re okay? I can finish the paper up by myself if—“

“No, it’s fine,” Yoongi interrupted. “Let’s get it turned in today.”

Jimin nodded and they began working in silence. It only took a few moments before everything was formatted correctly and everything was ready to be turned in online.

Yoongi watched over Jimin’s shoulder as the other boy clicked the send button, holding his breath as the document went through.

Yoongi exhaled sharply once the project was finally turned in. Jimin turned around to grin at him. Yoongi smiled back unconsciously, ignoring the throbbing in his split lip the action caused.

“Want to go celebrate?” Jimin asked. “Milkshakes on me?”

“Sounds good,” Yoongi replied.

He followed Jimin back to the familiar diner they had spent so many days together in. As they waited for their milkshakes, Yoongi found himself wondering where he stood with Jimin. Now that their project was over and turned in, they didn’t technically have a reason to hang out with each other anymore. It wasn’t like they were close friends or anything.

Were they even friends? Jimin had defended him the other day but that didn’t necessarily mean that he wanted to be Yoongi’s friend; Jimin was probably just really nice to everyone.

Yoongi bit his lip in thought. He still had Jimin’s number and he was pretty sure Jimin wouldn’t say no if Yoongi offered to take him out for milkshakes again in the future.

But wouldn’t that kind of be like a date? His mind whispered. Now that you’re not just project partners anymore, your diner dates won’t seem as convenient and platonic.

But would non-platonic diner dates be a bad thing?

Yoongi could feel his brows furrowing together as the waiter finally came back with their milkshakes a few moments later. What was he supposed to do next?

Ask him out, one voice commanded in his head while another said, Do nothing.

You still can’t tell him you’re Spiderman, though.

But he doesn’t like you unless you’re Spiderman, right?

Jimin suddenly cleared his throat. “Um, I just wanted to, uh, thank you for working on this paper with me. You were really great to work with and I’m glad I got paired with you.”

“Oh,” Yoongi blinked a few times, eyes zeroing in on the dusty pink color settling over Jimin’s round cheeks. “No problem. You were an awesome project partner, too.”

Jimin nodded, his cheeks still flushed and now Yoongi was really, really confused. What was there to be blushing about.

Yoongi fiddled with a seam on his shirt as he took another sip of his milkshake, his mind too cluttered with thoughts to attempt to start another conversation with Jimin.

“Do you like me?” Jimin suddenly blurted out, and Yoongi promptly choked on his milkshake, bursting into a coughing fit as he eyes watered uncomfortably.

“Wha-What?” He sputtered out once he was able to breathe again.

Jimin’s cheeks turned even redder. “I just mean, like…you kind of stare a lot and I might have heard some rumors about it and so I just wanted you in person…”

“Um.” Yoongi felt his mind go blank temporarily. “What rumors did you hear?”

Jimin shrugged. “Just some stuff.”

There was a pause as Yoongi inhaled deeply and thought about how to respond.

“Sorry, just…just forget about it,” Jimin said, burying his face in his hands. “Pretend I didn’t say anything, oh my god. This is so awkward.”

“Jimin,” Yoongi said after another long silence. “I…whatever you heard is probably true.”

Jimin’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “So you mean that you…?”

“Yeah.” Yoongi sucked in a deep breath. “I…I like you.”

Jimin’s eyes widened for a moment before he nodded. “Yeah. Okay. That’s what I figured.”

That wasn’t what Yoongi had expected to hear, but instead of focusing on the nervousness building up inside of him, Yoongi asked, “Was it really obvious?”

“Kind of. Like I said, you stared a lot.” Jimin pushed his hair off of his forehead absentmindedly. “And you blush really easily. I had my suspicions before I heard other people talking about it.”

“Oh.” Yoongi felt vaguely humiliated by Jimin’s words. Other people knew about it too? Was his gawking really that obvious?

“Yeah…I just wanted to hear it straight from you, though.”

“So…” Yoongi fumbled for words.

So now what? Now that Jimin officially knew, what was he supposed to do?

“I’m really sorry,” Jimin finally said, looking down at his hands.

“What? Why?” Yoongi fisted one hand in the fabric of his sweatpants to stop it from shaking.

“I don’t really see you that way. I have…someone else in mind.”

Oh. This was the reason Jimin had started this conversation.

“I see,” Yoongi replied as emotionlessly as he could. He pinched the straw of his milkshake in between two fingers. “Is it…Do you happened to mean Spiderman?”

Jimin sputtered as his cheeks turned firetruck red, this time from bashfulness and not embarrassment. (That’s why Jimin’s cheeks were pink earlier, right? Because he felt so awkward and embarrassed by this whole situation?)

“Yeah,” Jimin coughed. “Spider…Spiderman.”

The irony of it all made Yoongi want to throw up.

“But I still want to be friends and to hang out with you like this and…” Jimin took a deep, steadying breath. “I’m sorry, Yoongi. I just…I didn’t want to lead you on or make you think that these diner hang-outs meant something else or anything.”

“I see,” Yoongi repeated, his body feeling uncomfortably stiff and tense. Jimin wanted to make things clear before Yoongi deluded himself into seeing their tentative friendship as something more than that. “You…You really like Spiderman, huh?”

Jimin turned shy at the words. “Y-Yeah. He’s…he’s really cool. I don’t know. It’s kind of dumb, since I don’t even know what he looks like or what his name is or anything, but…I like him. I’ve been seeing him around a lot lately and every time, he just—He’s so cool, you know?” Jimin was smiling widely now, his eyes curved into gentle crescents. “I don’t even know what I’m doing but I hope he likes me too.”

If only you knew, Yoongi thought to himself.

The complete and utter strangeness of this entire situation was not lost on Yoongi. Somehow, some way, he actually had gotten Jimin to like him. It just wasn’t the same version of him as the one he was right now.

He likes the other me, Yoongi thought, But not me-me.

“I’m sure he likes you,” Yoongi replied after several seconds. “Everyone likes you.”

Jimin’s gaze turned apologetic as he took in the double meaning to Yoongi’s words. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have rambled like that after…” He trailed off awkwardly. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Yoongi said. “It’s…” It’s fine? No, it wasn’t fine at all. “You can’t always control how you feel.” He wasn’t sure if those words were more directed at Jimin or at himself.

Because although a small part of him was glad that Jimin still really liked Spiderman, a much larger part of him felt like ripping his hair out because even if Jimin liked his alter ego, Jimin didn’t like him. He was Yoongi, not Spiderman. Spiderman was a costume he put on for a couple hours every day. But Yoongi wasn’t. He was Yoongi full time.

Stop deluding yourself into thinking this isn’t a rejection. If he doesn’t like you as Yoongi, then it doesn’t matter if he likes Spiderman. He doesn’t like the real you, and that’s who you really are.

But is Yoongi truly the real you?

Yoongi’s head hurt, his mind reeling from a plethora of emotions and a storm of thoughts. He almost wanted to laugh from how crazy this whole thing was, but he didn’t want to seem like a psycho, especially considering that Jimin probably already thought he was some kind of pathetic loser who pines after people way out of his league. A cold sense of frustration and rejection flooded Yoongi’s stomach.

Yoongi placed both hands on his lap and curled them into tight fists. “Well, I hope you manage to work things out between you and Spiderman.”

And with that, he pulled himself up from the booth and stormed out of the diner. He couldn’t stand to be in that suffocating room for another minute, not with the bubbling anger and sadness filling his chest and making him feel hollow and empty inside.

Just a few moments afterward, Yoongi’s enhanced ears could hear the jingle of the bell above the diner’s doors as they were pushed open, followed by the sound of someone running.

“Yoongi! Wait!” Jimin’s voice called out.

Yoongi thought about turning around, he really did. But he didn’t want to face Jimin right now. Not like this.

He jumped and crawled up the side of a nearby apartment building quickly, the skin of his palms, conveniently made adhesive by the spider venom, sticking to the brick surface easily as he held his breath and waited for Jimin to pass by.

“Yoongi!” Jimin was still shouting as he rushed right by the building Yoongi was stuck to.

Yoongi released a long sigh when Jimin’s voice finally faded away. He climbed down from the building and hastily changed into his Spiderman costume. He tried not to let his thoughts linger too much on how he felt a faint twinge of resentment in his chest while pulling the mask on.

He tossed his backpack into the corner of the alleyway and climbed back up the building. He sat on the edge of the roof, his legs dangling over the side of the building, and let his eyes roam over the cityscape. Looking for some kind of distraction seemed like a good idea.

A few hours later, and Yoongi had stopped two robberies, helped no less than three old women cross the street, and coaxed a cat down from a tree in a park. He felt completely and totally exhausted as he tugged his street clothes back on and trudged his way back home.

It was easy to get lost in the buildings and shops of the city, and Yoongi found himself taking the long way home so that he could keep himself distracted for a longer amount of time.

He passed by a few local boba tea shops before stopping in front of one. He briefly debated ordering a drink, something sweet to ease the bitterness he was feeling inside. He felt around his pockets and pulled out some spare change. He counted it out; it was just enough to cover a small cup of boba tea.

As he was about to approach the counter to order, he heard some whispers from behind him.

“I saw the Park boy a few blocks away. Should we wait for the boss’s orders or should we just go now? I think we could take him easily like this. Spiderman is already off duty for the night, right?” a man with a husky voice said.

"I'll ask the others what we should do," another voice, a woman's, answered. "I saw the kid too; he was wandering around and looking distracted. We corner him someplace where there aren't too many people and no cameras…"

“It’ll be a piece of cake,” the man finished.

“It’s worth a shot,” the woman agreed.

Yoongi felt his shoulders tensing but he didn’t turn around, not wanting to alert the attackers to his eavesdropping. All he could hope was that maybe they were talking about a different “Park boy” than the one he was thinking about…

“What’s the kid’s name again?” the man asked suddenly.

“Park Jimin. Stupidly common name for a kid from such a rich family, right?”

The man let out a bark of laughter. “The heir to Park Industries is named ‘Jimin’?”

Jimin is a cute name, Yoongi thought as he simmered in rage at their words. It’s a cute name for a cute person, you fuckers. Who cares if it’s common?

“The boss gave us the go ahead.” Yoongi heard some shuffling from behind him. “Where did we last see him?” the woman questioned. “The park?”

“Eh, let’s just look around. He can’t be too far,” the man replied.

The woman made a noise of agreement and from the corner of his eye, Yoongi could see the pair taking off, heading towards the nearest park.

Yoongi’s hands curled into fists. Before he could fully register what he was doing, Yoongi was running, running faster than he had in ages, his blood rushing through his ears and muscles working fervently to keep up.

He took a different route than the pair he had seen at the shop, choosing instead to go around several buildings and cut across an abandoned construction site to get to the park.

He wasn’t sure how long he ran around the park before he spotted Jimin sitting on a bench, looking forlorn and dejected as he stared at the ground, his body hunched over with his elbows on his knees.

Yoongi nearly barreled into Jimin as he skidded to a stop in front of the other boy. As he glanced around quickly, Yoongi saw the man and woman from the park coming towards them from the other direction of the path.

“Yoongi? Oh my god, I looked for you earlier—“

“Can’t talk right now,” Yoongi interrupted in a surprisingly smooth voice, his panting and huffing minimal as he grabbed Jimin’s hand and pulled him off of the bench. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

“Wha—“

“Don’t say anything. Just run.” Yoongi whispered as he heard the footsteps of the man and woman getting closer and closer. “On the count of three.”

Yoongi didn’t get a chance to count before the man grabbed one of his arms.

He looked up and tried to hide his surprise at the fact that both the man and woman’s faces weren’t hidden by black masks this time. They looked…normal. Way too normal for people who were hell-bent on kidnapping and/or otherwise harming Jimin.

“Excuse me, do you happen to know where the nearest—“ the man began.

“Get the fuck off of me,” Yoongi hissed, grabbing and pulling the man’s arm off with a little too much force.

The man’s face immediately contorted into a look of shock and pain, and it took Yoongi a moment to realize the cracking sound he had heard earlier wasn’t from his knuckles. He had just broken the man’s arm. With his bare hand.

Shit, normally I have better control over my strength, Yoongi thought as the man’s face slowly transformed from an expression of pain to one of rage.

The woman had already pulled out another one of those strange Taser-like weapons, and Yoongi shivered at the memory of what it had done to him last time he had encountered it.

“Step away right now, and nothing will happen to you,” the woman said while looking straight into Yoongi’s eyes. “We’re here for the other one; you’re free to go.”

“He broke my fucking arm!” the man screeched. “Fucking electrocute the shit out of that motherfucker! I want to break every fucking bone in that skinny fucker’s body!”

“That’s not part of the plan,” the woman hissed. “We’re on strict orders to only harm the Park boy and Spiderman. Get over your little boo-boo and help me—“

Yoongi shoved the woman away from Jimin and screamed, "Run!"

Thankfully, Jimin was quick to react, immediately taking off with one hand still clinging tightly to Yoongi’s. Blurry images of trees and bushes and buildings passed by as they ran and ran and ran. Yoongi could feel the muscles in his legs protesting for relief as his heart pounded faster and faster and his lungs heaved for air.

There was outraged shouting from behind them, likely from the two people they had just left behind in the park.

Yoongi wasn’t sure how long they ran before Jimin dragged him into a Family Mart and promptly released his hand, immediately hunching over to pant and catch his breath.

Yoongi breathed in deeply, one hand reaching up to wipe away beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He leaned against the wall of the store until his breath finally evened out.

“H-Holy shit,” Jimin finally stuttered out. “Oh my god.”

“Are you okay?” Yoongi immediately asked. “She didn’t touch you, right?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Jimin answered before tipping his head back to stare up into the bright fluorescent lights of the store. “What the actual fuck just happened?”

“They were going to attack you,” Yoongi simply said, catching himself before he added the word ‘again’ to the end of his sentence.

“Yeah, I figured,” Jimin sighed. “Why does this keep happening to me?”

“You really need to get a bodyguard.” Yoongi inhaled deeply through his nose. “What if no one is there to help next time?”

“It’s fine,” Jimin immediately answered. “Spiderman is watching over—“

“What if Spiderman isn’t watching over you? Spiderman has a lot of shit to keep track of!” Yoongi shouted, drawing a few stares from people in the store. He took another deep, calming breath. “Fuck. Jimin, I really mean it. Get a fucking bodyguard. You can’t rely on Spiderman to keep protecting you.”

“B-But—“

Yoongi cut Jimin off. “Take today, for example. Spiderman didn’t save you today, did he?”

“N-No, but you did,” Jimin replied. “You saved me.”

“Yeah, but what if I’m not there next time?” Yoongi pressed.

“I’m sure it’s not that big—“

“Jimin, trust me when I say that there will be a next time.” Yoongi could feel so much frustration, both from what had happened earlier in the diner and from their current situation, building up inside of him. “Stop deluding yourself into thinking it’s ‘not that serious.’ It’s already happened multiple times, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah…” Jimin finally conceded. “You’re right. It’s…It’s really gone too far…”

“Get a bodyguard,” Yoongi repeated.

There were so many things he wanted to say, and Yoongi could practically feel words bubbling up at the back of his throat, but before he could do anything to further complicate and possibly ruin things between them, Yoongi pushed himself off of the wall and nudged the door to the store open.

“Yoongi, wait,” Jimin said softly while one of his hands gripped Yoongi’s upper arm lightly. “Th-Thank you.”

“It was nothing,” Yoongi replied gruffly, resisting the urge to say ‘Just doing my job.’ The super suit underneath his clothes felt uncomfortable and prickly on his skin as Yoongi reminded himself that no, he wasn’t Spiderman right now.

“And about earlier…I’m sorry. I really am. I know that I acted really insensitively and I want you to know that I didn’t mean to and that I’m really sorry for hurting your feelings and that I would really, really like it if we could still stay friends but I also understand if you—“

“Give me some time,” Yoongi interrupted, and Jimin’s face flushed red with shame. “Just…give me some time, Jimin.”

Give me some time to come to terms with how you like me, but not the right version of me.

“Okay,” Jimin answered, his head bowed towards the ground. “I can do that. I’m sorry, again. I—“

“Stop apologizing.” Yoongi sighed heavily. “There’s nothing…It’s fine.” He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Jimin or himself. The urge to rip his hair out was coming back. “I’m going to head out now. Get home safe, and I guess I’ll see you around, Jimin.”

“Yeah, see you around,” Jimin said in a small voice. “Have a nice evening.”

Yoongi nodded before rushing out of the store, all too eager to bury himself underneath a swath of blankets and never emerge again.

As he jogged his way back to his apartment, one question kept running through his head over and over again.

Am I Min Yoongi or am I Spiderman?

Chapter Text

Jimin took Yoongi’s advise and a few days later, Yoongi spotted a man in a black suit following Jimin around campus.

Although it had brought him some relief, Yoongi still spent a lot of time stewing over what had happened that night. He wondered if that very brief flash of recognition that passed through Jimin’s eyes as he left was real or just a trick of the light. The thought made Yoongi feel sick to his stomach.

It was unsurprisingly easy to avoid Jimin. They only shared one class together, after all, and their friend circles (or in Yoongi’s case, a lack thereof) didn’t overlap at all.

Yoongi didn’t miss how Jimin kept trying to approach him after class or on campus, or how his phone was consistently filled with texts and voicemails from the other boy these days.

But Yoongi was tired, and avoidance always seemed like a better option to him.

He was spending more time fighting crime than ever, anything to distract himself from all the anger and bitterness he kept bottled up inside.

Several weeks had already passed, and thankfully, it seemed the attacks on Jimin had stopped after the boy had hired a personal bodyguard to protect him.

Although Yoongi hadn’t said anything, it seemed that Hoseok had definitely noticed something was up. He had been extra gentle around Yoongi lately, always asking how he was feeling and if he ever needed anything.

“Hey, are you free tonight?” Hoseok asked as they were packing their things up after a long and unpleasant chemistry lecture. “There’s this new movie I was planning on seeing later. You wanna come with?”

Yoongi opened his mouth, the words ‘I think I’ll pass’ already forming on the tip of his tongue, but something made him pause.

“I’ll pay for the tickets and all the food,” Hoseok offered, as if sensing the Yoongi’s internal conflict.

When was the last time he had left the house for something other than school and crime-fighting? When was the last time he had really let himself loosen up and have fun?

Memories about a certain smiley boy and overly sugary milkshakes came to mind, but Yoongi quickly snapped out of it.

“Ok,” Yoongi finally said. “I’ll go. What time?”

The look of surprise on Hoseok’s face quickly morphed into relief. Yoongi didn’t blame him; he knew just as much as Hoseok did that he needed this, he needed to get out of the apartment, he needed to stop wallowing over something that had happened weeks ago.

A few hours later, and Yoongi found himself seated in a half-empty theater, watching some (ironically) superhero film that Hoseok had been looking forward to for months.

It was kind of boring, and the stunts and effects were poorly done, in Yoongi’s opinion, but Hoseok kept jumping and screaming at every single loud sound effect and daredevil stunt, which earned them several glares throughout the movie.

Yoongi stifled a yawn and scooped another handful of popcorn into his mouth. As god awful as the movie was, Hoseok’s overdramatic reactions seemed to make everything worth it. Yoongi found himself paying more attention to his best friend’s face than the screen.

Halfway through the movie, when the plot had taken a particularly boring turn, Yoongi stood up, passing the bucket of popcorn off to Hoseok and mouthing ‘Bathroom’ before leaving the theater. He wasn’t sure how many more poorly-done fights he could sit through (Who the hell throws punches like that? And why were the sound effects so fucking overdone?).

It was as he entered the restroom that he came across a vaguely familiar face standing beside the stall.

“We can leave right now if you want, Chim,” the person said as Yoongi struggled to place where he had seen the other boy’s face.

“No, it’s okay. You can go back to the theater, Tae,” a voice from inside the stall said shakily. “I just—I need a couple minutes.”

Yoongi froze. What the fuck was Jimin doing here?

Tae…Tae…Kim Taehyung? Is that who Jimin is talking to right now?

The boy who was probably Taehyung sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that the movie would have—“

“It’s not your fault. I’m just—“ Jimin let out a very unsteady breath, and Yoongi could almost feel his blood running cold because was Jimin really crying right now? “I really fucked up, Tae Tae. And seeing something so similar on screen just reminded me about everything and how I—“

“Jimin, please calm down,” Taehyung said. Yoongi slowly moved back to the bathroom door to exit the area. It was a miracle neither one of them had noticed him yet.

“I can’t,” Jimin replied, sounding anguished as he nearly cried the words out. “I fucked up so bad, Taehyung. I really did. And he keeps avoiding me whenever I try to approach him and I didn’t think it would hurt this much but it really does. It hurts so much.”

“I’m sure Yoongi will come around,” Taehyung reassured. “You just need to leave him alone for a while. Give him some time, just like he asked.”

“I know. I just—I’m so fucking stupid, Tae. I know I hurt him but by hurting him, I hurt myself too which is so stupid because I caused all of this, right? So I don’t have a right to feel upset?”

Yoongi froze again, this time with his hand on the handle of the bathroom door. He had just heard his name fall from Taehyung’s lips, hadn’t he? What the fuck? Jimin was upset…because of him?

“What was that cheesy John Green quote? ‘We don’t get to choose if we get hurt’?”

Yoongi heard a watery giggle echo through the mostly empty restroom. “Yeah, something like that.” He heard a loud sigh before Jimin said, “But I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m too late. I can’t take it all back now.”

“If you guys were ever really friends, then I’m sure he’ll come around and you guys can work this out between yourselves,” Taehyung said. “It’ll be okay, Chim.”

“I hope so…” Jimin muttered.

Yoongi pushed open the door as quietly as he could and ran back to the theater.

His mind struggled to process all of the information as he sat back down beside Hoseok, the giant bucket of popcorn settled back on his lap.

It was safe to say Yoongi found himself completely distracted for the rest of the film.

***

Around two more weeks of avid avoidance later, and it seemed that Jimin had completely given up on trying to talk to Yoongi, which Yoongi found strangely upsetting, even though all he had wanted from the beginning was to be left alone (but was that really what he had wanted?).

A couple days after the movie theater incident, Yoongi decided to open up to Hoseok about what was going on between him and Jimin.

“I really think you’re over-complicating this just a little bit,” he had said after Yoongi had gone on a long tangent about how there was a fine line between Spiderman and Min Yoongi that shouldn’t be crossed, and how at times he felt like he was living as two different people at one. “You’re not giving yourself enough credit. All those cool and attractive traits Jimin sees in Spiderman, they’re a part of Yoongi too. You’re not two different people; it’s more like two sides to one coin, if that makes sense? Putting on a mask and a tight-fitting spandex suit doesn’t change your entire personality, Yoongi.”

“But if we’re the same person, why did Jimin reject me like that?”

“Because you haven’t quite shown him that all those cool Spiderman things are actually cool Min Yoongi things. He hasn’t made the connection yet.”

Yoongi had paused then, allowing himself a moment to mull over Hoseok’s words before saying, “I have shown him ‘Min Yoongi things.’ It’s just—“ He shook his head helplessly. “It really feels like he is attracted to only parts of me, not all of me, and—“

“You guys were friends for a reason.”

“Because of a project—“

“Oh, come on. All those diner dates you two went on? The giggling in the library and the cutesy text messages? That’s friendship, not whatever else you’re thinking of right now.”

“I dunno, Hoseok,” Yoongi had sighed loudly. “I just don’t know anymore.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Hoseok had reassured him. “It’ll work out.”

“And it’s not like me prancing around and telling everyone ‘Hey, I’m Spiderman’ is a viable option either, because I’m not trying to put everyone I love in danger, and also because that seems weirdly guilt-trippy since Jimin rejected me and then—“

“You’re over-thinking again. Deep breaths, Yoongles. Deep breaths.”

“Yeah, okay. Okay.”

“Give it some more time and when you’re ready, try to be his friend again. You don’t have to put on a mask for him to know that you’re an amazing person. If he really likes Spiderman so much, it’ll only be a matter of time before he falls for you as Min Yoongi too.”

Yoongi was still skeptical about some of Hoseok’s words, but he reminded himself to not continue agonizing over what was already done.

Give it another week or so, he thought to himself. And then try again.

Things had been quieter than ever in the city lately, and more often than not, Yoongi found himself falling asleep while sitting on rooftops instead of fighting crime after classes. His aunt was pretty happy since Yoongi had been coming back to the apartment earlier and earlier and spending more time with her.

The quietness bothered Yoongi, though. Sometimes just standing on the roof, overlooking the cityscape, and listening to news anchors ramble on and on about weather patterns and charity events instead of stories about crime and nefarious activities made all the hairs on the back of Yoongi’s arms and neck stand up straight.

It always felt like the calm before a storm. And Yoongi had a bad feeling about this particular storm.

***

Yoongi had been right. Five days later, and the storm was officially here.

The day had started off normally enough, with Yoongi going through the motions of attending his classes like a zombie. Hoseok had stolen a protein bar off of him that morning with an angelic smile, but he made it up to Yoongi later by bringing an extra coffee for him to their chemistry lecture.

After his last class, Hoseok and Yoongi had eaten a quick early dinner at the campus café, and Yoongi had suppressed a yawn while waving goodbye at Hoseok afterward. He had checked his phone and, as was common these days, found no crime alerts waiting for him.

He had taken a seat on top of his favorite building, the concrete one that was always nicely shaded in the afternoons and evenings and had a pretty nice view of the city, and started keeping watch, occasionally listening in to local radio and news stations as well as checking his phone for alerts every now and then.

He had pulled out one of his university assignments to keep him busy while waiting for crime to strike, but at some point, he had given up and had allowed himself to sprawl out on the rooftop to observe the darkening skies.

And he had promptly fallen asleep, apparently. Which brought him to the present.

Yoongi startled awake as his phone began ringing incessantly. He had ignored it the first couple of times, assuming it was just his aunt asking when he was going to be back home later, but whoever was calling him was being extra persistent and ruining Yoongi’s perfectly good mid-evening nap.

“Hello?” Yoongi mumbled groggily into the speaker.

“Yoongi? Why do you sound like that?” Hoseok’s voice filtered through the speakers.

Yoongi yawned loudly. “Just woke up, s’all. What’s up?”

“How long have you been asleep? Oh my god, you need to check the news, what have you—“

Yoongi sat up straight and opened his eyes fully. “Did something happen?”

“Jimin is being held hostage at that one abandoned building downtown. I’ll text you the address—“

“What? When was he taken?”

“Less than an hour ago. The assailants are demanding a ransom from the Park family. No word on what exactly it is, but from the looks of it, they’re not after money. Anyways, you need to—“

“I’m going now. We’ll talk more later. Stay safe.” Yoongi hung up on Hoseok and tugged his mask back onto his face, cracking his neck briefly before jumping off the roof and taking off for the address Hoseok had sent him.

There were what seemed like hundreds of police cars and emergency vehicles surrounding the building by the time Yoongi arrived. He heard bits and pieces of what the police officers were shouting as he wove his way through the crowd of bystanders and towards the building.

No one tried to stop him from bursting into the building from one of the third-floor windows. Or rather, no one noticed until he was already inside. He heard some surprised and confused shouting from below, but he ignored it as he crept towards the stairwell of the building.

Yoongi wasn’t stupid. He knew there were tons of protocols and procedures for these kinds of hostage situations, and that his whole ‘breaking in through a window and going in without a coherent plan’ wouldn’t be well-received by law enforcement. But he was a vigilante for a reason; he didn’t have to listen to anyone except himself. And right now, his instincts were telling him to hurry and find Jimin.

He paused in the stairwell and listened closely for any signs of movement. The building only had about five or six floors, and the ceilings were all high enough for the smallest sound to echo.

Half a minute passed before he heard it: a small cough.

The monitors on his mask were telling him to head to the fifth floor and Yoongi immediately began silently climbing up the stairs. He took a deep breath and braced himself before pushing the door to the fifth-floor open, cringing as the hinges made a creaking noise as he stepped in.

He looked around quickly, immediately noting that this floor appeared to have between six to eight different rooms on it. He took a slow step forward and strained his ears, but the only sounds he could hear were his breathing and the faint buzz of fluorescent lights.

Yoongi took another step forward, unconsciously holding his breath as he glanced left and right again. Still nothing. Was it possible he was on the wrong flo—

There was a loud squeaking noise as a man in a mask suddenly charged at Yoongi from behind. Yoongi immediately whirled around in place, grabbing the man’s arm and twisting it behind his back.

“We’ve been waiting for you, Spider boy,” the man hissed as Yoongi placed more pressure on his arm, making his face contort into an expression of pain.

“Where is he?” Yoongi said in a cold voice, twisting the man’s arm harder when he didn’t answer immediately.

The man let out a small gasp of pain before bursting into laughter. Yoongi felt his blood boil as he prepared to punch the man in the face to get some real answers out of him.

That was when he heard the click of a gun, the sounding echoing obnoxiously against the concrete flooring of the building.

“Release him, Spiderman,” a familiar woman’s voice said. “And perhaps we will leave your precious Park boy unharmed.”

Yoongi took another look at his surroundings as realized that they had him completely encircled. There was no way out of this for him, without risking harm to Jimin.

“You have fifteen seconds,” the woman suddenly said. Yoongi heard a small whimper from behind him. His blood instantly ran cold. Jimin. He needed to protect Jimin.

Yoongi released the man with a little more force than necessary, shoving him forward and causing him to stumble onto his knees. He felt a strange sense of satisfaction while watching the man rub at his arm and let out small hisses of pain.

“Very good,” the woman said as Yoongi turned around to face her. “Now if you’ll just come along with me—“

Yoongi quickly aimed and shot a web at the gun in her hands, yanking it and pulling it towards him and out of her grip easily. The gun went skidding across the floor as the woman let out a high-pitched shriek of surprise.

Within seconds, the group of masked people was on him. There were even more of them than last time, and part of Yoongi knew it was a hopeless battle to begin with.

Still, he tried to incapacitate as many of them as possible, wrapping their bodies and arms with large webs and blinding them by shooting webs at their faces as well as just kicking several of them across the face. All of them were holding those strange Taser-like weapons or a gun in their hands, and Yoongi spun around as he struggled to quickly disarm them all.

There were at least ten of them on the ground as Yoongi tried to break another man’s arm while also kicking a gun out of a nearby woman’s hand. The monitors inside his mask indicated that there were at least fifteen more masked people in the vicinity and Yoongi knew he needed to work fast, needed to get it all under con—

“Enough!” the woman from before screamed. “One more move and the boy dies!”

Yoongi heard another small sound escape Jimin as the woman jabbed the gun underneath his ribs. For the first time since his arrival, Yoongi took a good look at Jimin. He appeared relatively unharmed, save for a small bruise forming on his right cheekbone, but his arms were bound behind his back and the look in his eyes was absolutely terrified.

Yoongi felt his breath hitch as he slowly distanced himself away from the people he had been fighting less than a minute ago.

“Hands in the air,” the woman commanded, and Yoongi complied instantly, placing his hands on his head as two men approached him and roughly tied his hands behind his back with a length of coarse rope. In this position, there was no way for Yoongi to press the triggers on his web shooters.

He found himself shoved onto the ground as the men dragged him and placed him a few meters away from Jimin.

“We have about one and half more hours before the deadline,” the woman finally spoke. She turned to Jimin. “You better hope your parents have all that data ready to go for us, boy.”

Jimin kept his head down, and Yoongi felt frustration flare deep within his chest.

“Who do you work for?” Yoongi shouted. “What data are you after?”

“I’m not obligated to respond to anything you say,” the woman replied coldly. “Just keep your mouth shut, sweetie. You’ll find that it does wonders when trying not to piss off the wrong people.”

“Who is it?” Yoongi spat. “You guys are after company secrets, right? Which tech company are you guys with?”

“Wouldn’t you love to know,” the woman mused. “But you’re not quite in a position to be asking questions right now.”

“Who?” Yoongi nearly screamed. “Kwon Limited? Kim Enterprises? Choi Corporation?”

Something flashed in the woman’s eyes. “Another word and the Park boy loses a finger.”

Yoongi snapped his mouth shut at that. He could feel himself fuming as he twisted uncomfortably in his bonds, his mind racing as he tried to think about what to do next.

“I suppose I have a few questions for you as well, Spider boy,” the woman spoke again after a few moments of tense silence. “Starting with, who exactly are you?”

Yoongi tensed up at the words but stayed quiet.

The woman let out a bark of cruel laughter before gesturing to another woman standing near Yoongi. “Pull the mask off.”

Fuck.

The other woman approached him slowly, hesitantly. Yoongi used it to his advantage. Before she could reach out and grab any of the mask’s fabric, he twisted in place and rolled just out of her reach. She let out a surprised squawk and reached for him again, but Yoongi just kept rolling around and dodging her hands.

Two other people approached him quickly, and Yoongi could feel himself panicking as he flailed around and kicked one of them in the shin as hard as he could. He managed to trip another one as he went, but it wasn’t enough as more and more people attempted to restrain him.

Soon after Yoongi was screaming and yelling obscenities as four people held him in place. He twisted and flailed in their grip to no avail. Some of the fuckers were laughing—actually laughing—as he struggled.

Just as Yoongi was about to scream himself hoarse, his mask was unceremoniously pulled off and tossed to the ground.

Yoongi immediately curled into himself, as if tucking his chin into his chest would somehow completely obscure his face from view.

He cried out as his chin was forced up by a calloused hand, the nails digging into the skin of his jaw tightly.

“My, my,” the woman from before said amusedly. “You’re much younger than I imagined. I suppose all the stubbornness and lack of self-preservation make sense now. You can’t possibly be more than twenty-five years old, hm?”

Yoongi tightened his jaw and gritted his teeth together, a bad decision since it made the woman’s nails sink deeper into the skin of his chin.

“I don’t suppose you want to tell me your name and age and occupation, do you?” the woman mused. She laughed and turned to speak to the people holding Yoongi up. “Set him back on the ground.”

Yoongi was placed on the ground in a surprisingly gentle manner.

“You put up a valiant effort.” The woman stepped back so she was standing several meters away from him. “But you really should’ve just listened when we told you not to get yourself further involved in this.”

Yoongi glared at her.

“You can speak now. We have no reason to harm you or the Park boy as long as you do not attempt to act aggressively again.”

“Very generous of you,” Yoongi muttered.

The woman let out a small, cold chuckle before adjusting the mask over her face. “I hope you understand this is nothing personal, Spiderman. Just business.”

“Bullshit,” Yoongi spat. “You kidnapped someone!” He jerked his head to the left to gesture to where Jimin was sitting.

It was then that Yoongi remembered that Jimin was still in the same room as them.

He gave a panicked glance to his left, where Jimin was staring at him with wide eyes, his mouth formed into a small ‘o’ shape as he gawked at Yoongi.

Yoongi almost sighed to himself in frustration. So much for keeping my identity under wraps. This is such a mess.

“We’re under orders to not cause unnecessary harm and damage to anyone. Why else do you think we haven’t taken a bunch of pictures of you and posted them online? Or killed you as soon as we over-powered you? We’re calculated, not evil.”

Yoongi wanted to argue with that last point but he didn’t want to risk having her change her mind and expose his identity to the world. Or kill him. That would be bad.

“Just under an hour before this will all be over, boys,” the woman said with a yawn. “Just sit tight and it’ll be over before you know it, like a bad dream.”

Yoongi pressed his lips together to avoid snapping at the woman. He shut his eyes tightly and forced him to concentrate. He needed to think.

His hands were completely restrained, so using any web technology was out of the question. He had tried using his legs to take on the masked people early, but they had easily overwhelmed him, and kicking people in the shins wasn’t the most effective way to subdue them.

Yoongi tried to think harder. The room wasn’t quite silent; the soft twittering sound of people chatting filling the room as he swallowed hard and desperately tried to find a way out for him and Jimin.

Head-butting people also sounded like a not-so-stellar idea. And charging and flinging himself at people wouldn’t work either; his frame was too lean for that to be a viable option.

So what exactly did he have left?

And then it came to him.

“Hey, Suit Lady,” he whispered under his breath so no one in his vicinity could hear. “You still there? Make the spider symbol flash twice if you are.”

Three pounding heartbeats later, the spider on Yoongi’s chest dimly lit up twice.

“Okay so…fuck, I didn’t think this far…” Yoongi muttered.

The spider symbol lit up again and Yoongi almost let out a yelp when he felt something start scuttling underneath him. It was small, glinting in the white fluorescent lights of the room—

“Oh my god.” Yoongi sucked in a deep breath. “Thanks, Suit Lady.”

He held his breath as he felt the tiny metal spider crawl behind him and began sawing at the rope binding his wrists with its sharp metal legs. He scooted back slightly so his hands were pressed against the wall of the room and completely hidden from view. While waiting, Yoongi surveyed the room. There were still way too many people for him to handle by himself. The only exit was completely blockaded by people who were holding things that looked suspiciously like guns in their hands.

“Please, please, please tell me I still have some of those smoke-generating mini spiders left,” Yoongi pleaded with Suit Lady.

A few seconds later, three spiders dropped from a small opening on the right sleeve of Yoongi’s suit. Yoongi stopped himself from loudly sighing in relief.

“Okay, I need another spider to go over and cut up Jimin’s bonds,” Yoongi whispered. “And then we’ll get this show on the road.

Yoongi said a quick prayer under his breath as one more spider dropped from his sleeve and began hastily scuttling towards Jimin. Luckily, it seemed that everyone was too absorbed in their phones or in their conversations to notice the tiny metal spider crawling on the ground.

‘Stay still’ Yoongi mouthed to Jimin when the other boy suddenly startled as the spider began sawing away at the rope surrounding his wrists.

Jimin’s eyes were still as wide as they were before as he gave Yoongi a tiny nod and obediently waited to be freed from his restraints.

Yoongi felt the rope around his wrists drop onto the floor and he fought to keep a relieved smile from pushing its way onto his face. He watched from the corner of his eye as eventually the rope around Jimin’s wrists was sawed in half.

Yoongi took a moment to rub his sore wrists behind his back as he braced himself for his next move. He needed to be quick and clean and careful.

“Bring my mask to me,” he murmured to one of the spiders and it faithfully scuttled a few meters forward to push the mask towards Yoongi. Slowly, the spider maneuvered the mask so it was within arm’s reach.

Jimin stared at Yoongi with curious eyes. Yoongi took one last deep breath before he slowly mouthed ‘Don’t move’ to Jimin.

“Go,” he hissed at the three smoke spiders. “Ten seconds.”

The three spiders instantly dispersed, placing themselves in different corners of the room as Yoongi silently counted to ten in his head.

One he reached eight, he stood up and tugged his mask back on in one smooth motion. On nine, he ran towards Jimin and grabbed the other boy’s hand tightly. He heard someone cry out a warning, but it was already too late.

Ten.

The room instantly filled with thick smoke as Yoongi ran for the windows, tugging Jimin behind him. Shouts and screams pierced through the air as the pair leaped through the window, glass shattering all around them. Yoongi heard Jimin let out a terrified squeal as they began freefalling.

Yoongi narrowed his eyes, aimed, and fired. Jimin was freely screaming now; his arms had somehow wrapped themselves around Yoongi’s neck as they fell and Yoongi had one steadying hand on the boy’s waist as the web hit its mark.

The web pulled taut when they were about ten feet above the ground.

“This is…oddly familiar,” Jimin said in a breathless voice. Yoongi probably would’ve laughed if his veins weren’t still pumped full of adrenaline.

Yoongi pressed the slow release button and carefully lowered them until their feet hit the pavement. Police officers instantly surrounded them, but Yoongi pushed them away.

“Get me an EMT,” Yoongi said. “Also feel free to go in now. They’re on the fifth floor. About thirty or so assailants.”

He noticed that some people were pointing up at the building and realized there was a plume of smoke rising from the window they had broken.

“There’s no fire,” he quickly added. “I used a smoke bomb. Might wanna slap a smoke mask on before charging in, though.”

The police officers nodded quickly and began assembling. Yoongi paid them no mind as he quickly pulled Jimin over to the nearest EMT to get checked out.

“We busted through a window so please check for any cuts and/or tiny pieces of glass embedded in his skin,” he instructed before turning to Jimin. “Sorry, there weren’t exactly any other options. Do you feel hurt anywhere?”

“N-No, I’m…I’m good,” Jimin said, face still flushed and eyes wide. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, my suit deflected most of the glass.” Yoongi rubbed at the shoulder he had used to charge at the window, wincing as he pressed down on an area he knew would be bruised by tomorrow. “And I heal pretty fast.”

“Oh, right,” Jimin replied. “So, listen, can we, um—“

“I’ll leave you with the EMTs and police officers then,” Yoongi quickly interrupted. “See you.”

And with that, Yoongi was running away and doing what he did best: avoiding the issue.

He hadn’t given his name or any personal information to the masked people, so he figured that he was safe in that regard. There wasn’t exactly much they would be able to do once they were all behind bars in a few hours.

He trusted Jimin enough to believe that the other boy wouldn’t go around announcing to the world that he knew Spiderman’s real identity. But he still felt so unnerved by the whole situation.

I’m screwed. So, so screwed.

Yoongi knew he needed to get out of here fast before he got overwhelmed again.

As he was trying to push his way through the crowd of emergency responders, he was stopped by a hand on his upper arm.

“Hello, Spiderman,” a woman with warm brown eyes and a soft smile said. “I’m Jimin’s mother. I just wanted to thank—“

“It was nothing,” Yoongi muttered gruffly. “Just doing my job.”

“But still, my husband and I really can’t thank you enough for keeping our son safe. We aren’t sure if we can ever fully repay you, but we are fully prepared to financially compensate you with—“

She began pulling out her checkbook and a pen and Yoongi really felt like throwing up. She scribbled some obscenely large number down and signed the thing, ripping it out and holding it towards Yoongi expectantly.

“No, no, I don’t want your money. I don’t want anything,” Yoongi choked out as he pushed her outstretched arm back. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad that Jimin’s safe.”

“There’s no need to be polite, Mr. Spiderman. Please allow us to express our gratitude for your—“

“I’m sorry, I need to go,” Yoongi breathed out before taking off, shooting a web at a nearby building and swinging away so he could avoid having to wade through a crowd of pedestrians and bystanders.

He called Hoseok after he located his backpack and threw his street clothes back on, letting his friend know that he and Jimin were both safe and both relatively unharmed. He didn’t go into detail about anything, the exhaustion caused by the evening’s events catching up to him as he mumbled a quick goodbye and trudged his way back to the apartment.

He checked his phone again as he unlocked the door to the apartment. There were dozens of texts and missed calls filling the lock screen, all from Jimin.

Yoongi felt like screaming.

He powered his phone completely off and let his backpack fall onto his bed. After changing into his favorite pair of Kumamon pajamas and curling into his pillows like a small child, Yoongi let his exhaustion overtake him and fell into a fitful sleep.

Chapter Text

A few days after the kidnapping, Jimin had managed to corner him while he was eating lunch in the campus café with Hoseok.

“Hey, can we please talk? If you have time, I mean…” Jimin pressed his lips together and stared down at the ground awkwardly.

Hoseok nudged him, and Yoongi let out a small sigh. He had ignored all of Jimin’s texts and calls for a reason.

“Fine,” Yoongi answered in a tone that was probably colder and harsher than necessary. “Give me a minute and I’ll meet you outside.”

Jimin gave a timid nod and left the café.

Hoseok nudged him again. “I know things are messy right now, Yoongi, but be gentle with him. I think he’s just been through the most shocking week of his life.”

“Yeah,” Yoongi sighed loudly. “I know.”

And with that, Yoongi pushed up from the table and tossed his half-eaten lunch in a trashcan before walking outside. Jimin was waiting for him a few meters away from the entrance, and Yoongi took a deep breath before approaching him.

“Hi,” he said quietly once he was standing beside Jimin. “How are you? You’re not seriously hurt or anything, right?”

“No, I’m fine,” Jimin replied quickly. “Really fine. The paramedics cleaned out all of my cuts and bandaged them but I hardly felt a thing. I’m totally fine, all thanks to Spi…” Jimin’s voice died out before he could finish his sentence.

Yoongi stared at him with intent eyes. “That’s good. What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“I—“ Jimin cleared his throat awkwardly and reached up to rub at his neck nervously. “You’re…You’re Spiderman,” he finished in a whisper.

Yoongi narrowed his eyes at Jimin. “Make sure to keep that information to yourself.”

“No, I wasn’t—“ Jimin fumbled for words. “I’m not—I would never do that!”

“Good,” Yoongi muttered, turning to leave. “As long as you don’t decide to go around announcing it to people, then—“

“Wait!” Jimin yelped while gently grabbing Yoongi’s arm. “That’s not…There was something else I wanted to talk about too.”

Yoongi carefully dislodged himself from Jimin’s grip. “Fine. Then talk.”

“Yoongi, I—“ Jimin ran his fingers through his hair and swallowed hard. “Do you want to grab some coffee together sometime?”

Yoongi narrowed his eyes again. “What? Are you trying to ask me out or something?”

Jimin gulped before giving a sheepish nod.

The frustration, heavy and hot in Yoongi’s chest, returned in full force.

“That ship has sailed, Jimin.”

“…is that a no?”

Yoongi inhaled deeply. “You want me to spell it out? No, I will not go on a fucking coffee date with you.”

Jimin pulled the sleeves of his hoodie over his fingers and cringed into himself, somehow seeming even smaller to Yoongi as he softly asked, “B-But…I thought…I thought you liked me? I’m really sorry for not making the connection sooner, I just—“ Jimin’s eyes were wide and innocent and sparkling faintly with what looked like hurt and fuck, why was this so hard?

Yoongi closed his eyes tightly, unable to bear looking at Jimin’s dejected form any longer. “Here’s the thing, Jimin. I did like you…but you don’t like me.”

“I do! I promise I—“

“Let me finish,” Yoongi interrupted coldly while holding one finger up in the air. “You don’t like me. You like the idea of me, my vigilante alter ego and whatever, but the bottom line is that you clearly don’t like me for me.”

“No, Yoongi, please—“

“And therefore, I really don’t think dating is a good idea,” Yoongi finished with a heavy sigh. Jimin started protesting again but Yoongi ignored him and turned to leave.

“I’ll see you around, Jimin. Have a nice day and be safe.”

Yoongi wasn't proud of the way he basically power-walked across campus afterward, but he needed to get out of there before the glimmering sadness in Jimin’s pleading eyes convinced him to stay.

Things are better this way, Yoongi thought to himself. You’re way more invested in him than he is in you; he’ll find someone else and get over you soon. Jimin can have anyone he wants, anyways. At least this way you won’t get hurt.

But what was the point of not getting hurt if it already felt like Yoongi had just ripped his own heart out and stamped on it?

***

It seemed Hoseok and Yoongi had been right about the attacks all along. It was all part of an elaborate plan to get Park Industries to surrender a load of company secrets and data about their latest projects, but it hadn’t been Kim Enterprises.

The police had managed to arrest all people involved in Jimin’s kidnapping, and word had it that Jimin’s parents had paid a pretty penny to get the police to be extra thorough in their investigation.

In the end, over a hundred people were indicted for conspiracy and kidnapping charges, and they were all from the same company: Choi Multinational Corporation. It turned out that the company had been purposefully planting fake evidence at crime scenes to throw the police and other investigators off, something that the police were currently evaluating as the basis for possible additional charges.

Choi Corporation shares plummeted, and there were talks of possible future bankruptcy and closure. Jimin’s kidnapping had probably been the most blatant act of corporate conspiracy in recent history, and now all relatives of the wealthiest corporate families in the country were parading around with an army of newly hired personal bodyguards.

Yoongi was just glad it was over, although it would take a long time for the court procedures and the judicial process to begin.

Things were just about back to normal for Yoongi. He was following a steady routine of school, crime fighting, sleep, school, crime fighting, sleep these days to keep himself occupied.

Days blurred into each other, and more often than not, Yoongi found himself unable to keep track of dates and times. Luckily, Hoseok had taken to setting alarms in Yoongi’s phone to remind him to go to class and to eat meals.

Things were okay; Yoongi was keeping busy and getting through the days and doing decently in school. But no matter how much he tried to keep his mind and body occupied with the monotony of his daily life, late at night he would find himself with nothing left to do except think about all that had happened in the past five weeks of his life.

He couldn’t stop thinking about that afternoon so many weeks ago, and how he had rejected Jimin so harshly and coldly in an attempt to protect himself. Some cruel part of him reveled in having rejected Jimin just as Jimin had rejected him, but another much larger part of Yoongi felt horrible, guilty almost. Jimin had at least been nice while rejecting him, while Yoongi…

It didn’t matter. Yoongi knew Jimin would move on soon anyway, if he hadn't already done so. Jimin would be absolutely fine while Yoongi would continue to be hung-up over him for months to come, wouldn’t he?

The thought was enough to sour Yoongi’s mood for the rest of the day.

“God, what was I even thinking?” Yoongi found himself venting to Hoseok over the phone that night. “I’m an idiot for letting it go that far. He’s so fucking out of my league, it’s unbelievable. And I fucking let myself get my hopes up and think—“

“Yoongi,” Hoseok cut in gently. “I think you’re forgetting that you’re the one who rejected him the second time around.”

“I fucking know! I know!” Yoongi seethed. “It’s so ridiculous, isn’t it? Everything I wanted was right within my fingertips and then I just—Fuck. It’s so stupid. I’m stupid.”

“You’re not stupid for being afraid.”

Yoongi felt his lips tremble slightly. “I’m not…I’m not afraid. That’s not—“

“Yes, you are. You’re scared of getting hurt again, of giving Jimin the power to hurt you again,” Hoseok paused. “And so you hurt him first.”

Yoongi hated how right Hoseok was. “You’re forgetting the part where me hurting him doesn’t matter in the big picture because Jimin will probably just get over me and find someone else really soon.”

“I take what I said back. You are stupid.”

“Thanks,” Yoongi muttered. “No, but really, I think Jimin has probably already forgotten all about me because…because he could have anyone he wants, right? Everyone loves him.”

“That doesn’t matter, but Jimin wants you—“

“But why?” Yoongi asked. “It doesn’t make sense. He could literally just—I dunno. He could smile for one minute and end up with ten phone numbers in his pocket, you know? He’s that kind of person: a magnet. So why Spiderman? Why was he so fixated—“

“He just was. There doesn’t need to be an explanation. Attraction isn’t supposed to make sense. Stop over-thinking.” Hoseok sighed. “Look, Yoongi, it’s getting late and you really need to get some sleep. Don’t think I haven’t noticed those purple splotches under your eyes.”

“Yeah,” Yoongi said in a small voice. “Okay. Good night then. See you tomorrow, Seok.”

“Bye.”

The phone beeped and then Hoseok was gone, leaving Yoongi alone with his thoughts again.

Yoongi slammed a pillow over his face and groaned into it.

“Stop thinking,” he mumbled into the fabric. “Stop it.”

But it didn’t’ seem to work as Yoongi spent hours tossing and turning in bed that night, unable to sleep until thin rays of sunlight began to peek through his curtains in the early hours of the morning.

***

The bags under Yoongi’s eyes seemed to be more pronounced as he trudged his way to class the next morning. The two cups of coffee already in Yoongi’s system weren’t doing much to combat the fatigue and exhaustion weighing down his body as he flopped down into his seat in the back of the lecture hall.

He watched with half-closed eyes as Jimin took his seat in the fifth row, next to the aisle. His hair was tucked into a beanie, an over-sized sweater hanging off of his form and covering his hands and the tops of his thighs. He looked so completely and utterly soft, and Yoongi wanted to claw his eyes out.

Fuck this. Fuck feelings. Fuck soft boys in cute sweaters and beanies. Fuck my life. Fuck the world. Fuck the economy. Fuck capitalism. Fuck—

Yoongi’s thoughts were interrupted when the professor called the class to attention.

Now, Yoongi was a good student. He never did his assignments late, he was always on time to class, and he never caused a ruckus during class or anything. He was good, albeit a little quiet and reserved in class.

But as Yoongi sat in his cramped, wood-backed chair and listened to his professor ramble on and on about some obscure musical style, Yoongi felt his eyes droop.

He blinked several times and pinched himself in an effort to stay awake, but it wasn’t working. His eyes kept involuntarily falling shut every few minutes, no matter how hard Yoongi tried to shake himself out of it.

Yoongi head lolled back to rest against the back of his chair as he succumbed to his exhaustion and allowed his eyes to fall shut one more time.

***

Yoongi woke up to someone shaking his shoulder insistently.

He jolted in place and blinked rapidly as he took in his surroundings. There were chairs, so many chairs, and desks? Yoongi blearily turned in place and let his eyes fall on the person beside him. His vision was too blurry to make out who it was.

“Huh? Where am I?” Yoongi muttered while rubbing his eyes with one hand. He touched the corner of his mouth and felt mortified when he found a small amount of drool pooled next to his chin. He guessed he had probably slept with his mouth open again.

“You fell asleep in class,” a voice answered softly. “Are you okay? You’ve seemed a little more exhausted and tired lately.”

“Oh,” Yoongi said. He glanced around at the empty seats around him as his sleep-induced confusion faded and he managed to remember what had happened before he had dozed off. “Where is everyone?”

“Class ended about ten minutes ago,” Jimin replied. “I stayed behind to talk to the professor and then I noticed that you were still here so I…” He coughed awkwardly as he trailed off.

“Oh,” Yoongi repeated, already feeling the way his heart was beginning to race from his first proper conversation with Jimin in weeks. “Thanks.”

Jimin just nodded and looked down at his hands. “No problem. Um…” He shuffled through the papers in his hands and pulled out a couple sheets. “I grabbed a couple extra copies of the lecture notes from today and our assignment due next class.” He held the papers out towards Yoongi hesitantly, as if expecting Yoongi to push his arm away and storm off any minute.

Yoongi felt strangely touched by the gesture. “Oh wow. Th-Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

Jimin shrugged. “It was the least I could do after you…” He cleared his throat. “Anyways, have a…have a nice afternoon and get some rest soon. You look like you could use it.”

“Right. Thanks again, Jimin,” Yoongi stood up to gather his things as Jimin continued staring at him with a strange look in his eyes. Yoongi stared back at him expectantly.

“It was nothing,” Jimin finally said after an uncomfortably long silence. This close, Yoongi could see the way Jimin’s lips quivered and his hands trembled. “I guess I’ll see…Never mind. Take care, Yoongi.”

And then he was turning on his heel and marching away from Yoongi, his head bowed towards the floor as he adjusted his bag over his shoulders and left without another word.

Part of Yoongi wanted to scream, to beg Jimin to stay and to look at him. He wanted to ask Jimin why the hell he seemed so hurt and what that look in his eyes had meant and what had caused Jimin to run away like that.

But he didn’t.

Things are better this way, Yoongi reminded himself.

But why was it was getting harder and harder to keep believing that statement?

***

The harassment had stopped for a while after Jimin had fiercely defended him in front of so many people, but now that it was clear that he and Jimin were no longer associated with each other, it all just began anew again.

It was always small things. A few malicious whispers as Yoongi walked across campus. The occasional taunt whenever he did something embarrassing like answer a question incorrectly in class. Sometimes, when people were feeling a little extra brave, worse things would happen. About two weeks ago, Yoongi had gotten tripped and everyone around him had laughed as he fell onto his hands and knees and then scrambled to pick all of his books and papers back up. And a few days ago, someone had “accidentally” run into him and spilled all of their weird ass spinach-fruit smoothie down the front of his shirt, leaving Yoongi with a strange green stain on the front of his white t-shirt for the rest of the day.

But it wasn’t that bad, Yoongi kept telling himself. Things could always be worse. And he could handle it by himself. It was fine.

Unfortunately, things seemed to escalate today.

It had started with someone shoving him into some bushes that morning. Yoongi had grumbled a few obscenities before standing up and brushing dirt off of his clothes.

And then a group of girls had purposefully blocked his way in the hallways and made him late to his first class, earning him a nasty glare from his professor when he burst through the doors five minutes late.

He heard snickers and whispers wherever he went, and it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and the skin on his arms prickle uncomfortably.

On his way to lunch, someone bumped into him and made him drop all of his books again, and a group of students gathered around to stare and laugh as Yoongi scrambled to organize all his textbooks into a neat pile again.

After lunch, Yoongi warily slid into his seat in the back of the room for his musical composition lecture. He desperately hoped people would knock it off if he showed no reaction to their antics, but it didn’t seem like they were keen on stopping any time soon.

He kept his head down as he took notes and listened to the professor speak, and when class finally ended, Yoongi tried to gather up his things as fast as humanly possible so he could just leave and escape—

No such luck.

Someone slammed their hand down on top of Yoongi’s desk with enough force to rattle the entire table.

“So, loser, how has your day been so far?” Hyejun asked with a wolfish smile on his face. “I can’t tell if that brown spot on your face is dirt from this morning or if that’s just how you usually look.”

“Like fucking trash,” someone added from beside him. “You always look nasty as fuck.”

“Great insult,” Yoongi muttered. “Did a third grader come up with that for you? Or did your brain just stop developing when you were eight years old?”

By that point, a small group of students had gathered around to watch, and a few of them let out obnoxious ‘oooh’ noises at Yoongi’s words.

The person who had called Yoongi trash grit his teeth together as his face flushed red from anger.

“You’re one to talk. You have the body of an eight-year-old, you…you…you midget,” the boy stuttered back.

Yoongi rolled his eyes. “Intellectualism at its finest. Tell me, just how much money have your parents wasted sending you to university—“

“Shut up,” Hyejun suddenly barked out. “Your voice is making my ears bleed.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Yoongi spat. “I’ll just keep on talking then. Maybe then you’ll get the message and finally leave me the fuck alone.”

He narrowed his eyes in a glare and made a move to stand up, only to be shoved back into his seat again.

“Fucking pond scum,” Hyejun muttered. “Fucking piece of dog shit—“

“Are you done yet?” Yoongi asked in a disinterested voice.

“You’re pathetic,” Hyejun said venomously. “You disgust me and everyone else on this fucking campus.”

“That’s absolutely wonderful.” Yoongi plastered a giant mocking smile on his face. “Now why don’t you just—“

“I just told you to shut the fuck up,” Hyejun interrupted. “You’re so fucking annoying. No wonder no one can stand you.”

Yoongi didn’t say anything, just gripped the sides of his desk tightly and counted the seconds in his head. It would be over soon.

“Yeah,” some girl from the crowd added. “Only that one loud ass chem major is willing to hang around your ass. Hoe-sucker or whatever.”

Yoongi felt blood roar in his ears and gripped his desk even tighter until he saw his knuckles turn white. It was one thing to insult him; it was another to drag Hoseok, who had never done anything to anyone, into this as well.

“Keep his name out of your mouth,” Yoongi said darkly.

“You’re a fucking disgrace,” Hyejun continued. “Even the nicest person on campus dropped your ass. You’re lucky Park Jimin was willing to treat you as a charity case for so long—“

There was a loud crack! sound as the desk in Yoongi’s hands snapped in half.

“Fuck,” Yoongi mumbled under his breath, hastily letting go of the remnants of the desk and letting them clatter to the floor. He stood up and took a step back from the desk he had just broken. How could he have been so careless and let his control slip so easily?

Hyejun looked at him with wide eyes. “W-What kind of freak are you? You’re…you’re a fucking psychopath, aren’t you?”

Yoongi couldn’t bring himself to answer. He just stared down at his hands, wondering why he had let himself just snap like that.

“That desk has always been iffy!” a voice suddenly blurted out. “It was always creaking and stuff and it was only a matter of time before it broke!”

Yoongi curled his hands into loose fists as he watched Jimin suddenly push himself to the front of the crowd. Yoongi swallowed harshly. Had Jimin really been there the whole time?

“These things are so low quality, you know,” Jimin laughed nervously. “It doesn’t take much to break them. Anyways—“

“What exactly is going on here?” a deep voice boomed in the lecture hall.

Oh, so now that professor decides to show up again? Yoongi thought angrily. Fucking brilliant.

“Nothing!” Jimin squeaked out as the professor walked up the steps and surveyed the damaged desk. “Just a harmless accident, professor.”

“This is university property,” the professor said. “Who is responsible for this?”

Several people silently gestured to Yoongi, who tried his best down to shrink under the professor’s austere gaze.

“This will need to be replaced, Yoongi,” the professor said in a tired voice. “I will have the university send the bill—“

“How much is it?” Jimin suddenly cut in. “Please, professor, allow me to—“

Yoongi had heard enough, and as soon as he saw Jimin fucking pulling out a checkbook, he swung his backpack over his shoulder with more force than necessary and pushed his way through the crowd. There were a few gasps and some disgruntled shouting from his professor as Yoongi nearly ran through the open doors.

He walked until he couldn’t see the campus anymore before he found an alley to sit down in. Rage bubbled up from the back of his throat as he struggled to process what had just happened.

What had he done to earn the hatred of so many people? Sure, he had ruined that one party that one time, but surely that small incident didn’t warrant this kind of treatment?

Yoongi continued fuming as he placed his head in his hands. He was so sick of it, sick of all of it.

He sighed and after several moments, he changed into his suit. He decided to skip his last lecture of the day because he really didn’t want to go back to campus right now. He really needed a distraction, and these days, it seemed like being Spiderman was his best distraction.

***

Perhaps going on a crime-fighting spree to distract himself was a bad idea.

Yoongi had broken up one fight, helped a few old women cross the street, and stopped two pickpockets in just a few hours. He felt restless, wishing the pace of the city would pick up so there would be more to do, something that would actually get his blood and adrenaline pumping.

His wishes were answered in the form of a small convenience store robbery.

There were four perpetrators, and the police hadn’t been called yet. Yoongi had been observing from a rooftop when he heard sudden screams from the streets. He used his monitors to quickly locate a back entrance to the store and was inside in a few second, stealthily rolling and hiding behind a shelf of candies so he could carefully observe what was going on.

The cashier was trembling slightly as they struggled to empty the cash register into a burlap sack that one of the robbers was holding out.

One of the others had barricaded the door and was keeping watch as the other two rifled through the counter, searching for extra cash. One of them let out a whoop when they found a small metal box underneath the counter, no doubt filled to the brim with cash.

The cashier seemed to be holding back tears as the robbers prodded him and forced him to unlock the metal box and dump its contents into the burlap sack as well.

The main robber folded the sack in on itself and gestured for the others to remove the shelves they had used to barricade the entrance.

Yoongi waited until they were completely distracted before he lashed out. He pulled the sack out of the robber's hands and quickly tossed it to the cashier, who caught it just in time. He elbowed one of them in the face, hearing a shriek of pain and a loud cracking sound, undoubtedly signaling he had just broken someone’s nose. He hastily disarmed the two robbers who held pistols in their hands, throwing the guns behind the counter and out of their reach.

One of the robbers let out a roar and tried to charge Yoongi, which made him laugh as he easily dodged and punched the guy in the ribs. There was a flurry of motion as Yoongi tried to incapacitate them all as quickly as he could, shooting webs here and there to keep the subdued ones from fleeing the scene.

Finally, Yoongi took a moment to catch his breath, briefly glancing around the store to count how many people were lying on the ground or standing amongst the walls, their hands and feet covered with webs to secure them in place. One, two, three—

Yoongi let out a gasp of pain as he was suddenly struck between the ribs. Before he could recover, the robber punched him in the jaw, hard. There was a ringing sound building in Yoongi’s ears as he stumbled in place, blinking rapidly to bring his surrounding back into focus.

He was struck across the face again, this time in the center. He heard a sickening crack and felt warm liquid rush out of his nostrils as a sharp twinge of pain emanated from his nose.

He had let himself get distracted, too caught up in the rush and thrill of the fight. He had let himself be reckless, and now he was paying the price.

The next time the robber tried to strike him, Yoongi swayed on his feet before side-stepping, trying desperately to ignore the fuzzy and cloudy feeling filling his mind as he shot a large web and finally, pinned the last robber to the counter.

His vision was blurry but his aim was alright as he quickly shot a few additional webs to secure the robber’s hands to the countertop.

“You…You alright?” Yoongi asked thickly, stepping around the robbers to glance at the cashier, who had taken to curling up and cowering underneath the counter. “N-Not…hurt anywhere?”

The cashier gave him a thumbs up and a strained smile.

“Call the police and…stuff,” Yoongi instructed, feeling the fuzzy feeling return to his head. “Take care, dude.”

The cashier yelled out a shaky ‘thanks’ as Yoongi pushed through the entrance and swooped away from the scene. He went back to the alley he had left his backpack in and let himself collapse to the ground, blindly reaching up to tug the mask off. He pulled one glove off so he could briefly dab at the drying blood running from his nose. He gingerly pressed his nose and winced when he felt an acute twinge of pain in return.

“Dammit,” he muttered as he felt his vision get blurry again. He felt along his ribs and groaned when he found the area the robber had hit him; he was definitely going to have a giant bruise there by tomorrow.

Slowly, Yoongi forced himself to his feet so he could carefully pull his street clothes back on. Afterward, he pulled his phone out and sat back down on the dingy pavement of the alley. He needed to call Hoseok to come pick him up and hopefully patch him up—

“Yoongi?” a small voice called out. “Is that you?”

“Hm?” Yoongi hummed, his phone nearly slipping out of his sweaty hands as he blearily tried to grip it tighter.

He heard footsteps and a small gasp. “Oh my god…what happened to you?”

Yoongi blinked up at Jimin’s concerned face and briefly wondered if he was having some kind of injury-induced hallucination.

“Hm,” Yoongi hummed again while shrugging his shoulders.

Jimin’s eyebrows furrowed as he quickly grabbed Yoongi’s hands and gently pulled him up. He carefully placed one of Yoongi’s arms over his shoulders. “Let’s…Let’s head back to my apartment. It’s pretty close by and I have a first aid kit there.”

Yoongi gave a weak nod, feeling all too exhausted and just a little bit enchanted by the warmth radiating from Jimin’s soft body.

Jimin’s mouth pursed and then flattened into a thin line. He pulled out a couple tissues and placed them in Yoongi’s hand. “For your nose,” he explained when Yoongi blinked at him in confusion.

Yoongi just nodded again and pressed the tissues to his nose, squeezing his nose bridge slightly to get some of the bleeding to stop.

He wasn’t sure how long they walked around, Jimin practically dragging Yoongi’s limp body with one arm around Yoongi’s waist and the other securely holding Yoongi’s arm that was draped across his shoulders, before they stopped in front of a very nice looking apartment building. Yoongi instantly recognized it as Jimin’s.

They stumbled into the elevator together, and Yoongi tried not to think about the fact he was currently inside the nicest apartment building in Seoul. With Jimin, no less.

Jimin fumbled with his apartment key for a few moments, struggling to unlock it with one hand, before the door finally swung open and he was guiding Yoongi to sit down on a plush-looking leather couch in the center of the living room.

“Wait here and I’ll be right back with everything,” Jimin instructed.

Yoongi just sighed, breathing in carefully with his mouth, tissues still firmly pressed to his nose, and let his eyes fall shut.

The day’s events must’ve really taken a toll on him, because within seconds, he could feel himself drifting off, his head pressed against the armrest and one of his legs hanging off of the leather sofa haphazardly.

He could’ve sworn he heard footsteps and a tiny, cute-sounding chuckle before everything went completely black.

Chapter Text

The first couple things Yoongi registered as he woke up was 1. This was definitely not his own couch because his couch is not nearly this wide and it’s certainly not made of fucking leather? What the actual fuck? and 2. There was a blanket thrown over him and some weird radiating source of heat underneath his head.

He groaned and shifted slightly as he struggled to recall exactly how he had gotten himself into this situation. He pressed his face against the warm pillow and sighed loudly.

Yoongi suppressed a shriek as something (a hand?) ran itself through his hair, tangling into the strands and brushing it off of Yoongi’s overheated forehead. And the warm pillow fucking…twitched slightly before relaxing, but pillows don’t do that so what the hell is—

Yoongi sat straight up and scrambled to the other side of the couch, pausing only to rub at his eyes and blink blearily at the shadowy figure staring at him, their hand still outstretched from how they had been caressing Yoongi’s hair only moments ago.

Eventually, the figure said, “Uh…did you sleep okay? Should I turn the lights on or, er, I dunno…”

Yoongi squinted as he tried to place the familiar squeaky-sounding voice, his mind still half-asleep as he struggled to process his surroundings. Vaguely, Yoongi realized he was taking too long to answer and that this was really, really awkward.

Yoongi did let out a scream when the figure suddenly stood up to flick the lights on.

Jimin flinched before hastily turning the lights back off. “Oh my god, oh my god, I’m so sorry, holy shit—“

“I’m blind, oh my god, I’m actually blind how am I gonna know when my aunt changes her hairstyle and is in desperate need of compliments and validation now? Oh my fucking god, she’s going to kill me, I can’t see shit—“

“I’ve never wanted to delete my existence more, oh my god. Please don’t hurt me, I swear I didn’t mean to—“

“Hoseok is gonna flip and then cry about how I can’t watch those shitty action movies with him anymore because I can’t comment on the horrible effects or the poorly-executed stunts—“

“Oh my god, I don’t know what’s more terrifying, possibly being murdered by Spiderman or a very exhausted Min Yoongi. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit—“

Yoongi removed his hands from where they were pressed firmly over his eyes and made a motion to crawl towards Jimin on the couch, and this time Jimin was the one who screamed.

“Please, I’m too young to die! Oh my god, I haven’t told my mom I love her in two days and I haven’t gone to Disneyland with Tae yet and he’s going to be so sad if I break my promise. And I have an essay due in two days and my professor already hates me for being the biggest dumbass in the whole class and I’m positive she’s going to murder me if I don’t get it done, or um, I guess she’s re­-murder me after you do, I dunno. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god—“

The way Jimin was scrambling away from Yoongi on the oversized couch with terror in his eyes would have probably been hilarious in any other situation.

Yoongi stopped moving and took a deep breath. Blinked a few times. Let his brain kick start itself one more time. Tried not to burst into tears once he realized that he was not, in fact, blind. Eventually got himself to calm down enough to let his eyes focus back on Jimin’s shaking form.

“Oh shit,” Yoongi finally breathed out. “Jimin? Whoa…”

All the events of…was it last night? A few hours ago? The curtains were pulled so there was no way of telling what time it was anymore. Regardless, Yoongi’s slow ass brain finally caught itself up and realized exactly what he was doing in Jimin’s apartment at such an ungodly hour (in Yoongi’s opinion, any hour he wasn’t sleeping was ungodly, and he didn’t need a clock to tell him that everything about this situation screamed ‘ungodly hour’ to him).

Jimin swallowed audibly. “Please don’t kill me. I swear I wasn’t trying to, um, blind you or—“

“My vision is somehow still intact,” Yoongi muttered. “I’m not going to kill you. Murder is messy, and I’m too lazy for that shit.”

“O-Oh…” Jimin breathed out, a note of relief in his voice. “Okay.”

Yoongi reached up and gingerly felt up his nose, which had apparently healed itself in his sleep. He winced as all his moving and shifting made small twinges of pain radiate from his side, which were definitely healing, but still rather fucked up. It was probably just a large bruise he’d have to deal with for a few days before it completely disappeared.

“I, um…I wiped all the blood off your face and put some antibacterial ointment on your scrapes while you were out,” Jimin said. “You…heal kind of fast. I think all of the scrapes on your hands are pretty much gone already.”

Yoongi shrugged. “It’s the spider venom.”

“Right.” Jimin fumbled awkwardly with his hands. “Uh, are you feeling okay? I can get you some painkillers or some water or you can just…sleep some more on the couch?”

“Nah, I’m alright,” Yoongi replied. “I can barely feel a thing now.”

“Oh. That’s good.” Jimin glanced between Yoongi and the ground nervously.

Another tense silence.

“I’m really sorry—“

“I want to apologize for—“

They both snapped their mouths shut again and stared at each other.

Yoongi cleared his throat. “Uh, you go first.”

“I’m really sorry about everything that happened earlier in class. It was really uncalled for and I…I know I should’ve stepped in sooner or said something, but I didn’t know if you wanted me to do that anymore, since…” Jimin swallowed hard. “Don’t worry about the desk thing. Everyone thinks it was a defective desk and so the university is just going to replace it without question since things just break sometimes. I don’t know why the professor was all…Anyways. I’m just, really sorry you had to deal with that. It won’t happen again because I, um, filed a disciplinary report with the university. You don’t have to do anything; I already have a bunch of witness accounts lined up and it’ll be settled soon and basically Hyejun and a few of his lackeys have already been suspended indefinitely as the university investigates. They might interview you, though. Sorry. I should’ve asked before going ahead and…I was too angry at the time and I didn’t think. I’m pretty bad at thinking, apparently.” Jimin stared at the ground as if he wished it would just swallow him whole.

Yoongi was at a loss for words. “You…what?”

“Please don’t be mad. I just really wanted to make sure no one would ever talk to you like that ever again and I’m really sorry if I overstepped my boundaries again with you, but I just—“

“Jimin,” Yoongi interrupted. “It’s okay. Thank you for doing that. I really appreciate it.”

Jimin nodded and hummed slightly in acknowledgment.

A weird feeling was unfurling inside Yoongi’s chest as he watched Jimin nearly curl into himself under Yoongi’s gaze, as if he was trying to make himself as small as possible. Yoongi wondered to himself how things had come to this, with Jimin so visibly uncomfortable in his presence.

“Jimin, do you wanna like...sit down or something?”

Jimin tensed up at the words but in a few seconds, he was crossing the room and sitting down on the couch, perched on the edge and sitting as far away from Yoongi as possible. Yoongi tried not to feel hurt by it.

Yoongi stared at his hands, a little offended by how they had started shaking involuntarily in Jimin’s presence.

“Um, okay.” Yoongi took a deep breath. “I wanted to apologize for, um—In hindsight, I treated you pretty harshly and that was really unnecessary and just really asshole-ish of me, especially since it was like only a few days after you got kidnapped and you were going through a lot at the time. I mean, like…it was really unfair of me to act like that towards you after you went out of your way to be nice to me when you…” Yoongi’s voice choked slightly, the words ‘rejected me’ refusing to release themselves from his throat, “…uh. I think that’s about it. I’m sorry for being a dick to you right after you went through a bunch of shit, and I appreciate how nice you’ve been to me all this time.” He folded his hands on his lap and swallowed, a small bubble of anxiety rising up inside of him as he waited for Jimin to respond.

“You don’t need to apologize to me,” Jimin said softly. “If anything, I was the dick. All you ever did was care for me and look after me, not just as Spiderman, but as Yoongi, my friend. I really regret how I treat you and I wish I could take it all back. I just—I really fucked up and I want you to know that I acknowledge that.”

“That doesn’t justify me being so rude to you and hurting your feelings and stuff,” Yoongi protested. “I know you liked Spiderman for a long time. I guess I was just so focused on my own feelings the whole time that I didn’t really think about how you felt.”

“No, it was totally reasonable of you to be pissed and I probably would’ve reacted the same.” Jimin crossed his ankles over each other. “You liked me longer than I liked Spiderman, right?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi sighed. “Yeah, I did.”

There was another long silence. It made Yoongi’s skin crawl.

“I guess there’s something else I should, uh, talk about.” Yoongi rubbed at his arms uncomfortably before steeling his nerves. “I know you really liked Spiderman and all I guess I just feel pretty shitty about…not really living up to your expectations of Spiderman, I guess? I mean, like, I’m not ‘cool’ or ‘hot’ and I’m probably not as brave and strong as you thought and all. I can’t really…be that for you, if that makes sense? Uh, anyway, I’m sure it was pretty disappointing to find out I’m just Min Yoongi, campus loser.”

“You’re not.”

“What?”

“You’re not a disappointment. You’re not a loser. You’re…How could you say that?” Jimin ran his hands through his hair in a frenzy. “You’re literally fucking perfect and I’m such a fucking idiot and you’re…Fuck. How could I ever be disappointed when it’s you?”

“I don’t underst—“

“Oh my god.” Jimin was breathing shallowly. “You can’t be serious. I don’t…I don’t like you because you’re Spiderman; I like you because of who you are as a person. I’m so, so stupid. All those things I liked about Spiderman…they were all right in front of me, in you. I can't believe I didn't connect the dots sooner, but apparently, I'm the world's biggest fool and fuck-up so…" Jimin paused to take a deep breath. "Just…Don't call yourself any of those things. Ever. Please."

Yoongi gaped at Jimin for a few moments. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Jimin replied hastily. “I acted really shallowly and I’m sorry it took me so long to realize but…I just want you to know that you’re an amazing person, and I was really lucky to meet you and to be friends with you.” Jimin’s voice thickened and cracked as he continued, “And I know I already fucked up all my chances with you and that you probably never want to associate with me ever again, but I couldn’t listen to you talk badly about yourself because you’re an absolutely incredible person and you…you really deserve to know that.”

There was a small sniff as Jimin quickly wiped a few tears off of his cheeks. “Sorry,” he mumbled, his voice slightly muffled by his hands and swiped them harshly across his face. “I shouldn’t be…I’m the one who hurt you in the first place; I d-don’t….I don’t have to right to—“

A shuddering sob escaped Jimin’s lips as he struggled to calm himself. Yoongi watched it all with wide eyes.

It wasn’t that he was an emotionless asshole; it was just that his fucking brain was trying to process everything without internally combusting or some shit.

Jimin curled into a small ball, his arms wrapped around his legs as he perched against the armrest of the couch.

Yoongi’s brain whirled wildly, Jimin’s words echoing in his head. All those things I liked about Spiderman…they were all right in front of me. What the fuck?

It sounded disturbingly similar to Hoseok’s words from weeks ago. All those cool Spiderman things are actually cool Min Yoongi things.

For so long, Yoongi had been fixated on finding where he ended and Spiderman began. But putting on a mask and a fancy super suit couldn’t change who Yoongi was inside.

It’s all me, Yoongi thought to himself. It’s really all me. Not parts, not aspects, not bits and pieces. It’s just me. Yoongi is Spiderman and Spiderman is Yoongi and I don’t need to compartmentalize myself into different boxes based on whether I have a mask on or not. I’m just me. Min Yoongi. Spiderman. Hoseok’s best friend. Resident Kumamon lover. Someone who’s really stupidly in love with Park Jimin.

Hesitantly, Yoongi stood up and walked towards Jimin, who was still curled up and shaking, his face buried in his knees. He reached out and…Fuck, what were you supposed to do when someone was sobbing into their knees like this?

Jimin startled when Yoongi touched him, sniffing and blinking several times before tearfully asking, “Did you just…poke my face?”

Yoongi could feel his ears turning red. “Your cheeks are fluffy.” He poked one of them again. “Prime poking material.”

Jimin’s face reddened instantly as he sputtered. “Is that a dig at how swollen and puffy my face must look right now?”

“No, you’re just cute,” Yoongi replied.

“Oh. Okay. You’re cute too. Uh, what—“

“Listen, Jimin, is that coffee offer still available?” Yoongi blurted out before he could lose his newfound courage.

“Huh?” Jimin looked completely perplexed by the question. “You mean like—“

“A date. Can I…Can I take you on a date?” Yoongi could feel his palms sweating but he didn’t have the energy to feel disgusted at himself. “Please. Just one. Or I mean. Maybe others too. But only if you want to! It would be an honor to spend a ridiculous amount of money on overpriced pastries and coffee on you. If that’s okay with you. Uh. Yeah.”

“Are you…Are you being serious right now?” Jimin’s brows were heavily furrowed. “Because if you’re just fucking with me right now, I’m probably gonna cry again and—“

Yoongi rushed forward to wrap his arms around Jimin. “Please don’t cry. I don’t like it when you cry. If the thought of going on a date with me makes you want to cry, then…then forget I said anything. Just. Don’t cry anymore. I’m sorry.”

Jimin started shaking again in Yoongi’s arms and Yoongi felt himself beginning to panic until he realized Jimin was fucking laughing. Giggling sweetly like the precious person he was. He felt his heart stop and restart in his chest as he took in Jimin’s blinding smile.

“You’re kind of stupid sometimes, you know?” Jimin giggled.

“Yeah, I know.” Yoongi shifted slightly on the couch. “So, um, about that whole date thing—“

“You really mean it?” Jimin asked, his eyes shining with an emotion Yoongi couldn’t quite place.

“Of course I do! What the hell, this is all I’ve ever wanted ever since you walked into class all those months ago—“

“Really?” Jimin looked kind of excited.

“Um. Yeah.” Yoongi knew he was definitely blushing now. It was probably visible even in the darkness of the room. He withdrew his arms from where they were wrapped around Jimin and moved to cover his face with his hands.

Jimin grabbed at his hands quickly and pulled them away, and Yoongi’s brain short-circuited momentarily because holy shit, am I holding hands with Park Jimin right now?

“Tomorrow. 2 PM. Campus café.” Jimin’s eyes were bright, brighter than any star Yoongi had ever seen in his life and shit, he really needed to breathe but Jimin was so overwhelming in all the best ways.

“Yes. Okay. Let’s do that.”

Yoongi could feel his breathing stutter in his lungs as Jimin leaned forward slightly to whisper in his ear, “Okay. Okay. This is happening, oh my god…”

"What time is it?" Yoongi blurted out. He patted down his pockets quickly and pulled out his cell phone, which was flooded with notifications from Hoseok and his aunt. "Oh shit, my aunt is going to kill me. I promised to be home on time and it’s already after midnight…”

Jimin gently shoved him off of the couch. “Oh my god, go. Beg your aunt for forgiveness and mercy. I need you to be in one piece for tomorrow.”

Yoongi nodded solemnly. “I will try my very best.” He shoved his shoes back on his feet and flipped the lights on (which thankfully didn’t make his eyes fucking burn like last time) to check for all of his belongings.

It was as Yoongi was fumbling with opening the front door that Jimin scrambled over to wrap him in a tight back hug.

“Good night, Yoongi,” his whispered and wow, Yoongi’s heart was already feeling extra weak and fragile and now Jimin was just full-on attacking it with no mercy.

“Y-Yeah,” Yoongi stuttered back, a little stunned by how warm and solid Jimin felt against his back and how Jimin’s nose was skimming along the shell of his ear and his hair. He shivered involuntarily in Jimin’s hold. “You…have a good night too.”

Jimin released him and Yoongi’s lungs struggled to pump oxygen back into his body as he opened the door and began the trek back to his apartment, Jimin’s touch and Jimin’s smile lingering in the corners of his mind.

***

Mercifully, Yoongi’s aunt had let him go with a quick scolding and a slap on the wrist, leaving Yoongi with ample time to scream into his pillow and kick at his blankets.

He had texted Hoseok to let him know that he was okay and had spent the night tossing and turning in his blankets.

“You seem oddly…alive this morning,” his aunt commented as he hummed to himself while pouring himself a glass of water.

“Do I not usually look alive to you?” Yoongi muttered.

“Not before eleven in the morning,” his aunt quipped. “Your eyes are usually half-closed, you know. And like…sometimes when I see you in the mornings I mistake you for the furniture because you don’t move or speak for long periods of time.”

“Wow. Thanks,” Yoongi replied with no real bite in his voice.

“Just trying to keep it real, honey,” his aunt replied cheerily. “Anyways, I believe I just saw a hint of a smile, and it’s not even nine thirty yet.” She turned to face him, nursing a mug of coffee in between her hands. “Are you sure you’re okay, Yoongi? You’re not slowly going senile on me or something, right?”

“Wooow,” Yoongi scoffed. “Maybe I’m just a morning person now.”

She snorted. “Sure, and Obama was an extraterrestrial sent to warn us all that the sun is dying and is going to consume the earth in thirty years.”

“…what?” Yoongi gave his aunt a strange look. “Have you been watching those weird conspiracy theory TV shows again?”

“All my favorite talk shows have been canceled.” She shrugged. “I heard this one theory about all cats secretly being robots that the government has been using to spy on people in their very own homes that was particularly detailed.”

“Oh…kay. Remind me to cancel our cable subscription as soon as possible,” Yoongi sighed to himself.

His aunt chuckled. “So you are feeling normal then. You’re still being sassy and irritated.”

“I love how you’re telling me about your favorite conspiracy theories while trying to figure out if I’m the one going senile.”

“Oh, honey,” his aunt waved him off. “I accepted my status as a senile middle-aged woman a long time ago. I’m just trying to figure out if I’m going to have a someone to watch the next season of Unknown Details and Explanations with me.”

Yoongi resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his aunt’s antics. “Alright, I’m out.”

“So no late night conspiracy talks?” his aunt called after him as he was heading back towards his room.

“Hell no!” Yoongi called back before closing his door gently. He could hear the faint sound of his aunt’s laughter from the kitchen.

Yoongi shook his head and busied himself with some assignments. He set an alarm on his phone for one so he could get ready and leave in time to meet Jimin in the café for their date.

Just the thought of sitting across from Jimin in the quaint café in a few hours sent his heart racing.

Yoongi sighed and forced himself to focus back on his work.

His aunt called him for a quick lunch around noon, and Yoongi could feel his leg bobbing up and down as he shoveled his rice into his mouth.

By the time his alarm went off, Yoongi’s nerves felt fried. His hands shook as he threw on a relatively clean hoodie and some jeans (is that what people were supposed to wear to dates?). He double-checked the time on his phone before heading out to the café.

Jimin was already waiting for him by the time Yoongi arrived at the small campus café. Jimin stood up to greet Yoongi with a bright smile and a wave that made Yoongi’s poor heart melt.

“Did you sleep well after heading home last night?” Jimin asked politely as Yoongi sat down across from him. He noticed that Jimin had already ordered coffee and pastries for them, which made Yoongi kind of sad because he had definitely been planning on paying for their first date.

“Uh, yeah,” Yoongi lied sheepishly while cupping his hands around his coffee. “You?”

Jimin giggled. “I couldn’t really sleep, to be honest. Was too excited and stuff.”

Yoongi found himself nodding as his heart pounded in his chest. “Yeah. Um…” Fuck, think of something fast. “You come here often?”

Yoongi wanted to slap himself. Of course Jimin came here often. Everyone did. They had been here a few times as friends too. What the fuck?

“Uh, kind of?” Jimin replied, his brows slightly furrowed together. “I like reasonably-priced coffee just like every other long-suffering college student. And cinnamon rolls. Those are pretty good too.”

“Yeah,” Yoongi repeated awkwardly, his throat feeling strangely dry. “The prices here are so…reasonable. Yeah.”

Jimin gave him a concerned look. “Are you okay? Are you still feeling a little out of it because of yesterday?”

“Huh? No, I’m good. Really good,” Yoongi choked out hastily. “Don’t worry.”

“Does anything still hurt or—“

“No!” Yoongi yelped before quickly placing a hand over his mouth after realizing how loud his voice was. “I mean, uh. Everything feels fine since you…took care of me and stuff.”

“Ok. Good…” Jimin trailed off and took a sip of coffee.

Yoongi struggled to find some way to save their conversation.

“The weather has really been excellent lately, hasn’t it?” he blurted out. “I mean, wow. The sunshine. Wispy clouds. Blue skies.”

“…right.” Jimin looked speechless for a second. “Um, have you looked outside recently?”

Yoongi glanced out of one of the café’s windows and sure enough, it was cloudy as fuck, the skies a dark gray color as if it was going to rain soon.

“Shit,” Yoongi muttered. “Oh my god.”

Jimin laughed then, his body curling into itself in the most adorable way as his hands clutched at the table to keep his balance.

“Hey, Yoongi,” Jimin finally said once he was done laughing.

Yoongi looked up glumly, feeling rather solemn after humiliating himself so many times.

“Relax. It’s just me. It doesn’t have to be that different from when we used to hang out together before.” Jimin offered a reassuring smile. “It’s just me.”

That’s kind of the problem, though.

“O-Okay,” Yoongi breathed out. “Sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize or anything. I just…you seemed kind of uncomfortable and I was worried that you were really regretting this or something,” Jimin said sheepishly. “It’s totally okay if you are, though. I know it was like a spur of the moment thing so if you wanna go ahead and walk out now, I won’t hold anything against you…”

“What? No!” Yoongi’s face twisted with surprise. “I’m just…I’m not that great with this whole ‘date’ thing. I dunno. I’m like really worried I’m going to fuck everything up before anything even happens and then you’ll realize that I’m definitely not cool enough to be around you, even if I have the whole Spiderman thing going on.”

Jimin snorted. “’Being cool’ is not something I give a shit about. Besides, I’m like, the least cool person in existence. If anything, I’m glad you lowered your standards to—“

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Yoongi cut Jimin off. “Wow. Are you kidding me? Have you ever, like, seen yourself? Caught a glimpse of your reflection in a store window before? Googled your name, maybe? What kind of standards are you talking about, I’m shocked and appalled to hear this slander coming out of your mouth.”

“Eh.” Jimin shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like I’m a part-time college student, part-time vigilante, and full-time cool dude.”

“Listen, you’re the cool one here—“

“Oh please, I’ll call myself cool once my grades are as high as yours—“

“Bullshit! You do, like, charity events and stuff! What kind of college student willingly organizes and participates in—“

“Well, you saved my life repeatedly in the span of a few weeks. I feel like I win this argument.”

Yoongi felt himself flush as his mouth clamped shut at that. He fumbled for words, mouth opening and closing a few times before he softly muttered, “It’s just…It’s my job.”

“Just because you do it a lot doesn’t make it any less cool or admirable,” Jimin insisted. “Besides, the last I checked, no one is paying you or giving you anything for your work, so you’re doing, like…extreme volunteer work.”

“Extreme volunteer work,” Yoongi repeated. “Sounds like the title of a strange Christmas comedy film.”

Jimin chuckled. “I would pay to watch that.”

And just like that, Yoongi felt all of the nervousness wash out of his body as he and Jimin fell into easy conversation, just like they had all those times together in the library and in the diner. Jimin was right, it wasn’t all that different, except now Yoongi could openly stare and awkwardly wrap his fingers around Jimin’s from across the table (and yes, Jimin’s hands were just as soft and warm as he had imagined. Yoongi probably would have gone weak in the knees if he hadn’t been sitting down.)

Jimin insisted on walking with Yoongi on the way back to his apartment, his hands gesturing wildly as he animatedly talked about this new TV show he was obsessed with. The image was so cute that Yoongi found himself hiding a smile behind his hand as they walked.

Yoongi felt the nervousness start up again when they were outside his apartment door and saying goodbye to each other. What was he supposed to do? What was it that most people did at the end of a first date? Hug? Hold hands for an excessive amount of time? Smile at each other until someone finally leaves?

His worries were unfounded, it seemed, when Jimin reached out to hold his hands again and leaned forward to plant a gentle kiss on his cheek.

“Good night, Yoongi. Sweet dreams.” Jimin giggled at the dazed expression on Yoongi’s face. “Don’t forget to call or text me so we can do this again soon!”

He waved cutely and Yoongi found himself waving back slowly, his mind still feeling rather fuzzy after the kiss. He knew his cheeks were flushed because it felt like his face was fucking burning. And his chest felt so warm and gooey and shit. It was both the grossest and best feeling he had ever felt.

His aunt peered over at him as he kicked his shoes off by the door, taking in his blushing cheeks and glittering eyes and dreamy expression.

As he sank into a couch cushion beside her, she muttered, “So…that must be why you were so chipper this morning.”

“Huh?” Yoongi replied, his mind still replaying the date and his face still tingling from the memory of Jimin’s lips pressed against his cheek.

His aunt chuckled. “A boy, Yoongi. Was it a boy?”

Yoongi nodded. “The best boy.”

Chapter Text

Three Months Later

Yoongi yawned as he leaned against the brick wall of the athletics building, half-heartedly scrolling through some strange article Hoseok had sent him about the effects of witnessing tons of PDA on the brain (an action which was definitely not pointedly alluding to how much Hoseok kept saying he wished Yoongi and Jimin would tone down their “weird ass heart, love, and rainbow eyes” around him. Yoongi still wasn’t sure how it was possible for someone to have “heart, love, and rainbow eyes” and at this point, he was afraid to ask.)

He had just finished stopping a major bank robbery downtown, quickly leaving the police and other authorities to their devices after subduing the robbers so that for once, he wouldn’t be late while picking Jimin up from practice.

Yoongi let out a startled yelp and nearly dropped his phone as a pair of familiar arms suddenly wrapped themselves around him tightly.

He felt Jimin nuzzle into the back of his neck. “Missed you,” Jimin mumbled simply.

“I took you out for coffee and pastries this morning,” Yoongi replied in mock exasperation while shamelessly reaching over to run his fingers through the hair on the crown of Jimin’s head. “My wallet has been feeling suspiciously lighter ever since I started sponsoring your obsession with caramel macchiatos and cinnamon buns.”

Jimin giggled, and the way the sound vibrated against the nape of Yoongi’s neck made him shiver slightly. “Maybe you should try letting me pay for once.”

“No way. I’m older,” Yoongi said quickly. He leaned back so he could get a proper look at Jimin’s face, one hand reaching up to run his thumb across Jimin’s cheekbone absentmindedly. “How was practice?”

“Hm, it was okay. Tiring.” As if on cue, Jimin yawned loudly, his mouth pursed into a tiny pout before he buried his face in Yoongi’s shoulder. “M’ sleepy,” he murmured, voice slightly muffled by the fabric of Yoongi’s sweater. His nose and forehead brushed gently against Yoongi’s neck as he shifted to rest his cheek on top of Yoongi’s shoulder instead, lips curving into a small, dreamy smile.

Yoongi loved and hated how his heart rate picked up and his cheeks flushed with color almost immediately. Even after all these months, Jimin could still make Yoongi feel flustered with just a single smile. Yoongi hoped the fluttery and swelling feeling inside of him wouldn’t fade over time.

Jimin laced their fingers together as they began walking off-campus together, and Yoongi felt himself exhale in relief slightly. At some point, holding Jimin’s hand had started to feel a bit like coming home after a long day.

“Have you eaten yet?” Jimin asked.

“No,” Yoongi replied, a little distracted by how close Jimin’s face was to his.

“Great. Let’s go grab some dinner then,” Jimin said with a wide smile.

Yoongi felt boneless as he let Jimin drag him towards the campus diner, something that had happened many times over the course of the past few months.

“Consuming this many milkshakes every week can’t be good for our health,” Yoongi commented dryly as he slid into the booth beside Jimin. There was a time where Yoongi wouldn’t have been caught dead sitting on the same side of a booth with someone, but then Jimin had whined about how far away Yoongi was whenever he sat on the other side of the booth and how it made it so much more difficult to hold hands and maybe, just maybe, cuddle a bit and that had been the end of it.

Yoongi sighed contently as Jimin snuggled into his side, their hands still intertwined under the table.

Jimin waved down a waitress, who barely spared them a glance before sending them a quick thumbs up, signaling that she would put their usual orders of burgers and milkshakes in. The interaction was a testament to how fucking often Yoongi and Jimin came to the diner; Yoongi distantly wondered if the diner would ever get fed up with them constantly occupying the same booth in the back of the diner, eating and cuddling and more often than not, making out when there were fewer people around.

“Do you remember that time you saved me from those masked people?” Jimin asked suddenly.

“You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that, babe,” Yoongi replied amusedly.

“The time you were you when you saved me,” Jimin said.

Yoongi’s eyebrows furrowed before he realized which incident Jimin was referring to. “Oh, you mean the time I helped you right after you rejected me and tore my heart to shreds and stuff? Fun times.”

A look of guilt crossed Jimin’s face. “Yeah. That time when I was a complete asshole to you.”

Yoongi was quick to tighten his arms around Jimin. “Hey, it’s okay.” Jimin turned his head so that his face was blocked from Yoongi’s view. “Baby, I can feel you pouting against my shoulder.” Jimin whined into his shoulder, and Yoongi inhaled deeply. “I was just joking, okay? What happened in the past is already over. Don’t feel bad anymore, Jiminie.”

Jimin pulled back, a pout still etched on his features. “Okay.”

The waitress set their milkshakes on the table then, and Yoongi reached around Jimin to grab one of the milkshakes, gingerly placing the straw in between the other boy’s lips.

Jimin’s eyes curved delightedly as he took a sip of the milkshake, and Yoongi felt his heart stutter in his chest.

“Why did you bring it up?” Yoongi finally said once Jimin had finished sipping from the milkshake. “The whole saving you that one time thing.”

“Oh, I…um…” Jimin looked suddenly shy under Yoongi’s gaze. “Just forget about it. I was being a little stupid and a little sappy.”

“Sappy?” Yoongi questioned. “How so?”

Jimin covered his face with his hands. “Oh my god. Forget it.”

“But I wanna know…” Yoongi said, his voice carrying a very small whine in it. He turned so he could look Jimin directly in the eyes, his best pout affixed to his lips. “Please? Tell me?”

Jimin, who had been peeking at Yoongi from in between his fingers, let out a muffled groan. “I don’t even know why I was thinking about it. I just…I dunno. That night kind of changed everything and made me realize what a dumbass I was being.”

Yoongi nudged him encouragingly, silently asking him to elaborate.

“Like that was the night I realized I…liked you. As in, not just a friend. Fuck, this is embarrassing to explain.” Jimin took a deep breath. “I don’t think I had connected all the dots by then, but I, like, definitely felt something. Something that made me feel safe and warm and cared for, in a way that was deeper and more tangible than whatever I felt when I was around Spiderman.” Jimin let out a small, breathless laugh, his cheeks colored a light shade of pink. “Don’t kill me; I have something super cheesy to add. I think my heart knew before I did that it was you all along, and that’s why I always felt all…mushy whenever I was around you in the weeks leading up to that night.”

“Mushy?” Yoongi repeated, his chest feeling extremely warm and a fond smile settling onto his face. “I always just felt like a complete mess around you.”

“Yeah, I could tell,” Jimin replied cheekily, his eyes sparkling with mirth. “I never thought it was possible for one person to be that flustered all the time.”

Yoongi scrunched his nose in distaste. “Oh my god. Don’t remind me. I’m getting war flashbacks.”

“It was cute, though,” Jimin said as a waitress came by and set their food down in front of them. “I was very endeared; don’t worry.”

Yoongi could feel his face burning so he stuffed a fry into his mouth to distract himself. Jimin giggled and gently bopped the tip of Yoongi’s nose.

“See? You’re still cute. Very cute,” Jimin mumbled as he touched the tip of Yoongi’s nose again.

Yoongi felt himself go cross-eyed as he stared at Jimin’s outstretched hand hovering a few millimeters away from his nose, and Jimin let out another peal of laughter at how ridiculous Yoongi’s face must’ve looked at that moment.

“But…” Yoongi pouted. “You’re cuter.”

“Lies,” Jimin retorted. “You know, I have some other things to say besides all that soft shit.” He cleared his throat and sat up straight. “Let it be known that the moment you broke that dude’s arm with your bare hand was like…the hottest thing ever. Like what the fuck—“

“Oh my god,” Yoongi whispered while covering his face with his hands. “Please lower your voice.”

Jimin shrugged and then continued, in a much softer voice, “I’m just trying to recount the single hottest moment of my life, okay?”

“Why are you like this?” Yoongi muttered into his hands. “This is almost worse than the things I heard you and Taehyung talking about that one time, jeez…”

“Which things?” Jimin replied with interest. “The spandex one, or the web shooting one, or the agility one, or the—“

“Oh my god.” Yoongi knew his face was completely red by then, and he took a giant bite of his burger to save himself from the embarrassment.

Jimin grinned, his usually innocent-looking eyes flashing mischievously under the fluorescent lights of the diner. “I’m sure we can talk about it in depth later, babe. I have a lot to say.”

Yoongi exhaled sharply through his nose, not quite sure how to feel about the promise in Jimin’s words. He swallowed hard and mumbled something that sounded like “fine,” still feeling extremely flustered.

Jimin’s resulting laughter echoed in the diner and Yoongi groaned before burying his face in his arms on the table.

***

“I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” Yoongi muttered as he quickly scaled up the side of a building. “Why did you want me to do this again?”

“I saw it in this movie the other day and I thought it would be fun,” Jimin called up at Yoongi. “Hurry up. I’m waiting.”

Yoongi sighed before getting into position. “And you’re 100% sure I need to do this upside down? It sounds hella uncomfortable.”

“Just do it!”

Yoongi sighed again before attaching the end of a web to the side of the building. He closed his eyes before slowly diving backward off the building, using his web shooters to gently lower himself towards the ground.

He stopped once he was faced with Jimin’s upside down expression.

“Hello,” Yoongi said dumbly, shifting slightly so he had a better grip on the web, his legs folded neatly above him. “Uh, I’m upside down. Now what?”

Jimin let out a small giggle before leaning in and—

“Are you kidding me?” Yoongi burst out. “I went through all this effort for you to give me an upside down forehead kiss? What the hell—“

Jimin silenced the rest of Yoongi’s indignant protests by slotting his lips over Yoongi’s. It was a chaste press of lips that lasted only a few seconds, but Yoongi still felt kind of dizzy afterward, although the dizziness could probably also be associated with all the blood rushing to his head in this position.

“Was…Was that it?” Yoongi finally said after a long silence.

Jimin grinned at him before leaning back in to quickly press a series of quick kisses onto Yoongi’s lips.

Yoongi lost count after fifteen or so and Jimin pulled back not long afterward.

“Was that enough?” Jimin asked. “I thought about like…maybe trying other kisses, but this position isn’t ideal for any of that, is it?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of awkward,” Yoongi agreed. “Probably looked way cooler in whatever movie you were watching.”

“Eh, it was like dark and rainy and the whole scene was kind of overdramatic and there was definitely no tongue, so…”

“What? You want to try to outdo the actors, right now?”

“I mean…”

Yoongi shrugged, although it probably looked kind of strange to Jimin, since he was still hanging upside down and all. “Then hurry up and give me a passionate kiss or whatever.”

Jimin laughed before diving back in. It was just as awkward as Yoongi had expected, lots of weird teeth clashing and uncomfortable head positioning and tangling their tongues together upside down was not an obstacle that they had properly anticipated.

Both of their lips were slick and swollen, probably since they had both accidentally bit each other a few too many times while attempting this ridiculous kiss. Yoongi released a heavy exhale before flipping so his body was right-side up again and landing back onto the ground, one hand reaching up absentmindedly to tug the web away from the building to discard it.

“Did it live up to your expectations?” Yoongi teased as he looked at Jimin, who was still slightly panting from their lackluster attempt at making out with Yoongi hanging upside down.

“I’m not sure what exactly it was that I was expecting in the first place,” Jimin said. “It was still totally worth it, though.”

“Jiminie, I did all the work. It’s surprisingly difficult to focus on tongue tango-ing while all the blood rushes to your head.” Yoongi reached out to ruffle Jimin’s hair affectionately. "Let's just head someplace where we can make out without having to constantly worry about biting each other's tongues off or, you know, me accidentally letting go of my web and falling onto my head and dying a dishonorable death."

“That would be kind of iconic, though,” Jimin replied. “Like, ‘Here lies Min Yoongi, a good man, friend, and boyfriend. Died trying to follow through with the craziest make out session of his life. A pioneer of his time.’ I can just see it.”

Yoongi groaned. “Oh my god, my aunt and Hoseok would never let me live it down. It would be horrible.”

Jimin laughed. “It would be hilarious.”

Yoongi rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Can we go to your apartment now? I feel like I just got cheated out of a good make out session."

“Yeah, yeah.” Jimin laced their hands together. “Let’s go make out for realsies.”

Yoongi scrunched his nose up at his boyfriend’s word choice as Jimin giggled hysterically and dragged Yoongi off in the direction of his apartment.

***

“Jesus, you’re so cheesy,” Hoseok muttered as Yoongi quickly hushed him.

“Shhhh, he’s coming out of the athletics building right now!” Yoongi watched with bated breath from behind several bushes as Jimin glanced around before his eyes landed on arts building.

Yoongi’s hands curled into fists while Hoseok made gagging noises from beside him. Jimin’s mouth formed a small “o” shape before his face cracked into a wide smile.

“Go get him, tiger,” Hoseok mumbled while shoving at Yoongi.

Yoongi scrambled to his feet, ignoring the weird looks he was getting as he pulled some stray twigs and leaves from his hair. He snuck around and quietly approached Jimin from behind.

Jimin was still staring at the giant “I LOVE YOU” that Yoongi had plastered onto the wall of the arts building using his webs when Yoongi softly said, “I hope you don’t think it was too much.”

Jimin let out a high-pitched squeal before turning around. Yoongi felt the wind get knocked out of him as Jimin surged forward to wrap him into a tight hug.

“Oh my god,” Jimin whispered. “Oh my god!”

Yoongi heard a loud cough from behind them.

He turned around and was faced with a very unimpressed-looking Hoseok.

“You forgot this,” Hoseok said dryly before dumping the picnic basket into Yoongi’s arms. He turned towards Jimin. “I help this cheeseball put together everything for your little date tonight, so please appreciate my efforts even though Yoongi’s cheesiness is sickening.”

“Shut up,” Yoongi mumbled, his cheeks flushing with color. He leaned in to whisper to Hoseok, “What do I do? He hasn’t said it back yet, oh my god…”

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m in love with this cheeseball,” Jimin said before reattaching himself to Yoongi by wrapping his arms around his boyfriend’s waist. “Thanks, Hoseok. I’m sure we’ll enjoy whatever it is you guys planned for tonight.”

Yoongi stood shock-still for a few moments before Hoseok nudged him harshly. He blinked out of his stupor and let a gummy smile settle onto his face.

Hoseok rolled his eyes. “Jesus, you two are so whipped. Have a nice night together.” He waved before stalking off towards the other side of campus.

As soon as Hoseok was gone, Jimin whispered, “Did you mean it? What you wrote, I mean?”

Yoongi felt lightheaded and giddy. “Of course. I…I love you. Wasn’t it obvious?”

“That’s good, because I’m so in love with you, Yoongi,” Jimin said. “I can’t believe you went through all of this just to tell me you love me.”

“I dunno. I just thought it would be romantic.” Yoongi avoided Jimin’s gaze. “Was it too much?”

“No, of course not. I love it!”

“Okay, good. I was getting a little worried there.” He adjusted on the picnic basket on one arm and held his other arm out for Jimin to take. “Shall we?”

Jimin wrapped his arm around Yoongi’s without hesitation. “Let’s go.”

They walked off campus and towards downtown for a few moments before Yoongi paused in front of a particularly tall skyscraper.

He reached out and placed Jimin’s arms around his waist securely. “Hold on tight,” he instructed, and Jimin barely had time to let out a small squeak before Yoongi aimed and fired a web, pulling them up the building quickly.

Yoongi had one hand on the web and the one hand pressed against the small of Jimin’s back as they raced up the building. Yoongi landed carefully on his feet, making sure to lift Jimin up slightly so that he didn’t absorb much of the impact.

He maneuvered them so that they were both sitting down on the sloping roof of the skyscraper, the picnic basket lying between them.

“Hoseok said it would be romantic to have a picnic on top of a skyscraper overlooking the city,” Yoongi muttered as he busied himself with unpacking a few things from the picnic basket. “Is this okay? I dunno, I just thought it would be cool or—“

“Shhh.” Jimin placed a finger over Yoongi’s lips. “Hoseok was right. This is romantic, and I really like it. Stop overthinking it.” He sat back down fully to admire the contents of the picnic basket, a sudden excited twinkle lighting up his eyes. “Do I see wine in here?”

Yoongi chuckled to himself as he watched his boyfriend immediately reach for the wine, completely disregarding all the neatly packaged foods and treats as he made quick work of the opening the bottle with a wine opener.

“We should eat first, baby,” Yoongi said belatedly, after Jimin had taken a quick sip from the bottle. “I bought all your favorites.”

Jimin pursed his lips into a pout briefly before setting the wine aside and helping Yoongi unpack the picnic basket.

Yoongi pulled out a pair of disposable chopsticks and opened up a container of beef.

They took turns feeding each other bites of meat and rice and side dishes while chatting idly about their days.

It started to get cold as the sun sank lower and lower into the horizon, and so Yoongi pulled out the blanket Hoseok had packed for them and gently wrapped it around Jimin’s shoulders. Jimin smiled and moved closer so that their shoulders were pressed together.

“You’re such a sap,” Jimin said quietly with his head resting on Yoongi’s shoulder. “I can’t believe you did all of this for me.”

“I mean…I love you.” It felt so liberating to be able to say it so casually now that the big declaration was out of the way. “And you only deserve the best, Jiminie.”

He could see Jimin’s cheeks turn pink even under the gray colors cast by the fading sunset. Jimin silently tangled their fingers together.

“I love you, Yoongi,” he said softly, turning his head slightly to stare up at Yoongi through his lashes. He looked so beautiful at that moment, the final rays of the sunset making it look like there was a small halo around Jimin’s head. Yoongi didn’t think he would ever get used to Jimin taking his breath away.

“I know,” Yoongi answered with a smile before leaning down to capture Jimin’s lips with his own.

Jimin giggled into the kiss, and Yoongi laughed before wrapping an arm around Jimin’s waist to pull him closer.

And underneath the sunset, sitting on top of the city’s tallest skyscraper, kissing his beautiful boyfriend, Yoongi felt like everything was falling into place.

Perfect.

Chapter Text

Three Years Later

Jimin was in the middle of submitting an assignment for his senior business management class when he got the call.

“Hm?” he hummed into the receiver. “Yoongi? What’s up? Catch some bad guys again?”

“Jimin,” Yoongi answered. “Something...Something really weird’s happened.”

That had Jimin sitting up straight in his desk chair. “What? Are you okay? What are you talking about?”

“Jimin...I’m not the only one,” Yoongi said, his voice quiet and serious. “I’m not the only Spider-Man.”

“But...Isn’t that impossible or something?” Jimin questioned, feeling more confused than ever. “I thought that was the deal. The radioactive spider bit you, and then it died. So it can’t bite anyone else anymore.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” Yoongi murmured. “But we were wrong. I found...Or more like, he found me .”

“ He ? Who’s he ?”

“The other Spider-Man,” Yoongi replied. “I was in the middle of stopping this kid from stealing a bike, right? And then out of nowhere, I hear this kid screaming at me, begging for help, asking me to help him to figure out what was happening to him. He was sticking to the walls of the alley and everything. And he looked so scared, right? So I had to help. And then I got this weird tingly feeling and yeah, he’s just like me. Radioactive spider venom in his veins and all.”

“He’s...just like you?” Jimin repeated, still trying to process everything.

“Well, not exactly. The kid can turn invisible when he’s scared apparently? Also, he does this weird zappy electricity thing when he’s mad, but I mean...he can walk on walls and ceilings and stuff so…”

“So he’s like you? Spider-Man?”

“Yeah, yeah, Jimin,” Yoongi sighed before pausing for a few seconds. “He’s terrified. I feel bad. His entire life is going to be different now. I’m going to train him, help him get the hang of things.”

“Okay.”

“And I called you because…” Yoongi exhaled another breath. “Because I’m scared too. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I kind of figured most things out through trial and error, how am I supposed to be a good teacher when I haven’t figured everything out yet?”

“Oh, Yoongi…” Jimin murmured. “You’re going to be great. I know it. How old is the kid?”

“Eighteen. He’s just...He’s just a freshman, Jimin. He just started university. That’s already a big life change. And then this? The kid is tougher than he looks.”

“I’m sure he is. The radioactive spider chose him, didn’t it?”

Yoongi huffed out a laugh. “I guess that’s one way to put it.”

Jimin chuckled and shifted in his chair. “I suppose you’ve found yourself a sidekick now.”

“Yeah,” Yoongi said softly. “Something like that. Except the kid doesn’t have a clue about what he’s doing.”

“That’s why you’re going to train him, right?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna...I’m gonna show him the ropes. Or the webs, I guess?” Yoongi let out a small laugh at his own joke. “Oh my god, it already sounds ridiculous. Training the second Spider-Man. How the hell did this happen?”

Jimin shrugged, even though Yoongi couldn’t see him. “Sometimes crazy shit just happens, you know? It’s better not to question it.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Yoongi agreed. “So much crazy shit going on.”

Jimin hummed quietly in response, a small smile curling at his lips. “So what’s the kid’s name?”

“Jeon Jungkook.”