Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Two years had passed since Jaeyeol started living on his own. 

Things were going exceedingly well - he didn’t have to see his father anymore, which was great for both of them, since his father preferred him gone and Jaeyeol couldn’t care less about the family legacy anyway. He got a cool penthouse all to himself, cooler than his older brother Kitae’s, with no surveillance at all from the helicopter guardian-maids who had raised him and his siblings. Only the butler checked in every now and then to make sure Jaeyeol hadn’t dropped dead and was taking care of himself properly, and pass on money from his father so Jaeyeol could still pay his fees.

He got a little lonely sometimes, but he could deal with that. Loneliness was the least of his worries in the face of good alcohol and better cigarettes. He wasn’t addicted, of course. Just… Coping.

Sometimes, his little sister Jaehye would visit, and that would be the highlight of Jaeyeol’s day, or possibly his entire week, or maybe even the whole month. Jaehye was the best person in the Hong family, Jaeyeol himself included. She was two years younger than him, still suffering through high school, but she always made time to visit. Either it was because she was bored, or she needed help with the schoolwork. They’d always been closer to each other than Kitae - Kitae was quite a handful of years older than them, and he was normal. Jaeyeol and Jaehye bonded over struggling from selective mutism and ADHD respectively. The private tutors their father hired had always just passed Jaeyeol off as a silent genius who needed more confidence in himself, and Jaehye as a terrible student with the attention span of a goldfish.

It was Wednesday, which meant Jaeyeol had a day off and didn’t need to go to university, and Jaehye had no after-school classes.

Jaeyeol spent the morning lounging away, too awake to be fully asleep, yet too sleepy to get out of bed. Lazy mornings like these were good. He could watch K-dramas, read a book, he could do anything he wanted and nobody was there to stop him, only his own basic needs. He learned to cook, while living on his own, and while his food was no Michelin-star dish, a simple fried rice could make him happy for the time being.

Jaehye was late, so Jaeyeol was still in that lazy, half-dozing-off mood when the doorbell rang. Jaehye, instead of waiting for her older brother to open the door for her, decided he was taking too long and simply opened the door herself with the spare key.

“Oppa!” She had a stack of papers in her arms, which she slapped onto the dinner table. She swung her bag into one of the seats, and plopped herself down on the other. “I need help.”

Jaeyeol held back a sigh. He didn’t mind helping his sister out, but this many papers meant he really had his work cut out for him today. Father should’ve started paying him instead of the private tutors, since they weren’t doing jack shit to help anyway. They helped him, though, and he was glad for that. He wouldn’t be where he was now otherwise. With what? He signed.

She quickly separated her papers into three piles. “Math, bio and English,” she complained, “the numbers are swimming around, the formulas make no sense, and English is just so hard .”

Jaeyeol nodded sympathetically. He couldn’t blame her - English was hard. He had to learn it all from scratch too, writing and reading and listening, but since he hadn’t been able to speak verbally since he was young, he’d been asked to learn American Sign Language instead. It worked out, kind of. ASL was so different from Korean Sign Language that it was like learning a whole different language, instead of speaking in a different dialect.

Which hell do you want to start with?

Jaehye grumbled incoherently for a few moments before deciding on mathematics, because “you’re either right or you’re not, which is already sooo much better than English.” Yeah, that sounded right. The rules and formulae of mathematics were much easier to understand than English grammar, which was nothing like Korean.

At least it wasn’t French. French was much more confusing than anything Jaeyeol had ever learned, and he spoke sign language.

They made their way through quickly, Jaehye surprising herself at how quickly she managed to finish all of her math questions under her mute brother’s guidance. It was just formulas, after all, and substitution. Once she understood the formulas and what they did, it was just putting numbers in the right places to work out the answer. She was smart when she could sit still. 

They still ended up playing Mario Kart for well over Jaeyeol’s intended half-hour break before getting started on biology, which Jaehye finished a little more slowly. It was already nine at night by the time Jaehye was willing to leave, having eaten Jaeyeol’s home-cooked dinner and complained about how bland and spice-less it was, and showered in the guest bathroom. 

If Jaeyeol let her stay any longer, she probably would’ve ended up taking a nap in his bed or on the couch, which would inevitably turn into real sleep because Jaeyeol couldn’t wake her up, and then she’d wake him up at four in the morning, panicked and asking for him to drive her back to the family house because she should’ve gone home hours ago…

Yeah.

So Jaeyeol drove her home by ten instead, made sure to greet the security guards, and studiously ignored his father, who was standing at the entrance with his slippers on and his hands on his hips. He immediately began telling Jaehye off for coming home late like she’d been hanging out with just a random guy and not, you know, her older brother . Who was basically just a random guy to their father now, if you thought about it carefully. What were fathers supposed to call their disowned sons anyway? What were disowned sons supposed to call their estranged fathers?

His father ignored him too, if that made things better. Jaeyeol didn’t have the energy to listen to another of his father’s rants, and his father most definitely didn’t have the energy to spend time ranting at him .

Bathing was always Jaeyeol’s time to relax. A good, long soak was especially excellent after seeing his father’s scowling face, more so with bubbles, or music, or sometimes both. What was not so good was having a spider stare at him balefully from the other side of the bathtub, from where it had spun a web in the corner.

Fuck you, Jaeyeol signed balefully.

The spider dangled down on a string and crept closer.

Get out of my bath, he signed again, still irritated. It wouldn’t do anything, but the spider was black and orange and furry, which meant it was either venomous, or radioactive, or both, if he was lucky. Would it kill him if he tried to kill it?

Leaning over, careful to keep water from splashing out the side of the tub, Jaeyeol grabbed a tissue. He was going to put an end to this one-sided staring contest once and for all.

He leaned closer, closer-

He accidentally breathed on the spiderweb, which triggered an unfortunate series of events he would most likely never forget for the rest of his life.

First, the spider got spooked and jumped onto him. Then Jaeyeol freaked out at the sight of all that black and orange fuzz, screaming and splashing, and he promptly lost his balance, toppling out of the tub and bashing his head on the edge of the sink.

When he could stand up again without wobbling and falling to his feet, the first thought that came to mind was: Ouch.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but his entire body hurt. The back of his head throbbed where he’d smacked it against the sink, and there was a dull throb in his wrist, despite having no wounds he could see. He did scrape his elbow, though, but it had already scabbed over.

He shrieked at the sight of the spider lying next to him, on its back with its eight legs up in the air. Maybe it had gotten squashed when he fell? The spider spasmed once, twice, and then died for good. Grabbing a towel and bathrobe, Jaeyeol immediately high-tailed it, scrambling out of the bathroom.

He’d deal with that spider tomorrow. Right now was time to crawl into bed, and hopefully his injuries from battle would be gone come morning. He was out like a light within two minutes.

Well, his prophetic abilities must’ve been sorely lacking, because when Jaeyeol woke up, everything felt worse . He had a migraine like someone was breaking his head apart from the inside with a mighty hammer, and maybe he’d pulled a muscle in his arms falling out of the bathtub because both his forearms were aching. It was like that time he’d been bitten by a dog as a kid, but worse. He swore he could taste blood in his mouth, but he couldn’t be sure.

He stumbled to the toilet - in his haste he’d forgotten about the probably-radioactive spider corpse,  but it was closest and he had no other choice - with bile rising in his throat as he resisted the urge to throw up all over the hallway. He was gasping as he knelt over the toilet bowl, head spinning like he'd been tossed in the washing machine, when he saw it.

Two identical spots, reddened and raised, one on each forearm, stood out starkly against Jaeyeol's pale skin. When he carefully touched it with a clean finger, it came away sticky, almost like glue. When he brushed his bangs away with clean, non-sticky fingers so he could get a clearer look, he made eye contact with himself in the mirror. This time, he threw up directly into the toilet bowl, last night's dinner and then some.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, surprised to draw blood. He looked at himself again. Overnight, his canines had darkened and elongated, making him look a bit like a vampire with cavities. He blinked, dazed at the sight of his six new eyes blinking alongside his original ones. He tried to wink with his right eye - or rather, eyes - and promptly swayed to the left, set off balance by four eyes shutting.

He hadn't even gotten started investigating the two lumps on his arms. Gripping the bathroom sink hard enough for it to crack - he worked out five times a week, but he was sure he wasn't this strong - he hauled himself to his feet. He was surprisingly light on his feet, almost like he was weightless. He flexed his wrist, promising himself to be more careful, and screamed at the sight of something white shooting out of his arm-hole.

He was a man on the cusp of true adulthood, holes on his arms were the places he least expected white fluid to come shooting out of.

Said white fluid stuck to the bathtub, a thin string trailing all the way from Jaeyeol's forearm. Jaeyeol stared at the furry black and orange spider that was lying dead on the floor. It stared right back with eight glassy, dead eyes.

He took a deep breath before squinting at the spider, forcing himself to look properly this time, despite his fear and disgust. It had two sharp black fangs that were probably venomous, and four pairs of eyes. He looked at himself, with his massive new fangs and three new pairs of eyes. They looked too similar, especially if you accounted for the silky fluid from Jaeyeol’s arm that may or may not have been spider silk or some kind of similar material that had been made in his body.

Yeah, Jaeyeol was definitely taking a day off today. 

Screw that, he wasn't stepping foot in society until he found out just what exactly was going on.

He washed his hands vigorously until they no longer felt sticky, and texted Jaehye not to come for the next month, at the very least. And then he told the butler to remove the spider corpse from the premises as soon as possible, please and thank you.

Chapter Text

Two weeks, three broken doors, one shattered sink, a handful of nightmares and at least ten freak-outs and screaming fits later, Jaeyeol finally decided it was time to rejoin society. 

It wasn’t really his choice, technically. It was his best friend Park Hyungseok’s.

Their friendship was a strange one - Hyungseok was one year older than Jaeyeol and insanely popular thanks to his good looks and easy-going personality. They were from completely different faculties, with Jaeyeol being a biotechnology major and Hyungseok being a journalism major, and they had classes on opposite sides of the massive campus to boot. If Jaeyeol wasn’t mute and Hyungseok wasn’t interested in sign language, they probably would’ve never met.

But Jaeyeol wanted an easy grade for his free elective, and Hyungseok was curious, so of course fate put the gay wallflower next to the social butterfly pretty boy not just in lectures, but also in tutorials. Their first lecture wasn’t the first time Jaeyeol had laid eyes on Hyungseok. He’d seen the other boy bustling around campus with his friends, laughing at each others’ jokes, or running to class after spending a little too long eating lunch. Girls flocked after him even when he politely told them to leave, but Jaeyeol couldn’t blame them, because Hyungseok’s smile really was mesmerizing.

(Jaeyeol had once, very embarrassingly, walked into a pole because he was too distracted by Hyungseok walking past. Nobody else would know this except him, though.)

The tutor had put Hyungseok on the spot to answer a question during the first tutorial, and Jaeyeol had discreetly gestured the right answer for Hyungseok to copy after he’d noticed the older boy panicking. The tutor, a middle-aged woman, had been delighted that Hyungseok knew what he was doing. Hyungseok, in reality, slumped on his seat in relief.

Jaeyeol had been the first to leave at the end of the class, flustered by Hyungseok’s grateful megawatt smile. But Hyungseok shouted his name, knew his name , and Jaeyeol halted in his tracks in pure shock. Hyungseok had been panting, and Jaeyeol flushed even harder, even more embarrassed after realizing Hyungseok had deliberately chased him as Jaeyeol speed-walked to his next class.

“Hey, you’re Hong Jaeyeol, right?” He had gasped.

Jaeyeol nodded hesitantly.

“Thanks for helping me out just now, I was so sure I-”

Hyungseok had yelped as Jaeyeol abruptly grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the way of an incoming basketball, then returned the basketball to its owner in a perfect pass. Who played basketball on campus? There were sports centers for that! Hyungseok could’ve gotten hit!

“Oh shit,” gasped Hyungseok, eyes wide, “thanks again. Things could’ve gotten out of hand if it wasn’t for you.”

Jaeyeol smiled awkwardly, not knowing how else to respond. 

“I was just gonna say…” Hyungseok smiled at him, that mesmerizing one that curled his lips and made his eyes curve into perfect crescents. “We’ll probably be seeing a lot of each other this semester, so let’s be friends, okay?”

Jaeyeol could only nod, at the time. If Hyungseok’s smile was the full force of the sun, Jaeyeol was just a lowly flower. Hyungseok would probably forget all about him after the results of their course finals came out anyway.

Well, that turned out to be a lie, because a full year later, they were still taking sign language courses together, they were still friends, Hyungseok still had his number and his Ingstagram and talked to him frequently. Hell, Hyungseok even introduced Jaeyeol to his friends, and asked him to hang out even when they had no classes. Hyungseok, somehow, had become Jaeyeol’s closest friend.

It was frankly quite bizarre. But as a guy with a crush on Hyungseok that spiraled further and further out of control the longer they stayed friends, Jaeyeol wasn’t complaining about anything.

This led to Jaeyeol leaving his penthouse for the first time in two weeks to tutor Hyungseok. Because one year might have passed, but Hyungseok still constantly needed his help, apparently.

Today, they were going to study in Hyungseok’s favorite cafe, like they did every time they had assignments that needed to be completed, or if exams were coming up, or if Jaeyeol just wanted an excuse to spend time with Hyungseok.

Jaeyeol missed Hyungseok so badly. He’d missed the other boy, missed his bright smiles and cheerful laughter, and he knew Hyungseok had been worried about him. He wasn’t going to let his new spider-like features mess up their study date. 

He’d told Hyungseok earlier that he’d fallen ill, no, he didn’t need Hyungseok’s homemade ‘guaranteed recovery’ soup, he had ‘medicine’, and he’d be fine as long as he wore a mask. That was good - it covered up the fact that he had massive fangs now, and anyone could see them whenever Jaeyeol opened his mouth, even if he was just sneezing or laughing or having a coughing fit.

Jaeyeol shoved all thoughts of fake illnesses aside when he walked into the cafe. The bell jingled to announce his arrival, and Hyungseok immediately stood up from his seat on the booth at the right, where they always sat when they were here. Trusting his mask to keep the illusion that Jaeyeol had his emotions under control, he let his lips spread into a wide, giddy smile at the sight of Hyungseok waving at him excitedly, signing ‘hello’. Jaeyeol signed a greeting right back, sliding into the seat opposite Hyungseok. 

You look good, Jaeyeol wanted to say, that black sweater looks really good on you . I like how it frames your shoulders. You’ve gotten tanner, fitter, and I like it.

He settled for a simple: I like your shirt.

Hyungseok beamed, so bright it was almost blinding. Suddenly, Jaeyeol felt a little tingle race down his spine. It wasn’t the familiar flush of longing, nor was it a chill. It felt new but natural, and instinct - or maybe a sixth sense - drove Jaeyeol to cross his right leg over his left, just in time to watch a girl swoon over Hyungseok’s smile and faint onto her friend, who almost dropped both their coffees… Right onto the spot where Jaeyeol’s right foot had been less than a second ago.

“Sorry!” The girl yelped. “I’m so sorry, I’ll, um-”

The waitstaff rushing across with a mop cleared his throat. “I’ll deal with it, Miss. Sir, you might want to move in a little.”

Jaeyeol shuffled over just a bit more, glancing at Hyungseok with wide eyes. Hyungseok was looking at him with an equally wide-eyed gaze. “I’d say nice reflexes, but it’s like you’re a psychic or something. How did you get so lucky?”

Jaeyeol looked at his pristine loafers and shrugged, equally clueless. Maybe he was psychic. Or maybe the spider that bit him gave him a change he hadn’t realized until now. That same instinct had struck him on the way here. He’d taken two steps forward just in time for a plant pot to fall where he had stood mere seconds ago.

Hyungseok pouted down at his steaming coffee. “I wish I had your luck. I have so many assignments for my journalism course due next week, and we have our sign language midterms on top of that, and then I have a photography thing as well, and I have no idea what to photograph for that, like what do they mean, a photo-story of my hero… I don’t even believe in heroes!” He looked up at Jaeyeol, looking so adorably miserable, Jaeyeol had to resist the urge to kiss his pouting lips. “For now, can you please just practice sign language with me?”

Jaeyeol’s lips quirked up into a smile. Of course.

They spent the next half an hour going through all the signs that were going to be on the test, just pure vocabulary at first, and then stringing it into sentences, questions and answers. 

Hyungseok frowned when Jaeyeol signed what’s your favorite food?

“Um, is it like…” He hesitantly signed, I like pig.

Meat, Jaeyeol signed with a smile, pinching the skin of the back of his palm with his thumb and pinky. Hyungseok was especially cute when he was confused. 

I like meat? Hyungseok signed. “That doesn't feel right, what’s ‘pork’ supposed to be? I know it’s like ‘pig’, but… Oh. Oh, I see now.” He smacked his forehead, making Jaeyeol laugh under his mask. “‘Pork’ is ‘pig meat’!”

Jaeyeol beamed. He couldn’t resist leaning over to correct Hyungseok when Hyungseok used the wrong fingers for the ‘meat’ sign, and Hyungseok gasped a little at the contact. “Jaeyeol-ah, your hands are so warm!” This time, it was Jaeyeol’s turn to freeze, as Hyungseok pressed a hand against his forehead. His hand was soft and cool against Jaeyeol’s skin, and Jaeyeol forced himself to banish his split-second fantasy of holding Hyungseok’s hand. “Usually, I’m the one who’s warmer,” murmured Hyungseok. “Are you really sure you’re better? You’re not sick anymore?”

Jaeyeol nodded firmly, feeling a little flustered. This was a terrible situation to be in. His heart was pounding in his chest, so loudly he was sure Hyungseok could hear it. Something about his new spidery-ness also meant he could feel Hyungseok’s heartbeat thrumming under his skin, feel the minute tremble of Hyungseok’s hand. 

I’m okay, he signed, gently pushing Hyungseok’s hand away with his knuckles. He'd found out he could climb walls now, simply walking upwards and onto the ceiling with his bare feet, and he’d realized sometimes his hands were sticky too. He found that out the hard way when his hand had stuck to his bag and he had to cut the entire strap off to remove it. It must’ve been something in his sweaty palms, but Jaeyeol didn’t have the equipment to analyze anything, nor could he bribe any professors into letting him borrow a science lab. Not sick.

Some kind of understatement that was.

Hyungseok still looked disbelieving, but there was nothing Jaeyeol could do without revealing his new status as a spider-person.

“Then will you let me treat you to dinner, at least? I know I sound like my mom right now, but you’ve gotten thinner, and you’re so pale, and you should really get something nice to eat” It was getting late, but Jaeyeol felt more awake than ever. It was the nocturnal instincts, probably, and definitely also because Hyungseok may or may not have asked him out on a date. But still…

Jaeyeol shook his head, although the voice in his head wailed at him to stop and take it back, to pull Hyungseok into his arms and never let him go, to hold him close like a spider holding its web. I’m fine. Maybe another time. 

If Jaeyeol managed to undo his weird spider thing, go back to having two eyes and no fangs and no spinnerets, maybe he’d take Hyungseok up on it. Maybe he’d go out for dinner with Hyungseok one day, just the two of them and good food and maybe a candle or two to set the mood. But for now, he creeped himself out, and he couldn’t risk creeping Hyungseok out either. He didn’t want to lose Hyungseok.

Hyungseok frowned. “Fine. After midterms, then?”

That would be in two weeks. Jaeyeol nodded, feeling dread creeping up on him regardless. Maybe he wouldn’t make it. Maybe he’d still be part spider. Maybe Hyungseok would hate him for it. But none of that mattered right now, and the most important thing was to put a smile back on Hyungseok’s face.

When they left the cafe together, someone - drunk or high, it didn’t matter, but they clearly weren’t in the right mind - bumped into Hyungseok, who was laughing at one of Jaeyeol’s jokes and making Jaeyeol feel all warm and pleasant inside.

Hyungseok stumbled, and Jaeyeol instinctively reached out to steady him. The strange sixth sense made Jaeyeol shudder and pull away from Hyungseok like his hand was on fire.

Danger, cried the sixth sense, you have to get away get away get away get away from danger.

Jaeyeol flinched when Hyungseok reached out, his heart racing in his chest, his fight or flight instincts set alight. He hated himself for it. What was going on?

Hyungseok made a clueless, hurt sound.

Sorry, Jaeyeol signed, his hands shaking, I have to go .

If Jaeyeol hadn’t fled, he might’ve seen Hyungseok spasm and fall to his knees with a muted cry as black veins crawled under his skin, darkness spilling into his sclera before it all faded away, leaving Hyungseok panting on the sidewalk, weak in the knees, without a clue of what had just happened to him or what had made his friend run away from him.

Chapter Text

Jaeyeol, to his regret, never took Hyungseok up on that offer for dinner.

They could’ve had a nice dinner date, candle-lit if they were lucky, but his weird sixth sense - the spider sense, as Jaeyeol had started calling it, after it had gotten him over his fear of spiders by some kind of primal knowledge that had been ingrained into his head by the spider bite - told him that Hyungseok was dangerous. Whenever Hyungseok came near him, Jaeyeol would reflexively walk the other way, and when Hyungseok sat next to him in lectures, Jaeyeol would shuffle over so there was at least one seat between them, instead of allowing Hyungseok to sit so close their legs could touch.

He hated it.

Jaeyeol wanted to spend time with his friend, even if he wasn’t thinking of Hyungseok as a crush. He wanted Hyungseok’s attention, wanted Hyungseok close, but he was a slave to the reflexes that propelled him away from Hyungseok and the instincts that told him Hyungseok should stay far, far away.

It hurt to see that confused, lost look in Hyungseok’s eyes. Every time Hyungseok looked at him, his chest ached with how hard he was trying to make eye contact and smile, instead of looking away.

Jaeyeol isolated himself from everyone, spending his time frantically revising for his midterms and completing his assignments, and then wheedling his tutor into letting him borrow the lab so he could do a DNA test on himself.

What he found made all his old nightmares about being bitten by dogs or disowned by his father feel like rainbows and unicorns.

It wasn’t supposed to be possible, but he’d found spider DNA spliced into his own. Even if the spider that had bitten him a month ago was actually radioactive, spider DNA and human DNA weren’t even compatible! It shouldn’t be possible!

But here Jaeyeol was, with spider DNA spliced into his own, his own genetics changed beyond recognition. Now that the spider genes had merged with his own, there was no way he could undo them. His extra eyes, fangs, and spinnerets were here to stay, it seemed.

All he could do now was figure out a way to hide all his extra features - he’d spent one class doodling designs of a mask, like he was a superhero or something. Ha! He could never. He was nowhere near brave enough or suicidal enough, although he knew he'd throw himself head-first into danger without a second thought if he knew Hyungseok or Jaehye were in danger.

… Maybe he was a little bit suicidal.

It was probably better to prepare. Just in case he really did need to play superhero at some point. He tested his limits in the safety of his private penthouse gym, treating himself like a science project.

• Null Hypothesis: The spider bite had no influence on Jaeyeol’s physical abilities, ignoring all physiological changes such as outward appearance.
• Research Hypothesis: The spider bite had a significant influence on Jaeyeol's physical abilities.

Jaeyeol had to grudgingly 'reject the null hypothesis' when he realized he had gotten a lot stronger than before. Before, if he punched his extra durable sandbags, nothing would happen. After giving the sandbag a weak punch, Jaeyeol ended up spending a solid hour vacuuming sand from the gym mats, since the whole sandbag had exploded at the touch. Hell, he had broken his alarm clock a week ago by slapping it a little too hard!

(Read: He gave it a nice smack to shut it up, and his alarm clock went flying, eventually cracking against the walk and fracturing into a dozen tiny pieces.)

He was also weirdly good at jumping now. He sprang up once, headbutted the ceiling, and decided resolutely to ignore the new dent on the roof and never do that again.

He’d also accidentally developed a new fighting style by incorporating his old knowledge of gymnastics and systema, taught to him when he still lived with his father, with his new webs. If he punched and dodged hits fast enough, he could make webs in a zigzag pattern. Something inside him especially liked zig-zag webs. He’d done one on the door of the spare guest room nobody used, and if anyone asked, Jaeyeol could just call it a new decoration and rip it down.

It was really cool, Jaeyeol had to admit, but he could never reveal this to anyone. If there was one thing he'd learned from Superman, it was 'don't let anyone know you're different, or you'll probably get experimented on, and people will probably try to hurt the people you care about', and Jaeyeol couldn't have that, could he?

If Jaeyeol thought dangling upside down from the ceiling while suspended by a thin cord of silk was now his idea of fun, nobody else had to know, not even Hyungseok, who had suddenly started calling him. Jaeyeol fumbled with his phone, grateful for his sticky hands. He'd gotten the hang of being un-sticky before midterms, thankfully. No papers had been shredded, no pencils stuck to his fingers.

Jaeyeol managed to answer the call, swinging lightly.

"Jaeyeol-ah," Hyungseok whispered, "the craziest thing is happening right now."

Jaeyeol made a curious noise. There was a strange screeching sound in the background of the call, and Jaeyeol didn't know if he was hallucinating the screaming. 

"There's a supervillain on the train. Like, the not-human kind of supervillain, like the bad guys in those American comics. He looks like a rhino, but also kind of like my childhood bully? Anyway, he's crazy strong, and I heard someone say he knocked out the train conductor, and the train is speeding out of control, and there's something wrong with the tracks, and he wrenched off the back half of the train, and I'm really scared, but if anything happens to me I just want you to know I'm sorry for whatever I did that made you start avoiding me."

Jaeyeol gasped. The screaming was getting louder, and he heard Hyungseok whimper at the sound of an inhuman roar.

"Jaeyeol-ah, I'm really scared," Hyungseok confessed, "I don't want to die."

Don't worry, Jaeyeol texted him resolutely. You won't die, not if I have anything to say about it.

"Yah, Hong Jaeyeol, what are you-" Just before Hyungseok's call was cut off, Jaeyeol heard him scream, loud and terrified.

Jaeyeol’s new spider sense was abruptly shoved aside in the face of his older, stronger Hyungseok Sense. Hyungseok’s terror echoed in Jaeyeol’s mind, and Jaeyeol saw red.

He was swinging out the window in a spider-themed mask, a black and orange hoodie and black leggings before he knew it. Oh, and a black cap with orange spiderwebs drawn on top of it too. Couldn’t forget that. His hair was way too distinctive.

Jaeyeol kept his phone webbed into his pocket, safe from falling out as he swung from building to building. The gym was too small for him to feel the exhilaration, but he was also too stressed right now to feel free. All he could think was Hyungseok, I have to save Hyungseok.

(At some point last year, Hyungseok had installed a tracking app onto both their phones. Jaeyeol's friend from Introduction to Biotechnology, Beomjae, had actually recommended it, since Beomjae's best friend Vasco (who was also Hyungseok's friend from high school, what a coincidence) was quite the scatterbrain and constantly got lost. In Hyungseok's case, he kept losing his phone, so they could always check where it was with Jaeyeol's matching app. None of them mentioned anything about the app being called ‘❤️ Pitapat ❤️ Locate Lover’.)

A carefully aimed thread allowed Jaeyeol to swing himself onto the top of the train with a light thump, and he wobbled slightly when he stood up. His spider sense tingled again, and he vaulted out of the way just in time for a fist to come smashing right through the top of the train. 

He stared at it with wide eyes. Just what exactly was he planning to fight again?

The creature-person called itself Rhino. Hyungseok, who was trembling with finger-shaped bruises around his neck and a raspy voice, called it ‘Lee Taesung’. Jaeyeol snarled at the memory of Hyungseok trying to brush off being bullied as a kid by the very same Lee Taesung. He gave Hyungseok a gentle push back into the crowd, who were flattened against the walls, terrified.

The Rhino snarled at Jaeyeol, armored flesh bulging, and Jaeyeol scowled right back under his mask while flexing his wrists. Just how exactly did one go around fighting rhino-people who could punch through metal? What would happen if Jaeyeol got punched?

He barely evaded the fist that came flying at him, eyes going wide when he saw the reinforced glass of the train shatter like it was delicate porcelain. He was definitely not going to get punched, then. One hit from those hardened, armor-like fists would probably kill him, or break bones at the very least.

He shot a double-web at Rhino, one web from each wrist pinning the massive man against a wall, but it didn’t hold. When webbing didn’t work, Jaeyeol tried throwing punches at the Rhino’s vulnerable face, but he wasn’t quite tall enough, and he had no weapons he could steal. He landed a hit on an armored cheek, hissing at the pain that rocked up his arm. There would be a nasty bruise later, Jaeyeol could already tell. He was lucky he hadn’t shattered his knuckles.

The Rhino charged at him horn-first, roaring a battle cry. Jaeyeol’s new senses let him gauge the distance without actually looking. The Rhino was too close to him, and he was too close to the civilians. The woman behind him was trying to urge her daughter to move to safety, but Jaeyeol could hear her terrified sobs as she stayed frozen, trapped by her fear.

Jaeyeol wasn’t brave, and he definitely wasn’t reckless, but adrenaline and that sudden surge of protectiveness made him stupid with courage. Jaeyeol rubbed his hands together to make sure they were sticky, and when the Rhino finally came close enough to almost gore him through, Jaeyeol grabbed him by the horn, and tried to throw him out the train.

Key word - tried.

He’d vastly miscalculated the stickiness of his hands and his own strength, and when he threw the Rhino out the window… He followed.

Jaeyeol and the Rhino crashed through the door, the Rhino taking the brunt of the impact. They rolled around in the air, Jaeyeol trying to make sure the Rhino was underneath him, while the Rhino tried to do the same to him. Distracted by the sound of Hyungseok screaming far, far above them, Jaeyeol wasn’t prepared for the Rhino to punch him. Pain skyrocketed through his body as an armored fist drove into his stomach and sent him shooting down, down, down. 

But Jaeyeol’s body was stronger and faster than before, so all he had to do was take a deep breath, already used to the feeling of free-falling. Shooting a web at the Rhino, he swung himself upwards, kicking the Rhino so he would spin around and get caught up in Jaeyeol’s web. Jaeyeol swung them both upwards, the Rhino suspended from his left wrist and the web on his right wrist connected to the closest building. He leapt from the side of the building to the train tracks and back again, the world a blur around him as he spun his massive web.

The Rhino landed squarely on the center, struggling against the sticky spider silk with a roar, but Jaeyeol worked faster than the supervillain could free himself.

Jaeyeol’s spider sense no longer screamed as Jaeyeol webbed the Rhino up for good - casting a thicker silk thread left-right-left-right-left from his left wrist over the Rhino’s full length, then repeating the pattern, but with his right wrist. The Rhino grunted, covered in spider silk like a mummy, unable to set himself free no matter how much he wriggled. Jaeyeol cast a bigger, stickier web on top, just in case. He wanted to know just how on earth Lee Taesung had turned into Rhino, but now wasn’t the time to think about that.

His spider sense may have stopped screaming, but his Hyungseok sense most definitely was.

The train had already sped past the final station, and if Jaeyeol let it go on any further, it would crash into the wall at the end of the tracks, where the train conductor was supposed to stop the train, but he couldn’t do that if he was unconscious, could he?

His blood ran cold at the thought. Hyungseok was stuck near the front of the train, since the people near the middle had rushed forwards in fear of being swept out. If the train crashed, Hyungseok would get crushed, and he would die, and Jaeyeol would never see him again, and Jaeyeol absolutely could not let that happen on.

Hyungseok had to be safe. Jaeyeol would do anything to protect him.

Gritting his teeth against the sharp ache of his muscles, Jaeyeol swung himself up, landing at the front of the train. The rush of wind plastered him against the window, where the train conductor was slumped over. The glass was cracked where the conductor’s head had obviously been smashed against the window, but there was no time to worry about him. As long as the man’s chest rose and fell, and Jaeyeol managed to stop the train, everyone could be saved. Jaeyeol took a deep breath, and began his suicidal plan.

Desperately hoping he had enough web fluid in his spinnerets, Jaeyeol cast out twin webs from both wrists, exhaling sharply when they connected to the railway poles. The webs barely held, the metal screeching behind him, which left Jaeyeol no choice but to stick the webs onto the train itself before casting out two newer webs, and then as many more as he could onto the nearest buildings. This time, he curled the webs around his fists, gritting his teeth against the feeling of it cutting into his skin. Relying on nothing but the wind and the stickiness of his back against the window to hold him in place, Jaeyeol took a step down, and dug his heels into the floor.

Thank god for expensive sneakers and good quality material. Somehow, gravel and metal came undone without his shoes and his feet being shredded instead, and Jaeyeol was grateful to know the worst he’d get out of this was a few nasty bruises and cuts, and a strained muscle or two.

He flinched when somebody pounded on the window behind him. “What are you doing?” Hyungseok’s familiar voice shrieked shrilly. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

Even now, Hyungseok was worried about him. Which was all the more reason to try harder. Jaeyeol’s biceps ached with the strain, the glass behind him beginning to shatter behind his weight. He couldn’t even shout out if he tried.

“I don’t care if you’re a superhero! Are you insane?! It’s not going to work! ”

Oh god, could Hyungseok still read his mind?!

It’s going to work, Jaeyeol thought desperately, I’ll make it work.

There was no other option. He’d save Hyungseok and this train full of innocent passengers, or die trying.

The wall was getting closer and closer. Jaeyeol cast out more webs, scowling when he felt the last pair come out a little weaker than the rest. The next few webs would take his weight, and nothing more than that, probably, but it was working and that was all that mattered. He’d ripped out one of the railway poles and he’d probably have to very discreetly pay for damages one way or another, but it was working. 

“Oh my god,” gasped Hyungseok, “we’re slowing down! Everyone,” Jaeyeol heard Hyungseok shout, “hold on tight!”

Slowly but surely, the train screeched to a halt. Jaeyeol finally let go of his webs as gasped for breath, his entire body sore and aching. His hands were trembling, inches away from bleeding. The adrenaline rush covered it for now, but Jaeyeol was sure he’d partially torn a muscle in both biceps. 

He stumbled forward, smacking his head against the wall. He heard the crowd rush out from the back of the train, Hyungseok ordering someone to carry the train conductor to safety with an authority in his voice that made Jaeyeol’s head spin. He wanted to lie down and not get up for the next two days at the very least, but he couldn’t risk looking pathetic in front of Hyungseok. Even if Hyungseok didn’t know who he was.

A quiet grunt and the thump of footsteps against gravel brought Jaeyeol out of his daze.

“Hey,” murmured Hyungseok’s familiar voice. “Can you stand?”

Jaeyeol immediately scrambled away, and ended up accidentally scrambling up the wall instead. Hyungseok looked at him with wide eyes, and Jaeyeol crept just a little further up, trying to look cool instead of jump-scared. He was sweating so much under his mask. It was terrible. He was sure he looked pathetic.

Hyungseok smiled up at him, an amused quirk on his lips. His beloved camera sat in his hands. “I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

Jaeyeol saluted him, feeling a little bit silly. If he could speak out loud, maybe he could’ve flirted a little. Played the role of the superhero head over heels for the damsel in distress. But all he could do now was grin stupidly under his mask, glad that his suicidal plan had ended with no deaths at all.

“Will Seoul be seeing more of you, Mr Superhero? Do you have a name?”

Spider Man, Jaeyeol signed instinctively.

He watched the cogs spin in Hyungseok’s head - Hyungseok knew what the sign for ‘man’ was, but Jaeyeol was sure he didn’t know the one for ‘spider’, only ‘insect’ - and fled before Hyungseok could make any connections.

That night, Jaeyeol saw a back shot of the new spider-like superhero Spiderman on the news - anonymously submitted by the one and only Park Hyungseok, who was now gushing about the rookie superhero who had defeated a supervillain and stopped an out of control train - and screamed into his hands.

He promptly regretted it, because shit , strained muscles hurt .

Chapter Text

By the time his midterms had finally finished, Jaeyeol had done enough superhero-ing jobs to decide on a professional-looking but low budget superhero outfit, spread the name of ‘Spiderman’ around Seoul and then the rest of Korea too, and much to his embarrassment, gain himself several more injuries.

Luckily, he healed fairly quickly, but Hyungseok was getting more and more worried for him. Jaeyeol understood - he’d be out of his mind if Hyungseok kept getting himself injured, without having any proper explanations why. There were only so many times “I fell down the stairs” could be a reliable excuse before it became downright suspicious. Getting shot at was clearly not something that could happen from falling down the stairs. Granted, the bullet had only grazed him thanks to his spider sense and amped-up reflexes, and it had healed completely by now, but still. Hyungseok had freaked out.

Just before Chuseok break, Jaeyeol fought Lee Taesung again. After Jaeyeol had caught him as Rhino, he’d been arrested and sentenced to three years in prison. It would’ve been more, if people had died, but luckily Jaeyeol had managed to save everyone as Spiderman, at the cost of his bicep muscles. Barely two weeks after being in jail, Lee Taesung had broken out, this time as a very angry human with semi-hardened skin and inhuman strength, so Spiderman had been called in to teach him a lesson and bind him so the jailers could put him in a straightjacket.

Spiderman taught him a lesson, alright. But Lee Taesung had also grabbed Spiderman by the foot and thrown him into a wall, which resulted in a sprained wrist thanks to his bad landing. 

That meant Jaeyeol was effectively muted (double muted! Now isn’t that fun?) for the next three weeks, since the butler had put his arm in a sling without asking any questions and basically put him under house arrest for Chuseok, even though Jaeyeol’s speedy spider healing system meant he’d be better in less than a week instead of the normal three weeks.

It wasn’t like Jaeyeol had anywhere to go, anyway. His father had basically abandoned him, Jaehye couldn’t exactly leave a family gathering to meet him, and Kitae couldn’t care less about him. There were no criminals during Chuseok either. Robbers had families to go back to, even if Spiderman didn’t.

As a side bonus, the crime rate in Seoul had lowered drastically since he left the two bank robbers who had shot at him webbed up like mummies and dangling from the ceiling like piñatas with the words ‘We Were Stupid’ webbed onto the wall, to the amusement of the men, women and children at the bank they had tried to take as hostages.

For the first time since Spiderman’s career as a vigilante started, Jaeyeol actually had a break. Criminals feared the crime-fighting spider hero. The public adored him. The police had a love-hate relationship with him. The chief editor of the news firm Hyungseok interned at had written a scathingly critical article about him, using excellent photos taken of him by Hyungseok.

Jaeyeol had still carefully cut that article out and saved it as the first page of his new secret scrapbook. He could handle a little bit of criticism, there was nothing the media called him that his father wouldn’t already say anyway. And Hyungseok always took the best pictures of him, after all. If he looked cool in Hyungseok’s eyes, nothing else mattered.

The first day of Chuseok break brought Hyungseok to Jaeyeol’s doorstep, armed to the teeth with a few days’ worth of groceries and takeout for the night and an expression like he was going to war. Jaeyeol opened the door, all eight eyes blinking at Hyungseok owlishly under his bangs. He hadn’t even known Hyungseok was coming. He thought Hyungseok was going to visit his mother in Sunukdo, like he’d done last year. 

(Last year’s Chuseok was so nice. Jaeyeol had tagged along with Hyungseok because he was bored, and Hyungseok had gone along with it, and Hyungseok’s mother had basically adopted Jaeyeol as her second son, which made Jaeyeol feel all kinds of warm and fuzzy inside. He almost asked Hyungseok for his hand in marriage, for the first time not because he was head over heels for Hyungseok, but because he would really like Hyungseok’s mother to be his mother too. When Jaeyeol left because his father forced him to check up on one of H Group’s medicine factories in Sunukdo, Hyungseok’s mother had told him he could come back anytime. Bless that wonderful woman. Jaeyeol was going to marry into Hyungseok’s family or die trying.)

Apparently, Hyungseok had stubbornly decided on his own that he was going to spend the entire week-long break at Jaeyeol’s penthouse. Yes, he’d already done all the shopping and he would cook, since he already knew what Jaeyeol liked to eat, and what foods were best for sprained wrists, since he’d done enough research on meals for specific injuries back when he used to be bullied. No, Jaeyeol was not allowed to object. 

Hyungseok’s mother had already agreed to it. She knew Hyungseok wasn’t a fan of his extended family, who she was going to visit this year, and it wasn’t like Hyungseok could afford the express bus ticket back to the countryside with the meager salary he got from his journalism internship. She said Hyungseok should take care of Jaeyeol, and she hoped he would recover soon. Jaeyeol internally shed a tear.

Jaeyeol forced the spider sense away, swearing to beat the love of Park Hyungseok into it.

“I’m going to put you in bubble wrap,” Hyungseok swore when Jaeyeol almost tripped over the couch in his haste to help Hyungseok hang up his jacket on the stand by the door, “I know you weren’t this clumsy before.”

Jaeyeol pouted. Being a superhero really wasn’t easy, okay? Swinging across buildings was a lot more different than swinging across the gym! The distances were harder to calculate, and there was never a safety mat! Jaeyeol was lucky he hadn’t miscalculated once, fallen to the floor, broken all his bones and died!

Hyungseok berated him while he unpacked all the takeout, but Jaeyeol didn’t have the heart to listen, too distracted by the sight of Hyungseok, in Jaeyeol’s penthouse, Hyungseok’s sneakers tucked into the rack next to Jaeyeol’s favorite loafers, Hyungseok bustling around Jaeyeol’s living room like he belonged there. He took out Jaeyeol’s set of bowls without having to ask where they were, so intimately familiar with Jaeyeol’s home despite never having been in most of the rooms other than the living room and the guest toilet. 

How did Hyungseok even know where Jaeyeol’s bowls were ? Could he read Jaeyeol’s mind? Was that why they had always gotten along so well, even when Hyungseok barely knew any sign language and they couldn’t even communicate in a way that made sense?

The sound of Hyungseok’s laughter wafted out from the kitchen. “I’m not a psychic,” he called out to Jaeyeol, grinning impishly, his shirt rumpled from when he’d reached up to grab the bowls, “you’re just really obvious.”

Jaeyeol didn’t believe it. I love you, he thought as loudly as he could.

Hyungseok talking to himself about how spacious Jaeyeol’s kitchen was proved that he was not, indeed, telepathic. Or maybe he was just ignoring Jaeyeol's telepathic confession because he didn't feel the same. 

(Jaeyeol would still love him, though. Even if the multiverse existed and there were millions of Hong Jaeyeols and Park Hyungseoks scattered across the dimensions of space and time, Jaeyeol would probably love Hyungseok in each and every universe.)

Jaeyeol wanted to ask him to move in so badly. Hyungseok rarely talked about his dorm room at the university dormitories, but from what little he’d told Jaeyeol, it was small, in bad condition, and lonely, since he didn’t have a roommate. Jaeyeol’s penthouse was massive, in excellent condition, but also lonely. Maybe they wouldn’t be lonely if they were together. But Hyungseok didn’t like accepting monetary support, and if Jaeyeol ever asked Hyungseok to live with him, Hyungseok would probably snap, feeling like Jaeyeol was treating him like a charity project.

When Hyungseok finally said it was time to eat, Jaeyeol picked up a bowl, and tried his best to pick up his chopsticks. The chopsticks fell to the floor with a clatter, and Jaeyeol looked at them sadly. He was ambidextrous, but he wasn’t a literal spider with eight limbs! He only had four!

Hyungseok placed their bowls on a small table, dragging it over to the couch where Jaeyeol sat. Hyungseok finished his own food in record speed while Jaeyeol watched him eat, feeling hungry and rather pathetic. It felt like Hyungseok finishing the last of his fried chicken had cued Jaeyeol’s stomach to rumble loud and embarrassingly.

Hyungseok, still using the same chopsticks, peeled a bit of chicken from Jaeyeol’s samgyetang, and put it onto a spoon, before asking Jaeyeol to open his mouth.

Jaeyeol let Hyungseok feed him, wondering whether he should feel pathetic, triumphant, or both.

“Goodness,” Hyungseok murmured, shaking his head with a soft smile as Jaeyeol ate, “it’s like you’re useless without me.”

Jaeyeol nodded guiltily, making Hyungseok laugh. “Jaeyeol-ah, you’re ridiculous.”

Maybe Jaeyeol was ridiculous, but Hyungseok still looked after him and cared for him when nobody else would. Spiderman had laughed off being shot at by the bank robbers, and Jaeyeol couldn’t risk acting like he was hurt, but Hyungseok had been the only one to wonder why Jaeyeol was standing so stiffly and ask why it looked like it hurt Jaeyeol to walk. When Spiderman twisted his ankle after his silk string snapped and fell from the third floor of a burning building onto the floor, barely keeping the baby he was holding safe, he had swung away like nothing had happened, but Jaeyeol had to limp for a week, and Hyungseok had basically half-carried him the whole time.

During his weekly checks, even the butler had just called him clumsy and told him no good son of the Hong family should be so pathetic before leaving. 

Nobody in the Hong family knew the disgraced middle son was the fan-favorite superhero Spiderman, and the public had no idea most of Spiderman’s family would refuse to be seen with him if they knew who he was. Jaehye wished she could visit, and she’d complained about Jaeyeol not letting her come for the past few weeks, since she was getting behind on homework, but Jaeyeol just couldn’t let her, in case she got too bored with her work and decided to play with his bangs and revealed his eight eyes to the world. 

So yes, Jaeyeol was useless without Hyungseok. Hyungseok made everything better. 

What else could Jaeyeol do but fall harder for him?

He wanted to tell Hyungseok about him being Spiderman, honestly. Spiderman caught criminals and saved lives, but Spiderman’s biggest priority was also Park Hyungseok, budding journalist, and if Spiderman always made sure to rescue Hyungseok first and speak to him in sign language every now and then, someone was bound to make the connection between Spiderman and Hong Jaeyeol, who never showed his eyes, never spoke, and had the largest crush ever on Hyungseok.

Jaeyeol thought it was far too obvious. Hyungseok was clever, there was nothing stopping him from connecting the dots. But Jaeyeol had also spent the past year crushing on him, and Hyungseok was still completely clueless, so maybe Hyungseok really was that oblivious. Either way, Jaeyeol could continue to spend as much time with Hyungseok as he liked, but Spiderman probably had to start being more discreet about prioritizing him.

For now, life was good, and Jaeyeol was happy to let Hyungseok feed him spoonfuls of soupy rice and chicken.

The next few days passed in a blur of Hyungseok, Hyungseok and more Hyungseok. They hung out during the day, working on assignments together or going window shopping or eating out; and during the night, Hyungseok would cook dinner for both of them, humming to himself as he bustled around Jaeyeol’s kitchen, utterly at home.

Hyungseok acted like everything was normal. He was all too happy to talk to Jaeyeol and ramble about things Jaeyeol wouldn’t care about if Hyungseok wasn’t the one talking about it; smile at him with the edges of his lips curled up, looking far too kissable for Jaeyeol’s peace of mind; tease Jaeyeol for being constantly distracted and distract Jaeyeol by being a tease in the same breath.

It was like their usual dynamic, but now Jaeyeol was seeing Hyungseok every day, every night, for a week. Jaeyeol was flustered like he always was around Hyungseok, and the seemingly endless domesticity had gotten to the point where even Jaeyeol’s spider sense had stopped seeing Hyungseok as a danger trigger, and started seeing him as a potential mate instead. 

Thankfully, whatever spider had bitten Jaeyeol didn’t have particularly odd courting rituals, and nothing drove Jaeyeol to suddenly start dancing like one of those Peacock Jumping Spiders Jaeyeol had searched up on a whim. 

Jaeyeol was slowly going insane, but all of this was too good to give up.

Eventually, Jaeyeol’s sprained wrist recovered, and Jaeyeol ran out of opportunities to ask Hyungseok to feed him or help him with things. But cooking together side by side in the kitchen - Hyungseok expertly manning the chopping board and Jaeyeol trying his best with the frying pan - proved to be a new challenge that Jaeyeol was wholly unprepared for.

It was even more domestic, for one. The only way things could get more domestic was if they shared a bed, or a shower. And there was also the touching. Hyungseok would tap him if he wanted something passed over from Jaeyeol’s side, or he would prop his head on Jaeyeol’s shoulder when he had nothing to do but wait for Jaeyeol to chop up the ingredients, and it was worse when Hyungseok wore that accursed ‘Kiss the Cook!’ apron because Jaeyeol had to constantly fight the urge to just follow the apron’s tips and kiss Hyungseok.

He wasn’t sure if the end of Chuseok break was a blessing or a curse. He took it as a blessing when Hyungseok moved all of his things out, quietly glad Hyungseok wasn’t there to fuel his fantasies anymore, but Jaeyeol quickly realized it was a curse. Hyungseok took the liveliness away with him. Without Hyungseok, the penthouse was dreadfully quiet, and Jaeyeol felt lonelier than he’d ever been in his life.

He texted Hyungseok to say Hyungseok could come back for a sleepover if he ever wanted to, but Hyungseok had just sent him a sticker of a laughing bear and told Jaeyeol not to be too lonely without him.

The depressing loneliness promptly increased tenfold. 

And then Jaehye texted to say she was coming over the next day so Jaeyeol better be prepared. The loneliness quickly disappeared, only to be replaced with dread. 

Chapter Text

Jaeyeol wasn’t scared of his family.

Hong Kyeongyeong might’ve been the well-liked CEO of the famous chaebol pharmaceutical H Group, but he had always been a terrible father to Jaeyeol. When Jaeyeol was younger, he and his father had often relied on Jaeyeol’s mother to get messages across, too constantly angry at each other to speak face to face. When Jaeyeol’s mother finally had enough and walked away from their dysfunctional family halfway through Jaeyeol’s middle school years, Jaeyeol’s father gave up on him and stopped speaking to him, banishing him from their family home, and Jaeyeol, who had always struggled to communicate anyway, simply stopped speaking completely. 

Get out, he remembered his father spitting at him when Jaeyeol failed one of his high school exams because would not - could not - talk anymore and he couldn’t make his teachers or examiners understand, from today onwards, you are no son of mine! There will no longer be a Hong Jaeyeol in this family. Get out and live however you like! Die of hunger, get depressed, do whatever you want! Don’t even think of coming home before you fix yourself!

Jaeyeol had been so young at the time, still lost without his mother to interpret him. Faced with his father, red-faced and enraged, and being unable to respond, Jaeyeol had simply packed up all of his things into a backpack and left, turning his back on Jaehye, who was sobbing and smacking their father’s back and wondering how he could be so cruel to Jaeyeol.

Jaeyeol had gotten over it, by now. It had been so long, anyway, and the bitter loneliness of being abandoned had faded into a mere sharp sting that only hurt him every time a holiday rolled around. There were no more late nights of him watching Newtube videos of families having fun together, laughing together, sons learning from their fathers and fathers taking care of their sons, or boys holding hands with other boys and smiling at each other like they were each others’ world. He didn’t need to hurt himself. With Hyungseok and Jaehye around, he didn’t want to anymore.

They had a complicated relationship these days. They kept their minimal contact to texting only, or glaring at each other over Jaehye’s head. Jaeyeol didn’t fear him in the slightest, no, but he would never forget what his father’s last words to him were. Even if his father tried to reconcile with him, Jaeyeol would never forgive him either. Maybe Hyungseok was an angel who had joined the mortals, willing to move on from his bullies and forgive those who had wronged him, but Jaeyeol didn’t have the same kindness. He couldn’t be kind to his father, not anymore.

Hong Kitae wasn’t scary. He was a distant hyung at best, an endless nag at worst. They played together when Jaehye was too small to join them, but they grew apart when Kitae decided to follow in their father's footsteps, and Jaeyeol decided to stray from the family path. Jaeyeol still sent him well wishing texts every holiday, but the last time Kitae had replied was at least three years ago.

Hong Jaehye, on the other end, was a demon wearing the skin of a little sister. It was like she'd been born for the sole purpose of terrorizing Jaeyeol. When she was a baby, still at the stage of crying and throwing up all over the place, Jaeyeol's parents had put her in the same place as Jaeyeol, who'd only been two at the same time. Naturally, Jaehye wailing at the top of her little lungs in the middle of the night always set Jaeyeol into a crying fit too, and their mother would suffer by trying to placate both of them at the same time. As they got older, Jaehye got clingier, her social butterfly self constantly dragging Jaeyeol into social situations he wanted no part in. Unlike Jaeyeol, who tried his damnedest to disappear into the background, she had no fear embarrassing both of them with her complete lack of tact.

Jaeyeol would never forget the time she'd thrown herself into Hyungseok's arms immediately after Jaeyeol had introduced her to him and called him her handsome oppa. Like, Jaeyeol was right there. He was not only her handsome oppa by blood, but also suffering from extreme jealousy at the sight of Jaehye in Hyungseok's arms, and Hyungseok smiling at Jaehye. Jaeyeol would've given anything for Hyungseok to hold him like that.

Hyungseok, blessedly oblivious as always, had laughed himself sick watching Jaeyeol wrestle his sister away. Jaeyeol basically had to push Jaehye away by the face. Hyungseok thought it was the most hilarious thing he'd ever seen.

From that point onwards, Jaehye had correctly identified Hyungseok as Jaeyeol's greatest weakness, and did not hesitate to use that knowledge to her advantage. If Jaehye wanted to watch a movie and Jaeyeol didn't? She'd just ask Hyungseok then, he'd basically adopted her as his own little sister anyway, Hyungseok could go with her and Jaeyeol could stay at home like he'd wanted originally. Oh? Jaeyeol suddenly changed his mind? All three of them could go together? Fantastic! Maybe Jaeyeol was too lazy to pick Jaehye up from harp class before their weekly hangouts because Jaehye could just ask the butler to pick her up instead? No, Jaehye wanted to navigate public transport this time and she didn't want to go alone, if Jaeyeol was scared he'd get lost she'd just ask Hyungseok instead, Jaeyeol did say Hyungseok had accompanied him on his first subway ride, after all. Oh, cool, Jaeyeol suddenly changed his mind! See you later, oppa!

Jaeyeol hated how easy he was to manipulate. Jaehye thought it was hilarious.

So yes, Jaehye was an absolute terror with too much blackmail material against Jaeyeol.

When Jaehye arrived at his front door with a scowl that could only mean trouble, Jaeyeol knew he was screwed. There was no way he was getting out of this one. He didn’t even know why she was here! She just said they had to talk, and refused to specify why. By the determined look on her face and the phone in her white-knuckled grip, Jaeyeol had a feeling it wasn’t about her grades. 

She let herself into the penthouse without even a greeting to her poor, panicking older brother, plopping onto the seat at the dinner table she knew was Jaeyeol’s favorite. Jaeyeol, very gingerly, sat on the seat across the table. Not too close, but also not too far. He could still dodge if she tried to hit him.

“So,” Jaehye started, placing her phone down on the table and spinning it towards him, “I’m sure you’ve heard of Spiderman.”

Oh.

Oh dear.

Of course, it just had to be the dreaded topic - Spiderman.

Jaeyeol would’ve preferred talking about Hyungseok instead. Explaining why he still hadn’t picked up the courage to ask Hyungseok out even though Hyungseok had spent the entire past week selflessly looking after him would’ve been much easier.

Jaeyeol scanned through the news article Jaehye let him read. Of course, it just had to be one from Hyungseok’s news firm, the one with the most scathing criticisms about the infamous ‘Spider-Menace’, matched with a picture Hyungseok had taken of Spiderman swinging from one building to another. Spider-Menace is a thief?! Screamed the title in massive bold, black font. Jaeyeol kept reading. He was sure he hadn’t stolen anything… Maybe it was another article about the rights of policemen to serve justice and catch criminals without vigilantes like Spiderman being in the way? But that was only because he’d heard the news about the police force being corrupt, and they were too human and too fragile to handle scientifically buffed up supervillains that Spiderman could easily defeat? 

The truth was worse.

Spiderman, the article said, was potentially linked to the disappearance of one of H Group’s scientific projects. H Group had been trying to find a cure-all for every disease under the sun, a panacea of sorts, and they may or may not have found something like it in the venom of a genetically mutated fuzzy black and orange spider that was the distant relative of a Yellow Garden Spider. The source had claimed that minimal doses of the spider’s venom would merge with human DNA to give the human increased healing abilities against illnesses, and fragmentally faster healing for physical injuries. However, the effects of a full dosage of venom were unknown. H Group was still trying to find a way to maximize the healing factor with the small sample of venom they had. 

H Group had tried to cover up the disappearance of the spider, and they had connected it to Spiderman’s debut in society, but the source, one of the researchers, had gotten drunk and accidentally leaked it to the press. Apparently, even Hong Kyeongyeong, CEO of H Group, didn’t have a clue to Spiderman’s identity.

And Jaeyeol had actually seen that spider in his bathroom, and killed it by accident, so…

“Yeah,” Jaehye summarized grimly, “oppa, I know it’s you.”

Jaeyeol flailed. How did she know? She hadn’t even seen him since he was bitten!

Jaehye rolled her eyes. “Well, for starters, Spiderman speaking sign language makes it pretty obvious. There’s only one idiot I know that’s connected to H Group, speaks sign language, and would go wherever Hyungseok-oppa goes so he’ll get nice pictures. And also…” She cringed. “You being Spiderman may or may not have been my fault.”

Jaeyeol blinked. But how ?

“I. Uh.” Jaehye swallowed, paling. She looked almost sick. “Oh my god, can you promise you won’t kill me first? Wait, no, let me just-” She scooted back a little so they were both out of each others’ reach.

Jaeyeol raised an eyebrow. Or maybe it was four? He couldn’t tell. It felt like he still had two eyes, for all it was worth. Well? 

“Okay! So! Remember last time I came over?”

Jaeyeol nodded hesitantly. Jaehye had come late, they’d done their usual study session while being distracted by Mario Kart, and she’d left in a hurry since their father was expecting her back. And after that, Jaeyeol had taken a bath, accidentally slapped a spider to death, and became Spiderman overnight. 

“I have a confession to make,” said Jaehye, wincing, “I was late because I was helping Abeoji find the spider. He brought it home, because he didn’t trust the researchers and the lab technicians with it, but you know, spiders have to be fed, right? Abeoji forgot to close the lid when he was getting the bugs to feed the spider with, and…”

The spider escaped, Jaeyeol concluded.

Jaehye giggled hysterically. “Me and Kitae-oppa spent ages trying to find it, and Abeoji was going to freak out again, and you know, I hate it when he does that, so I just left. And… After you drove me home, I was unpacking my stuff, and I found a spider web inside my bag, which means… Ahaha, the thing must’ve snuck inside my bag and decided to explore your place instead. And… I don’t know what happened next, but you do.”

Ah.

Yeah, that made a lot of sense.

Jaeyeol raked a hand through his hair, sighing heavily. We absolutely cannot tell anyone about this. Abeoji would kill us both.

He couldn’t imagine what his father would do if he found out his son - the son he hated, the son he’d disowned - had gotten ahold of his pet project, thanks to his beloved only daughter. Jaeyeol’s father would probably have him exiled to the country, forced him to go to America or something, far from all the best influences on his life, alone and abandoned and unwanted like he deserved for ruining a chance for H Group to save the world.

Jaehye was too busy staring at him with abject horror. “Oppa,” she whimpered weakly, “your-”

Her eyes rolled back in her head, and Jaeyeol darted to the other side of the table just in time to catch her as she fainted. He brought her to the couch, and she was light as a feather. She really didn’t need that diet she was going on.

She woke up fairly quickly, only to scream again at the sight of him looking down at her. Jaeyeol shushed her frantically. “Oppa,” she squawked, “you have eight fucking eyes!”

Language, he chided, and I already knew that!

He bared his fangs just to watch her shriek some more.

“Oppa, your-!” Jaehye shook her head, scrambling up. “Okay, we have to tell Abeoji, he has to know these are the side effects of the venom, we have to fix your face-”

I think they’re neat, Jaeyeol confessed. I see better with them. And I’ve never had to bite anyone, but the fangs don’t bother me. And if Abeoji will find out about me being like this, I’d rather it be later rather than sooner.

He couldn’t let their father decide to kick Jaehye out based on one mistake either. It was better for him to shoulder all the problems. He’d bear the weight of the world on his back for her if he had to.

Jaehye sighed deeply, like she was the one with all the issues instead of Jaeyeol. “Fine, then. But for your Spiderman thing…” Her eyes gleamed. Evil , cried out the voice in Jaeyeol’s head. Not a spider instinct, or a Hyungseok Instinct, but a third Demon Sister Instinct he had honed and perfected over the past seventeen years. “You have to let me be your guy in the chair.”

Jaeyeol cocked his head. Guy in the chair? What?

“Like…” Jaehye gestured incoherently. “You know, like James Bond and the other guy? Uh, Benji?”

Jaeyeol sighed. That’s Mission Impossible.

But yes, having a sidekick to watch his back from behind the scenes was probably a lot cooler and more efficient than Spiderman whipping his phone out mid-air to check on G@ogle Maps if he was going in the right direction.

“Okay, fine, you can be Tom Cruise. So can I be your guy in the chair? It’ll be fun! As long as your earbuds don’t fall out of your ears! Come on, oppa, please please please please please please please-”

Jaeyeol clapped his hands over his ears, and Jaehye shut up obediently. Fine, Jaeyeol decided, but if you’re even the slightest bit annoying, or if you distract me, we’re calling it quits.

Jaehye let out a delighted whoop, her cheering echoing around the penthouse, and Jaeyeol wondered how long it would take him to regret his decision. “Oppa, I won’t let you down! Promise!”

They tested it out in the gym - Jaehye stuck one of the button-sized cameras she'd stolen from Kitae just for this purpose onto Jaeyeol's shirt, and stepped out of the room to test the camera quality. She squealed when she saw him casually walking along the roof, and made a retching noise when Jaeyeol started swinging around randomly. "Oppa, maybe not so fast? I'm getting motion sickness, it's like I'm on a roller coaster!" Jaeyeol tried his best to steady himself, but Jaehye had to work out the rest on her own. At least the audio worked, and when Jaeyeol walked in a loop around the building, they figured out the navigation system worked pretty well too. It was probably easier for both of them, since they were already so attuned to each other.

… Maybe this would work out, after all. Maybe.

The next day, Hyungseok told Jaeyeol he couldn’t make it to lunch with him because he was stuck in a bank as a new supervillain's hostage and he didn’t know when Spiderman or the police would come to rescue him and the other hostages. Naturally, Jaeyeol decided to sneak out and skip the rest of his lecture, immediately swinging over.

Jaehye barely had enough time to sneak away from her own class, whisper-complaining to Jaeyeol about having to tell her teacher and classmates that she was suffering from explosive diarrhea. Well, as long as a little sister on a toilet seat worked as well as a guy on a chair, Jaeyeol didn’t mind her constant whining.

Chapter Text

"Go left!" Jaehye hissed into Jaeyeol's ear. "I mean, my left! Your right!"

Jaeyeol silently cursed his little sister, doing a flip midair in order to change directions.

"Yeah, and then go straight for uh, three hundred meters, which is, uh, when you get to that orange building! The ugly one! With the really big words on top!"

Hong Jaehye was a horrible navigator. But again, she was using G@ogle Maps, which assumed you were walking if you weren't driving or riding the bus or a train or a bicycle, and Jaeyeol was swinging over the cityscape at top speed.

"Okay, now turn left! Your actual left! I swear!"

Jaeyeol breathed a sigh of relief as the Kookmin Bank came into view, then squawked a little as he almost flew into a bird. Thankfully, he still managed to slip into the lobby of Kookmin Bank, silent as a shadow, and land in between the hostages and the new supervillain in his signature landing pose.

"Whoa," murmured Jaehye, "do all your supervillains look this cool? Oppa, I think you need an upgrade."

What a pity Jaeyeol couldn't flip her the bird without it looking like he was flipping everyone else the bird instead. He settled for scowling under his mask.

The new supervillain looked cool, but Jaeyeol didn’t think they made Spiderman look any less cool. The supervillain wore a purple mask under his green hood, and Jaeyeol squinted at the green, snake-like logo on their black top. They had a utility belt with what looked like mechanics’ tools attached, but Jaeyeol was more concerned about the cat-like claws on their gloves. Spiderman could probably dodge easily, but one scratch and Jaeyeol would be bleeding all over the place. Jaeyeol’s gaze trailed down. Were those…

Awful pants, he signed.

Hyungseok, tied up on the side of the room with zip ties on his wrists and ankles, cackled so hard he almost lost his balance and fell flat on his face.

The supervillain looked down at their atrocious purple camo pants. The color scheme matched his mask, but they were just so ugly ! And combined with those light brown boots... Jaeyeol shuddered at the thought of having to wear that outfit himself. He looked horrendous in green, and even worse in purple. “Awful? Coming from you, Spider-Menace? That’s rich! Up until a couple weeks ago you were prancing around in a hoodie and tights!”

By that excessively loud voice, Jaeyeol deduced that the supervillain was male, then. He sounded young, maybe around Jaeyeol’s age, which made him wonder what had driven him to keep hostages in a bank he hadn’t actually even robbed. And he understood sign language. Jaeyeol didn’t have time to think any more about that before the villain shot at him, smoke puffing from the twin jet-packs attached to his heavy boots, and Jaeyeol swung himself up the ceiling to avoid the sharp claws.

Jaehye shrieked in his ear, making him wince, and miss the second the supervillain shot up to the ceiling. His spider sense rang out just in time for the villain to grab him by the throat and slam him back down onto the floor. With one hand on Jaeyeol’s throat, the villain raised his other hand, ready to pierce through Jaeyeol’s skull with his claws. His head spun, aching as Jaehye screeched some more. He reflexively cast a web backwards, and he slid out of reach just in time for the villain to sink his claws into the floor and curse loudly as they got stuck.

Jaeyeol really needed to have a hot bath after this. Friction burns hurt like hell.

Jaeyeol spent a good five minutes just dodging hits as he tried to think of the best way to take down the villain without causing extreme damage to either one of them. Jaehye’s screaming turned out to be a distraction, since Jaeyeol’s danger senses were usually good enough on their own. Key word - usually. Jaeyeol rolled out of the way of a stomping foot, and almost rolled into a little boy, who was tied to his trembling mother and staring at him with awe. “Go Spiderman!” He cheered.

Jaeyeol wished he could return the little boy’s beaming grin. Instead, he gave the boy a high five with his non-sticky hand. The little boy instantly grinned wide enough for it to hurt. “You’re so cool, Spiderman! I’m gonna tell all my friends!”

Maybe Spiderman kept getting himself hurt, but personally, Jaeyeol thought moments like these made things worth it.

Jaeyeol vaulted over the wide sweep of the villain’s leg and flattened himself against the floor as the villain pounced at him, viper-fast.

Jaeyeol webbed the other man’s leg and swung him in another direction before he could crash into an ATM. He was already Spider-Menace - the least he could do was prevent destruction of public properties before it was pinned on him.

“Aww,” the villain called out as he sliced Jaeyeol’s web off him and skidded to a halt, “were you worried about me, the Prowler? Ain't that cute, Spidey? I’m so touched, I could cry.”

Jaeyeol would’ve flipped him the bird right there and then if not for the little boy gazing at him with starry eyes and screaming for him to win. He settled for baring his fangs and hissing, which made the Prowler take a step back with an awed whistle.

The Prowler wasn’t as strong as the Rhino, but he was much faster, and much smarter with his hits. He favored fighting with his hands and swiping at Jaeyeol with his claws, more vicious and fearless than most common bank robbers. He was a dangerous opponent, but he was nothing Spiderman couldn’t handle. Like Spiderman, he was probably at least fifty-percent home-made and home-trained.

Jaeyeol bent over backwards to evade the Prowler’s next swipe at him, shielding his face by crossing his arms in front of him when the Prowler immediately attempted to land another hit. Jaeyeol webbed the Prowler’s leg again, trying to tug him off balance. It didn’t work, and Jaeyeol cursed in his head when the Prowler used Jaeyeol’s own momentum to tug him off his feet, smashing him to the floor once more with a well-timed back-hand chop to the neck.

That hurt, dammit. In the corner of his eye, Jaeyeol saw Hyungseok wriggle frantically in an attempt to get his camera.

The Prowler laughed. “Cheap tricks like that aren’t going to work on me aga- Ah, shit!”

Jaeyeol grinned as the Prowler took a step forward and got himself stuck in a massive web.

See, this was where Jaehye's tips came in - as Prowler was chasing him around earlier, both of them bouncing off the walls like excessively violent ping pong balls, Jaeyeol made a new strand of silk for every time Jaehye shrieked for him to change directions because the Prowler was getting too close.

Jaeyeol wasn't entirely sure how he'd done it, but he'd made the web almost transparent, save for the faint shimmer. And of course, he'd led his prey right into his trap at the end.

"Fuck you," snapped the Prowler as he struggled, the material of his clothes stuck tight to Jaeyeol's web, "this is not cute, Spidey."

Jaeyeol shot a web over the spot where his mouth should be, watching smugly as the Prowler struggled harder, his yelling now muffled by spider silk.

"Oh my god," Jaehye said faintly, "oppa, you actually did it. Did I even help?"

Loads, Jaeyeol signed discreetly. Hyungseok, who had now tipped over onto his side and was trying to wriggle out of his bindings like a worm, paused to narrow his eyes. Jaeyeol instantly regretted not hiding his hands from Hyungseok.

The Prowler, the lesser of the two Jaeyeol-understanding evils, squinted at him scrutinizingly. Jaeyeol didn't care - how likely was it that they'd meet again? Or that they knew each other as civilians? Jaeyeol could name all the people who had ever talked to him and not talked at him on both hands, no more and no less.

Both of them froze at the sound of police sirens and the screech of tires on tarmac. Two of Jaeyeol's eyes swiveled to peek at the policemen gathered outside the bank. There was an entire SWAT team gathered outside, hiding behind their shields and helmets, batons at the ready. At the front was a man with glasses, a microphone, and a severe expression. According to the badge on his outfit, he was a Senior Inspector, one Jaeyeol hadn't seen before. Did Inspector Kim from all the previous cases finally get tired of trying to communicate with a mute Spiderman? A pair of Jaeyeol's eyes caught the Prowler flinching, his claws cutting through silk to scrabble at the web over his mouth. 

"Prowler!" Jaeyeol winced at the volume. "Will you finally surrender?"

Hostages safe and unharmed, Jaeyeol signed towards the inspector, hoping he'd understand and not be like Inspector Kim, who couldn't even interpret Spiderman's exaggerated, obvious hand movements, and often ended up yelling at Spiderman to talk like a normal person like Jaeyeol's previous tutors. Criminal secured. No damage.

The new inspector squinted. "Safe and unharmed? Certain?"

Jaeyeol could've cheered.

"We're fine!" Hyungseok called out. "He didn't actually do anything except tie us up and fight Spiderman, but Spiderman won!"

The inspector looked at the Prowler, decidedly unimpressed, and the Prowler seemed to cower, caught mid-scrabble with his claws sticking together. "Aw fuck, that's my hyung," he hissed, "I want him to get the promotion he wants, but you can't let him unmask me."

Now, it was Jaeyeol's turn to be unimpressed. The Prowler had been an excellent opponent, a good fighter capable of matching Spiderman blow for blow, but in terms of laws broken, or the lack thereof, he'd been a truly useless villain. Now that the rush of adrenaline was fading, the Prowler only looked pitiful. He hadn't even been that good of a fighter. He hadn't even tried to smash Jaeyeol's skull in with his spanner, or whatever it was that other desperate criminals often did.

With the Prowler still stuck in Jaeyeol's web, the police broke down the lock on the door and started freeing the hostages.. Inspector, he signed as Inspector Kwak Jichang started hacking away at Jaeyeol's web with his baton, handcuffs dangling from the pouch at his waist, what are you planning to do with him?

"Fine him, probably," Jichang grunted as his baton got stuck, "and sentence him with a year of community service."

The Prowler shook his head minutely, looking panicked as he could without showing his face.

Jaeyeol decided to pull a stunt everyone would probably yell at him for, including his future self. Can I suggest an alternative community service?

"Oppa," Jaehye whispered in his ear, "what are you doing?"

"Go on," grunted Inspector Kwak. "I'm watching."

He's a good combatant with a well-built suit. He only fought me because I picked a fight with him first. I think he could redeem himself by becoming my sidekick. I think I can fix him.

It wasn't entirely a lie. Jaeyeol did think the Prowler could be better as a vigilante figure, instead of a villain. But he didn't need another sidekick, not when he had Jaehye.

"What?!" Jaehye and the Prowler shrieked at the same time. Jaeyeol cringed. Jaehye was way too loud when she wanted to be.

Inspector Kwak hummed. "That… Could work. The only crime he's committed is being a public nuisance, and wasting our time. The paperwork would be a hassle, and you'd need to sign a contract with us, but it's a good idea. There are other contracts we're hoping you could sign too. And about the H Group theft we're looking into-"

Ahaha, nope, Jaeyeol was not going to talk about the spider to anyone but his little sister. Sorry, Jaeyeol signed quickly, another emergency is calling, I gotta go.

Grabbing the Prowler by the waist and webbing both of them together, Jaeyeol launched himself onto the ceiling and ran out of the building, avoiding the press by taking to the skies instead. The Prowler yelped as Jaeyeol swung them to his penthouse, and kept screaming the whole way back. Jaeyeol crashed through the window, coming face to face with Jaehye, who wore one of Jaeyeol's hats and a mask and was glaring at him with her hands on her hips.

“Oppa,” she complained, “why did you have to bring him ?”

The Prowler made a noise like a zombie, saying something that sounded like “toilet”.

Jaeyeol freed him from his constraints and pointed him to the toilet. The Prowler immediately charged away, his boots clunking on the floor as he ripped his mask off. Jaeyeol and Jaehye both cringed as they heard the sound of vomiting.

The Prowler, who had his mask gripped tightly in his hand and was actually rather good-looking, if not for the greenish tint of nausea, stumbled out of the toilet. “Fuck you, Spidey,” he grumbled. He still looked a bit sickly.

“I think you meant thank you,” Jaehye said sharply. “The only reason you’re not in jail is because of Y- oppa.”

“What?” The Prowler answered loudly. “Can’t hear you. I’m deaf.”

Oh. That’s why you can understand me, Jaeyeol signed, and that’s why you’re so loud.

“Yeah,” said the other man. “My hearing aids fuckin’ fell out while you were doin’ your Spiderman act. But they were shitty and I needed new ones anyway. Now I don’t have shit.”

Oops.

“Oi, Spidey, don’t just oops me! I can’t hear jack shit like this! If Little Miss Princess is gonna shit-talk me all day, I wanna be able to fight back!”

Jaehye bristled. “Hey, who are you calling Little Miss Princess, you a-”

She withered when Jaeyeol glared at her. No more fighting.

He was exhausted, frankly. His arms hurt from swinging the Prowler’s extra weight. His head hurt where he’d been bashed against the floor or the ceiling multiple times. He didn’t think he had any serious injuries, but he probably needed a couple bandages here and there too. There was no way the Prowler didn’t need any either, not when Jaeyeol had practically drop-kicked him from the ceiling to the floor at one point. Let’s just get along. Or try. The next person who picks a fight is getting locked out.

“If you lock me out, I’ll just leave,” the Prowler pointed out.

If you leave, Mr Kwak Prowler, I'll tell your brother. You know, Senior Inspector Kwak Jichang? He seems like a nice guy.

The Prowler gulped, instantly going pale. “Please don’t.”

Jaehye smirked at him smugly on Jaeyeol’s behalf. “Yeah, listen to oppa. He knows what’s best.”

The Prowler turned to Jaeyeol. “You heard what she said? ‘Cause I didn’t. But I bet she’s trash talking me.”

“What the- I didn’t! Oppa, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about! He can’t even hear!”

Jaeyeol, halfway through rolling his mask up to his nose so he could breath, waved his wrist threateningly at both of them. His spinnerets were sore from overuse, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have any more silk left to squeeze out.

Jaehye opened her mouth, ready to retort, and promptly made the wiser choice to close her mouth instead. 

The Prowler rolled his silver snake-like eyes. “Okay, no more shit-talk or you’ll web our mouths shut. Got it.” Now, Jaeyeol was the smug one. He still wasn’t going to take his mask off, though. But he could shed the rest of the outfit, and he shivered, gasping quietly, as the fabric slid over his sensitive spinnerets. His knuckles were bloody. The Prowler caught on, shucking off his boots and utility belt before fiddling with the buckle of his cape. When the Prowler gave up and tossed his whole shirt off, Jaehye made a noise of complaint and slapped her hands over her eyes. Jaeyeol’s eyes widened at the sight of the scars littered all over his torso.

“And since my sense of self-preservation is clearly a lot worse than yours, you can just call me Kwak Jihan. Not Kwak Prowler. Prowler’s a cringe-ass name but it was the only one I could think of.”

Kwak Jihan was scarred all over. There was a deep red indentation of teeth on one shoulder, like he’d been bitten by some kind of large beast a while ago. By the looks of it, it might’ve been a cow bite, which just made Jaeyeol curious about what exactly had warranted being bitten by a cow . Was it the camo pants? Did he go around wearing a camo shirt to match? Had he been mistaken for grass? And there were the slashes across his chest too, crisscrossed patches of raised skin over six-pack abs. He worked out, probably, but Jaeyeol couldn’t help but wonder: what kind of life did Kwak Jihan live?

Jihan cleared his throat, and Jaeyeol’s eyes flickered back to his face. Yes, he was still handsome, especially with that boyish smirk on his face that made Jaeyeol just a little flustered. But he was nowhere near as handsome as Hyungseok, and he was way too infuriating.  “Oi, don’t just stare , Spidey. If you like ‘em, you can touch.” He leered as Jaeyeol shucked his shirt off, wincing at the rasp of fabric over his friction-burned back. "I don't mind."

“Yeol-oppa,” whispered Jaehye, "is he hitting on you?"

Just get me the bandage rolls, Hye. From the medicine box in the kitchen.

Even if Jihan was attractive and he was flirting, Jaeyeol wasn't interested. There were better men out there. Jaeyeol could name one very handsome photographer-journalist who was always sweet to him.

I'm watching you, Jaehye mouthed at the failed villain. She even did the gesture so there was no way he'd misunderstand.

"I don't like her," Jihan commented with a scowl at Jaehye's retreating form.

She's my sister.

"Oh. Uh, never mind, then."

Jaeyeol snickered.

Jaehye came prancing back with the roll of bandages in her hand, blissfully unaware of the reason why Jihan was trying to scowl and smile at her at the same time. "Oppa, your back looks nasty, do you want me to help?" She wrinkled her nose at Jihan, tossing him a tub of ointment. He caught it easily. "Do your own bruise paste," she said while signing, "I'm not touching you without a ten-foot pole."

Jihan flipped her the bird, and Jaeyeol sighed. Unfortunately, there was only so long the threat of having their mouths webbed shut could work.

Jaehye smoothed anti-itch cream over Jaeyeol's back, and Jaeyeol sighed in relief at the cooling feeling sinking into his skin and his muscles. Jihan was busy smearing bruise cream on his elbow, and both Hong siblings politely looked away as he shoved his pants a little lower down to rub some on his hip. Jaeyeol was silently glad neither of them had gotten particularly nasty injuries. Jihan seemed to be pretty hardy for a normal human.

"Oppa," Jaehye said quietly, "I don't know how the bandage works."

Jaeyeol fumbled with the roll, struggling to wrap it around his back, until Jihan sighed loudly and obnoxiously and called him pathetic. "Pass it over, Spidey. I'll help."

Jaeyeol very reluctantly gave Jihan the roll, and the other man methodically wrapped it around Jaeyeol's back, shoulders and waist. "Jichang-hyung taught me how to fight," he muttered, "and how to do self-care. Which you clearly were never taught."

Jaeyeol moved his hands, about to sign a retort, and got his arms smacked for it instead. "Don't move or it'll get loose."

Jaehye was too busy gawking at them to make herself useful.

Jihan was unexpectedly good at this bandaging stuff. Jaeyeol was not regretting his decision.

"Aight then, I gotta go before my other hyung starts getting on my ass." He reached into his tool kit, and pulled out a tiny folded square that turned out to be a sleeveless undershirt. “My number’s three-two-five-zero-three-zero-zero-five,” he said, his voice muffled by the undershirt he was putting on, “save it, Spidey. See ya, Spidey and Sister."

Jaeyeol gawked as Jihan let himself out of the penthouse, whistling as he went. 

I already forgot his number, he confessed after the door clicked shut.

“Three-two-five-zero-three-zero-zero-five,” Jaehye recited dutifully as she swiped Jaeyeol’s phone out of his hands and saved Jihan’s number as ‘Snake Eyes’. “There we go.”

Chapter Text

Jaeyeol was an idiot.

If he were a smarter man, he would’ve rejected Beomjae’s begging for him to join the annual joint Arts and Science Societies’ charity sports day. Last year, he’d hadn’t even bothered going, seeing no reason to support people he didn’t know. But Beomjae was now part of the Science Society’s executive committee, and as Beomjae’s friend, Jaeyeol had been very reluctantly dragged into most of the Society’s activities. There was nothing that required talking, of course, but Jaeyeol was often there on the fringes of events - though not always of his own free will, since Hyungseok was the university media team's lead photographer and Beomjae found it too easy to relentlessly tease Jaeyeol with Hyungseok's presence.

His role, usually, was to hang out on the sidelines and offer moral support. This was the first time he had to actually play some kind of significant role. 

Beomjae had dragged Jaeyeol into being the third runner of the relay, the last member still undetermined, and he'd easily convinced Vasco to join the tug of war team too. Jaeyeol didn't even know what to blame anymore. Was it him, for forgetting to hide his newfound strength and more defined strength, and for being weak to anything regarding Park Hyungseok? Or was it Beomjae, for being too good at convincing people he was right? Really, Jaeyeol would've considered anonymously asking Beomjae to join Spiderman's internal support team if not for Beomjae's intelligence. Beomjae was, after all, notorious for being nosy. To most, his big ears and big brain were for listening to lectures and memorizing content, but Jaeyeol knew better. When one of their classmates had lost her wallet and blamed it on Vasco, who only sat in some of their classes to snooze because he was bored and wanted to hang out with Beomjae, Beomjae had solved the case by the power of eavesdropping and hunting for gossip. It was crazy. It was terrifying. Beomjae had proudly called himself Mighty Detective Park Beomjae for weeks.

Naturally, Jaeyeol had decided not to risk it. He couldn't afford to have Beomjae find out Spiderman's true identity.

So now Jaeyeol managed all communications-related Spiderman work on his own, on top of his assignments and saving the city. As long as it didn't require verbal speech, he was unstoppable. Yesterday, Hong Jaeyeol had even snuck into a building full of police without anyone realizing he was Spiderman, and vice versa. Well, maybe that was because he'd gone to sign all of the contracts Kwak Jichang had drawn up for him, and Kwak Jichang had also told him all the paths he could take if he didn't want to be seen. Now, Spiderman was a unique kind of free-lancing law enforcement figure, Spiderman's Sidekick was an official community service offered only to the Prowler, and Jaeyeol had Jichang's number saved in his newly-bought Spiderman phone.

Sitting with Jichang in the interrogation room just to sign the contracts had been nerve wracking, even though Jaeyeol knew he wasn’t being interrogated and hadn’t done anything dangerous enough to warrant being interrogated either.

Strangely, finding out Vasco had dragged Hyungseok into joining both the relay and tug of war had been even more terrifying. What did Beomjae mean, Hyungseok would be running after Jaeyeol? Jaeyeol would have to pass the baton over to Hyungseok! Their hands might touch! Why did the thought of that fluster him more than Hyungseok feeding him?

Oh, that’s right - they’ve never held hands before, as much as Jaeyeol wanted to. They were both guys, after all, and platonic hand-holding was just instinctively embarrassing. Jaeyeol didn’t understand it. Jaehye was always happy to hold hands with her friends, their arms swinging between them, and the first time she’d done it to Jaeyeol with both of them as tweens, Jaeyeol had reflexively flinched away, scared of people mistaking Jaehye for a girlfriend instead of a little sister. Jaeyeol thought it would be nice to be mistaken as Hyungseok’s date, but at the same time, he couldn’t bring himself to do it, not out of the blue. It was strange.

As winter approached, it was gradually getting cooler in Yongsan, but when the dreaded sports day finally came, it was still hot enough for tee-shirts and shorts. Which meant everyone was in their team shirts - Jaeyeol and Hyungseok’s team were in sunflower-yellow tees and black shorts, like bumblebees because they were Team B, while one of the other teams was in hot pink, another in camo, and the final team, Beomjae and Vasco’s team, were in those obnoxious inflatable dinosaur outfits. Beomjae looked like he wanted to die, but Vasco looked absolutely delighted with his dinosaur.

Jaeyeol felt a little disgruntled when he was given a bee antenna headband. He was Spiderman, not Bee Boy or something. This felt like betrayal to his instincts, somehow, but Hyungseok had begged him to put them on, and well. There was only one way this story would end.

Jaeyeol put the headband on, feeling very strange indeed. Hyungseok said he looked cute, though, said the antenna matched his hair, so that made everything worth it. Nothing else mattered as long as Hyungseok thought he looked good.

They watched the other members of their team play the other games - basketball, three-legged race, the sack jump thing that looked utterly mortifying. Jaeyeol’s spider sense made him tingle when one of the camo team members - some guy in a hat and sunglasses and a snobbish face - kicked the ball way out of the field and sent it flying towards where Jaeyeol and Hyungseok were standing. He would’ve reacted, if Hyungseok’s reflexes hadn’t miraculously beaten him to the catch. Jaeyeol was left gawking as Hyungseok kicked the ball right into the goal, scoring a point for Team Bee and making the sunglasses boy squawk about the unfairness.

Hyungseok grinned at Jaeyeol, wiping a bead of sweat off his jaw. Jaeyeol felt sticky under his many layers of sunscreen, but clearly, Hyungseok, tan as he was, didn’t have the same problems. “Wanna stretch together before the relay?”

Jaeyeol nodded. In the shade. Or I will melt.

Hyungseok laughed, leading Jaeyeol towards the benches under the trees. “You won’t melt, you’re so pale you’ll just burn.”

Jaeyeol paled. He didn’t want to imagine himself pale as a lobster, thank you very much. He remembered being taken to the beach when he was five, his mother making sure to smear sunscreen all over him, Kitae and baby Jaehye, but Kitae had still ended up with a sunburned nose. Jaeyeol spent weeks sniggering at the skin flaking and peeling off the tip of Kitae’s nose. Considering Jaeyeol regularly wore a mask, and he had one Park Hyungseok to impress, this would be a terrible time for karma to strike.

Jaeyeol quickly found himself regretting agreeing to stretch with Hyungseok. How was he supposed to stay sane when Hyungseok stretched his arms over his head to crack his back and revealed the tantalizing skin of his waist when his shirt rode up? Jaeyeol was good at keeping his hands to himself, but how could he really be sure Hyungseok didn’t know when all eight of Jaeyeol’s eyes kept wandering to the curve of his bottom under his shorts? 

He forced himself to look away when one of Beomjae’s fellow committee members - one of Jaeyeol’s classmates, possibly, they might have been in a tutorial together, but Jaeyeol rarely remembered people who weren’t Hyungseok or related to him - jogged over. Jaeyeol couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes when he realized the girl was only looking at Hyungseok and completely ignoring him. “Hey, um, the relay’s gonna start soon!” She kept tucking her hair behind her ear, giggling hysterically as she looked up at a confused and slightly terrified Hyungseok. “Good luck, oppa!”

Hyungseok laughed, stepping closer to Jaeyeol and looking relieved when the girl realized Jaeyeol was there too. “Yeah, Jaeyeol-ah, we’ll be fine! We’ll win this!”

Jaeyeol did a silent fist-pump, much to Hyungseok’s amusement.

“I don’t actually know if I can do this,” Hyungseok murmured as they walked over to the track, their steps synchronized, “I’ve never been a good runner. Hell, I’ve always been bad at sports.”

Jaeyeol patted his shoulder. You’ll do great. 

He’d just run faster to give Hyungseok a head-start, if it helped. The spider bite made him stronger, faster, and his previously excellent endurance was now better than ever. Swinging around made for great cardio, after all, and Jaeyeol worked out more than ever these days. 

“But I’ll be running against Jinsung,” he fretted, “and Jinsung is fast as hell when he sprints…” Hyungseok waited until the first two runners had high-fived them to sigh, looking morose. “I just feel like I’ll let everyone down by losing at the last minute, you know? And I don’t want to.”

Jaeyeol couldn’t stop himself from reaching up to ruffle his hair, making Hyungseok laugh and swat at him. Just do your best, sunbae. I’ve got your back.

In more ways than one, it seemed.

When the time for Jaeyeol to run finally came, he started off immediately neck and neck with the boy in pink next to him. That wouldn’t do. He pushed himself just a little harder, running a little faster, but not fast enough to stand out too much. He thrust the baton into Hyungseok's waiting hand a second before the pink boy did. He was sweating, but he couldn't risk casually wiping his face and accidentally revealing his six miniature eyes, not in public.

“How-” gasped the pink boy next to him, panting with his hands on his knees, “how are your bangs still like that? They didn't even move! I do Cosmetology Studies and I'm majoring in Hairstyling but I've never seen any kind of gel that firm.”

Jaeyeol just shrugged. There was absolutely no way he could ever tell the truth - in reality, the ‘gel’ was just his own spider silk mixed into water. It had taken him multiple attempts and many frantic head-washes to perfect, but Jaeyeol had finally found the perfect ratio of stickiness to ease of removability.

“Can I touch it?”

Jaeyeol dodged the Hairstyling major's hands. Absolutely not, thank you very much. He turned back to focus on Hyungseok sprinting. He and Jinsung were matched well, but while Hyungseok managed to keep up his speed, push himself to go even faster near the end, Jinsung was starting to tire. Had Hyungseok always run so fast? Hyungseok's eyes were dark with concentration-

Jaeyeol squinted. Hyungseok's eyes weren't just dark. His sclera were black, his pupils and irises white. Black veins pulsed faintly under his skin, over the pumping muscles of his calves. What…?

Jaeyeol's spider senses roared back into life. The loop of fearfearfeardangerrunaway whipped his calming heartbeat into racing again,  and Jaeyeol found himself gasping, his head spinning, his breaths frantic, all of the times he'd spent teaching his instincts to love Hyungseok already forgotten like they'd never happened at all.

When Hyungseok finally burst past the finish line and immediately turned around, searching through the cheering crowd for Jaeyeol, all Jaeyeol could do was wave his hands in the sign for silent clapping. Hyungseok’s smile was bright with triumph, his eyes glittering with relief. 

Jaeyeol would’ve loved to appreciate the view, Hyungseok almost sparkling from the sun reflecting off his sweaty face, but it was tainted by that unexplained flash of terror that was now gone as quickly as it came.

Hyungseok jogged over to him, frantically chugging water from the bottle Jaeyeol promptly handed to him. “I’ve never run so fast in my life,” he blurted, the last droplet of water rolling off his chin, trailing over his throat before disappearing under his shirt, “oh my god. Do you ever get hungry after doing exercise? Because I’m starving . Like, I could eat a whole person.”

He snapped his jaws like a predator instead of a person, and Jaeyeol took a cautious step back. Even if he didn’t believe it, his instincts thought Hyungseok could eat him. There was something to be said about another kind of eating, the fun, sexy kind (not vore, don’t worry), but Jaeyeol was absolutely not going to think about that right now.  Hyungseok smacked his own forehead. “Jaeyeol-ah, I am so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. W- I am not going to eat a person. No people will be eaten. Full stop.”

Hyungseok’s face contorted like he was having an inner battle with himself or some sort. “Fine! Okay! Burgers. I’m gonna get burgers. Let's get burgers. But not now, like, later. After the event is over. Oh my god, I’m so hungry. Why am I so hungry? I was never this hungry even when I lived off one bowl of noodles a day.”

Hyungseok got yanked away by Vasco to prepare for tug of war not long after, leaving Jaeyeol in the dust, still utterly confused by whatever had just happened. It felt like Hyungseok was possessed by some kind of extra fast, extra hungry creature, but if Hyungseok’s other friends couldn’t see it, and nobody else seemed to have noticed, then Jaeyeol was probably seeing things, right? Maybe it had just been a trick of the light? Or maybe Jaeyeol’s color perception had changed just a little bit thanks to the spider DNA?

Those were the only possible answers. Because possession wasn't real, of course.

(But spider bites that gave people spider features and spider powers were, so... What could that mean? What did anything mean, really? Was this really the best time to have an existential crisis?)

Either way, the strange black eyes and black veins did not return. Hyungseok was even more ravenous after all the events ended, and after their team got their hard-earned trophies, Hyungseok immediately dragged Jaeyeol away to hunt for food.

He'd originally dragged Jaeyeol to a food stall selling offal with single-minded determinedness, claiming he wanted gopchang, but after noticing the plus-sized rat scurrying along the floor and Jaeyeol clinging to Hyungseok's arm with a queasy expression, he'd said "fuck it" and pulled Jaeyeol into the burger shop across the street instead.

Jaeyeol ended up getting a burger set for himself with soft drinks and greasy fries his father would've grounded him for eating. When he finished, he watched Hyungseok devour what looked like half his body weight in burgers with horrified fascination. Hyungseok didn't even seem to be breathing, just eating and eating and eating and inhaling bun after bun like a vacuum cleaner. Jaeyeol did think Hyungseok had gotten a little thinner recently, but surely that didn't warrant eating like this? Was Hyungseok starving himself at home? Was Jaeyeol going to have to stage an intervention by asking Hyungseok to move in? 

Slow down, he signed, you'll get sick.

“Oh, I’ll be fine,” answered Hyungseok cheerfully with a mouth full of food.

Jaeyeol shuddered at the sight of chewed-up meat. 

… Gross.

Chapter Text

Jaeyeol spent the night after sports day restless and antsy. Physically, he was exhausted, his legs aching and screaming for a break, but he couldn't rest, not when his mind conjured up Hyungseok's terrifying pitch black eyes like a reminder every time he tried to go to sleep. Maybe he had been watching too many movies with Jaehye lately, but Jaeyeol's imagination loved to conjure up the overly vivid image of black veins crawling up Hyungseok's legs, his body, his arms, until his body was covered in crisscrossed black veins, pulsing faintly under his skin, filling his eyes with inky black. 

He shuddered, shoving the blanket off him, and got dressed. 

Since becoming Spiderman, Jaeyeol had stopped going on runs in the middle of the night like he used to, too busy saving the day during, well, you know, daytime. He thought of heading out with only his phone and his keys, wanting to be just Hong Jaeyeol for a while longer, but after further deliberation, he sighed and shoved his original Spiderman mask into one of his larger pockets. You know, just in case. Because unfortunately for everyone, night times were just as dangerous as daytimes, and even though Jihan had volunteered to do some patrolling since he was an insomniac anyway, Jaeyeol felt like Spiderman probably also had the duty to make sure there were no midnight robberies. 

When Jaeyeol heard a muffled scream, he was already running, making sure nobody could see him before strapping the Spiderman mask to his face and sliding his hood over his head so nobody could see his face and nearly luminescent hair. 

He wasn’t expecting much - at best, maybe a drunkard shrieking because they’d fallen into the bin they were throwing up in, set off balance by the haze of alcohol; or at worst, maybe an exhausted and very unfortunate businessman being accosted by a mugger after a long day at work and hours of overtime.

Jaeyeol skidded to a halt in front of a seemingly empty alleyway. This particular alleyway was where the rest of Jaeyeol’s neighbors never went - it was right in the middle of two lamp posts, at the particular spot where neither fields of light covered. During the day, it was dark and dirty, and once Jaeyeol and Jaehye had run away screaming from the rat that had charged out of a drainpipe. During the night, this alleyway was where all the muggings occurred. Jaeyeol’s neighbors were all like him, meaning they were rich and well-off, but unlike Jaeyeol, they were spoiled too well by their privilege, which made them easy prey. Not Jaeyeol, though. After being kidnapped with Kitae when they were both far too young to resist, their father had brought in his bodyguard, an ex-military woman called Alexander Sophia, to teach them how to fight. She was enormous, Russian, and very formidable. She terrified little six-year-old Jaeyeol, to no extent. Older Jaeyeol got scared a lot less now. He was even considering asking her to return and train him a little more.

Jaeyeol squinted in the darkness, cheering internally for his superior night vision. There was a man floating in midair, dressed in the nondescript black clothes that most muggers wore while waiting for prey, and he seemed to be… upside down? And there was some kind of shadowy thing holding him up by the foot?

If it had been any darker, Jaeyeol would’ve missed the sight of this completely. He plastered himself against the brick wall, squinting hard with all eight of his eyes.

The mugger was sobbing, pleading for whatever the thing was to let him go, that he was sorry, so sorry, he’d never steal anything again, he’d never even think about it, just please, let him go, he has a daughter to return to, his wife is waiting for him, he’ll find a proper job, won’t the thing just spare his miserable life? The thing just shook him, dangling him higher, almost three meters above the ground, and it spoke. 

“No,” said the rumbling voice from the darkness, “you are a bad human. Bad humans are food. And I am still so hungry.” 

The attempted mugger whimpered helplessly, squeezing his eyes shut and trembling like a leaf. Jaeyeol stood stock still, as the thing emerged from the darkest spot into the slightest hint of light. “Eyes, lungs, pancreas, heart.” 

The creature was almost double Jaeyeol’s height, but the pulsing, writhing mass of obsidian muscle surrounding it made it even broader, larger, like some kind of creature from a horror novel, vaguely humanoid in shape but also very distinctly not, like Frankenstein’s monster if it was taller and wider and and carnivorous and made of pitch black snot. Its eyes - or what looked like them - were white and upturned, filled with a hungry gleam. Jaeyeol’s spider senses kicked into motion, rooting Jaeyeol to the spot. He couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe. “So many snacks, so little time.”

The creature opened its maw, revealing rows of knife-sharp, yellowed teeth and a slobbering pink tongue. It was like a scene in that horror movie Jaehye had forced Jaeyeol to watch with her, maybe it was It or something, Jaeyeol was sure Pennywise had the same tongue and the same teeth, ready to devour little children. But this creature didn’t eat little children, no. This creature seemed to feed on criminals, which would fit Spiderman’s agenda, but Spiderman was a vigilante and not a cannibalistic murderer . All he could hope was that this monster did not eat spider-men. Jaeyeol’s heart was racing in his chest, his blood rushing in his ears, his hands shaking. He clenched his fists and dug his nails into his palms until the pain cleared his head just a little. “What shall I eat first?”

The creature licked its lips with that massive, pointed tongue, and lowered the screaming mugger towards its mouth. 

Maybe Jaeyeol was a coward, but Spiderman, when he wasn’t being Spider-Menace, was the Saviour of Civilians. When someone else was in the face of danger, Jaeyeol’s own fear couldn’t matter anymore.

Revealing himself to the monster, Jaeyeol let a silk thread thwip out of his wrist, wrapping around the mugger’s torso where the monster’s hand-slash-tentacle didn’t touch. Jaeyeol planted his feet firmly into the ground, and pulled .

The monster was much stronger than he was, unwilling to give up its prey, but Jaeyeol gritted his teeth and pulled harder, leaning backwards and yanking harshly until the mugger came free, the tentacle pulled off in the process. Jaeyeol had just enough time to see its slimy, separated form before the mugger came crashing onto him, knocking both of them to the floor. 

Go, Jaeyeol motioned frantically, resorting to exaggerated hand gestures, run!

The mugger sobbed in relief. “Spiderman, you saved my life, but that thing - that- that alien, that monster - he’s too strong for you!”

Jaeyeol clenched his jaw, jumping to his feet and pulling the mugger with him. He shoved the man away as his spider sense rang out. Jaeyeol dropped into a crouch, rolling sideways just in time for the creature to pounce where he’d just stood. 

The monster stank of old blood and gutter trash, and Jaeyeol felt bile rising in his throat as he barely resisted the urge to hurl. He vaulted away and ran up the closest wall when the creature lunged at him again. Jaeyeol could imagine it already - those sharp teeth sinking through his delicate skin and ripping through his flesh, tearing him limb from limb. His spider senses only made the all-consuming terror worse, telling him yes , that was absolutely going to be what happened if he stayed any longer. 

Jaeyeol wanted nothing more than to run home, to escape, to hide under his fluffy blanket and play dead and hope the monster wouldn’t track him by the scent of his fear. He knew he was probably oozing with it by now, terrified of the monster hunting him, his spider senses making everything worse rather than better.

“Food thief,” grumbled the monster, long, clawed fingers swiping too close for comfort. Jaeyeol, who was trying to get away and contain the monster to the alleyway so he wouldn’t frighten someone else and figure out how on earth to deal with the creature all at the same time, lost his nerve. His next silk thread wavered, and Jaeyeol shouted out as it fell too short and he went crashing to the ground. “Thieves are snacks.”

No, no, no, Jaeyeol was not a snack! He was anything but a snack! He wouldn’t even be tasty! He’d taste like a spider!

He tried to roll away, but his elbow ached from his bad landing, probably bruised, possibly worse, and before he knew it, he was pinned to the floor. The monster was even more terrifying up close, its rancid breath making Jaeyeol feel like throwing up again from the stench, or maybe it was the fact that the monster was holding him down with a hand around his throat.

Jaeyeol gasped, his legs kicking out, but he was helpless, trapped, breathless and light-headed. He scrabbled frantically at the black hand. It was as hard as normal muscles, but also slimy and almost wet. He couldn’t get a grip on it, not even with his fingers at maximum stickiness. He was running out of energy to struggle when the fingers of the monster’s other hand elongated and grew until they resembled tentacles, coiling around Jaeyeol’s bucking hips, easing his weakening hands away until the thing could lift his limp body up. Those slimy tentacles wound tight around his arms, keeping them by his sides. When he managed to stretch and kick the monster in the eye, the monster growled, low and rumbling, and squeezed Jaeyeol until he was gasping in pain, aching too much to struggle.

The monster inhaled deeply through its mouth, the breeze of it making Jaeyeol flinch away. “Smells tasty,” it rumbled, bringing Jaeyeol closer and closer to its rows and rows of sharp teeth, “be a nice snack and don't struggle.”

And then it stopped.

The monster’s mouth forced itself shut before springing open again, and it happened again and again and again until the monster's mouth was snapping open and shut at light-speed. Jaeyeol could only blink, his terror giving way to complete and utter bewilderment. 

“Fine,” grumbled the creature at the end, looking disgruntled, no longer slobbering and ready to eat Jaeyeol as a midnight snack. “Spider is friend, not foe.”

Jaeyeol sagged in relief. He thanked his lucky stars - lucky spiders, maybe, whatever - that the monster had changed its mind. He didn't think he wanted to know why.

“We… Wish to form an alliance.”

Jaeyeol gulped, then cocked his head. Who was ‘We’ meant to be? Because Jaeyeol would've liked nothing more than any alien-like monsters to stay far, far away from him as long as both of them existed. 

The creature’s lips pulled back, baring sharp teeth in a truly revolting grin. Jaeyeol cringed under his mask. “We are Gun .” 

Wow, that was vague. None of Jaeyeol's questions had been answered. If anything, he only had more questions and more curiosity. But he wisely kept his mouth shut unless the creature decided that it could take a bite out of ‘friends’ who were being insolent.

“We are hungry and we need food,” it continued, blessedly ignoring Jaeyeol’s skeptical scowl, “and you will provide.”

Oh no, no, they can’t be back to this, Hong Jaeyeol was not a source of sustenance.

“… Criminals,” the creature added after a moment of grumbling and eye-rolling like it was talking to its conscience. Did aliens have consciences? Did monsters? “Fine. You will provide us with criminals. The worst of the worst. And we will eat their heads.”

Jaeyeol made a pathetic whimpering noise. What kind of criminal act warranted having heads eaten? That sounded sickening. If he wasn’t going to throw up before, he thought he would this time.

“Stop shaking,” grumbled the creature. A slimy tentacle hesitantly patted the top of Jaeyeol's head. It sounded like being slapped, and felt even stranger. Jaeyeol bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. “Hush, hush. Don’t be scared. I am very nice. To you.”

Well, Jaeyeol wasn't sure what to believe anymore. When he finally felt himself stop trembling - wow, was the head patting working? Was Jaeyeol really being placated like a dog by having his head patted from a creature he couldn’t even identify? - he noticed there was a silvery x-shaped mark between the creature’s eyes and mouth. Was it a nose? Did creatures like Gun have noses? Or did it smell through its mouth?

“There we go,” rumbled Gun, looking awfully satisfied with itself, “good little spider. Now say you will give me heads.”

Jaeyeol didn’t actually register himself nodding, but Gun's smug aura seemed to increase. “Good spider, good spider.”

Gun let him down, and he thought he could leave, but Jaeyeol shrieked as a long, slobbery tongue licked up his hoodie, rucking it up to reveal his pale skin. It left a disgustingly wet and slimy trail on his abdomen that only felt more disgusting when Jaeyeol's hoodie fell back down to cover it. Jaeyeol stumbled back, feeling utterly violated.

Gun smiled that terrifying smile again. “Just tasting your honesty. Mm, delicious. I will meet you in a week. And you will give me heads. Bye, Ally Spider.”

Gun launched itself off the floor with powerful legs and leapt off into the night, a black mark against the inky black sky. It left Jaeyeol alone in the darkness, with only his own fear and confusion to accompany him. Once he was sure he was alone, Jaeyeol ripped off his mask, gasping for breath with his hands shaking anew.

He didn't trust his trembling arms to swing him home.

If he’d followed the creature like a silent shadow, he would’ve seen it crashing through the open window of a rundown house on a hill, might’ve seen its grotesque form melt away to reveal the shape of a panting human man who immediately devoured a chocolate bar like his life depended on it and shouted that they were not going to eat any more people.

But Jaeyeol decided to power walk home, eager to bandage his scraped elbow and crawl into his warm, comfortable bed.

The memory of slimy pitch-black tentacles and sharp, slobbery teeth haunted Jaeyeol as he slept, and continued to haunt him for the next few days. 

Thankfully, Gun didn’t seem to mind when its favorite little spider (read: Hong Jaeyeol in his Spiderman mask and hoodie) couldn’t find any extra-evil criminals on death row for it to eat and instead snuck a live chicken to their next meeting. Jaeyeol watched it rip the poor chicken’s head off - panicked squawking beak and feathers and all - and devour its tastiest organs - the heart, gizzards, liver - before the rest of its flesh.

As soon as Gun was gone, licking its foul-smelling - or fowl instead - lips, Jaeyeol bolted towards the closest bin and threw up everything he had for dinner.

If the alien creature wanted to eat evil humans so much, the least it could do was join Spiderman’s plight to eliminate crime in the city, and work to find itself meals instead of relying on Jaeyeol’s generosity. But Jaeyeol wasn’t sure his current two sidekicks would cope well with having a creature like this join their ranks, and to be perfectly honest, he didn’t think he’d cope well with it either.

Chapter Text

Spiderman's internal public relations system worked somewhat like this: he had a phone with a new number linked to a Kakaotalk that Jaeyeol used to send and receive messages from Inspector Kwak, who had just told Jaeyeol to call him Jichang; an Ingstagram Jaehye managed by stealing - ahem, borrowing - publicly posted shots of Spiderman taken by Hyungseok, which Hyungseok was quite possibly catching on to; and Jihan may or may not have stuck a sound recording device onto the phones at the police call center and connected it to Spiderman’s phone so Spiderman and his not-so-secret sidekick, the Prowler, could react instantly to any sign of trouble. 

So far, things were going well, if not a little too well. Jaehye had made Spiderman a Tik-Tac-Tok account just to give likes to all the reels doing remixes of the infamous Spiderman song. Jaeyeol hated it. It was infuriatingly catchy, that “Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can,” and every time Jaeyeol heard Hyungseok hum it under his breath, he felt a little crazier. Jaehye said it had to be done. He had to appreciate the public's support. He was like an idol of some sort. Jihan had the guts to just laugh at him without doing anything useful. Jihan had even filmed a busker doing a very passionate rendition of the song, with his wheezing laughter in the background.

Sometimes, Jaeyeol wondered if he should’ve denied being Spiderman to his sister when she confronted him, and not requested to change the Prowler’s sentence when Jihan begged him not to let Jichang unmask him. Maybe things would’ve been different. Spiderman would’ve been a lone warrior and Jaeyeol would’ve been a lot more stressed out by things, but he wouldn’t have Jaehye and Jihan there to relentlessly tease him for his crush on Hyungseok. If Spiderman hadn’t taken the Prowler on as a sidekick, Jihan wouldn’t have been influenced by Jaehye to worm his way into Jaeyeol’s civilian life! Jaeyeol wouldn’t have to deal with Jihan embarrassing him in front of Hyungseok, and Hyungseok pulling Jaeyeol aside by the wrist after and asking if Jaeyeol was okay or if he was making friends with the wrong sorts of people!

Jaehye, ever the demon little sister, thought Jaeyeol’s suffering was utterly hilarious. Jaeyeol silently dealt with his sinking suspicion that Hyungseok was onto him, or getting close to it.

Jaeyeol wasn’t entirely sure if he should’ve expected Hyungseok to contact Spiderman and ask for an interview.

He’d been secretly scrolling through his civilian Ingstagram and admiring Hyungseok’s casual selfies in class when an email from Park Hyungseok popped up. Jaeyeol shrieked a little at the buzz, fumbling with his phone and almost dropping it on the floor. When he picked it up with shaking hands, the email had already been opened. There was no going back from this.

Request to Interview You for Feature - Please Reply Promptly, the title said. Jaeyeol gulped, and read the rest.

Spiderman,

My name is Park Hyungseok and I am a journalist and photographer doing an internship at Paprika News, the newspaper branch of the news channel Paprika TV. I'm writing a feature on your work as our neighborhood friendly Spiderman and source of hope for the people, and would love to interview you as part of the piece. Specifically, I'm hoping you can comment on: 

• How you became the way you are

• Why you chose to become a vigilante

• How you feel about being such a high-profile figure

• What you have to say to others who may want to follow in your footsteps

Hopefully, the interview will not exceed 1 hour, including opportunities for candid photographs. As of now, I cannot offer questions ahead of time, but I promise they will fall within the outline I've mentioned above. I am also relatively fluent in sign language, so you will not require any translators.

Once completed, the story will be published next Thursday, and I've attached our readership data below. My goal from our interview is to gain a deeper understanding of your motivations and feelings.

Please consider my request. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact me at my email or my phone number.

Best regards,

Park Hyungseok

Oh dear, oh dear. This was stressful. Besides, wasn’t Hyungseok in class too? How did he still have time to send work emails? Jaeyeol scrolled to the end, hiding his phone under his table and squinting.

P.S: I'm sorry for everything my boss has said about you, because I know they're not true. You probably won't know this, but you've saved my life countless times. Even if you say no to this interview, you'll still be my hero.

Jaeyeol inhaled deeply, feeling more shaken than he should. 

He screenshotted the email, sending it to his group chat with Jaehye and Jihan. Should I do it?

YES , Jaehye replied instantly. You'll literally be spending extra time with Hyungseok Oppa! Also if Appa is going to actually file that lawsuit against Spiderman you'll need all the public support you can get LMAOOO 😂

Hopefully, things wouldn't have to come to that. 

Put your phone away before it gets confiscated, Jaeyeol replied.

LMAO suffer, responded Jihan.

Jaeyeol had the worst friends ever. Including Hyungseok, at the moment.

Still, he responded to Hyungseok quickly, sending the message by text and providing several times he knew they were both available. He hoped Hyungseok would take it as a coincidence and not ask any questions.

Hyungseok replied within seconds, asking if two days later was okay or if it was too soon, and if Jaeyeol hadn't realized he was literally perched on the edge of his seat, chewing on the inside of his cheek, he probably would've fallen onto the floor from the sheer shock of Hyungseok sending Spiderman his response as a Kakaotalk message. 

Sure, see you then! Jaeyeol responded with shaking hands. Some kind of miracle must have prevented him from making typos.

Hyungseok responded with a sticker of a bear with its thumbs up, part of the same pack as the laughing bear and all of Hyungseok's other Kakaotalk stickers. Jaeyeol, who had clapped a hand over his mouth to hide his suspiciously wide smile from the lecturer, responded with a cheering kaomoji.

They settled on doing the interview in a quiet room in Paprika News. They would be able to do the interview in peace there, Hyungseok had explained, nobody would be able to disturb them, and there was a back entrance without security cameras that Jaeyeol could go through without revealing his identity, since he'd be entering the building as a civilian. Once Jaeyeol was past the door with his Spiderman mask on, Hyungseok would be there waiting for him.

Hyungseok was almost bursting with giddiness when Jaeyeol met him after class for lunch, as they always did. When he waved at Jaeyeol, his usual cheerful smile was a grin so wide it looked like it hurt, and his eyes were positively sparkling.

Hey, Jaeyeol signed, masking his knowing smile with the familiar painful ache of fondness, what’s got you so happy?

Hyungseok looked around carefully. All around them, students were hustling and bustling, rushing to get the best seats for lunch, or running to their next classes. The two of them were heading off campus for better food. When he was sure nobody was close enough to listen, he lowered his voice to an excited, conspiratorial whisper. “I’m going to interview Spiderman,” he murmured, his lips against Jaeyeol’s ear, Jaeyeol shuddering from the sensitivity as he fought the gasp lodged in his throat, “day after tomorrow.”

I’m glad, Jaeyeol signed carefully. You’ll be… Alone with him?

Hyungseok nodded. There was a dreamy look in his eyes, something that made Jaeyeol feel faintly jealous of his alter ego. “He’s so cool,” Hyungseok whispered, his cheeks flushed like a teenage schoolboy with a crush instead of a university junior who was a year and a half away from graduating with a bachelor degree, “he’s just… Awesome. You know that thing about actions being louder than words? He’s saved so many lives, and he’s such a good person, but he’s never spoken aloud, not even once, and I just want to know more about him, you know? I just think he’s great. I really respect him.”

From the looks of it, what Hyungseok felt for Spiderman was more than respect, even if he didn’t seem to realize it. Oh, Hyungseok was going to be in for a massive disappointment if he found out that the Spiderman he adored was actually the friend who had been by his side for the past two years. Jaeyeol didn’t know who Hyungseok would be disappointed in more - Jaeyeol for keeping it a secret this whole time, or Spiderman for being Jaeyeol in disguise.

What was it called when you were jealous of yourself? Why were there no other reliable superheroes Jaeyeol could consult about this? Jihan would laugh, Jaehye would laugh, Gun, who was speaking and thinking more and more like a human as time passed by, would probably break a tooth from laughing so hard. Jaeyeol felt terrible, and he just felt worse and worse as Hyungseok waxed poetic about Spiderman over their noodles.

Eventually, the day of the interview came. Jaeyeol and Jaehye had considered potential questions Hyungseok would ask like it was a public exam, Jaeyeol using his understanding of Hyungseok and Jaehye using her understanding of gossip magazines and celebrity interviews, and wrote answers for them accordingly so Jaeyeol could memorize them. 

It turned out both of them had been spot on with their questions. They’d predicted things a little too well.

"How did you become Spiderman? I'm sure you've already heard of them, but are the rumors about the H Group true?"

Sorry, I can't tell you that.

For legal reasons, naturally. Jaeyeol didn’t want to get sued and have his identity revealed at the same time. His father would probably find a way to get Jaeyeol arrested and jailed (alongside the criminals he put there) if he was mean, or deported (even if Jaeyeol carried a South Korean passport) if he was nice. Jaeyeol didn’t want to go to America.

"Oh... But if you can't tell me the source of your powers, can you tell me how they work?"

Well, Jaeyeol could talk a little about that. He explained that he was bitten by an ‘unknown spider’, which gave him his powers. When Hyungseok almost fell off his chair trying to reach for the pen he'd dropped, Jaeyeol easily webbed it up for him, making Hyungseok laugh with glittering eyes. Jaeyeol wanted to make him laugh more.

“Now isn't that a handy trick to have?  You can web up and grab almost anything… You were strong enough to stop a train. It was an insane stunt you pulled, but you did it.” His eyes were wide with awe, and Jaeyeol watched Hyungseok’s ears grow redder and redder. He had to admit, Hyungseok covered up his fanboying with professionality very well. “Was stopping the Rhino and the out-of-control train your first act as a superhero? Or was it just the first time you were seen?”

First time ever, Jaeyeol signed shyly. He wouldn’t even have known about the Rhino and the train if Hyungseok hadn’t panicked and called him first. I had no idea what I was doing, honestly. I was just going by my instincts.

Hyungseok exhaled softly. “There were almost four hundred people on that train, including me. And you saved everyone.”

I remember you. You were the first person to talk to me.

Not just as Spiderman, but also as Hong Jaeyeol. Hyungseok could never know, of course. At least not until Jaeyeol picked up the guts to confess. Either confession would work.

Hyungseok’s eyes widened even further. “Wow,” he murmured, “wow. Way to boost my ego.” He said something else under his breath that Jaeyeol couldn’t catch at all. He wished spider senses came with hearing improvements.

Hyungseok cleared his throat, looking more flushed than ever. “But why? Why would you do-” he waved his arms around, “-everything you’ve done, for people you don’t even know? Some people don’t even like you. Do you still think people like my boss who call you Spider-Menace and mean it deserve to be saved?”

Of course, Jaeyeol responded instantly. With great power comes great responsibility, right? Jihan had said that once - it was a phrase Jichang had told him time and time again, and Jaeyeol had heard the same wise words from Jichang too. When Jichang had said it, it was under the context of law enforcement, but Jaeyeol thought it went further than that. All power carried responsibility. It didn’t matter where that power came from, all that mattered was how it was used. If I have the power to help people, especially people I care about, I should use it. Wouldn’t you?

Hyungseok coughed delicately. “You’re right, of course. This question is just personal curiot, but, um, what if you looked like a monster and people would fear you more than like you?”

Jaeyeol had slicked his bangs back just in case Hyungseok would ask about any spider-like physical features. Nobody could blame Jaeyeol for wanting to know whether Hyungseok would find his extra eyes abhorrent. He rolled his mask down just a little.

Hyungseok blinked at him. Jaeyeol's eight eyes blinked back. Hyungseok blinked again, rapidly, like he was trying to tell whether he was dreaming or not. “Are those…”

Real, Jaeyeol confirmed. Sorry I didn't warn you first, I know they're ugly.

Hyungseok shook his head, reaching over the table to roll Jaeyeol's mask up. His fingertips were soft against Jaeyeol's skin. “Other people will probably think they're gross, but I think they're cool.” Jaeyeol breathed a silent sigh of relief. “How do you hide them?”

Secret, Jaeyeol signed. He playfully touched his finger against his lips. Don't tell.

Hyungseok's lips twitched like he was trying not to smile. “Alright then. Keep your secrets, Spiderman.”

As Hyungseok asked more questions, and Jaeyeol responded whenever he could, and signed secret when he couldn't, it felt a little bit like they were flirting.

But Hyungseok wouldn't even flirt with Jaeyeol, not that Jaeyeol had noticed, so why would he flirt with Spiderman, who was just Jaeyeol with a mask on?

Jaeyeol was halfway through his crisis when Hyungseok's phone rang and made both of them jump. “Yah, Park Hyungseok,” shrieked a panicked female voice over the phone without preamble, “where are you? I've messaged you like five thousand times!”

“I'm in an interview, ” grumbled Hyungseok, “what's the matter?”

“There's some kind of terrorist in the lobby!”

“Oh my god, why didn't you start with that? Where are you? Are you safe?”

“I'm safe, but-”

Hyungseok hung up decisively. His eyes were blazing. “Well, let's get going, Spiderman. You have a terrorist to deal with, and I have pictures to take.”

It's too dangerous for you, what if-

Hyungseok raised a challenging eyebrow, as if to say he would be safe as long as Spiderman was there, and Jaeyeol's protests died in his hands. There really was no way around this. Hyungseok was always determined when he had a scoop, and Jaeyeol would rather die before letting Hyungseok get hurt. So the safest place for Hyungseok really would be by Spiderman's side.

Jaeyeol flung the largest window open, crawling out and standing on the wall before beckoning Hyungseok over. “Okay,” murmured Hyungseok, his camera clutched tightly in his hands,  “oh shit. Okay.”

Jaeyeol helped Hyungseok crawl out, holding Hyungseok tight before making his descent, walking down the building like it was the most natural thing in the world. Hyungseok hadn't screamed or fainted or complained of motion sickness, bless him. But he had buried his face in the crook of Jaeyeol's neck, breathing deeply through his mouth to keep himself calm.

Jaeyeol, still carrying Hyungseok, let him down once they reached the ground, and Hyungseok barely even stumbled. “Good luck, hero.”

Jaeyeol saluted him.

The so-called terrorist wasn't hard to fight. Jaeyeol didn't think he had a motive. He held a gun and kept shooting, but he was basically useless once Jaeyeol shot a web at it and tugged the gun out of his hands with a burst of strength. Jaeyeol, knowing he was being filmed and photographed by Hyungseok and the hoard of reporters hiding behind tables and pillars and receptionist desks, finished things off with a bit more dramatic flair than he was used to, dropping down to the floor in his signature landing crouch once he’d tied up the villain in threads of spider silk.

Jaeyeol heard the flash of Hyungseok’s camera, capturing him perfectly, before the rest of the reporters started rushing towards him.

“Spiderman, are you free for an interview?”

“Spiderman, you came just in time! You saved us all!” 

“Spiderman, you’re so sexy!”

Wait, what?

With the help of his trusty web, Jaeyeol flung himself up onto the ceiling, staring down at the swarm of reporters with wide eyes. It reminded him of the time he’d gotten chased by a swarm of bees, but instead of buzzing, these bees shouted “Spiderman, Spiderman, Spiderman!”

It was terrifying.

“Excuse me,” he heard Hyungseok shout over the din, “I was having an interview with him! We weren’t finished!”

Jaeyeol dangled down, upside down, as low as he could without being grabbed by the reporters attempting to mob him like he was an idol. He reached down, Hyungseok reached up. 

Jaeyeol grabbed Hyungseok and bolted, still upside down.

After the interview, Jaeyeol - as Jaeyeol, not Spiderman, Spiderman had already received a very polite message thanking him for the interview - got a message from Hyungseok.

Holy shit, it read, Spiderman is crazy 🤣 But he’s also funny and sweet.

I’m glad you had a good interview, Jaeyeol replied.

Hyungseok’s next response brought Jaeyeol’s alter-ego induced jealousy back at full force. 

Help me, I think I have a crush on him.

Chapter Text

After Jaeyeol had successfully processed Hyungseok’s ‘confession’, he was shocked to find his dynamic with Hyungseok changed remarkably little. 

Jaeyeol kept saving the city, carefully hiding his hero identity from Hyungseok as Jaeyeol, and carefully hiding his civilian identity as Spiderman. Hyungseok kept looking at Spiderman with 'goofy ass heart eyes', according to Jihan. Jaeyeol wouldn't know about that - Hyungseok seemed to look at Spiderman the same way he looked at Jaeyeol. As a friend, he meant, but maybe Hyungseok looked a little more flushed in front of Spiderman. Jaeyeol and Hyungseok stayed close friends, nothing more, but also thankfully nothing less. Just because Hyungseok had a crush on Spiderman didn't mean he'd abandon Jaeyeol, and Jaeyeol was glad for that. He'd heard the horror stories of friendships being torn apart by romantic relationships, and it would be horrific if that happened to them. It would be especially terrible for them.

"I don't get why you can't just tell him," Jaehye complained the next night. She was lying on Jaeyeol's couch with her legs propped up on one arm of the sofa, and Jaeyeol was sitting on the floor, repeatedly thumping his head against the foot of the couch.  White noise and the occasional “one-one-two, what's your emergency?” played from Jaeyeol's Spiderman phone,  Bluetooth-linked to the still-unnoticed hearing device Jihan planted. “If you trust him and love him as much as you say, what’s stopping you? You told me and you see me way less than you see him. It's like you guys are actually joined at the hip sometimes.”

Well, that was different. Jaehye was his little sister and she knew too much, even before Jaeyeol said anything. Even if Jaeyeol had denied being Spiderman, she would've poked him into showing his true colors within three seconds. Hyungseok, on the other hand… Hyungseok was just different. There were too many reasons why Jaeyeol couldn’t tell him. What if Hyungseok hated Jaeyeol for hiding it, what if Hyungseok started hating Spiderman because he hadn't started with truly altruistic motives, what if someone realized Jaeyeol was so far gone for Hyungseok and decided to abuse that knowledge and hurt Hyungseok one way or another, knowing Jaeyeol would do anything to keep Hyungseok safe, even demote himself from Neighborhood Friendly Spiderman to Spider-Menace to Public Enemy Number One, hated by all…

Jaehye kicked the back of his head with her bare foot, making Jaeyeol yelp. “If you’re going to say you’re scared of Hyungseok-oppa getting hurt because he knows you’re Spiderman, does that mean you don’t care about me, huh? Oppa? What are you gonna say?”

Jaeyeol raised his hands in surrender. He didn’t care about Jaehye any less than he cared about Hyungseok. It was just easier to keep an eye on Jaehye and protect her. Even if Jaeyeol wasn’t there, she had their father and Kitae, and even Jihan, if things came to that. But if Hyungseok was in mortal danger, there really was nobody who could save him except Jaeyeol.

Jaehye rolled her eyes, kicking him again just for the hell of it. “But you will tell him, right? You're not just going to leave things until he actually confronts you?”

I'll tell him, Jaeyeol signed. At some point in time.

Jaehye wasn't quite satisfied, but it was the best answer she'd get out of her brother for now.

Both of them jumped when the Spiderman phone - maybe Jaeyeol should start calling it the Spiderphone, like Batman and his Batmobile - started ringing at top volume, its new Jaehye-set ringtone a voice obnoxiously singing the Spiderman song.

Jaeyeol and Jaehye looked at each other nervously. Jihan never called the Spiderphone - by now, they knew each other well enough as civilians, although Hyungseok was suspicious of their budding friendship and Jichang still didn't realize Spiderman came from a family rich enough to get Jihan the new and technologically advanced hearing aids he had now, and if he needed help, he'd send a voice message to Jaehye, shouting loud enough for the whole apartment block to hear. Jichang never called Spiderman either. He only ever texted.

If it wasn't Jaeyeol or Jaehye, and it wasn't Jihan, and probably not Jichang either, and there was only one other person who knew and used this number, that meant it was-

Jaeyeol scrambled to his feet, lunging to the phone.

His worst instincts were right. Hyungseok's name flashed across the screen, and Jaeyeol picked up immediately, putting it on speaker for Jaehye to hear. 

“Oh my god,” Hyungseok whispered, “Spiderman! I can’t believe you actually picked up! Anyway, you don’t have to say anything to me right now. I don’t know if you accept urgent calls for help and I don’t know if you’re busy right now but if you could it would be great if you went, like, two streets away from the HNH Company building? It’s kind of a long story, but, uh, I’m kind of being chased right now? They have cars and guns and motorcycles and all I’ve got is my phone and my camera, and look, I didn’t break the law, I swear- oh fuck!” 

There was a sharp gasp from Hyungseok’s side, followed by unintelligible shouting and the sound of gunshots.

“Oh my god,” Hyungseok squeaked hysterically, “I think I’m actually going to die this time. Please come. I’ll owe you, like. I don’t know. I don’t know what I can give you that you don’t have but I’ll owe you.”

There was no need for debts or thank-yous between them. Jaeyeol had already finished squeezing into his Spiderman suit by the time Hyungseok had hung up in a panic, and thrown himself out the open window, relying on ‘❤️ Pitapat ❤️ Locate Lover’ to give Jaehye Hyungseok’s coordinates, and relying on Jaehye’s directions to get Jaeyeol there as quickly as possible.

The CEO of HNH Company, Choi Dongsoo, was Hong Kyeongyeong’s self-proclaimed enemy. In reality, they were business rivals. H Group was a pharmaceutical company. HNH Company worked on biotechnology. Jaeyeol had even thought about doing an internship at HNH Company, but before he even applied, his spider senses and his father (through Kitae) had already warned him against it. Jaeyeol thought it was just because Choi Dongsoo might not like him, being the son of his biggest competition, but if they were chasing after Park Hyungseok, the best person in the world, could things be more sinister than they appeared on the surface?

He shuddered to think about it, running over the top of one building with thundering footsteps and leaping to the next. He had to focus on saving Hyungseok. That was all that mattered. 

He heard the commotion before he saw it. There were shouts, screams, gunshots, and something that sounded like an explosion over the revving of car engines. Jaeyeol swung lower to hunt for Hyungseok’s solitary figure, sticking to the shadows as Jaehye told him repeatedly to avoid killing himself.

Jaeyeol wanted to swear at the sight.

Jaeyeol had expected a few cars, maybe five at the most, and maybe two motorcycles. The gunshots were expected, after all, that’s what Hyungseok said.

Hyungseok did not say HNH Company sent a whole battalion after him.

There were at least twenty cars, thirty roaring motorcycles dispersed between them, and hovering furiously in the sky were what looked like kamikaze drones. Occasionally, they crashed to the ground in an explosion of smoke and flames and burnt tarmac. And at the forefront of it all was Hyungseok, pedaling furiously on a stolen bicycle, something black glimmering on his legs.

“How is he faster than the cars?” Jaehye spluttered.

That’s what Jaeyeol wanted to know too.

Taking a deep breath, Jaeyeol shot a web out towards the building across the street. The drones hadn’t detected him yet, or the web. There was no saying about later, but for now…

“I don’t know what insane stunt you’re going to pull this time, oppa, but now’s your time!” Shouted Jaehye. “Go! Go go go! There’s traffic up ahead! If you don’t divert all the HNH cars, everyone in the traffic will die!”

Jaeyeol could already see it, the blinking lights and honking cars.

He took a deep breath, and swung himself across.

The wind whooshed in his ears as he swung in an arc, his web attached to one wrist, his other holding on until he was close enough to almost hit the ground. He tucked his legs in, scooped a wide-eyed Hyungseok off his bicycle, and swung back up onto the other side, running up the side of the building. He landed on the ceiling with a neat crouch. 

“Holy shit,” rasped Hyungseok once his feet were finally on flat ground. His white shirt was soaked through with sweat, his hair mussed from the wind. Jaeyeol blinked, and the glimmering blackness on his legs disappeared without a trace to reveal denim jeans. “Spiderman, you actually came.”

Jaeyeol nodded. Several attack drones soared towards them, their lights blinking a menacing red like they were hunters with a target and Hyungseok was their helpless prey. Jaeyeol quickly webbed them out of the sky, tying a group of them together, and hurled them into the night sky. He pushed Hyungseok down as the drones exploded magnificently in a burst of red and orange light and almost revealed their hiding place. 

Let's go, he signed.

“Where?”

Gonna steal a motorcycle. And then go to a friend's house.

“Spiderman, you can ride a motorcycle?!” Hyungseok spluttered weakly.

“Oh no,” groaned Jaehye over the phone, “you're taking him here? Ugh, I guess I’ll entertain him for you while you’re changing later. But you owe me the latest Prada purse.”

There was no other choice. It was to take Hyungseok to Jaeyeol's penthouse, where he would be safe and Jaeyeol just had to pretend he didn't live a double life, or leave Hyungseok to the mercy of the streets and Jaeyeol would stress about him nonstop.

Jaeyeol shuddered at the thought as he peered over the side of the building, Hyungseok hovering anxiously. The cars and motorcycles had split to search for them, and Jaeyeol cheered internally when he realized one motorcyclist had veered away from the rest, driving into the dark alleyway below. Once the coast was clear, Jaeyeol scooped up a yelping Hyungseok in one arm and lowered himself down with the other, like a little spider dangling down a building. He hit the ground silently, motioning for Hyungseok to keep quiet as he webbed up a crooked pipe equally silently.

The motorcyclist didn’t see it coming.

To be fair, who would? Nobody knew about Hong Jaeyeol’s history in martial arts. Nobody would expect Spiderman to pick up a pipe and bash a man with a helmet unconscious with a single well-placed strike.

Hyungseok definitely didn’t see it coming. He stared at Jaeyeol, his mouth opening and closing rapidly. Jaeyeol slipped onto the motorcycle with ease and patted the space in front of him. They had no safety helmets, but Jaeyeol trusted his skills and his instincts.

“Okay, how do I-”

Jaeyeol lifted Hyungseok up, and Hyungseok stared at him with wide eyes as he found himself straddling the fuel tank. He instinctively reached for Jaeyeol’s shoulders, squeezing. "Oh wow," murmured Hyungseok breathily, his eyes wide and his cheeks red, "you're strong."

Jaeyeol blushed violently under his mask, hearing Jaehye cackle in his ear. Hang on, he signed. Watch my back.

“Huh? You’re going to put a watch on your back? What do you- Oh, watch your- Whoa! Give a guy a warning!”

Hyungseok yelped as Jaeyeol revved the engine and sent the bike roaring to life again. He held onto Jaeyeol’s shoulders for dear life and squeezed hard enough for there to be bruises, screeching as Jaeyeol popped a wheelie and startled a few riders off their motorcycles. Jaeyeol couldn’t stop himself from grinning as the bike purred under his hands, warm and familiar. He’d always loved motorcycles, and he bought himself a stunning black and red Bugati after getting his driving license, but his father had complained enough about it that his butler had ended up confiscating it from him.

Jaehye and Hyungseok didn’t realize they were taking turns shouting instructions at Jaeyeol. “Turn left,” Jaehye would scream, “onehundredfiftyfortythirtymetres TURN LEFT NOW GO GO GO!” and Jaeyeol would web the nearest traffic light with one hand and swerve violently enough to cause car crashes behind him, and Hyungseok would shriek “DRONE ON THE RIGHT!” so Jaeyeol would veer to the left and let the drone crash to the ground. Miraculously, they weren’t hit by any debris. Hyungseok was sitting so close to him, his thighs on top of Jaeyeol’s and their chests plastered against each other. Jaeyeol heard guns firing, and he was more terrified of Hyungseok being hit than himself, but somehow the bullets seemed to disappear, swallowed up by the night. Both of them winced at the sound of a scream and a drone crashing into the motorcyclist behind them.

Eventually, there was only one car tailing them, keeping up with their every vicious swerve. The driver didn’t seem to notice whether the other cars were still driving alongside it, or maybe they had seen the blazing destruction left behind and decided not to care. It was a Jeep with the top window slowly opening, and when Jaeyeol peered in the rearview mirror, he saw a blond man clamber out with a megaphone in one hand and something long in the other. He had glasses and slicked back hair, and when Jaeyeol randomly shot a web in his direction, he dodged deftly.

“Hey,” shouted the man, “Spiderman! I don’t want to fight you! You’re a cool dude! But if you’re not going to surrender Park Hyungseok, I will have to fight you!”

Hyungseok looked terrified. “You’re not going to let him get me, right? I don’t know what he wants from me!”

“Who is that?” Jaehye screeched. “Oh my god, oppa, is he deadass holding a sword? ”

The bespectacled blond menace was holding a sword. Jaeyeol scowled and man-handled Hyungseok until Hyungseok was stretching awkwardly, but had both hands on the handles. Jaeyeol placed his hands on Hyungseok’s. “You want me to hold on tight?”

Jaeyeol nodded. Drive, he signed.

Hyungseok nodded. If he could ride a bicycle and Jaeyeol could step on the gas, this would work just fine. They’d just work like some kind of chimera. Jaeyeol twisted around, flipping the bespectacled man the bird.

The bespectacled man urged his driving subordinate to go faster, faster, faster until all Jaeyeol could hear was the screech of tires on tarmac. The man clambered onto the front of the Jeep, crouching. He’d abandoned his megaphone, and began to slowly pull his sword out of its scabbard.

But Jaeyeol was faster. He snatched the scabbard away with his web, and instantly flung it back in the same breath like it was a javelin. The bespectacled man ducked, cursing, but the driver wasn’t so lucky. The scabbard pierced through the windshield glass, and the car swerved out of control as the driver screamed, the scabbard embedded in his shoulder.

The bespectacled man cursed again as he was flung off the vehicle with a crunch of bones on gravel, and Jaeyeol turned his eyes back onto the road, driving into the first alleyway that was out of the man’s sight. From there, he scooped a shaking Hyungseok into his arms, and swung his way back to the penthouse.

Hyungseok was sweaty and wild-eyed by the time Jaeyeol placed him down on the couch, but there was a look of fierce exhilaration in his eyes that made Jaeyeol wonder whether he should buy Hyungseok year passes for Notte World and invited him to play all the scariest rides with Jaeyeol. “Spiderman, you’re crazy .” 

Jaeyeol cracked a smile under his mask. He was crazy for Hyungseok, in all definitions of the phrase.

Hyungseok looked around, the look of wonder in his eyes turning into a sharp realization. “This is my friend’s penthouse. How do you know-”

J is a neutral friend, Jaeyeol signed. He’ll be here soon. I will go and make sure we’re safe.

He didn’t give Hyungseok time to protest before swinging out the window. He made a discreet loop around the block, scouting for blond, bespectacled menaces or HNH Company-made battle drones, and coming back through his own bedroom window.

He stumbled into the living room as Hong Jaeyeol, ready to fret over Hyungseok. Jaehye had wrapped him in Jaeyeol’s fluffiest blanket and given him a cup of hot chocolate, and Hyungseok was staring into the steam rising from his cup.

Hyungseok startled and almost spilled hot chocolate all over himself when Jaeyeol appeared. “Jaeyeol-ah, I didn’t know you were friends with Spiderman.”

Jaeyeol shrugged, lifting a finger to his lips. It’s a secret, he signed. Don’t tell.

Hyungseok cocked his head like he’d seen something familiar, but couldn’t place his finger on where.

Jaeyeol started patting Hyungseok’s cheeks, arms and shoulders to distract him, making sure Hyungseok wasn't injured anywhere. With how many bullets the goons from HNH Company had fired at them, Jaeyeol was sure either one of them should've been shot by now. But he hadn't been injured, and Hyungseok didn't have blood on him either.

“I’m okay,” Hyungseok murmured. Jaeyeol settled on the couch next to him and wondered if it'd be too much to put his arm around Hyungseok's shoulders. “Kind of. Just… freaked out, I guess. I’d probably be dead if not for Spiderman.”

God. Jaeyeol was going to hunt down the bespectacled blond bastard and beat him until he spilled whoever had asked him to catch Hyungseok dead or alive like he was some criminal. And Spiderman - or Hong Jaeyeol, or both at the same time - would go after them with a vengeance.

Jaeyeol took a deep breath to calm himself down, his nails scratching against the couch as he clenched his fists. The boiling rage inside him lowered to a quiet, homicidal simmer. What happened? You said- I heard some things from Spiderman when he left, but I'd like to hear the full story from you.

Hyungseok shivered, placing his hot chocolate down on the mini table to curl his knees up to his chest. “Boss sent me to the HNH Company headquarters earlier. I went alone - he just wanted me to spy on them, to see if they're really developing this biological weapon disguised as some kind of physical healing thing, like H Group and their spider. So I went, I snooped around and asked some questions, when one of the researchers let me into the lab ‘cause she thought I was cute, I took some photos as well. And then I got cornered by the boss. You know, Choi Dongsoo? Soojung from Business Administration’s dad? He walked up to me and told me I shouldn't be there, and I asked him if he really was developing anything new because it was a better time than any, and he…”

Hyungseok shuddered so violently he lost his balance and went slumping against Jaeyeol. Jaeyeol quickly adjusted his posture, shamelessly wrapping one arm around Hyungseok. He was trembling like a leaf under the blanket. “He showed me some of his older products, and I was way out of my depth, you know? Biotech is your thing. I was thinking you should’ve been there. He’d be lucky to have you.” 

They both flushed in the following silence. Hyungseok cleared his throat delicately before continuing. “He showed me a scanner. He didn’t tell me how that one worked, but he scanned me before I could ask him to stop, and he said I had some kind of rare disease?”

Jaeyeol gasped, horrified. His heart was hammering in his throat. Hyungseok had a rare disease? Would he die? Was there anything Jaeyeol could do to help him?

“I don’t know,” Hyungseok whimpered, “he said he could help me, and then two of his researchers grabbed me and tried to put me in a straightjacket like some kind of whackjob to be studied under a microscope, so I backed off and told him I would deal with it by myself, but he insisted that I had to stay, because I had something of theirs, and I had no idea what they were talking about, and then- and then-”

Hyungseok’s voice grew louder and louder with his fear, Jaeyeol and Jaehye eyeing each other worriedly across the mini table as Hyungseok took rapid gasps between his sentences. “I tried to leave, but then the security guards stopped me, like, they actually used weapons, but I ran away because I was so scared, and nobody else was there to help me! When he came, the blond guy, head of the security team, I think, but he kind of looks like a gangster, I don’t know why, he asked if Choi Dongsoo wanted me dead or alive, which really freaked me out, but then Choi Dongsoo said they couldn’t kill me but they could use whatever means necessary to capture me, and I escaped the building right before they locked it down, and…”

He sighed. “I called Spiderman, and the rest is history.”

They won’t hurt you, Jaeyeol promised, not with me here . You are safe with me.

“I know,” Hyungseok muttered. He cracked a smile, his eyes weary but his expression soft. “I’ll always be safe with you.”

That was true, and would continue to be true as long as Jaeyeol and Hyungseok stayed together. I can take you to a doctor tomorrow to check your mystery disease, he signed. Baek Hangyeol. He works in a private clinic and he’s one of my brother’s old friends, and he still owes my brother a favor that my brother hasn’t done anything about, so I can get that favor transferred to me and owe my brother a favor instead. He won’t tell anyone we were there. If you trust me, you can trust him too.

Jaeyeol didn’t mention the crush he had on Baek Hangyeol when he was a middle schooler, and Kitae and Baek Hangyeol were in high school. Baek Hangyeol was kind, confident and passionate, with a warm smile and determination to do good. He was a little bit similar to Hyungseok, in that sense, and all the boys Jaeyeol had liked before, but Hyungseok was more handsome, and he actually paid attention to Jaeyeol and befriended him, unlike Hangyeol. Hangyeol just thought Jaeyeol was Kitae’s mute brother who was always peeking at him shyly when Jaeyeol thought Hangyeol wasn’t looking.

“But- The fees-”

They’ll be on me, Jaeyeol reassured him firmly. You should stay the night too. The guest room is pretty much exactly how you left it. I’ll book an appointment with Dr Baek, and you can catch some rest. You know where everything is, and you know where I am, if you need me.

“Thank you,” murmured Hyungseok softly, “but I can’t- I can’t accept all this, I’ll just be in your way, I don’t want to bother you-”

You won’t, Jaeyeol promised. Time and time again, Jaeyeol had tried to make it obvious that he’d do anything for Hyungseok. What wouldn’t Jaeyeol do to help him? Why couldn’t Hyungseok see it? You won’t bother me at all.

Hyungseok still looked unconvinced, but Jaeyeol beat him to it. Please. Let me help.

Hyungseok groaned, pretending to bury his head in his hands. There was a smile already starting to stretch across his lips. “Jaeyeol-ah, don’t look at me like that, god. How can I say no when you look at me so earnestly?”

Jaeyeol only had one answer. You don’t.

Hyungseok laughed and flicked his forehead, barely avoiding one of Jaeyeol's miniature eyes. Maybe he returned Jaeyeol's feelings, maybe he didn't, and for the first time, Jaeyeol found he couldn't care less about that. All that mattered right now was that when the world was seemingly standing against Hyungseok, he was happy to let Jaeyeol stand by his side.

Chapter Text

Knowing that Hyungseok could've had some rare disease made Jaeyeol wonder how and why he hadn't questioned why Hyungseok had been acting strangely, lately.

He'd been eating enough to feed Vasco and his entire Burn Knuckles basketball club, devouring at least five times the amount he usually ate, at twice the speed too. Jaeyeol had chalked it up to stress, since Hyungseok had told him about his tragic relationship with food as a child - being bullied for being fat, then stress-eating to cope, and only becoming fatter as a consequence. Yet somehow, Hyungseok wasn't gaining any weight right now. He even looked a little thinner, which made Jaeyeol think Hyungseok could've had a tapeworm, but he desperately hoped that wasn't true.

Hyungseok had also been looking pale and worried lately, hints of stubble on his normally clean-shaven face. He looked like he wasn't taking care of himself. But the journalism finals started much earlier than the biotech ones, and Hyungseok was still struggling through touch-ups for his 'hero' photo-story competition. Jaeyeol swore he'd caught a glimpse of Spiderman on Hyungseok's laptop the other day, painstakingly and lovingly edited to look like some kind of avenging angel figure that Jaeyeol thought he probably wasn't, but Hyungseok had panicked and closed the application down just as Jaeyeol started to ask.

Jaeyeol was, quite frankly, very, very worried. Hyungseok was eating so much, eating so differently from what he usually did too, but he didn't seem to gain any weight, only got thinner... 

No, no, Jaeyeol wasn't going to jump to worst case scenarios. Tapeworm was terrible. And pregnancy was impossible.

But sometimes, it did seem like Hyungseok was possessed.

Jaeyeol was sure Hyungseok talked to himself every now and then when Hyungseok thought he wasn't listening, but it felt more like he was having a conversation with someone Jaeyeol couldn't see or hear.  Jaehye heard him arguing with himself in the shower too, debating about the nutritional value of a human liver, of all things. Jaeyeol was sure somebody else - a pitch black, slimy, superhumanly strong and inhumanly hungry somebody that called itself Gun - had once tried incredibly hard to convince him that human liver was very tasty, the only better thing being pancreas, so Spiderman should try to find a human liver for Gun to eat. Jaeyeol had spluttered and laughed, because where was he going to get a liver from? The black market organ sellers? Gun had just leered at him and licked him again, telling Jaeyeol he looked and smelled like a delicious snack Gun couldn't eat.

Hyungseok had also said Jaeyeol smelled nice, once, and then said, seemingly to himself, "no, not like a snack, shut up." But surely Hyungseok and Gun weren't connected, right? The only thing they had in common was sudden bursts of extreme hunger. Jaeyeol was sure Hyungseok wouldn't bite the head off a live fish and chomp on it with smacking lips like Gun would. He wouldn't even look at the head of a dead one. Hyungseok hated it when he had to eat steamed fish and he could still see its eyeballs staring at him.

Later that night, Jaeyeol crawled out of bed to fetch a glass of water, and came face to face with Hyungseok. Hyungseok was standing in the darkness, looking a little taller and broader than Jaeyeol remembered. His eyes gleamed white like some kind of cryptid of the night. Jaeyeol switched the light on with his half-asleep hands, illuminating the chocolate wrappers scattered around him, and the chocolate smeared around the edges of Hyungseok's lips.

Jaeyeol stared at him with wide eyes. He'd bought that chocolate yesterday. For himself. Those were his favorites! Hyungseok didn't even like chocolates without the peanuts!

Hyungseok licked his lips nervously, and Jaeyeol's spider senses rang faintly at the edges of his consciousness. Jaeyeol almost didn't realize it had gone off. When he spoke, it sounded like two voices were speaking at the same time - one was Hyungseok's, panic making his voice higher pitched, and the other was low and rumbling and sounded faintly guilty.

"It's not what it looks like."

Jaeyeol wasn't awake enough to see this, mentally register it, and think of the consequences. He switched the lights off, turned around, and left. He crawled back into bed, his thirstiness forgotten.

He would've forgotten about the entire Cryptid Hyungseok encounter completely if he hadn't woken Hyungseok up in the morning and realized Hyungseok still smelled like chocolate.

Hyungseok groaned when he sat up, swaying slightly. “Oh god, I feel so hungover. Did I do anything weird last night?”

No, Jaeyeol lied. But if you're feeling well, we can go to Baek Hangyeol’s clinic in a bit. 

“Yeah, okay, okay, okay. Let me just-” He swung his legs off the bed, and Jaeyeol was glad he had already been prepared to catch Hyungseok when he almost lost his balance. Jaeyeol hovered anxiously around Hyungseok as Hyungseok stumbled through his morning routine. 

Hyungseok was distracted as Jaeyeol drove him to the clinic where Baek Hangyeol worked. He looked distracted as Baek Hangyeol explained the examination procedure to him, seemingly clueless to the doctor's charming demeanor. Jaeyeol was glad looking at Baek Hangyeol brought him no lingering emotions, only a rush of sharp relief when Baek Hangyeol smiled and assured him Hyungseok would be fine and Jaeyeol didn't have to worry.

Baek Hangyeol asked Hyungseok to lift his shirt up to check his heartbeat, noting that it was rather erratic, and unusually quick at times. He asked if Hyungseok had been sick lately, which Hyungseok said no to after a brief and suspicious moment of hesitation. He kept asking about Hyungseok’s current condition under the guise of small talk, asking about how he was doing at school, how fascinating, he was doing an internship at Paprika News, things like that. Jaeyeol started to relax as they talked about food, and Hyungseok’s odd cravings for offal. Even the mention of it made his stomach rumble, and when Baek Hangyeol listened to the sound of it with his stethoscope, he frowned. 

Jaeyeol’s worry came back once more. What’s wrong? He signed.

Don’t know , Hyungseok signed back.

“We’ll need to get you checked out in an MRI before we can let you go,” Baek Hangyeol told Hyungseok, “I have a suspicion, but I won’t know until the scan comes out.”

Hyungseok nodded weakly, not knowing what else to do. He shot Jaeyeol a helpless look, and Jaeyeol could only shrug, equally helpless. He shoved his hands in his pockets so nobody would see how badly they were shaking. Baek Hangyeol led them to another room.

“The MRI is non-invasive,” Baek Hangyeol explained as a nurse helped Hyungseok clamber onto the scanner, “it feels a little claustrophobic, so I guarantee the worst he’ll experience is a bit of discomfort.” He smiled at Jaeyeol knowingly. “I know you care a lot about him, Jaeyeol-ah, so don’t worry. He’ll be fine. I just have to make sure if it’s a tapeworm infection or not.”

Jaeyeol nodded, anxiously looking through the glass as the nurse backed out of the scanning room and closed the door behind her. Hyungseok disappeared into the mouth of the machine until all Jaeyeol could see was the bottoms of his legs and his feet.

“Park Hyungseok,” Baek Hangyeol spoke into the microphone, “this is Dr Baek. Can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” said Hyungseok. His voice was tinny through the speakers, wavering with fear. Hyungseok wished he could hold Hyungseok’s hand through it, he’d do anything to keep him calm. 

“Good, good. Are you comfortable?”

“Good enough.” Hyungseok’s voice was barely louder than a whisper.

“Alright, once your heartbeat calms down a little, we’ll begin the scan. It might feel a little strange, but please stay as still as possible.”

“Okay, Doctor.”

It’ll be okay, Jaeyeol wanted to say, don’t worry.

The scan began. 

It started with a low hum that gradually turned into a high pitched whirring, and Jaeyeol watched in horror as Hyungseok began to flinch and writhe. His legs kicked out frantically, his heels slamming against the mattress with every spasm of his body. Jaeyeol swore he saw a flash of black creeping up and down Hyungseok’s shin, black veins pumping under his tan skin until Hyungseok bucked his hips wildly and Jaeyeol lost track of it. 

Baek Hangyeol and the nurse didn’t seem to notice, both of them absorbed in trying to regulate the scanner, but Jaeyeol did. He flattened his palms against the glass as something black and silvery and gooey expanded over Hyungseok’s legs until they looked less like Hyungseok’s legs and more like Gun’s, but nobody was there to understand Jaeyeol’s frantic hand motions to get that thing, whatever it was. 

Hyungseok spasmed again, groaning and panting into the speaker, and it was gone before Jaeyeol could grab the nurse and point to it. Baek Hangyeol cleared his throat, tapping the microphone. “Park Hyungseok, Hyungseok, are you alright? Can you hear me?”

Jaeyeol didn’t need the speaker to hear Hyungseok’s response.

Hyungseok was screaming now, anguished and pained. It sounded like he was being tortured, like he was being set on fire. He screamed until his voice was hoarse and Jaeyeol was shaking and begging Baek Hangyeol to switch the thing off, stop it right now .

Baek Hangyeol stopped the machine with shaking hands, and the high whirring lowered into humming before fading into the silence. Jaeyeol ignored the nurse’s protests as he charged in, throwing himself by Hyungseok’s side. Hyungseok was shaking, his breathing harsh and loud, his cheeks even paler than before. He and Jaeyeol latched onto each other like their lives depended on it.

Sunbae, Jaeyeol begged, stopping to stroke away the tension in Hyungseok’s shoulders, tell me what happened, tell me where you are hurt, please.

“I’m okay,” murmured Hyungseok, trembling in Jaeyeol’s arms. “I’m not hurt.”

His eyes were glassy, his weight heavy against Jaeyeol’s side. Jaeyeol murmured softly, unintelligible, and he flinched as Hyungseok’s eyes rolled back in his head and he lost consciousness. 

Jaeyeol whipped out his phone. WHAT DID YOU DO, he wrote on his phone in all capitals, bold and italicized, and shoved it in front of Baek Hangyeol’s face. His hands were shaking.

“I don’t know either,” muttered Baek Hangyeol. He ran his fingers through his hair, looking just as clueless as Jaeyeol and the nurse. “But it doesn’t look like a tapeworm infection.”

Jaeyeol glared at him and hoped Baek Hangyeol could sense the weight of eight angry eyes on him. 

Jaeyeol carried Hyungseok home. He was limp as a doll in Jaeyeol’s arms, and he stayed unconscious for the rest of the weekend. When Monday came, Hyungseok was still pale and sickly, his heartbeat erratic and his skin burning under Jaeyeol’s hands. It felt like a fever, but he had no other cold symptoms, no coughs or runny noses, only rapidly switching between feeling too hot or too cold. Jaeyeol used Hyungseok’s email and Baek Hangyeol’s guiltily written doctor’s note to inform his professors of his absence before doing the same for himself, claiming he had a family emergency and couldn’t come to class.

His tutors knew better than to challenge the son of H Group’s CEO, even if said son had been disowned. Jihan, on the other hand, wasn’t quite so happy to hear Spiderman was taking a few days off and the Prowler would have to make up for it. Jaeyeol promised to treat him to whatever meal he wanted, wherever and whenever he wanted, and for the time being, that was good enough for Jihan.

The results of the MRI scan came in two days later.

They stumbled back to Baek Hangyeol’s clinic, Hyungseok’s arm around Jaeyeol’s shoulders and Jaeyeol supporting most of his weight. Baek Hangyeol had a look on his face like he wanted to throw up, and Jaeyeol swallowed. He had to stay strong, for himself and for Hyungseok.

“I have good news and bad news,” he started, “but I can’t tell you about one without telling you about the other.”

“Just spill,” grumbled Hyungseok. He hoisted himself onto a chair with Jaeyeol’s help. “It can’t get any worse.”

Baek Hangyeol inhaled sharply. “The bad news is - you have a parasite, I’ve never seen anything like it before and I can’t identify it, and it’s causing your heart to atrophy.” Hyungseok and Jaeyeol both flinched. Cardiac atrophy was the combination of cell size reduction and decrease of cell numbers because of cell death. In other words, Hyungseok would be weak for the rest of his life, but he'd be alive. “The good news is - it’s keeping you alive, and in better health than you would be without it.”

Hyungseok was shaking, his lips turned down in a scowl. “He said it would be fine,” Hyungseok muttered under his breath, “he said he wouldn't hurt me.”

Jaeyeol narrowed his eyes. Who was ‘he’ supposed to be?

“Who are you talking about?” Baek Hangyeol asked politely. “Who is ‘he’?”

“Doesn't matter,” Hyungseok grunted distractedly. “The main question is - will I die without the thing?”

“Yes.”

Jaeyeol didn't realize he was holding his breath, but after hearing that, said so matter-of-factly, he felt like he couldn't breathe.

Hyungseok shook his head aggressively, gesturing wildly. “I mean, the right question is - am I dying? Like right now? Can you fix it?”

“Yes, and I don’t know what I can do, I’ve never seen anything like it-”

Baek Hangyeol's answer was cut off when black claws wrapped around his throat and lifted him off the ground. The doctor gagged and struggled, terror in his eyes, as Jaeyeol's gaze tracked the glimmering black muscle all the way back to… 

Hyungseok.

His eyes gleamed dangerously, familiar black sclera and white pupils flashing. Jaeyeol's spider sense rang in his ears at the sight of sinewy black material soaking through Hyungseok's shirt, seeping out of the skin underneath. The hairs on Jaeyeol's arms raised, his fight or flight instincts kinking in. He forced himself to stay instead.

No matter what was happening, this was Hyungseok, and Hyungseok would never hurt Jaeyeol, and Jaeyeol would rather kill himself before hurting Hyungseok.

“Oh my god,” gasped Hyungseok, his eyes wild, “I’m so sorry, I can’t control it-”

“Do not listen to him,” a low and terrifyingly familiar voice rumbled from Hyungseok's mouth. “He does not know what he is talking about. We are strong. We are invincible. He is weak. We could eat him-”

"No!" Hyungseok yelled. "What is wrong with you?"

Of course, of course.

The unexplainable terror Jaeyeol had been feeling around Hyungseok, the black veins and black eyes that Jaeyeol kept seeing on Hyungseok, Hyungseok's sudden bursts of all-consuming hunger, everything made sense now.

Jaeyeol felt faint. Of course, Hyungseok's parasite was none other than Gun. Gun made Hyungseok stronger, faster, superhuman.

And Gun was slowly destroying Hyungseok.

Hyungseok and Gun’s argument devolved into shouting, Gun squeezing tighter as Hyungseok tried to wrench Gun away, and Baek Hangyeol was still choking.

Do it for the common people, Jaeyeol told himself. Do it for Baek Hangyeol, who would die if he couldn't breathe, do it for Hyungseok, who was on the verge of tears. With his heart in his throat, Jaeyeol made his choice.

He slammed the button to start the MRI scanner. 

“No!” Gun roared. “Do not do that-”

Baek Hangyeol fell to the ground like a sack of rocks as Gun retreated into Hyungseok's body. Hyungseok screamed and screamed, stumbling into the MRI room as he spasmed wildly. Gun screamed with him, flashes of black muscle appearing over his skin, layers of jagged teeth flashing over the lower half of his face. Hyungseok didn’t seem to be in control of himself, grabbing himself by the wrist, but punching a dent in the wall anyway. He and Gun were both still shouting at each other as Hyungseok kicked over a rack in his pained rage.

“What is happening ?” Baek Hangyeol gasped. “Jaeyeol, you-”

Jaeyeol tuned him out as something black shot out of Hyungseok's chest and sent Hyungseok hurtling backwards. Jaeyeol barely caught Hyungseok in time, and Hyungseok stumbled away from him as Baek Hangyeol forced the door shut, trapping Gun, which now looked like a splatter of black on the wall, in the room. Hyungseok’s brown eyes were wild, his breaths coming in rapid gasps.

Sunbae, Jaeyeol signed desperately, are you alright? I had to get it out of you-

That black, gooey thing crawled around the floor, creeping up the glass like an oversized ball of snot with the ability to move. Hyungseok ignored Jaeyeol and walked up to it with his fists clenched. He looked like he would collapse at any given moment. The writhing mass of black paused to face him.

" You were killing me ?" Hyungseok snarled at it. "What happened to ‘we’?” Hyungseok shook his head, infuriated like Jaeyeol had never seen him before. Gun stayed silent. “Look at you now," he spat, "now you're dying too. We're done, Gun. We're over."

Hyungseok started storming away, aggressively jiggling the door handle until it opened for him. Jaeyeol grabbed his shoulder, eyes widening when Hyungseok shook him off with unexpected force. Jaeyeol ached with the urge to help, to make Hyungseok feel better, to do something useful, anything. Where are you going?

“Away,” Hyungseok growled, “anywhere but here.”

“Hong Jaeyeol,” the doctor called, “are you going to explain what that thing is?”

Jaeyeol turned around, feeling wretched, hearing the door slam shut as Hyungseok stomped away into the corridor and disappeared. I have to go after him, he wrote to Baek Hangyeol, he needs me.

“Well I need an explanation too,” spluttered Baek Hangyeol, “like what is that thing? It almost killed me!”

Jaeyeol scanned the MRI room. There was the scanner, the dent on the wall, the equipment that had fallen onto the floor when Hyungseok had kicked it, and no writhing mass of mysterious parasitic material called Gun. 

He looked again, making sure he hadn't missed anything in his panic. Yes, everything was there... Except Gun.

“Oh no,” muttered Baek Hangyeol.

Jaeyeol scowled. Hyungseok was missing, Gun was missing, and Jaeyeol’s world would probably crash and burn in a matter of seconds if Jaeyeol couldn’t do anything to fix it. 

‘Oh no’ was definitely one of the biggest understatements of all time.

Chapter Text

Jaeyeol burst out of the MRI room in a fit of panic. He'd explained Gun to Baek Hangyeol in the vaguest way possible, attempting to gaslight the doctor into believing there was absolutely nothing to worry about. Because there was, in fact, nothing he had to worry about. Jaeyeol was the only one who should've been worried about things. He would handle it. And everything would be fine.

He searched every nook and cranny of the clinic, poked his head into every room, got yelled at by an old beggar who was waiting in line for Baek Hangyeol to squeeze the painful pimple on his bottom, to no avail. There was no sign of Hyungseok, and by the distinct lack of triggered spider senses, no sign of Gun either.

He went to school and snuck into Hyungseok's lectures the next day just to check if Hyungseok would be in his classes, but as Hyungseok's tutor called out his name on the register, there was no response. There was no trace of Hyungseok anywhere. Hyungseok's friends hadn't seen nor heard from him either. Jaeyeol asked Jihan and Jaehye to check too, just in case they knew people who knew Hyungseok. Jaehye had so many friends, and Hyungseok also had a lot of friends! Jaeyeol was willing to bet there'd be another overlap in their social circles apart from Jaeyeol.

Oppa, Jaehye texted him, what happened?

Jihan was similarly worried. He hadn't seemed like he wanted to be, but apparently he'd developed some kind of unwilling emotional attachment to Hyungseok after hearing Jaeyeol wax poetic about him nonstop. 

He disappeared, Jaeyeol texted them back, but it’s okay, I think, I’ll find him soon. I have to.

None of them talked about what Jaeyeol would do if he didn't.

He hadn't even graduated, or had a midlife crisis, but Jaeyeol’s world was already going to shit, it seemed. Everything was very clearly not fine, and Jaeyeol didn't know what he could do about it. He'd already tried 'Pitapat'. Hyungseok's phone had seemingly disappeared right off the map, even when Jaeyeol zoomed out to look at the whole world. He could only hope Hyungseok was still in Korea.

Even Beomjae was worried about him. "Hey," he asked when he bumped into Jaeyeol, "what's up? You're biting your nails, you never do that, Hyungseok thinks it's gross." Jaeyeol twitched at Beomjae just saying Hyungseok's name. "Hmm, let me guess…” No, Jaeyeol did not want Beomjae to channel his Mighty Detective Beomjae persona and psychoanalyse him. “I guess you skipped class to find your other half, but he wasn't there?"

Jaeyeol’s answering flinch must’ve given it all away.

They caught sight of Vasco, who was standing across the corridor and waving at Beomjae so enthusiastically he almost knocked someone over. If Hyungseok was Jaeyeol’s ‘other half’, Vasco was Beomjae’s, and the sight of Vasco and Beomjae beaming at each other around the flow of people made Jaeyeol’s fallen spirits drop even lower.

Both of them jumped when someone bumped into Beomjae, almost knocking him over without glancing back or even a muttered apology. “Hey,” Beomjae spluttered, scowling and stumbling, “what the, I recognize that girl, isn’t she in our class?”

The hairs on Jaeyeol’s arms stood up as Beomjae shuddered. He turned around to stare at Jaeyeol, the movement of his head sharp and uncanny. Beomjae’s tattoos seemed to swirl under his skin, inky black swirling over his arms. For the first time in two days, Jaeyeol felt hopefulness rise. Could it be…?

Beomjae’s eyes flashed black.

You, Jaeyeol thought. A million thoughts raced through his mind, but all he could see was Gun .

He didn’t know if he was glad that Gun had finally shown his face, or if he was angry Gun had taken so long to do it. There were a thousand insults dangling on the tip of his tongue, a thousand words he couldn’t say. He kept them inside him, swallowed them whole.

Beomjae’s eyes flashed again, silver and knowing.

Jaeyeol didn’t have time to come up with something appropriate to retort before the wriggling mass of black slime he now knew was Gun leapt from Beomjae’s body to Jaeyeol, seeping through his shirt and wrapping around his waist like a belt. Jaeyeol wasn’t sure what Gun had done to Beomjae, but Gun didn’t seem to be able to sink in and out of his skin like it could with Hyungseok.

Beomjae stumbled, clarity returning to his glazed eyes. “Fuck,” he said, like he didn’t realize he’d just been possessed by a parasite. “Jeez, some people have no manners.”

While Gun had been inside him, it was like Beomjae had been stopped in time.

Jaeyeol walked over to Vasco with him, eagerly handing Beomjae over to his overexcited friend. “Hong Jaeyeol!” Vasco squeezed his shoulder a little too enthusiastically. He did that to all of his friends, and he’d started doing it to Jaeyeol barely a week after Hyungseok introduced them. He seemed awed that Jaeyeol didn’t wince anymore. 

To be fair, it wasn’t that Vasco’s infamous shoulder grip had gotten any weaker, it was just that Jaeyeol himself had gotten stronger. Jaeyeol could punt Jihan like a volleyball if Jihan didn’t hit him with a taser first. He could lift and throw cars, Jichang had been furious when he caught Spiderman benching his beloved minivan while the Prowler goaded him on. With help from his webs, which could be stronger than steel if he wanted it to be, he could even stop trains in their tracks. 

Vasco frowned, looking around. “Where’s Hyungseok? Aren’t you guys supposed to be connected at the hip?”

Jaeyeol shrugged, making up some lie about Hyungseok having a stomach bug. That was close enough, right? Gun squirmed on top of Jaeyeol’s skin, probably offended at being called a bug, good for it, and Jaeyeol very discreetly pinched it. He grit his teeth to stop himself from wincing at the feeling of Gun pinching him right back.

“He will get better soon,” Vasco announced earnestly. “Go find him.”

Beomjae, not for the first time, wondered how Vasco, who didn’t speak sign language, understood Jaeyeol’s non-verbal attempts at conversation.

Jaeyeol nodded, and headed into the closest toilet before locking himself in the first available stall. Time to confront the parasite.

He shoved his fist into his mouth to stop himself from screaming at the slimy sensation of Gun changing its form, meshing through the fabric of Jaeyeol’s shirt to form a familiar head with white slitted eyes, a jagged silver cross over one nose, and thin lips hiding rows of sharp teeth. “Don’t call me ‘parasite’,” rumbled Gun. Its tongue flicked out of its mouth, dripping saliva all over the floor. In the next stall, someone peed, flushed, and walked out, humming. “Stupid little no brain spider.”

Jaeyeol scowled at it. It felt disgusting on his skin, warm and wet and too smooth, like the slime his sister played with when she was younger. And this disgusting thing had almost killed Hyungseok, and now Hyungseok was gone and possibly dying without it.

“Not a thing either,” Gun grumbled angrily, “and not killing Hyungseok. He is a good host. You are an annoying bug.”

What was the best way to kill a parasite? It was sensitive to sound, Jaeyeol knew that now. He could definitely find some high pitched sounds from Newtube. If he set it to the loudest volume, would Gun just vibrate into a million pieces and die? That sounded optimal, at the moment. 

Jaeyeol pulled his phone out of his pocket and got to work, glaring straight at the thing as he searched up ‘Very High Pitch Sound - 10 Hour Version’ on Newtube. If this was a game of endurance, he knew he’d win. He was sensitive to sound, but not so much that he’d die immediately upon hearing it.

“Do not!” Gun roared. Well, Jaeyeol had no reason not to. “Come on, Spider-boy. Do it for Hyungseok. I know where he is.”

Jaeyeol put his phone away with a smug smile. That was the easiest way to get him to concentrate on the real task at hand, after all. Why hadn’t Gun started with that instead?

“Because you will not like it,” complained Gun. “He is in danger. And knowing he is in danger makes you stupid.”

Jaeyeol spluttered. That didn’t make him stupid, just-

“Reckless, foolish, pah. It is the same. You are an idiot for him.”

Okay, fine . Let’s say that was true, Jaeyeol was stupid for Hyungseok in more ways than one and stupid enough for it to probably be a safety concern, and this insufferable parasite- 

“Parasite!? I am Gun! I am not! A! Parasite! Call me a parasite again and I will eat all your organs!”

-knew where Hyungseok really was. If Gun lied, Jaeyeol would actually blast him to death with Newtube clips of death metal screamers. 

“You call me insufferable, but you are the same,” Gun complained. Oh, no. Jaeyeol didn’t want to think of himself as the same as Gun. “But I will tell you because I am nice. He was kidnapped at the annoying doctor’s place.”

What? But Jaeyeol had checked every room and every corridor, he’d turned the clinic inside out looking for Hyungseok! Baek Hangyeol hadn’t seen Hyungseok on the security cameras!

“Annoying Goo shot him with something and Hyungseok collapsed, but there was no blood, or I would have tasted it. They dragged him away into a car. I went into one of those pesky little barking things to chase him but I lost him, and then you disappeared as well.”

Who was Goo meant to be again?

“Annoying Glasses Guy. Kim Joongoo. He fights for my maker, but I don’t like him or my maker. I like Hyungseok. And I like pancreas. And chocolate. Chocolate is gooooood.”

Jaeyeol could imagine it - Kim Joongoo, who was apparently the head of HNH Company’s security team, ambushing Hyungseok at the door of the clinic. Hyungseok would’ve opened the door, blustering and angry, and he probably wouldn’t have hesitated to answer to the blond’s attempts at riling him up, ready for capture. One of Kim Joongoo’s goons must’ve taken Hyungseok by surprise, shooting him point-blank with a tranquiliser, sending him crumpling down to the floor like a doll with its strings cut before dragging his limp, helpless body out the door and towards god-knows-where.

Jaeyeol picked a half-melted Snickers bar out of his bag and shoved it into Gun’s mouth before his fantasies took him too far and Gun got started on an ode to chocolate instead of talking about Hyungseok.

“Feed me more.”

Jaeyeol would, when Gun told him what happened next.

“Dunno what happened to him. But I went to the barking thing’s owner, and then the owner’s little crying pest, and then the pest’s friend pest, then the other pest’s big sister, who is in your class. But you were not in class. So I looked through her memories to find your friends, and jumped onto your friend with the big ears.”

Jaeyeol only understood half of that. It felt a little bit like talking to Vasco, honestly.

So Gun possessed different people until eventually tracking Jaeyeol down. But where was Hyungseok? Surely Kim Joongoo wouldn’t have taken him to HNH Company headquarters? Wouldn’t it have been too obvious?

“We will go and see.”

Wait, we?

“Yes. We. You will let me borrow your body. And you can borrow my strength. And we will save Hyungseok and he will be very happy with you.”

Gun said he wasn’t a parasite, but he definitely was some kind of symbiote. Hyungseok had been stronger with him, faster, but Gun had made his body deteriorate. Who was to say he wouldn’t do that to Jaeyeol?

“You are half spider. It is more difficult for me to go in your body. And you will heal faster.”

Then what about Hyungseok and his atrophied heart?

“Ugh, fine. If you let me borrow your body, I will lend you my strength and fix our Hyungseok. Happy now?”

Yes, that was good enough for now. The only issue was - how was he supposed to merge with Gun?

“You will swallow,” said Gun simply. “Your body will not accept me naturally. So I will make you.”

Oh no, no, that did not sound good. But for Hyungseok, Jaeyeol would do it. A little pain was nothing.

He let Gun form a clawed hand and tip his head back, baring his throat as he looked up onto the ceiling.

“Keep your head up,” ordered Gun, “I'm going in.”

Jaeyeol obediently kept his head tipped up as Gun's amorphous shape slid down his throat. It felt so odd, smooth but solid, and warm with life. He groaned, trying to swallow around the thickness and gagging a little. 

Patience, little spider, Gun’s voice rumbled inside his head.

Jaeyeol shuddered, tears welling up in his eyes. It hurt, his throat full and making him choke.

Now swallow.

Jaeyeol inhaled through his nose, choking down the heavy weight of Gun in his throat. A feverish, overwhelming heat spread through his body as Gun settled into every muscle, every bone, every cell in his body.

Jaeyeol collapsed against the wall with a low groan, gasping for breath and weak-kneed. His heart was racing in his chest. Gun brought a buzzing to his blood, Jaeyeol's spider senses not knowing how to react now that the source of danger was living alongside it. He felt full, another being crammed in alongside himself within his body, yet his stomach felt oddly empty. No wonder Hyungseok had always complained about being hungry enough to eat a human.

Let's go, Gun told him impatiently, I do not like being inside you.

Well, Jaeyeol didn't like it either. But he was doing this for Hyungseok.

You are too dedicated to him. But that is good for our survival. If you mate him, and I know he wants it, your babies will take over the world. And I will have many good hosts to take when you eventually die.

Jaeyeol flushed red with embarrassment, too flustered to even protest about human males being unable to give birth. Even if Jaeyeol and Hyungseok were miraculously able to have children, Jaeyeol would kill Gun before it could hurt them by using them as hosts! Luckily, there was nobody else in the toilet to witness him doing the awkward shuffle of shame to the stall with the closed window so he could change into his Spiderman suit.

His spandex suit felt familiar against his skin, the elastic tight against his shoulders and back and the muscles of his abdomen, looser around his crotch to save him some modesty. What felt less familiar was Gun spreading himself over the spandex, over Jaeyeol's face. When Jaeyeol looked down, the original orange spider web patterns on his suit were now shimmering silver, much tougher than spandex. He made eye contact with himself in the mirror, shuddering at the sight of Gun's head laid over his own.

Jaeyeol opened the stall door to peek around, making sure there really was nobody inside. He realized that might’ve been an unwise choice when he made eye contact with himself in the mirror.

Handsome guy, preened Gun. Looking good.

Jaeyeol thought it looked creepy. Gun’s reflection made a face at him, and under the mass of black, Jaeyeol scowled right back, hoping Gun could sense it.

Alright.

The coast was clear.

Time to go.

Jaeyeol opened the window, crawled out, and took a running leap of faith, taking a detour around the back of the school to avoid all the clueless university students with their heads down, looking at their phones.

Every time he flicked his wrist, spider silk enhanced with symbiote fibers came shooting out.

You are not a pussy, said Gun gleefully as they leapt from building to building, fearlessly flipping through the air. A bit of a loser, but not a pussy. I like it.

Jaeyeol gnashed his teeth. As good as the adrenaline rush and the burst of extra strength felt, he couldn’t wait to get rid of Gun.

But first - he had to save Hyungseok.

Chapter Text

Jaeyeol had to admit, having a parasite-

“I am not a parasite! Bitch! You are such a loser!”

-had its benefits, every now and then. One major perk was that he wasn’t getting lost without Jaehye or his phone. His sense of navigation was perfect - Gun could point out where north, east, south and west were, although Gun didn’t seem to know how it could do that either. His hearing and sense of smell were also leagues better than it normally was. Usually, he could hear the buzzing of nearby insects, even the pit-pat of tiny ant feet on the floor, but it was more like he could sense the vibrations in the air and through the ground, like the world was a spider’s web around him. Usually, he felt more like a spider. 

Now, things were different. They crouched on the roof of a building, the sights and sounds of the city a distant blur underneath them, yet they could smell the blood on the pavement of the little girl who had just tripped over and scraped her knee, could hear how she cried for her mother to pick her up, even though it was just a minor scrape and she could walk perfectly fine. Right now, they were an apex predator, primed to hunt from the shadows of night and the darkening day.

Very faintly, as if from a faraway place, they heard the sound of sobbing. A familiar voice rasped, begging brokenly. “I don’t know where your creature is, I swear.”

They heard a low moan of pain, so quiet they almost missed it. They strained forward towards the sound. They both cared for Hyungseok, cared so much the sound of his pain alone felt like a phantom burning sensation searing through their body and numbing them to everything else. “No,” they heard Hyungseok whimper, “don’t, don’t hurt them, don’t hurt him, don’t touch him, don’t you dare , Jaeyeol doesn’t know anything, I swear-”

The sound of Jaeyeol’s name falling from Hyungseok’s lips made their consciousness separate for a brief moment as an incandescent homicidal rage flooded through Jaeyeol’s veins, like a raging fire that burned him from the inside out. He’d been worried about Hyungseok this entire time, wondering whether knowing Hyungseok would put him in danger, and now Choi Dongsoo had proved all of Jaeyeol’s worries to be true.

Jaeyeol’s focus narrowed down to a single point - the HNH Company building, where Hyungseok was trapped somewhere, sobbing and in pain.

Jaeyeol snarled under his breath, a low growl rumbling in his throat. For the first time, he, his spider senses, and Gun were unequivocally on the same side. There was only one thought running through their collective mind: they had to save Hyungseok, and fast .

“Yes,” Gun hissed menacingly, “we are so angry. He is ours to protect. Ours to savor. We will not rest until he is ours again.”

They were going to rescue Hyungseok, and they were going to hold him close, so close they were one being, too close for anyone else to even try and take him away. They were going to keep him so close they could taste the fragrance of his skin, smell the blood pulsing in his veins. 

They would rip apart anyone who tried to stop them. They were going to rend their enemies limb from limb, tear the bones from their tender flesh, rip their little heads from their floppy necks with their sharp teeth, savor their prey’s last moments of all-consuming fear alongside the delicious crunch of bone. 

And when they were done, they were going to do with Hyungseok that thing the humans in Hyungseok’s favorite little ‘K-dramas’ did, the thing where they put their mouths together and tried to eat each other because that was how mutual adoration worked…

Hold on. Jaeyeol didn't really want to eat heads, especially not human heads. He didn't particularly want to eat Hyungseok either, even if he liked the thought of holding Hyungseok close, keeping him safe from anyone who wanted to hurt him. A part of him did want to keep Hyungseok close enough to taste but Jaeyeol wasn't sure if he wanted to smell the blood flowing in his veins. 

Damn. Almost had you.

Ah. So those were Gun's thoughts running alongside his own. Just now, they hadn't been Jaeyeol and Gun, two separate beings, but one synchronized hybrid organism, a spider-like human merged with a powerful parasite.

Gun bristled in response, its spite about being called a parasite rushing through Jaeyeol's body, but there was also nothing it could do. It couldn't eject itself from Jaeyeol's body. It would die without a decent host.

Jaeyeol would've felt smug, if he hadn't felt Gun surging up his skeleton and disappearing into his brain, snooping through his memories.

Gun projected an image - no, a fantasy, a memory of a dream Jaeyeol once had, late at night and alone in his bed - to the forefront of Jaeyeol's mind. 

Jaeyeol couldn't stop the flush rising to his cheeks at the imagined sight of him and Hyungseok curled together. It was so real, so vivid, their lips melding against each other. Jaeyeol couldn’t stop himself from gasping at the same time as his fantasy self when Hyungseok grabbed him by the hips to pull him close, slotting his knee between Jaeyeol’s thighs. The two of them were pressed flush against each other, Hyungseok’s denim jeans sliding over Spiderman’s spandex suit, the two of them pressed flush against each other and holding on tight like they’d die if they were apart.

If this was what Gun had meant by devouring Hyungseok, Jaeyeol was all for it. If Hyungseok was fine with it, that was, however slim the chance was. 

It’s not your dream memory, announced Gun gleefully, it’s his .

His? Like, Hyungseok’s? As in Hyungseok, Park Hyungseok, the man Jaeyeol had been head-over-heels in love with since he was eighteen, had fantasized about kissing Jaeyeol this intensely, while Jaeyeol was wearing his Spiderman suit, and Gun had somehow snuck that memory into Jaeyeol’s head? Did Hyungseok even know Jaeyeol was Spiderman, or was he just hoping? Jaeyeol knew he had never dreamt about being with Hyungseok as Spiderman. Mainly because he thought Hyungseok wouldn’t like Jaeyeol being Spiderman.

Jaeyeol shook his head before his head could explode from all the implications. Gun laughed, low and delighted. Foreign, irritating smugness rolled down Jaeyeol’s spine in waves. He launched himself off the edge of the building and swung towards the HNH Company headquarters. This was no time for distraction. But it was okay to use the fantasy of kissing Hyungseok as a treat for himself.

He swung himself over to the building closest to the HNH Company, keeping out of sight from the crowd. Even the birds took a wide arc around him and his hulking black and silver form when he almost vaulted a little too far and landed with a heavier thump than he was used to. Nobody could see him from here - he was a pitch-black shadow in the fading light of the early sunset, a blip on the edge of a building. He crept forward, trying to be as sneaky as he usually was as Spiderman, and accidentally made the metal frame of the building creak. 

He could see and hear some of the HNH Company employees leaving, marking the end of the long work day. But some had to stay later, if he remembered correctly. People like Choi Soojung, daughter of Choi Dongsoo and heir to HNH Company, who was going to have a business meeting with Jaeyeol’s older brother Kitae in around half an hour.

Theoretically, it could be so incredibly easy to get into the HNH Company building. Of course, searching for Hyungseok would be another bag of worms, even with Gun’s enhanced senses of smell and hearing, since there would be so many people inside, but Jaeyeol knew he and Kitae looked relatively alike. 

Their father’s friends had always said that - they took after their mother, all three of the Hong children did - Jaeyeol and Kitae looked particularly alike. When they were much younger, when Jaeyeol was young enough to be energetic and playful and outgoing, both of them looked very similar in photos, with black hair, identical haircuts and wide smiles. As time passed, Jaeyeol grew more reserved, and he started letting his bangs cover his eyes. He wasn’t sure if Kitae copied him, but Kitae started having his bangs cover his right eye. They started looking a lot less alike after that, but Jaeyeol knew they still looked pretty much identical in the mornings before Kitae put his hair gel on. 

Well, if Kitae wasn’t taller and Jaeyeol wasn’t broader and blonder, that was. But if Gun could turn Jaeyeol’s hair black, somehow, things could be so much easier… 

You underestimate me, Gun said smugly. Jaeyeol could almost feel it grinning, the edges of his monstrous mouth curving up. That would be too easy.

Jaeyeol cheered under his breath. He clambered down to the streets, de-transforming in a discreet spot before putting on the Prada suit he had prepared in his bag and tucking his Spiderman mask away. It even looked enough like Kitae’s work bag. Within seconds, Spiderman had turned into ‘Hong Kitae’.

He walked towards the building, trying to copy his brother’s gait from what was left in his memories. The security guard at the door whistled and raised an eyebrow at Jaeyeol when he passed, seemingly already identifying - or misidentifying - Jaeyeol as Kitae. “Nice new suit, Mr Hong.”

Jaeyeol bobbed his head politely. It was what they were taught to do - say thank you to compliments, nod if you couldn’t speak, for some reason.

I cannot believe that worked, Gun admitted. Maybe you are not always a loser. But you are definitely a nerd. 

Jaeyeol ignored Gun and resolutely kept walking. Nobody would question him if he looked confident, even if he didn’t have a clue what he was supposed to be doing. He probably should’ve asked to meet Choi Soojung, but he couldn’t speak, and from the one time he met Soojung, he knew she was uncannily smart and terrifyingly competent. According to Jaehye, Kitae thought she was the best woman in the world. He wanted to marry her, apparently, but she wasn’t interested in him. Jaehye said she’d met Soojung once, and thought Soojung might’ve been a lesbian.

Boo for Kitae, then.

Jaeyeol followed the sound of Hyungseok’s muffled sobs to a spot in the middle of the lobby. He could hear Hyungseok screaming every now and then underneath, his terror so tangible Jaeyeol could almost taste it, too fresh and too sour in the back of his throat.

Fear usually tastes better, muttered Gun, but I have grown. Attached. To him. I do not like to see him in fear.

He could hear Hyungseok calling out for his mother, for his friends, Jaeyeol and Gun and Spiderman in alternating gasps, telling his captor not to hurt them. He was giggling hysterically, in the same way Jaeyeol knew he did whenever he was freaking out about having to do a presentation in front of his tutor group when his tutor was mean and probably hated him. Jaeyeol could hear a low voice asking Hyungseok what was so funny, because Hyungseok had no reason to laugh. Jaeyeol’s blood boiled, even if he couldn’t taste blood in the air, couldn’t feel his spider senses being triggered. 

Gun, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. It wondered, very loudly in Jaeyeol’s headspace, what the best way was to make them pay . Would it be blood, sweat, or tears? Or the most delicious mixture of all three?

Jaeyeol sniffed as discreetly as he could to distract himself from the bloodlust and homicidal urges, trying to mask it as a runny nose.

We are on the wrong floor, grumbled Gun. Hyungseok’s scent was faint, and seemed to be from underground. You want down?

Jaeyeol had a very vivid mental image of himself becoming part of Gun, and Gun digging through the marble floor of the HNH Company lobby like a dog through sand while civilians screamed and security tried to shoot him.

No thank you, Jaeyeol thought back. He did not want to get shot. He had some sense of self-preservation, however minimal it was when it came to Park Hyungseok.

They wandered around in search for the lift, trying to look inconspicuous. All of the lifts went up - to the meeting rooms, where Kitae was probably used to meeting Soojung, to the research labs, the offices, floors and floors of things that seemed rather irrelevant, and finally Choi Dongsoo’s office at the very top.

None of the lifts went down, and there were no staircases either. There must’ve been a secret entrance somewhere, but Jaeyeol couldn’t exactly crouch down and sniff around for it. People would think he’d gone feral.

He sighed, turning around to search the other side of the lobby. He glanced around to check if anybody was staring at him suspiciously. Nobody was, but there was somebody standing at the gate. Somebody who looked very, very familiar. Too familiar, even.

“What do you mean?” That familiar person said. “I’m the real Hong Kitae! I told Miss Soojung I was going to be late, and I’m very sorry to her for that. I can treat her to coffee if she wants, but I just got here! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

The security guard at the door looked from Hong Kitae to Hong Jaeyeol, who had edged all the way to the closed doors of a lift and was trying to look very inconspicuous, only to look more inconspicuous. “But if you’re Hong Kitae, and the guy in the gray jacket is Hong Kitae, then who’s the imposter?”

Oh dear.

Are we in trouble? Gun asked. Mushroom Head looks a bit like you.

Big trouble, Jaeyeol thought back. Mushroom Head is my brother. Secretly, he wondered if Gun thought he looked like a mushroom too. 

No, you do not. You are too yellow. Your brother is not so yellow.

Kitae took out his identity card, smirking at Jaeyeol. Clearly, he didn’t even realize the ‘imposter’ was his little brother. “You should’ve checked his one too.”

One of the security guards - one of Kim Joongoo’s goons, still sporting a few injuries from Spiderman’s daring rescue of Hyungseok - lunged for Jaeyeol, intending to unmask the imposter. 

Jaeyeol’s spider senses burst into life, already detecting the gun at his hip and the knife at his boot, and Gun swarmed out from under his skin to protect him. Jaeyeol’s precious Prada suit burst at the seams, falling to his feet in tatters of gray fabric.

“Do not touch us,” growled Gun. They snarled, drooling at the scent of fresh fear. Saliva splattered all over the floor.

Just as Jaeyeol predicted, absolute pandemonium broke out.

The researchers screamed at the sight of Gun’s pitch-black, hulking form, scattering at the sight of rippling muscles and knife-sharp teeth. Jaeyeol was glad Gun had covered his Spiderman suit - what would be the consequences of Spiderman merging with an alien-like symbiote with a penchant for devouring human heads and internal organs, even if it was just temporary? What would the public think of the neighborhood friendly hero becoming allies with a monster?

Clearly, Gun didn’t care. It was salivating at the sight. Look at them, it said gleefully, its voice echoing in Jaeyeol’s mind, they helped make us, yet they all fear us. Delicious. We will feast tonight.

Jaeyeol firmly told Gun that it wasn’t allowed to eat the researchers, not unless the men and women in white coats tried to directly harm them.

Loser .

Jaeyeol wasn’t a loser. He was just a man with morals , thank you very much.

Coward.

For that, Jaeyeol was very tempted to let Gun starve instead. He could go without making live gourmet seafood offerings once a week.

Fine, sorry. But you will owe me seafood later. I want lobster. Raw. Straight from the tanks.

That was not how deals worked, but whatever. Now was not the time to debate. Now was the time to make sure they could save Hyungseok, even though they were surrounded by what looked like the full force of the HNH mercenaries- oh, whoops, security team.

They shrieked as the emergency alarms started ringing, water sprinklers spraying them. Jaeyeol was taken by surprise more than anything, but he could sense Gun's pain at the high-pitched ringing like the pain was his own.

Maybe it was instinct driving him, maybe it was Gun, but Jaeyeol’s first response was to swing them up onto the ceiling with his symbiote fiber-enhanced webs. He snarled as he pounded at the alarms with his fists, crushing them with brute strength so they would no longer ring. He yanked out all the sprinklers too in his rage, tossing them to the ground. One managed to fall onto one of the security members’ heads and knocked him out instantly.

They grinned, vicious and savage, roaring a battle cry into the air. They were not scared of guns and puny little bullets, their tendrils well-equipped to pluck the tiny bullets out of the air before they even came close. 

So that’s how Hyungseok made sure we didn’t get shot when I told him to watch my back, Jaeyeol realized. Hyungseok and Gun had saved him just as he’d saved them.

They leapt to the ground, the world rotating around them as they spun around to land on all fours. Marble cracked under their claws, and when the security came too close for comfort, weapons blazing, spines grew and elongated from their arms, their body, piercing through flesh and bone before ripping away.

The screams grew louder, the smell of blood and fear cloyingly sweet in the air. They smiled, baring their rows of jagged teeth, inhaling deeply. Oh, terror smelled so good . They were starving, salivating, itching to sink their teeth into skin and rip tender flesh from bones. But they could not eat - not now, not when their Hyungseok was still in danger.

And then there came another round of shouts, followed by the familiar smell of lavender washing detergent. It was Hyungseok - their Hyungseok, their Hyungseok, theirs to cherish and theirs to ruin - weaving around the crowd towards them, not entirely safe and not entirely sound, by the looks of it, but he was alive and that was good enough for them.

They gathered Hyungseok in their arms, Hyungseok murmuring nonsensically and smiling against their chest. Someone tried to shoot their Hyungseok - how dare? They snarled, reaching for the gunman. They opened their mouth wide, their long, pink tongue lolling, and they bit off the head. They savored the crunch of bone under their teeth, the taste of a fresh human brain filling their mouth. The headless, bleeding body was unnecessary, so they flung it aside.

There were no more screams now. Only silence, and the bloodied corpses littering the floor.

Jaeyeol, returning to his senses, felt a little bit sick. Yet he couldn’t find it in him to regret what he’d done. Hyungseok was theirs again. 

They buried their head in the crook of Hyungseok’s neck, inhaling deeply to familiarize themselves with his smell again. Hyungseok smelled faintly like cucumber… Strange, strange. Hyungseok did not like cucumbers.

Hyungseok looked up at them, giggling. His eyes were bright but glazed, his cheeks unnaturally flushed. “Jaeyeol-ah~” He slurred. “I missed you~”

Hyungseok pawed at their chest, and Jaeyeol shuddered at the foreign sensation. Gun purred at the feeling, his pleasure warm in Jaeyeol’s belly. “They got me,” he mumbled, “said they were gonna get ya. But you’re okay. Not dead, not anymore.”

God, worrying about Hyungseok all the time was going to give Jaeyeol high blood pressure. Why did Hyungseok think he was dead? Why did he look so drunk?

“There is something unnatural in his blood,” Gun warned. “It is making him see things that are not here.”

Something unnatural in his blood, mixed with what might be hallucinations and the distinct smell of cucumbers… It couldn’t be psilocin, or psilocybin, could it? Was Hyungseok hallucinating and thinking Jaeyeol was there, unaware that the person standing in front of him actually was Jaeyeol under Gun’s protective coating?

I can fix him, but you must pass me onto him.

Jaeyeol shuddered at the thought of having to regurgitate Gun and feed the black goop to Hyungseok while he was in this state. How had Hyungseok even come into contact with Gun anyway?

I can go into him easily. You are the problem. 

Well, how was that problem supposed to be solved, then? Hyungseok was still giggling, smiling unnaturally widely.

Kiss him.

Jaeyeol wanted to.

Then kiss him!

But he couldn’t, not when Hyungseok was like this, not when Hyungseok didn’t know Jaeyeol liked him-

Loser!

Gun didn’t give him the option to back out. Jaeyeol’s hands moved on their own, out of his control, pulling Hyungseok onto his tiptoes until their mouths met. Hyungseok gasped at the feeling of a wet mouth on his own, but his eyelashes fluttered anyway. Jaeyeol licked at the seam of his lips, feeling the discomfort of Gun retreating from his body and crawling up his throat. Hyungseok moaned his name and clung to his shoulders, whispering “yes, please, I want it.”

It was more intense than anything Jaeyeol had ever felt before. Desire pooled under his skin, heat curling in his belly, but he had no idea whether it was his own want, or Gun’s, or Hyungseok’s, or a mixture of all three. Hyungseok mouthed at him wetly, like he was trying to swallow Jaeyeol’s tongue in his mouth. It could’ve been a good kiss, but Hyungseok was moaning, now in slight pain, as Jaeyeol’s tongue grew longer and longer until it was halfway down Hyungseok’s throat. Quite frankly, Jaeyeol felt a little disgusted. He wanted to stop.

Do not, snapped Gun. It is not you. It is me. 

Well, that just made things worse, didn’t it? Who liked having a third party physically manipulate their body during their first kiss ever, with the person they loved more than anything?

He doesn’t mind, grumbled Gun. You are just a loser.

Hyungseok clutched at Jaeyeol’s shoulders with a death grip, almost clawing at him as Gun’s extended tongue forced its way down his throat. They broke away from each other, gasping and coughing, as Gun settled and dispersed into Hyungseok’s body.

Jaeyeol’s lips were pulsing, and he felt his cheeks flush even harder. He didn’t even have his mask to hide his red cheeks from Hyungseok. He felt light and giddy, like he was floating on clouds. He’d just kissed Hyungseok! It was great before Gun took over! He wanted to do it again!

Hyungseok snuggled into Jaeyeol’s open arms. “Mm,” he mumbled, smiling faintly, “that was nice. Wish Jaeyeolie would do that for real.”

Jaeyeol sighed, worry and exasperation and fondness rolling into one. If Hyungseok still wanted him when he was sober, Jaeyeol would kiss him again, as many times as Hyungseok wanted. He just hadn’t known Hyungseok might’ve wanted it. It is me, sunbae. I’m really here.

Hyungseok poked his nose, squinting at him suspiciously for a moment, then beamed up at him when Jaeyeol poked him back and realization dawned. He still looked dazed, but he was looking more awake now, like he was actually seeing Jaeyeol instead of the hallucinations this time. “Jaeyeolie! It is you!”

Jaeyeol couldn’t resist the urge to kiss his forehead. Yes, it was too familiar, he shouldn’t have assumed, but he loved Hyungseok so much he felt like his heart was about to burst. I’m sorry I’m late. But I’m finally here.

Hyungseok giggled, squeezing him in a tight, relieved hug. “Yes, you are. And you’ll stay with me, right?”

Jaeyeol squeezed him back, just as tight before letting him go. They’d have more time to be sappy and emotional later. I promise.

Hyungseok’s eyes widened when Jaeyeol took his cap off to fix his hair. “Oh, yeah. I heard they were looking for some kind of fake Hong Kitae. Isn’t Kitae your older brother?”

Jaeyeol nodded, feeling a little sad about the sudden change in mood. He hoped Kitae left the building. He should’ve, if he knew what was good for him. Jaeyeol didn’t really want to face Kitae.

Hyungseok laughed. “That was you? You don’t even look anything like him!”

Jaeyeol could hear Hyungseok’s heartbeat stabilizing, Gun working to bring its host back to perfection. So this was probably normal Hyungseok. Still a little bit high, but mostly normal. I know, Jaeyeol signed. I tried my best.

Hyungseok laughed, bright and beautiful and so painfully gorgeous Jaeyeol wanted to steal him away before the calm disappeared and the storm arrived. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re cuter.”

Jaeyeol found himself completely flustered by that. This time, it was his own instincts that drove him to pull Hyungseok close so he could kiss him again. He felt Hyungseok laugh against his lips and loop his arms around the back of Jaeyeol’s neck.

Now that Jaeyeol and Hyungseok were here, very badly hiding their identities as Spiderman and the man housing HNH’s stolen bioweapon, things would only go downhill. He could almost hear the video game boss music, but the only problem was… Where was the boss?

Chapter Text

Jaeyeol was glad he managed to stop himself from kissing Hyungseok again. If he’d been just a little bit more distracted, he wouldn’t have managed to put his Spiderman mask on, just in time for Kim Joongoo and his merry band of mercenaries to come swaggering in.

Jaeyeol swallowed the urge to sigh. He’d just defeated a whole group of people trying to attack them! Why were there more ? Was this his fate as Spiderman? Endlessly having people chasing after him, trying to fulfill some kind of strange vendetta against him?

At least Hyungseok had fully returned to his senses. Jaeyeol peeked at him. Hyungseok, who’d just been caught staring, immediately whipped around to face the other way, his cheeks growing red. They’d agreed not to talk about Jaeyeol being Spiderman - and by default, Hyungseok’s crush on Spiderman and Jaeyeol’s crush on Hyungseok - until they were out of danger. “I knew it,” Hyungseok murmured, “you are Spiderman.”

Jaeyeol didn’t have time to respond. His skin tingled with the sense of imminent danger, and he swung both of them up onto the ceiling just in time for a shoe to go flying through where their heads had been. Jaeyeol gawked as it landed against the wall hard enough to crack it.

“Ah,” said Kim Joongoo with a pout on his face, “I missed.”

If Kim Joongoo hit him, of all things, with a shoe , Jaeyeol had a sinking suspicion he wouldn’t live to tell the tale. Right on cue, black bled out of Hyungseok’s skin, Gun’s massive head enveloping Hyungseok’s. It was significantly less terrifying to Jaeyeol’s spider senses now that they had spent some time coexisting in Jaeyeol’s body.

“He’s really dangerous,” murmured Hyungseok quietly, his voice muffled by whatever Gun was made of. “When I was running away from him the other day, he popped the lens out of his glasses and attacked me with them. He sliced the tip of my ear off because I wasn’t careful. Gun was still regenerating it for me when I called you, but it was healed when you got there.”

Jaeyeol looked at Hyungseok, horrified. Gun peeled away just a little to reveal Hyungseok’s left ear, good as new except for the thin scar running across the helix. “He was aiming for my head. I barely ducked in time.”

“We cannot fix things if we do not have a head,” Gun said miserably. “ And we do not want to look for another host. We do not want to look for another spider either.”

Hyungseok, hidden under Gun’s bulk, bumped his elbow against Jaeyeol’s. “What I’m saying is - be careful, Jaeyeol-ah. I don’t know how far your regeneration abilities go, but I don’t know how badly I’ll react if I see you get hurt.”

Jaeyeol swallowed, feeling a quiet click in his throat. If he lost a limb, lost a part of his body, there was a chance he’d never get it back. The spider venom didn’t heal physical wounds, after all. He already had so many new scars all over his body from little injuries he’d gotten from fighting crooks. Internal injuries healed a little faster, but external ones always left signs.

“But we’ll have to fight him, probably. If Choi Dongsoo is planning to use Gun as a bioweapon, there’s no way we can return him. It’s too dangerous.”

Jaeyeol nodded. That was definitely true - as a symbiotic creature with a mind of its own and the ability to control its host, Gun was dangerous enough as it was, not even counting the side effects. Jaeyeol would probably attempt to do some further research on it and Hyungseok’s bond. 

“But he has another me,” Gun piped up. “A brother. But my brother stayed when I left.”

Hyungseok cursed softly. “Is he stronger or weaker than you? Do you know who his host is?”

“I do not know,” Gun admitted. “Alone, we are of similar strength. But if his host is stronger than you…”

“What are our chances of winning, then?”

“Roughly… Zero. Point five.”

At least their chances weren’t completely zero. But you have me, Jaeyeol signed. I know what your weaknesses are, and I’m assuming they’re the same. 

“We’ll just all have to be careful,” Hyungseok finished grimly. “Jaeyeol-ah, we’ll take Kim Joongoo. We’ll be trusting you to deal with the rest, and…” He cracked a smile. Watch my back, he signed.

Jaeyeol laughed. He had faith in them after all. 

Gun leapt onto the floor, Kim Joongoo throwing himself out of the way as Gun let out a loud battle cry. Jaeyeol kept his spot on the ceiling, stuck upside down by his feet. He got to work webbing up all the mercenaries that got too close to Gun. He snatched them off their feet, sticking them to the ceiling. If they struggled free, there would only be a long, long fall awaiting them. Jaeyeol could land perfectly, from this height, but not a normal human.

Jaeyeol startled when his earpieces sparked to life. “Oi,” shouted Jihan, “Hong Jaeyeol, where are you?”

“Oppa,” Jaehye wailed, “Kitae-oppa said he’s at HNH Company and there’s some kind of alien monster, don’t tell me you’re fighting it without telling us!”

Jaeyeol felt the familiar heat of the camera embedded in his suit, and knew Jaehye was watching him. If Jihan was talking, surely that meant he had his hearing aids in, so Jaehye could pass him any news just by repeating what Jaehye said, like she always did when she was in shock. 

The monster was me, Jaeyeol confessed.

“WHAT?!” Jaehye shrieked.

But now it’s Hyungseok. Don’t worry, he’s fine. We’re fine. We’re fighting mercenaries at HNH right now. Get Jihan to help the people trying to escape, I’m pretty sure they’ve locked the doors to stop Hyungseok and I from leaving, they’re trying to trap Hyungseok and since I’m on his side, I’m an enemy too.

“Oppa,” spluttered Jaehye, “what is even going on ?”

Later, Jaeyeol signed decisively as he webbed up another goon. Right now, just make sure the civilians are safe.

“Just tell me if you need backup,” Jihan called over the sound of him zipping his suit up.

Jaeyeol would. But for now, with all of Kim Joongoo’s goons - or better yet, Goons? Because they were Kim Joon goo ’s goons, get it? Alright, now was not the time for Jaeyeol’s nervous, stupid sense of humor - webbed up to various spots on the walls and ceilings, it was time to leap into the fight against Kim Joongoo himself.

He ran across the ceiling to swipe a goon’s baton, ignoring the man’s muffled protests to give it a test swing. It felt good in his hands. Perhaps this was not the correct mentality for a true, moral Spiderman, but if Jaeyeol’s opponent had weapons and used them damn well, Jaeyeol should probably get one too, just in case. Kim Joongoo had even managed to cut through Gun and injure Hyungseok with a shoe , after all.

For now, he just dangled down from the ceiling on a strand of silk from his spinneret, like the spider he’d been terrified of not so long ago. Kim Joongoo shrieked when Jaeyeol suddenly appeared in front of him, but managed to duck when Jaeyeol made a swing at him. Jaeyeol pulled himself up just in time for a shoe to slash through the space where his head had just been. He stared at his now-halved baton with wide eyes. Were shoes really that sharp?

Kim Joongoo grinned at him, his smile too wide and his teeth too white. “You almost scared me, Incy Wincy Spider! But too bad, I’m faster than I look.”

Jaeyeol scowled at him, and in his earpiece, Jaehye cursed Kim Joongoo with words Jaeyeol didn’t have the heart to tell her off for.

“We will do the heavy lifting,” rumbled Gun, “you distract him.”

“Distract me?” Kim Joongoo taunted. “How are you planning to do that- Whoa!”

Clearly, he had not expected Jaeyeol to web up a few batons and use them as whips at the end of his silk strands. It didn’t feel good to have two superhumans working together to fight one human, but Kim Joongoo clearly had more experience fighting than Jaeyeol and Hyungseok. While the Goons had been easily webbed up by Jaeyeol or knocked out by Hyungseok and Gun’s combined efforts, their leader was infinitely harder to land a solid hit on, let alone knock him out. He could easily slice off Gun’s solid spiked tendrils before they even came close. 

Gun snarled when one of Jaeyeol’s swinging batons narrowly missed Kim Joongoo and hit him in the head instead. “Watch it!”

Kim Joongoo stared wide-eyed at Gun’s teeth. “Wow, wouldn’t wanna get bitten by one of those.”

Sorry, signed Jaeyeol. He was trying, he really was! But Kim Joongoo was fast, and Jaeyeol was partly distracted by his spider senses sparking to life, worse than they ever had before. 

“Oi,” rumbled Gun, “what are you doing?”

Jaeyeol had frozen completely, trembling. Gooseflesh rippled across his skin, a sense of deep terror like he’d never felt before sinking into his bones and refusing to let him go. It felt like there was a voice in his brain, warning him, shrieking dangerdangerdanger and if Jaeyeol didn’t flee immediately, he would die.

It felt like the first time he’d come face to face with Gun, but much, much worse.

He laid eyes on Choi Dongsoo, marching into the lobby, and the terror amplified.

Jaeyeol’s father had mentioned that Choi Dongsoo had lost one arm years ago in some kind of freak accident, and the sight of Choi Dongsoo with two arms now was frankly quite worrying. Jaeyeol’s trembling grew worse. It felt like there was an earthquake in his very bones. What was that second arm? He squinted, seeing what looked like blood red, rippling muscle.

Could it be? Could Choi Dongsoo be the second host? 

The following sequence of events would give Jaeyeol nightmares for years.

Choi Dongsoo extended his arm - the red one, the one Jaeyeol swore he wasn’t supposed to have - and before Jaeyeol could blink, or Jaehye could scream, it extended into a long blade, that stretched and stretched and stretched until it scraped past Kim Joongoo, slicing through his side, and punched right through Gun and Hyungseok.

The blood-tainted tip of the crimson blade pierced through Gun’s sternum, and out the other side. Blood dripped onto the white marble floor. Jaeyeol heard the sound of screaming. It might’ve been him, but it sounded so distant. Deep red splashed everywhere as Choi Dongsoo pulled it out with ease, leaving Hyungseok gasping, with a gaping wound in his chest that Gun was frantically trying to heal.

Jaeyeol was trembling, shaking so hard he lost his balance. The world tilted around him as he fell to the floor, barely landing on all fours. He ran to Hyungseok’s side just in time for Hyungseok to collapse, Gun seeping back into his flesh to heal him.

God, there was so much blood. Jaeyeol could see his bones, Gun coloring his flesh black as it slowly knitted back together. Hyungseok’s eyes were glazed, his face pale, like all the blood in his body was slowly spilling out of him. Jaeyeol wanted to help, but there was nothing he could do except protectively stand in front of Hyungseok, crack his knuckles and flex his wrists so the webs would come out easier.

Gun’s rumbling voice promised him that they could handle it, their Hyungseok would not die while they were both there to protect him.

“Leave us, Joongoo,” said Choi Dongsoo. His voice was quiet, but it echoed across the lobby. The heart-stopping fear intensified. Choi Dongsoo by himself was clearly a dangerous man. But he was also attached to a symbiotic organism, one that was probably stronger than Gun…

“Damn right I’m leaving,” Kim Joongoo shouted, limping away with one hand on his side, blood dripping all over the floor, “I’m not paid enough for this! I’m quitting!”

Good for him, Jaeyeol thought. Good riddance. There were better things a man with his talents could do.

Hyungseok was still gasping on the floor, writhing as his flesh and bone healed and the hole in his body sealed up again.

Jaeyeol's joints seized and his entire body locked up when Choi Dongsoo laid eyes on him. Those were not the eyes of a madman, as Jaeyeol had seen from the crooks he'd caught before. They were not glazed with insanity, or narrowed with rage. Choi Dongsoo looked perfectly calm, and when he faced Jaeyeol head-on, he almost fooled Jaeyeol into thinking he was kind.

Jaeyeol's father had warned him and Kitae about men like these. These men fooled you into thinking they cared, but at the first sign of your weakness, they would strike.

Jaeyeol heard a shuffling on Jaehye’s side of the line, and it sounded like white noise until a familiar voice spoke. “Hong Jaeyeol.”

Jaeyeol froze.

“Abeoji,” Jaehye protested, “wait, how did you even know-”

Jaehye’s voice grew further and further as Hong Kyeongyeong took her phone away.

“Choi Dongsoo is a dangerous man,” Jaeyeol’s father said, like the devil himself had conjured him into being. “Whatever you do, do not get yourself in trouble with him, do you understand? He is not someone you can simply fight and catch. Even if you are…” Jaeyeol could imagine his father wrinkling his nose. “Even if you are Spiderman.” So the spider was out of the bag, then.

Jaeyeol deliberately looked over to Hyungseok, who was slowly beginning to sit up. In the distance, Jaehye shouted that Jaeyeol definitely wasn’t going to listen to their father, not when Hyungseok was priority. Good, good, Hyungseok had managed to stumble to his feet. 

“Spiderman,” Choi Dongsoo greeted them, his voice deceptively soft, “and Park Hyungseok. What a pleasure to have the company of two little thieves.”

Both of them stiffened.

“Park Hyungseok, you stole my symbiote.”

“I didn’t steal Gun,” Hyungseok retorted, almost seemingly by instinct, “he came to me. I didn’t even know where he came from until I started investigating HNH! He latched onto me completely out of the blue!”

Choi Dongsoo ignored him, instead turning to Jaeyeol. Jaeyeol barely stopped himself from doing something foolish, like hissing. “And Spiderman… How did you manage to steal Hong Kyeongyeong's spider? Even I couldn’t do it, with all of my resources. That old man has always been overly cautious.” 

“That's what I want to know too,” muttered Jaeyeol's father. Jaehye just laughed nervously. Jaeyeol wondered if she would throw him under the bus. He hoped not - if she tried, he'd tell their father about her whole ‘little sister in the chair’ act. “And Choi Dongsoo, that asshole. Can't believe he just admitted to trying to steal my spider.”

A bulging crimson head formed above Choi Dongsoo’s shoulder. It started at Jaeyeol, and Hyungseok shifted next to him, visibly unsettled. Jaeyeol forced himself to stop trembling. “Why does the little spider not speak? Is he too weak?”

“Must be,” murmured Choi Dongsoo. “He is just a worthless bug in the face of our power.”

Jaeyeol hated that they were, in a way, right. Under the weight of their terrifying, oppressive power, there was nothing Jaeyeol could do. His mantra of doing it for Hyungseok was being drowned out by his fear.

The crimson head grinned at him, baring sharp teeth. It had sharper canines than Gun. All the better to bite my head off with, Jaeyeol thought grimly to himself. “Then we shall crush him under our feet.”

A long, red tentacle shot towards him. Before Jaeyeol knew it, he was being violently flung aside like an insect, faster than his overloaded spider senses could alert him. The last thing he saw before he hit the wall and heard the crack of plaster and breaking bones was Hyungseok and Gun reaching out, too late to shield him.

When he came to, Hyungseok and Choi Dongsoo were nowhere in sight. He sat up, his vision swimming, his ribs aching. He felt like he’d been hit by a truck. When his eight eyes finally felt like they'd stopped spinning in his skull, Jaeyeol found himself face to face with…

Kitae?

“Hey, Spiderman,” Kitae asked, concerned, “you okay? Are you still alive?”

Jaeyeol blinked at him, dazed. Hadn’t Kitae been at the very front of the building? He could’ve just stepped out and left! Why was he still here? Jaeyeol recognized the marble floor - he was still in the building, apparently, when he peeked up he realized he’d landed against the wall so hard he’d cracked it. And cracked a rib or two as well, it seemed.

Someone peeked over his shoulder - of course, it had to be Choi Soojung, wondering if the neighborhood friendly superhero had survived a hit from the monster now living inside her father’s body, in his mind.

Jaeyeol, slowly regaining some of his strength, tried his best not to flip his brother the bird.

“Oppa!” Jaehye cried. Her voice was shrill with panic. “Oh my god, I thought you died!” She sniffled loudly as Jaeyeol struggled to his feet. His ribs ached, and he felt blood at the back of his head, but he’d be fine. He’d heal. The bigger problem was Choi Dongsoo and the red symbiote. “You’ve been lying dead on the floor for like, half an hour!”

Very distantly, Jaeyeol heard the sounds of battle, crashing overhead as Gun and Choi Dongsoo’s symbiote fought each other, throwing each other through floors and ceilings and walls.

“Idiots, all of you,” muttered Jaeyeol’s father. “Kitae was supposed to be the sensible one.” Clearly not, it seemed. So now Jaeyeol had to be mature and get Kitae and Choi Soojung out before Choi Dongsoo came back and decided they could all be collateral damage. “Jaeyeol, you know what to do.”

Jaeyeol nodded. Rescue civilians - that was what Spiderman did, after all. Especially if said civilian was his idiotic brother with a crush, and the girl way out of his league, and definitely uninterested in him.

“Sorry, man,” Jihan yelled into the phone. “I tried to get your hyung out, but he said he had to go back for the girl he liked, and he fucking ran before I could stop him. I’m outside right now with the cops, there’s some kind of gross red thing covering the building, I think you guys might be trapped inside - oh shit!”

Jaeyeol, Kitae and Soojung braced themselves as the ceiling began to cave in, the building rumbling from the tip down to its very roots. The doors of the entrance shattered, glass sprinkling everywhere, revealing a pulsing crimson net that must’ve been Choi Dongsoo’s symbiote.

“Oh my fucking god,” squawked Jihan, “what the fuck is that? Dude, if you make me fight that alone I’d rather go to jail!”

Luckily for Jihan, Jaeyeol had a plan. It was probably suicidal, but it was a plan, and if it got everyone safe by the end of it, Jaeyeol thought it would be good enough. Be careful, hyung, he signed to Kitae. Jaeyeol trusted that his brother still remembered some sign language, even if they hadn’t seen neither hair nor hide from each other for years. Choi Soojung, by the look of confusion on her face, had no idea why Spiderman was sticking his middle fingers in the air at a guy he didn’t even know, but Jaeyeol, and hopefully Kitae, would know better. If Jaehye and their father already knew about Jaeyeol’s  not-so-secret alter ego, it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference for Kitae to know too. 

Kitae squinted at him and his raised middle fingers. “I can’t tell if you’re calling me hyung or if you’re being impolite.”

Jaehye spluttered out a laugh. “Oppa, just get him out of here!”

In typical superhero little brother fashion, Jaeyeol webbed Kitae and Soojung up in a cocoon of spider silk to keep them safe, then webbed them to the biggest piece of fallen ceiling he could find. The ceiling was beginning to collapse on top of them, but he was strong and fast enough to dodge. He heard Kitae squeal as he hurled the slab of rock - with his brother safely attached - through the writhing wall of red. Jaeyeol sighed in relief at the sight of the civilians on the other side, safe and sound. 

Jaeyeol himself escaped through the hole in the symbiote wall, darting out just in time for the ceiling above the lobby to cave in fully. If he’d woken up just a while later, he, Kitae and Soojung would’ve been flattened. The wall of red disappeared, retracting upwards, as a roar echoed through the sky.

The crowd, who were being kept back by Inspector Kwak Jichang and his crew, cheered at the sight of Spiderman appearing. Jihan ran over, his jetpacks sputtering behind him. “I’m out of battery, and Jichang-hyung’s keeping the people away,” he hissed, “but…”

Jihan pointed upwards, and Jaeyeol followed his gaze.

There in the distance, flattened against the glass wall of the HNH Company building, spread-eagled like Jesus Christ reincarnated, was Hyungseok. Choi Dongsoo, wrapped up in his red symbiote, was crouched over Hyungseok, pinning him down by the throat while ripping pieces of Gun off him with tooth and claw. Jaeyeol heard Hyungseok and Gun shriek as Choi Dongsoo’s symbiote sank its teeth into flesh. 

Jaeyeol’s spider senses and fear of the symbiotes seemed to disappear under the heavy weight of his rage. Oh, Choi Dongsoo and that damned symbiote were going to pay . 

“What are you waiting for?” Jihan clapped him on the back. “Go get your man. And, uh, don't die.”

Jaeyeol heard the sound of silk ripping. “Wait!” Choi Soojung had clawed her way out of her protective spider silk cocoon. “It’s probably too late for my father, but your friend deserves to be saved. And my father’s creatures…”  She handed him a black lighter with some kind of silvery insignia on it, and Jaeyeol took it without really thinking, too awed by the look of sheer determination in her eyes. “Fire can and will kill them. Do it. If this is what my father’s legacy looks like, it shouldn’t be allowed in public, not as they are right now.”

Jaeyeol nodded. Rescuing Hyungseok was a must. He’d keep Gun safe too, though. As irritating as the parasite was, it had grown on him, somewhat, developed some kind of morality after Hyungseok had probably yelled at him one too many times.

Choi Soojung shook his hand, her grip tight. “Good luck, Spiderman.”

Jaeyeol swung himself up, darting between buildings across the street in a zig-zag pattern to gain height. The lighter was safe in his hands, webbed tightly to his suit so it wouldn’t fall. When he swung close to the two battling symbiotes, neither of them seemed to notice him.

Now that Jaeyeol could see, it was painfully clear that Gun and the other symbiote were nowhere near the same level. Gun could only form tentacles and was getting weaker and weaker, unable to keep up with healing and protecting Hyungseok at the same time. Hyungseok was wounded in different places - the other symbiote’s claws had sunk into his throat, various deep stab wounds over his torso, and it seemed like one of his arms had been completely sliced off. The other symbiote had a sharp scythe on one hand, and a-

Shit!

Jaeyeol flung himself away just before a blood red spiked ball could swing into the spot where he just was. 

“This is not your fight,” the crimson symbiote snarled at him. “Stay out, insect. Or I will kill you.”

Jaeyeol shook his head. Not if I kill you first, he thought grimly.

Jaeyeol flipped himself away as red spikes pierced through the wall from the inside out. Choi Dongsoo had probably planned on Spiderman being protective over civilians, as well as having enough of a self-preservation instinct to wrap fights up quickly. But what he hadn’t counted on was that when it came to Hyungseok’s safety, Jaeyeol would do anything .

Anything.

“No,” gasped Jaehye, like she could read his mind, “no, Oppa, are you crazy? You’ll die!”

“Hong Jaehye, get in the car,” their father snapped.

“But Abeoji,” Jaehye wailed, “Yeol-oppa’s gonna kill himself!”

Trust me, Jaeyeol signed quickly.

“Suicidal idiot!” He could hear Gun roar. “You will die! And we will be sad!”

Maybe he would die, but it was a risk Jaeyeol was willing to take. He darted around the sides of the building, allowing the crimson symbiote to chase him. The crimson symbiote was running thin - too spaced out, too far from its host, and when it disappeared, reformed with a blade, Jaeyeol let it pierce him.

He gasped as something cold sliced through him, making him lightheaded, but he gritted his teeth against the feeling. Adrenaline numbed him to the pain. He'd feel it later, just as he'd feel Jaehye screaming and smacking him later as she cried and yelled at him for pulling a stunt like that - the last thing she'd seen was the crimson symbiote’s blade before it sliced Jaeyeol's chest camera (and then Jaeyeol's chest) neatly in half.

“How does it feel?” The symbiote hissed at him, its voice reverberating throughout his body. “The weakness of mortality? Knowing you will soon die, accomplishing nothing?”

Jaeyeol somehow managed to grin through the blood in his mouth. With one shaking hand, he grabbed the symbiote, ignoring how his flesh continued to part around the symbiote’s blade, and his life threatened to leach out of him.

“Foolish spider,” hissed the symbiote, “what are you-”

Jaeyeol flicked the lighter on. Illuminated by the orange glow of fire, Jaeyeol set the symbiote aflame.

The symbiote let out an unholy shriek, shrinking away from Jaeyeol as it burned, turning white instead of black. But Jaeyeol was relentless, casting a thick web over his chest to staunch the blood flow before chasing after the burning symbiote.

In its pain, the symbiote peeled away from Choi Dongsoo’s head, revealing his enraged face as burnt-white splatters fell down, down, down to the ground. “Foolish Spiderman,” he snarled, “you know nothing ! I have created the pinnacle of human power! And you dare to destroy it?”

Jaeyeol couldn’t lie and say he wasn’t curious about the symbiotes too. He was still a biotech major at heart, he’d been doing minor experiments on himself to find out more about the mysterious powers H Group’s spider had given him, and he’d liked to research the symbiotes too, but in no way did he want it for the sake of power .

He wanted to understand it, not because he wanted it or wanted more of it, but because he feared it falling into the wrong hands, fearing what too much power would do to a person. Clearly, Choi Dongsoo had driven himself mad with his own ideals. Even his daughter had confessed he was beyond saving.

The part of the symbiote that was burning white began to part from the writhing mass of red on Choi Dongsoo’s body, forming a distinctly new head on its own. “You say human power,” it hissed, “what bullshit. Old man, you forget that you are nothing, without me.”

“James,” snarled Choi Dongsoo, “what do you think you’re doing? I made you. You will listen to me.”

“It is not me,” growled the red symbiote. “It is part of me, but not me. Come back here, little me.”

The red symbiote lashed out, almost hitting Jaeyeol instead of the little white thing, but the smaller white symbiote was too small and too fast.

Jaeyeol was very, very confused. Was the symbiote turning against Choi Dongsoo? Or was it asexually reproducing via meiosis and mitosis after forming a new conscience? 

The former part of the crimson symbiote, now turning white with pink veins, started reaching towards Jaeyeol, who edged away from its slimy form and closer to Hyungseok and Gun instead. “I allowed you to host me for your power,” the white symbiote said in a low, rumbling voice, different from both James’ and Gun’s, “but his strength is greater. He will be a much better host for me.”

No, no, no, wait, Jaeyeol was not going to host another symbiote!

Jaeyeol choked as the white blob leapt away from Choi Dongsoo and clung onto his mask. Jaeyeol scrabbled at it frantically, but it seeped underneath his mask, away from his fingers. Jaeyeol gasped, and the third symbiote took the chance to connect to its new host as burning hot slime spilled down Jaeyeol's throat. He gagged as James settled beneath his rib cage, a slithering sensation filling his chest as his flesh began to knit together once again.

You will do, for now, the white symbiote rumbled in Jaeyeol’s head. Do not worry, I will not hurt you. But I will borrow you to destroy my maker.

Jaeyeol’s arm stretched out against his will, like he was a puppet and the symbiote was his master. A sweeping white shield scraped both Hyungseok and Choi Dongsoo off the side of the building. The symbiote tossed the lighter at James, and Jaeyeol felt a wave of satisfaction wash over him as James - with Choi Dongsoo inside - burned like a falling star before disappearing into ashes.

Hyungseok and Gun, both too weak, just continued to fall. 

You could’ve just pushed the old man, Jaeyeol thought frustratedly as he jumped off the side of the building, why Hyungseok and Gun too? 

He felt the now-familiar feeling of having his mind invaded as the symbiote went through his memories. Sorry. I did not know you wished to mate them. They were collateral damage.

Jaeyeol was going to donate this symbiote to Choi Soojung as soon as he could. He didn’t know how Hyungseok could stand cohabitating with Gun for months . He couldn’t even stand spending three hours with Gun.

Blessedly, the symbiote went silent, fading into a curious presence lingering at the back of Jaeyeol’s mind, pulsing next to his heart. 

Jaeyeol darted from building to building, spitting webs from his spinnerets as he got to work creating his signature zig-zagged web once more. There was a space for Hyungseok to land in the center in case Jaeyeol missed. 

But he wouldn’t. 

He knew better than to web Hyungseok up while they were both falling like this - it would snap his spine, killing him instantly. So the only thing Jaeyeol could do was fall with him, and when they were side by side, he grabbed Hyungseok and pulled him close.

They landed neatly on Jaeyeol’s web, and Jaeyeol breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, they were safe. 

Relying on his web to keep him stuck, he bent backwards to lower Hyungseok onto the floor. They stared at each other for a moment - both injured and healing, breathing heavily from their respective fights, Jaeyeol still hanging upside down. Hyungseok’s arm had finally finished regenerating, and his neck had completely healed too, just like the wound in Jaeyeol’s chest.

“You are,” Hyungseok murmured, “an idiot .”

Jaeyeol thought Hyungseok would continue to chew him out in front of the growing crowd, but even upside down, Jaeyeol could see that Hyungseok was smiling, his eyes brighter than he’d ever been. He couldn’t help grinning back, even when Hyungseok rolled his mask up - or down? - just enough to reveal Jaeyeol’s smiling mouth.

Right there, in front of everyone, Hyungseok kissed him again.

“I like you,” Hyungseok murmured against his lips, too soft for anyone else to hear, “both of you.”

“We like you,” Gun corrected, but he went ignored by both of them. Jihan and Jichang were trying to push the crowd away, Jihan hoping to give his friend some privacy, and Jichang trying to get the civilians to a safer location, goddammit. 

Jaeyeol wasn’t paying attention. This was their moment. This was the moment Jaeyeol had spent so long dreaming of.

Jaeyeol wasn’t sure how he wasn’t losing his balance and falling on his head from the sheer shock of it, but he didn’t have it in him to think about that. He let Hyungseok kiss him again, again and again and again, chasing the feeling of Hyungseok’s soft lips parting against his own. Love you, Jaeyeol thought, love you, love you, love you.

They jumped apart and Jaeyeol actually fell onto the floor in shock when a horn honked at them. 

There was a white van parked on the side of the road. Jaeyeol’s eyes went wide as Hong Kyeongyeong stuck his head out of the window. “Get in the car, Spiderman and friends!”

Chapter Text

‘Spiderman and Friends’, apparently, consisted of much more people than Jaeyeol had expected.

Somehow, Jaeyeol, Hyungseok, Jihan, Kitae and Choi Soojung all end up squashed into the two middle seats and three back seats of the Hong patriarch’s van. Jaehye was lucky - she got to sit in the front seat with their father, having been the first to be dragged into the van. Jaeyeol and Hyungseok got the middle seats, thankfully. They were both still healing, Jaeyeol a little bit slower than Hyungseok, since his spider genetics weren’t exactly meshing well with his new symbiote. Poor Jihan had to be squished between Kitae and Choi Soojung in the back seat. 

Jaeyeol didn’t actually know where they were going. His father and Choi Soojung were having an argument about the fate of the symbiotes over Jaeyeol's head. Gun had poked his head out of Hyungseok’s shoulder to chat to him, terrifying everybody except Hyungseok, Jaeyeol and Choi Soojung. The low, quiet murmurs of Hyungseok and Gun’s voices were warm and familiar, and before he knew it, Jaeyeol had begun to doze off, his head jerking every time he tried to keep himself awake.

He was exhausted. 

He heard his father complaining about everyone - why Kitae had gone back into the HNH building when he had been right in front of the exit, primed to leave; why Choi Soojung hadn't sold her father out to Hong Kyeongyeong, his biggest competitor, if she disagreed with his research on the symbiotes; why Jaehye had kept Jaeyeol's secret identity for so long instead of telling her father like a responsible daughter; why Jihan had run along with everything, he had a good life ahead of him and he shouldn't have listened to Jaeyeol, who always made the worst life decisions for himself. 

“I’m not your son,” Jihan pointed out. “And you can’t tell me off like that. So I’ll make my own bad decisions, thanks.” He and Jaeyeol both knew Jichang would blow his top if he ever found out the Prowler was his own little brother and his little brother’s new friend Jaeyeol was his affectionately-dubbed favorite Spider-Menace. They’d keep each other's secrets for now. What Jichang didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

Choi Soojung protested she'd tried to imply it to Kitae multiple times being unable to actually talk about it once she found out her father had planted a listening device on her that she couldn't remove, but Kitae hadn't picked up on her hints at all, too busy staring at her with heart eyes. Even if she didn't return his feelings, fierce and passionate as they were, he still liked her. And even if he didn’t like her, he still would’ve gone back to save her - what kind of man would he be if he hadn’t gone back to help someone with a sprained ankle trapped in the same room as a monster?

There was nothing the Hong patriarch could say about that. He was the one who had made sure the Hong children were well-mannered, of course. But he never taught Jaeyeol and Kitae to be obsessive lovers - somehow, over time, they’d just coincidentally turned out like that. Jaehye just had crushes after crushes after crushes, and each one only lasted an hour at the very least, or a month at most. Jaeyeol wasn’t sure which one was better - loving one person and making them your world even if they didn’t return your feelings, or never really loving anyone at all.

He hadn't said anything about Jaeyeol, though, but maybe that was because Hyungseok had hissed for everyone to quiet down and stop arguing about bad life decisions because Jaeyeol was dozing off and he deserved a nice, uninterrupted break.

Ah, Jaeyeol thought to himself as he gave in to the urge to slump against the window and fall into the realms of unconsciousness, I really love him.

When he woke up, he was lying down on a hard bed, his entire body was aching like he’d been flattened by the Notte World Tower. The pinkish white symbiote was hovering above him, a pink head floating above his chest, and Baek Hangyeol was staring at him as disapprovingly as he could from five feet away.

That man wants to fix you, rumbled Jaeyeol’s symbiote. He does not understand I have already fixed you.

Jaeyeol groaned. I want to die. Hell, he felt like he’d just died.

I ate your fast heartbeat chemicals, said the symbiote remorselessly. They were tasty. And you would have collapsed with too many of them. I am not pathetic enough to kill my host. Even if you are temporary.

Jaeyeol assumed the symbiote was talking about adrenaline. It had fueled him before, but now his limbs were weak and he felt like he didn’t have a single bone in his body to move. Luckily, his arm twitched pathetically when he attempted to touch his chest, which meant he had some strength left, if only a little. At some point, someone had eased him out of his ruined Spiderman suit and into a hospital gown that felt rough on his sensitive skin.

It is fixed, complained the symbiote, there is nothing there anymore. I fixed you. Now get him to go away before I eat him. Or make him bring the other pair. They told me to be nice, and I have been very nice, but that man still smells like fear. It is making me hungry.

Don’t make me think right now, Jaeyeol thought desperately. He’d had his fair share of mornings after drinking too much wine or soju, but this felt worse than any hangover he ever had. I don’t want to think about anything. 

The symbiote swirled around the muscles in his chest until he gave in and sat up, fighting the urge to throw up or giggle from the strange feeling of being tickled from the inside. 

He must’ve made some kind of face, because Baek Hangyeol edged closer. “Jaeyeol, are you okay? I know you’ve got, uh, your Spiderman thing, and the symbiote thing too, but you’ve been out for five hours.”

Spiderman, huh. That was at least seven people who knew Hong Jaeyeol was Spiderman now. But hopefully this meant he could come crawling to Baek Hangyeol if he got injured in a fight instead of doing a terrible job patching himself up, right? 

Baek Hangyeol tossed a notebook and a pen at him, and Jaeyeol made a noise like he was dying when the notebook landed on his forehead. He didn’t even have the energy to web up the pen that had gone clattering onto the ground. His new symbiote, grumbling about its temporarily useless host, picked it up for him with a pinkish white tentacle. 

Fine, he wrote onto the notebook Baek Hangyeol tossed at him. Just tired. Let me die in peace.

No dying, the symbiote threatened him. 

Jaeyeol waved the notebook in Baek Hangyeol’s general direction, but the doctor made no move to grab the notebook, not while the symbiote was still sitting in the open like it owned the place. He tossed it over, hearing it land on the floor.

Baek Hangyeol gingerly bent over to pick it up, still keeping an eye on the symbiote. He scanned Jaeyeol’s shaky, terrible handwriting. Jaeyeol saw him nod, breathe a sigh of relief, and open the door. “He’s okay,” Baek Hangyeol called out, “so he can take visitors. But no more than two at a time! No more than two!”

Nobody listened to him. Only Jihan, out of what might’ve been pity, lingered behind to ask if Baek Hangyeol was interested in joining the Spider Squad as their medic. After all, they had the mighty Spiderman himself, and Spiderman’s two assigned sidekicks, and now Hyungseok, who Jaeyeol wasn’t sure if he’d dreamed or if he’d really heard Jihan dubbing ‘Spiderman’s Monster Boyfriend’, and Jichang, who wasn’t aware that he was part of the Spider Squad but was their policeman representative all the same.

Jaeyeol’s father shooed everyone away from the chair by Jaeyeol’s bedside, sitting down with a loud “Aigoo.”

Jaeyeol looked at him warily. It was the first time he’d seen his father close up in years - he’d aged, and not well. There were more wrinkles on his face than Jaeyeol remembered, and not all of them were smile lines. What were disowned sons supposed to say to their estranged fathers again? Was Jaeyeol’s father officially going to sue him?

“Abeoji,” Jaehye said carefully, “why did you come?” When their father stayed quiet, she continued. “You don’t even like Yeol-oppa. You literally disowned him. You keep telling me not to visit him now that he’s not living with us anymore, but he’s done nothing wrong! I never even called him when you were home!” She scowled. “Why did you even bother going to him when he was in trouble? Since when did you care?”

Honestly, Jaeyeol didn’t think their father came for him. He probably came for Kitae - what chaebol group patriarch wouldn’t come to save their heir? Or maybe he came because he heard his business rival had turned into a supervillain and started a probably televised fight with the neighborhood friendly Spiderman who stole (and accidentally killed) the spider he was researching. Jaeyeol wasn’t sure. He tried not to look at himself on the news.

Hong Kyeongyeong sighed heavily. “Look, kids. I know I’ve been a bad father-”

“No shit,” said all three of the Hong siblings, much to Jaeyeol’s surprise. Jaehye had always liked Jaeyeol more, that was unsurprising, but Kitae? Really? Since when had Kitae not been a fan of their father? Had the two brothers fallen out of touch for that long?

“-but I’m trying to make things better.”

Jaeyeol narrowed his eyes skeptically. What was his father trying to say? All those years of neglect wouldn’t simply just disappear if Hong Kyeongyeong said he was going to try and be a father again. Jaeyeol couldn’t care less about it now, he’d had plenty of time to cope with his hurt, but now that his father was trying to make amends, he couldn’t even begin to understand why. Both Jaeyeol and the special needs therapist he’d seen during his first year of university had given up getting him to speak again. 

There were things people just couldn’t do. And for Jaeyeol, forgiving his father for disowning him was just another one of those things.

Gun wriggled out of Hyungseok’s elbow. “He does not like you,” the black symbiote pointed out. It looked almost smug to see Jaeyeol’s father flinch at the sight of it. 

The white symbiote slunk out of Jaeyeol’s chest with an uncomfortable swirling sensation. Soojung gawked at it for a moment before remembering her poise, clearing her throat. “You did bad things,” it hissed, “we did not know humans could also be cruel to their spawn.”

This time, Jaeyeol was the one who flinched. 

Of course. There were now not one, but two symbiotes who had gone snooping around Jaeyeol’s memories without his permission. Hyungseok sidled over to Jaeyeol, perching on the side of his bed. His fingers danced over the covers to intertwine with Jaeyeol’s. They were cool to the touch, missing the age-old calluses of housework and writing with pencils, smooth and unscarred. Freshly regenerated. 

Jaeyeol squeezed his fingers gently, relaxing slightly when he felt Hyungseok squeeze back. “Jaeyeol-ah,” he whispered, “you’ve never mentioned any of this to me.”

Jaeyeol tensed up again, staring down at the blankets over his lap and refusing to make eye contact with Hyungseok, even though Hyungseok was murmuring softly, telling him “look at me, Jaeyeol-ah.”

Hyungseok should've known Jaeyeol and his father didn't have the best relationship. He'd seen it for himself, after finding out Jaeyeol spent most of his holidays alone and holed up in his lonely penthouse, but the extent of how bad was a secret Jaeyeol wanted to keep to himself. He didn't want Hyungseok to know the uglier parts of him and see any less of him. He didn't want Hyungseok to know how badly Jaeyeol not just craved, but needed his kindness as something stable he could rely on.

Hyungseok sighed softly. He brushed his thumb over Jaeyeol’s knuckles soothingly, and Jaeyeol took a deep, shaky inhale. “Oh, jagiya.”

Jaehye stared at them with wide eyes. “Wait, Hyungseok-oppa, since when did you call Yeol-oppa ‘jagiya’?!”

Jihan attempted to pick at the bandages over his knuckles, only for Baek Hangyeol to warn him against it. “Didn’t you see them kissing? Jaeyeol was like, upside down and everything. It was gross.”

“That’s not gross, that’s so romantic!” Jaehye beamed at them, glad to steer the conversation in another direction. Jaeyeol wasn’t sure whether to be happy or not that the conversation was now about his love life, but at least it was better than his ‘tragic backstory, or whatever Jaehye had called it before. “Hyungseok-oppa, did you know Yeol-oppa has been in love with you for, like, five thousand years?”

Hyungseok cracked a smile, laughing sheepishly. “Not really, no. I had no idea.”

This time, Jaeyeol and Jihan managed to gawk in synchrony. “But he’s so obvious ,” spluttered Jihan, “even I realized he liked you, and I’ve only known him for, what, a month?”

Hyungseok coughed delicately. “Well, I’m a journalist and a photographer. I’m good at noticing things around me, not things about me. And I was drugged when we kissed for the first time just now.”

Baek Hangyeol cleared his throat. “Park Hyungseok, when I asked you if you were feeling well, you did not mention that you were drugged .”

“Well, in my defense I was being tortured…?”

Jaeyeol forgot about his super strength and immediately squeezed his hand out of worry. Luckily, Hyungseok only winced instead of having his hand crushed. Thank god for having a boyfriend with enhanced strength.

(Were they really boyfriends, though? They’d kissed twice, Hyungseok had confessed, but he never said whether he wanted to date Jaeyeol or not! Oh god, what if Jaeyeol had actually died after being bitten by the spider? What if all this was his dreams of the afterlife? Nah. Jaeyeol probably wouldn’t dream of nearly-dying again if he was already dead.)

Hyungseok skirted around the topic, trying to make light of the situation, but the more he spoke, the more horrified everyone felt. Choi Dongsoo tortured Hyungseok by chaining him to a table, and injecting him with psilocybin that was specially altered by his head scientist Park Jinyoung to allow people to control the hallucinations of the psilocybin user? He’d manipulated Hyungseok into seeing his friends and family dead, and tried to threaten Hyungseok into revealing Gun’s whereabouts that way? That was why Jaeyeol had heard Hyungseok begging Choi Dongsoo not to hurt him?

Jaeyeol found himself oddly glad Choi Dongsoo was dead. The symbiote swimming around inside him sent a wave of smugness curling through his bloodstream. 

Choi Soojung, on the other hand, turned deathly pale, gripping onto the hem of her shirt until her knuckles were white. “I’m so sorry for what my father did,” she whispered. “I had no idea any of that was happening to you, I didn’t even know you were there , but if I did, I would’ve done something, anything-”

Hyungseok laughed, trying to smile even though he was holding on to Jaeyeol’s hand with a strength that could’ve crushed it, if Jaeyeol was any weaker. “It’s okay, Park Jinyoung gave me the antidote and let me go, and Gun healed me afterwards. So I’m fine now, really.”

Jaeyeol wrapped his arms around Hyungseok. It wasn’t okay. Nothing that happened to them was remotely ‘okay’. Nobody should have to deal with torture and death and near-death experiences. But what had been done was done, and there was nothing Jaeyeol could do except promise Hyungseok he’d stay by his side, no matter what.

“I think we’re all gonna need therapy after this,” muttered Jihan.

Hyungseok smiled against the crook of Jaeyeol’s neck, and held him just a little bit tighter. They’d work out their future together.

MID-CREDITS SCENE

“Jaeyeol-ah, when did you start liking me?”

Since the beginning.

“The beginning… The beginning of what?”

Jaeyeol stared at Hyungseok, the warmth of exasperated fondness familiar. Since you said we'd be seeing each other a lot, we should be friends.

Hyungseok blinked once, then blinked again. “When was that again?”

Gun slithered out from Hyungseok's shoulder. “Here.”

Black seeped into Hyungseok's sclera as Gun fished a memory out of his brain, and Jaeyeol watched as Hyungseok's eyes grew wider and wider until the memory was over and he was staring at Jaeyeol in shock. “Jaeyeol-ah, you liked me for that long, and you didn't even think of telling me?”

“Hypocrite, ” Gun said like that explained everything. “He is a loser and you are a pussy. Perfect match.”

Hyungseok spluttered. “What the- Oi! Next time we go out for sushi, I'm going to feed you wasabi!”

“No! Do not!”

“Then don't test my limits!”

“You do not like wasabi, but we do not like wasabi, and our spider does not like it either!” Gun protested desperately. “So we should not!”

Jaeyeol spluttered. There was the beginning of a smile forming on his lips. Don't bring me into this!

Hyungseok batted his eyelashes. “Maybe you're our spider, but you're my Jaeyeolie, so you'll take my side, right?”

I'm yours, Jaeyeol signed reflexively.

Jihan cleared his throat loudly, watching Jaeyeol and Hyungseok spring apart. “Don't just flirt in the open, you nasties, save it for the bedroom! There are other people here!”

POST-CREDITS SCENE

It took Hyungseok and Gun five minutes to wrangle the white symbiote out of Jaeyeol. Jaeyeol felt ill as he tried to regurgitate the symbiote lodged in his chest, sweating profusely, and by the time he was done, his hospital gown was soaked with sweat.

Despite calling Jaeyeol a ‘non-ideal host’, the symbiote had been reluctant to leave, probably because it’d die without a host. But it had told Jaeyeol that Choi Soojung might be a good host, and Choi Soojung was willing to accept her fate as the host of a violent, arson-aligned, man-eating parasite if it could help her atone for her father’s crimes. 

So the problem was solved, then.

Jaeyeol still needed to change, and desperately needed to empty his bladder, but Kitae was in the one single toilet of Baek Hangyeol's clinic.

The white symbiote, who had resorted to watching K-pop videos on Jaeyeol's phone to cure its boredom, spread itself out on the bed in the letters ‘LOL’ at Jaeyeol's antsy, desperate movements as Jaeyeol waited for Kitae to be done, goddammit. Had he flushed himself down the toilet?

He heard Kitae's footsteps, and instantly breathed a sigh of relief.

Jaeyeol pointed to the bed. Stay, he attempted to wordlessly order the white symbiote. The white symbiote, or rather, the newly named DG, ignored him in favor of wriggling closer to the phone. Jaeyeol didn’t really understand what the symbiote saw in G-Dragon. Jaeyeol wouldn’t name himself after a K-pop idol. But again, Gun had called itself ‘Gun’ after Hyungseok had accidentally introduced him to its weaponry namesake, so Jaeyeol wasn’t going to question symbiote naming systems too much.

Hopefully, Hyungseok would keep an eye on the six-hour-old symbiote.

When he came back, his bladder blissfully emptied, DG was gone.

Missing.

Disappeared without a trace.

Jaeyeol searched under the blankets, around the nearest chairs, flipped over all the nearest cushions, to no avail. DG had completely disappeared. Somehow, Jaeyeol had lost this incredibly dangerous, arson-loving symbiote.

From halfway across the room, Kitae burped, then looked a little queasy about it. “It’s kinda hot in here,” he blurted. “Is it just me? Also, I feel like I’ve got indigestion, but I’m also, like, really hungry. Like, ridiculously hungry. Does anyone have any Hot Cheetos?”

Jaeyeol frowned. Kitae didn’t even like spicy food. Unless…

He whipped around to stare at Kitae. Kitae absentmindedly raked his fingers through his bangs, revealing the eye he usually kept hidden. It sparkled pink, which Jaeyeol was sure was absolutely not natural.

He sighed. So DG had chosen Kitae as its new host, then. Well, at least the symbiote wasn’t his problem anymore. Kitae could handle himself and his new unwanted passenger just fine.

Kitae abruptly stood up. “Jaeyeol, can you web me to my chair? I have the urge to set something on fire and I don’t know why and I want you to stop me just in case I do.”

Chapter Text

It all started with being bumped into by a random stranger.

Hyungseok had thought nothing of it at the time - just cringed at the sensation of somebody else’s sweaty skin sliding against his own, tripped a little bit, and then got to his feet. Jaeyeol had been laughing at him, his canines flashing, until he wasn’t. 

Hyungseok stood in shock as Jaeyeol made excuses about having to leave, and then the blond basically bolted away from him, fleeing like Hyungseok had Covid and wasn’t wearing a mask. 

He didn’t even know why . Jaeyeol usually followed him around with all the excited, bumbling enthusiasm of a puppy following his master, and even though Hyungseok’s friends said it was kind of weird, Hyungseok had to admit he’d gotten used to it and thought it was a little bit cute. Sometimes, being friends with Jaeyeol felt a little bit like having a pet, but in a nice way. So now, he was stuck in the strange situation of not feeling like he’d kicked his puppy, but feeling like his puppy had kicked him .

What had Hyungseok even done wrong?

A small voice in his head told him he was hungry, so hungry, so hungry he was trembling with it, his knees giving out from under him. He fell onto the pavement, gasping as a wave of hunger flowed over him. 

We need food, rumbled the voice in his head. Hyungseok stumbled to his feet, and set off in search of something to eat.

He ended up spending most of his money on beef from the butcher’s. He must’ve blanked out after getting home at some point, because by the time he thought ah, I should cook my beef, his hands were covered in bloody water, his mouth tasted like blood, and the beef in his hands was gone.

Something told him he’d eaten it raw. Hyungseok chose to think he’d hallucinated the entire evening and prayed that he wouldn’t get food poisoning.

You won’t .

Where did that faith come from, huh?

Hyungseok spent the next few days starving . He felt like he had a fever, sweating from every single pore of his body, going to sleep every night in a clean shirt and waking up drenched in a disgusting pool of his own sweat, but he was sure fevers didn’t make him this hungry. He was hungry enough that his first instinct, when he saw Jaeyeol at school, was to take a bite out of Jaeyeol’s round cheeks. Jaeyeol made eye contact with him from across the corridor, and as if he’d read Hyungseok’s mind, instantly turned around and went the other way. 

He found out supervillains were a thing, too. He was doing great as an intern photographer and journalist - there was no better way to get a scoop than when you were in the thick of it, which meant he got great photos of the Rhino when it was charging at him and trying to throw him out of a moving train. Maybe it was karma for bad-mouthing Lee Taesung the last time he’d seen him. Maybe that was why Lee Taesung had become some kind of not-entirely-human being and was trying to kill Hyungseok and Hyungseok specifically.

And then Spiderman swooped in to save the day, and Seoul’s first superhero was born. Mm, spider, said the voice in his head, low and rumbling and very different from what Hyungseok swore his consciousness sounded like. Delicious. He could almost hear the licking of a tongue. He thumped his chest, feeling a little bit carsick.

Hyungseok and Jaeyeol got better after that. They started talking again. Hyungseok’s strange hunger got manageable, and as the weather got colder, Hyungseok sweated less, using all the heat to keep himself just warm enough. 

Hyungseok spent Chuseok at Jaeyeol’s place to take care of him and his sprained wrist, even though Hyungseok felt a little bit ill himself. When Jaeyeol wasn’t there with his one-handed attempts at sign language, Hyungseok had taken to talking back to the voice in his head. 

It told him Jaeyeol smelled good. 

“I know,” Hyungseok would answer. 

Eat him , the voice in his head would say. He would be tasty. 

“Absolutely not.”

He wondered if he had a closet desire to cannibalize his best friend. He hoped not. He valued his friendship with Jaeyeol too much to pull a Hannibal Lecter on him. But Hyungseok would be lying if he said he didn’t feel like a maniac, talking to himself about the merits of eating people.

So when he got home and unpacked all his things, he swallowed his pride and confronted the truth. “Okay,” he said to the mirror. “Tell me I’m not crazy.”

He felt a slight itch in his back and closed his eyes, preparing himself for silence. This was it - this was the moment he was going to diagnose himself as clinically insane. 

“We are not crazy.”

Hyungseok’s eyes flew open, and he shrieked. There in his reflection was some kind of monster, pitch black with white eyes, sharp teeth, and a silver cross over its nose. When it opened its mouth to lick its lips, it slobbered all over Hyungseok’s shoulder.

And you know what the worst thing was? The monster seemed to come from Hyungseok’s body.

Hyungseok screamed again, hysterical, swatting at the shape over his shoulder and screaming louder when his palm made contact with something slimy and wet and warm as skin.

The thing swirled around to face him. “Stop screaming,” it hissed. 

Hyungseok only shrieked louder. The monster opened its mouth to shriek back at Hyungseok, low and terrifying and slobbering all over the place. It was at that moment, Hyungseok fainted.

When he woke up, he was lying on his bed. He could’ve sworn he was in the toilet mere moments ago, staring at himself in the mirror, staring at the…

He sat up, jerking, and shrieked again when he saw black tendrils creeping around his body, under his skin . “Do not scream,” the same low, rumbling voice of his nightmares told him. It didn’t show itself fully this time, thank god. “You are too noisy.”

Hyungseok swallowed his terror. “What are you?”

A grinning mouth manifested on Hyungseok’s arm, widening to reveal sharp teeth. “I am a symbiote. You are my perfect host. So we are a symbiont.”

“But I don’t want to be your host.”

The creature - symbiote - grinned wider. “Too bad. We are stuck together.”

Hyungseok scowled. “Then, uh, where did you come from? If there’s anything else like you, I would know.”

“Somewhere.” Great! What a vague and utterly useless answer! “... With lots of humans in white dresses and glasses.” 

Slightly less vague, but that still didn’t help. What was that supposed to mean? White dresses and glasses? All Hyungseok could think of was his Introduction to Journalism lecturer, who was a middle-aged woman who only ever wore white sundresses and needed reading glasses. A wave of foreign irritation washed through Hyungseok. He shuddered as something slithered through his brain, and suddenly, there was a memory at the forefront of his brain that Hyungseok had almost forgotten about. “Like this,” grumbled the voice.

“Oh,” murmured Hyungseok, lost in the memory. It was Jaeyeol, that time Hyungseok had visited him during his lab practical. The ‘white dress’ was Jaeyeol's pristine lab coat, and the ‘glasses’ were the safety goggles covered by Jaeyeol's long, blond bangs. “Like scientists?”

He grabbed onto his blanket for support as his consciousness seemed to tilt into another memory. This one wasn't his - it was the symbiote's, possibly. Hyungseok felt the pain of being made, felt the fuzzy memory of latex gloves, heard a voice murmuring “yes, that's it, it's almost perfect.” Hyungseok felt like he was being lifted up, being stared at and scrutinized by dark, knowing eyes.

And then he was abruptly banished from the memory. “Hey!” Hyungseok spluttered. “I'm trying to find out where you came from so I can return you! I'm not gonna steal someone's experiment!”

“No!” Hyungseok flinched as the symbiote materialized in front of him, teeth snapping with agitation. “We are not going back. We are going to eat all the humans and take over the world.”

“What? No! We're not going to take over the world! And I- you- we’re not going to eat people either!”

“But we are hungry,” complained the symbiote. “We must feed.”

Hyungseok sighed. It seemed like he'd accidentally adopted a new heavily codependent pet. “Okay, fine, fine. I'll get you something else to eat. But this conversation isn't over!”

It was difficult to buy a whole cut of meat from the butcher's, no need to chop it up, when the symbiote kept complaining about the meat being ‘dead’ and ‘not tasty’ and attempted to convince Hyungseok to eat the butcher instead. When Hyungseok hissed at his resident pest to shut up, the butcher stared at him suspiciously. “Sorry,” muttered Hyungseok, “not talking to you.”

When Hyungseok stopped at the convenience store to buy cup noodles for himself, he realized with horror, two seconds too late, that he'd just walked into a mugging. He was a lot more horrified when it turned into an attempted mugging instead.

Because Gun had taken over his body, enveloping Hyungseok in a thick, black, wet and slimy texture, seized the mugger by the throat, and ate him.

Whole.

The cashier, a short guy with glasses, probably younger than Hyungseok, stared at them, on the verge of pissing himself. “You saw nothing, ” Hyungseok said in a panic. His voice came out in the symbiote's low, rumbling timbre. The cashier nodded so rapidly his glasses fell off the slope of his nose.

“Ah,” the symbiote said after retreating into Hyungseok’s body, “that was better than… the best meal we had with any woman.”

“ You’ve never been with a woman,” Hyungseok pointed out. He’d only dated Park Haneul near the end of high school, but they broke it off quickly, preferring their friendly dynamic over the awkwardness of dating.

“But you have.”

Hyungseok must’ve looked like a madman on his way home, quietly muttering to himself and occasionally swearing way too loud, when the reality was that he was telling the symbiote not to just eat any human. They couldn’t play the blame game, not really, not when the symbiote didn’t understand human society and Hyungseok didn’t know a thing about symbiote diets.

They settled on a truce - the symbiote would eat whatever Hyungseok ate, taking the nutrients it needed straight from Hyungseok’s bloodstream, and if it needed more, Hyungseok would get more, goddammit, they couldn’t just go around eating people off the streets. No, they weren’t allowed to jump into the Han River and catch fish like bears either, that was just crazy!

The symbiote thought humans had too many useless rules. Hyungseok thought he needed a name to call the symbiote by. It was easier to tell people off if you knew their names, or better yet, their full names. He’d learned that from tutoring. “So, what should I call you?”

“I do not have a name.”

Well, it needed one.

After two hours of Google, the symbiote settled on ‘Gun’. Not the Korean one, but the English pronunciation of the word, because it wanted to be special.

“Park Gun,” Hyungseok muttered to himself. He still had no idea where Gun came from, so it seemed like he'd be living with the symbiote for a while. “What a pest. If we really have to eat living humans, just make sure to tell me first, okay?”

Gun, from his position on Hyungseok's shoulder, grazed his teeth against Hyungseok's cheek in some semblance of a threat. “Pest? How dare! We are not a pest! We are more powerful than a human could ever imagine!”

Hyungseok decided to shut the symbiote out and sleep. 

They became so in sync over the next few weeks that Hyungseok was, quite frankly, terrified of them and what they could do. Gun said their body - meaning Hyungseok's - was pleasing, and decided to reward him by lending him extra strength every now and then. So now they had three main forms - Hyungseok as he was normally, Hyungseok with pitch black eyes and darkened veins and around ten percent of Gun's strength, and Gun.

Amidst the entire symbiosis fiasco, Hyungseok had almost forgotten about his boss Seo Seongeun’s request for him to unmask the infamous ‘Spider-Menace’. Hyungseok liked Spiderman, honestly. The hero was kind, he stood up for the common people when the police couldn't get there fast enough, and every time Hyungseok found himself in some kind of life-threatening situation, Spiderman was there within seconds to de-escalate the situation. They'd talked a couple times, since Hyungseok was usually the only one around who understood sign language.

If Hyungseok was a little more delusional, he'd think it was sweet. 

He wasn't sure why, but something in Spiderman reminded him of Jaeyeol, actually. It was strange - Spiderman had very expressive eyes while his mask covered his mouth, on the other hand Jaeyeol had a very expressive mouth but his bangs covered his eyes. Maybe it was the exaggerated hand gestures, or the way Spiderman tilted his head when he was confused, but something about them just seemed similar. 

Either way, he liked Spiderman, but not enough to stalk him.

“We do not have to stalk him. We could just smell him.”

Hyungseok had a very vivid image of his Ten-Percent-Gun self walking up to Spiderman and sniffing him. “No thanks. I’d rather figure it out on my own.”

“But we recognize his scent.”

“No we don’t.”

“We know who he is.”

“Be quiet, Gun.”

Hyungseok had one thing that both Gun and Seo Seongeun didn’t, and it was a sense of respect for other members of society. There was obviously a reason why Spiderman didn’t want to be unmasked, and now that he had a runaway lab-made symbiote co-existing in his body, Hyungseok understood that more than ever. So all he did was draft an email requesting an interview to Spiderman’s new email account that he found through Spiderman’s Ingstagram. If Spiderman didn’t respond to him, he could channel his inner mean streak, aka Gun-

“Hey!”

-and accuse Spiderman of stealing his photos from the papers and posting them without giving credit. He wasn’t stupid, after all. He could recognize his own photography. But it was kind of also flattering for Spiderman to post his photos.

Of course, the next time they went out to hunt for raw beef and offal because Hyungseok had eaten it once and Gun was now obsessed with devouring all the internal organs they could get their grubby little hands on, they almost got mugged. Naturally, Gun decided muggers were evil, they could be eaten, right?

Gun had seen the mugger, and banished Hyungseok into the background. It sucked. He couldn’t even move, their body jolting around by Gun’s commands through Hyungseok’s nervous system. Hyungseok watched through Gun’s eyes in horror as Gun grabbed the mugger with a tentacle hand, raising him into the air and lowering him down, down, down-

And then Spiderman stole their dinner right out of their hands.

Gun, infuriated at having someone steal their food, chased after Spiderman, not caring about Hyungseok shrieking at that to stop because that was Spiderman , Hyungseok liked Spiderman even if Gun didn’t, and they could, under no circumstances, eat Spiderman!

“Fine,” Gun grumbled. “Spider is friend, not foe.”

They watched Spiderman exhale, relaxing as much as he could in the tight grip of Gun’s tentacle hand. Gun, against Hyungseok’s better wishes, basically blackmailed Spiderman into making them weekly food offerings, since they knew Hyungseok could barely afford Gun’s eating habits on top of everything else. He knew Gun only meant well, but at the same time…

“Ground rules,” Hyungseok gasped when they got home and Gun finally melted back under his skin, “one. No eating any more people while I’m aware of it. Two. Don’t be mean to Spiderman.”

“We were not mean, we were nice. Little Spider was just scared.”

Hyungseok concentrated hard, sending his own wave of irritation flooding against Gun. 

Gun swirled around his chest cavity, brushing against his lungs. “Ugh. Fine. But now we are very sure about Spiderman’s secret.”

Hyungseok asserted that they were not going to deliberately stalk Spiderman or sniff him until they recognized his scent. Gun, the absolute asshole, agreed, but sent Hyungseok’s email to Spiderman while Hyungseok was texting Jaeyeol. The second the email was sent, Hyungseok swallowed his squawk, internally freaking out. 

He would’ve told Jaeyeol, Jaeyeol was great to talk to when he was stressed out and looking for someone to calm him down, but Jaeyeol suddenly went offline. Not long later, Spiderman replied, which Gun noted was quite a coincidence. All the time slots Spiderman had suggested for the interview were times that Hyungseok and Jaeyeol were both free, which was even more of a coincidence.

More and more coincidences kept piling up over time, like bumping into Spiderman just ‘patrolling in the neighborhood’ while Hyungseok was sneaking out to hunt for Gun, or Hyungseok catching sight of two swollen bumps on the inside of Jaeyeol’s forearms that leaked white fluid and Jaeyeol instantly covering them up like nothing happened. 

The breaking point was when Spiderman held Hyungseok in his arms and walked down the side of the Paprika News building like he was taking a stroll, Hyungseok buried his nose in the crook of Spiderman’s neck to prevent the vertigo from getting to him, and caught a whiff of citrus cologne under the smell of sweat. Hyungseok could’ve sworn Jaeyeol used the same cologne.

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” Hyungseok murmured when he got home. He was thoroughly exhausted - his boss had praised his photographs, and then chewed him out for drafting an article depicting Spiderman as the neighborhood friendly superhero that he was, instead of the menace that Seo Seongeun believed him to be. “I don’t know if I’m just seeing things, or if I think they’re both just kind of cute.”

They were both cute. It was in the little things, like the slight curl of Jaeyeol’s lips when he smiled, or the way Spiderman had rolled down his mask and did a silly little wink at Hyungseok. It was in their unfailing kindness, a little bit clumsy at times, but always willing to do their best if they thought they could help. It was Jaeyeol opening his mouth so Hyungseok could tenderly feed him soup and call him a klutz; Spiderman kneeling at Gun’s feet and offering him a living, flopping fish like he was leaving a gift at the altar.

The more Hyungseok thought of Jaeyeol and Spiderman at the same time, the more the lines between them blurred, until Hyungseok could visualize all too vividly Spiderman taking his mask off to reveal Jaeyeol’s sheepish, smiling face. 

Pussy! Gun called him from inside their body. Just ask him!

“What? You want me to ask Spiderman if he’s Hong Jaeyeol? Ask Hong Jaeyeol if he’s Spiderman? No way, they’ll both think I’m crazy!”

No! The other question!

“What?” Hyungseok spluttered, distracted by the texts he was getting from Jaeyeol, asking Hyungseok how his interview with Spiderman was. “What other question?”

Gun stole control of Hyungseok’s hands to reply, telling Jaeyeol how sweet and funny and crazy Spiderman was. Jaeyeol’s responses grew clipped, and Gun’s last message before Hyungseok seized control of his hands again made him go offline for good: Help me, I think I have a crush on him.

“Why would you do that?” Hyungseok shrieked. He didn’t have a crush on Jaeyeol, he just thought Jaeyeol was cute, that didn’t warrant a crush! He wasn’t a teenage schoolgirl! He was a twenty year old man, for god’s sake!

“Because it’s true!” Gun roared back. “You are a pussy!”

When Hyungseok dreamed of kissing Spiderman, who turned out to be Jaeyeol, things took a rather inappropriate twist, but he found his dream self enjoying it. In the morning, he woke up sweating, and wondering: was that a nightmare? Or a fantasy he didn’t realize he had?