The first time Jae saves Kim Wonpil, he does it by crashing headfirst into the boy. Quite literally.
He’s perched on the corner edge of a building, high enough to feel comfortable taking his mask off and letting it pool around his neck. The world looks pocket-sized at his feet, like Jae could reach out and take it in his hands if he wanted to. He watches the bustling streets down below, swinging his legs around and fiddling with the web-shooters wrapped tight around his wrists. They’re almost running empty. Jae frowns at them, wondering if he has enough money to buy the chemicals he needs to make more of the stuff.
One look at his empty wallet tells him very clearly that he doesn’t.
Jae sighs. Honestly, hard work as it is, being your friendly neighborhood superhero doesn’t pay much. Doesnt pay at all, actually. He’s going to have to beg aunt Aerum for some cash, and he knows the woman isn’t buying his excuses anymore. Admittedly, they are not very good ones. But Jae is a sucky liar at best and he can only tell her he needs to buy so many condoms in a month, especially considering that Jae doesn’t even have a girlfriend. No boyfriend to speak of either, sadly enough. One would think being the city's most beloved superhero would get him a few dates. Tough luck no one knows it’s him under the suit.
Jae huffs out a breath, climbing to his feet and reaching for his backpack. He needs to get home and start on his homework already. He can’t exactly tell his teachers he was too busy stopping a bank heist to do his english assignment. Though not for lack of trying, mind you. The ungrateful bastards just don’t seem to give a fuck about it. Nevermind that Jae is the one who’s out there risking his ass to save their coveted retirement money.
Cracking his joints, Jae pulls his mask up, making sure no strands of hair are sticking out and shrugging his backpack on. He's just about to leap off the building, fingers already on the web-triggers, when he sees him.
The boy is walking down the street, earphones plugged firmly into his ears and blasting music so loudly Jae can hear it all the way over here. Though that may have to do more with his heightened senses than anything else. Still, the fact remains that the boy is completely oblivious to his surrounding as he makes to cross the street.
Oblivious enough not to see the loading truck speeding straight towards him.
“Look out!” Jae shouts, sprinting along the edge of the building. He reaches out, shoots a web towards the skyscraper at the other side of the street and lets himself fall of the ledge, swinging across the street to keep the boy from becoming a mere splatter on the road.
Of course, him being him, he miscalculates.
The web-shooters are emptier than he thought, sticking lower to the skyscraper than Jae would have liked. And so instead of sailing smoothly across the street and grabbing the boy by the waist to get him out of the way like he had planned, Jae flails around in empty space, completely caught off guard as he rushes towards the hard cement waiting for him down below.
He goes crashing into the side of a cab, wincing at the cracking sound that comes from his ribs. Jae groans. It hurts like a motherfucker, but he’s had worse before, and the boy is still walking straight into the truck’s path, so Jae grits his teeth and forces himself up to his feet.
The driver spots the boy at the very last moment, though Jae has to wonder how the hell he didn’t before. The boy is a walking neon sign, wearing a truly godawful sweater caught in between shades of hot pink and grandmother salmon, looking like Barbie just threw up all over him and added glitter for the fun of it. It’s all in all a very blatant look me and judge kind of sweater. But apparently still not flashy enough because the trucker just barely manages to spot the boy before he drives him over.
The moment he sees him, the man presses down on the brakes, hard. The tires screech at the effort and burn against the road, but Jae knows that he won’t be able to stop on time, feels it more than sees it.
So he runs.
Jae sprints towards the boy, dashes across the street and throws himself into him just as the truck whizzes past them both. They go crashing down hard against the ground and Jae just barely manages to slip a hand behind the boy’s head so he doesn’t crack it again the road, curving over him protectively.
“Oh my god,” he hears the boy breath into his ear before he starts getting more and more panicky, wriggling and struggling against Jae’s chest. “Oh my fucking god.”
“It’s fine, you’re fine,” Jae says, tries to calm the boy down, but he just struggles harder, so Jae relents and sits up. He reaches for the boy’s hand to help him to his feet, but then-
“Let me go, you complete sicko!” the boy screams, ripping his hand out of Jae’s hold as he looks at him, gaping and wide-eyed. “You almost killed me.”
Jae freezes, completely thrown off by the boy’s reaction. He’s used to people being a bit scared when he saves them (an old lady hit him over the head with her purse once, even if it was Jae who brought it back to her after it got stolen by some tug) but the boy is looking at him like Jae was the one sitting behind the wheel and intentionally driving the truck that was about to run him over.
“I think you got that sideways,” Jae starts, watching as the boy dusts himself off and grumbles to himself. “I saved you. You would have become roadkill if it weren’t for me.”
“Saved me, my ass,” the boy bites back, glaring at Jae with big brown eyes. Very pretty big brown eyes. Not that Jae notices them or anything. “You ruined my project,” he says, pointing down at the ground where Jae only just notices a model of a very squashed looking Saturn lays scattered all over. “My sweater too,” the boy mourns, pulling at the ripped hem of his pink monstrosity.
“Not much of a loss if we’re being honest,” Jae counters, raising an eyebrow that gets covered by his red mask.
The boy puffs off his cheeks at that, narrowing his eyes at him and jabbing a finger in Jae’s chest. He would have looked threatening if he weren’t so cute. “You superheroes,” he grouches, “thinking everyone owes them some kind of thank you for jumping around in tight leather and playing cops and robbers around the city, honestly.”
“A thank you would be nice, yeah,” Jae says, crosses his arms over his chest and swats the boy's fingers away. He just saved this boy for god’s sake, a little gratefulness wouldn’t hurt him. Maybe some grovelling too. Or just a bit of praise. Jae’s not picky about it. “Also this is polyester, not leather. Not into that kinda stuff.”
The boy throws his hands up in desperation, mumbles something else under his breath and then promptly turns on his heels and starts walking away without so much as a backwards glance. “Goodbye, Spiderboy. See you never.”
“It’s Spiderman!” Jae calls out after him. He knows he’s skinny but c’mon, he’s got some muscle. Somewhere. You just have to look for a bit. “Wait, come back! You forgot your project!”
“Keep it!” the boy shouts back. “You ruined it either way.”
Jae reaches down, turns one of Saturn’s rings over to see a name tag stuck to it. Kim Wonpil it reads. Jae mulls the name over, whispers it under his breath before a car honks at him and Jae startles into action.
He jumps up, shooting out a web just for it to fall flat. Jae sighs, ducking his head down. He’s going to have to walk home still clad in his dirty suit. Honestly, fuck being a superhero. It gets you nothing.
Still, Kim Wonpil, Jae thinks.
What an ungrateful bastard.
*
The second time Jae saves Wonpil, he honestly considers not doing it.
He’s trudging home after stopping a heist gone wrong in the other side of the city and he aches all over. The gang that tried to pull the robbery off had been a complete bunch of idiots. The morons had triggered the bank alarm first thing and gotten too busy fighting over who had made the rookie mistake to notice him until Jae hit one of them over the head with their own gun.
Still, fools or not, they had been stock full of testosterone; bulging muscle and veiny hands, the whole package. They had managed to get a few punches in before the cops arrived and took them out of his hands, enough of them for Jae to be limping and wheezing a bit every time he breathes in.
Honestly, all Jae wants right now is his bed, maybe some of aunt Aerum’s cooking too. But then, just as he’s about to turn a corner, he hears it.
“Stop! Help! Please, someone help!”
Jae stops in his tracks, tilts his head to the side in an effort to hear where the screaming is coming from.
“Goddamnit stop! Someone help!”
Jae turns, jumps up to stick against the wall and starts climbing over it until he reaches the other side. Peaking over, he spots some guy in a black sky mask trying to tug a bag out of a boy’s hand. Well, not a boy, he realizes, but the boy. Kim Wonpil, Jae remembers him, the one he had saved no less than two weeks ago.
Wonpil is putting up a good fight, fighting with teeths and claws to keep the robber away from him. But the guy is strong, certainly stronger than him, and Jae knows Wonpil won’t be able to defend himself for much longer.
Sighing, knowing he’s probably going to regret this, Jae digs up his suit from his backpack and slips it on. The thing is a ripped, bloody mess, courtesy of the bank robbers from earlier, and it makes Jae feel just that slightest bit humiliated as he jumps down from the building behind the robber and says, “someone called for help?”
“Oh god, not you,” Wonpil snaps. He lets go of his bag to throw his hands up in the air, completely exasperated. The robber stumbles back when he finds no resistance against his pull, feet catching on a crack in the ground that ultimately sends him crashing right against Jae’s chest.
“Hey,” Jae grouches, frowns down at Wonpil as he clamps a hand down on the robber’s shoulder to keep him from trying to break free. “That’s no way to thank a guy.”
“That’s because I’m not thanking you,” Wonpil counters, huffs at him as he reaches down to grab his bag form where it lays on the floor and dusting it off. “I didn’t need your help.”
“Uh huh,” Jae hums, “I’m sure you didn’t- hey, stop that,” Jae snaps at the robber. “You’re caught now, buddy, got you in my web.”
Wonpil snorts, raises an unimpressed eyebrow up at him. “Got you in my web? Really?”
“I wanna see you try and come up with something better,” Jae shoots back. “What were you doing out here so late anyways? Don’t you know it’s dangerous to walk alone at night, idiot?”
“That’s none of your business, Spiderguy,” Wonpil says, ignore Jae’s indignant it’s Spiderman as he starts to walk away. “Goodnight,” he says, throwing a jaunty wave over one shoulder and Jae just - he just can’t believe the nerve of this guy.
“You’re one of the most ungrateful civilians I’ve ever had the displeasure of saving, you know,” Jae says to him as he catches up to Wonpil and starts walking by his side, lugging the robber behind him. “Twice now.”
“What are you doing?” Wonpil asks when he sees Jae following after him. “You gonna walk me home to make sure I’m safe like the knight in shining armor that you are?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Jae answers, pointing at the robber. “I need to get this guy to the cops and the precinct it’s that way.”
“Oh,” Wonpil falters, looks at Jae out of the corner of his eye. “Right.”
“What, you scared I might leave you alone?”
“As if,” Wonpil snorts. “I don’t need your protection.”
“Says the guy who had to get saved by Spiderman twice in the same amount of weeks,” Jae counters, sees Wonpil flush red even under the dim lights of the street lamps. Jae kind of wants to find out how deep that blush goes, wants to know if Wonpil looks as cute as he does right now when he smiles.
Wonpil opens his mouth to retort, probably to insult him again, when the robber beats him to it.
“If you two would stop flirting for a moment-” he starts.
“We’re not flirting!” both Jae and Wonpil hiss at the same time, then turn to look at each other, surprised.
“Right,” the robber continues, looks like he doesn’t believe them for a second. “We just passed the police station.”
“Shit,” Jae curses, turns around to see that it’s true. “A bit eager to be processed, aren't you?” he asks the robber.
“If it means that I don’t have to stand around hearing you pull at each others’ pigtails like crushing preschoolers, then yeah” he says, waves his spider-web-wrapped hands around. “Better get it over with now.”
“Shut up,” Jae snaps, grateful for the way the mask hides his red cheeks as he shoots a bit of web to cover the robber’s mouth. “Criminals don’t get to comment.”
The guy tries to say something else, but it gets muffled by the web gag, thankfully enough. Jae doesn’t think he could take a petty criminal doing a running commentary on his love life, lacking as it is.
“Right,” Wonpil says then, snapping Jae back to attention. “I’m gonna head home now.” He pauses, seems to hesitate for a moment, before he shoots Jae a small, tentative smile and says, “thank you, I guess. You kinda deserve it, though I still stand by it that I didn’t need your help.”
And really, it’s quite possibly one of the worst apologies Jae’s ever gotten, including that one time some lady gave him free coupons for tampons, which were expired to boot, but it’s also quite possibly one of the best. If only because it came from him.
Jae stands around for awhile, watching as Wonpil’s silhouette disappears into the night. Then he sighs, to which the robber snorts and slashes a hand through the air in a gesture that plainly states whipped.
Jae scowls. “C’mon,” he says, shaking the robber and pushing him in the direction of the precinct. “You’re still a criminal, don’t get sassy on me.”
The robber just snorts again, shrugs at him and starts walking towards the precinct, where Jae takes great pleasure in handing him over to the officers.
And, if he follows Wonpil around to make sure the boy gets home safely that night, well, that’s only for him to know.
*
The third time it happens Jae’s not even in the suit.
He’s half walking, half shuffling down the supermarket aisle, trying to not fall asleep on his feet as he searches around for a carton of eggs to take home. He blinks at the shelfs, squinting to see if those are organic or not because aunt Aerum has been in a bit of an environmentalist mood lately and she won’t take anything that isn’t stamped green when the door to the store slams open with a great crash and everything promptly goes to shit.
“Everybody on the ground, this is a robbery!” a man clad in black shouts out, banging his fists against the counter as the few shopper who are still around at this time of the night start screaming bloody murder.
Jae sighs, drops his head to rest again the upper shelf in utter defeat. He’s so goddamn sick of robberies. He’ll take a car chase over another one any other day. Hell, rescuing kittens from trees or helping old ladies cross the street would be better than this.
“Hey you! The skinny guy over there!” one of the robbers shouts. Jae turns to look at them sluggishly, frowning hard. He’s not skinny, he’s lean. There’s a difference. “Yeah, you,” the tug spits out, “on the floor. Now!”
“Okay, okay,” Jae mumbles, holds his hands up as he complies. He’s just about to reach for his web-shooter and be done with it all when he remembers that he left them at home. Fuck, he thinks. But he had been going to pick up some eggs, he didn’t think he would need them. Jae should have known better though, ever since the whole radioactive spider clusterfuck the universe seems to enjoy making him into its plaything.
“Give us the money,” one of the guys over by the counter demands, glaring at the terrified cashier girl. Jae is just about to stand up and do something (what exactly he doesn’t now. Then again, he’s always been more the let’s just wing it and hope for the best kind of guy) when a shout comes from the aisle on his right.
“Hey,” someone says, determination ringing true in their voice even when it shakes a bit in fear. “Mess with someone your own size, you coward!”
Jae freezes. There’s no way, he thinks, there's no fucking way someone could ever be this unlucky. But apparently he’s wrong, because just as he suspected, Kim goddamn Wonpil chooses that moment to make his way out of the neighbouring aisle and glare resolutely back at the robbers.
“What are you playing at?” one of the men asks, snorting at Wonpil. Honestly, Jae kind of wants to do the same. Wonpil looks like a pretty stick compared to the robbers, all gangly limbs and shaking hands. Still, the boy is nothing if not determined, and just raises his chin higher as he says, “let the girl go.”
“Not until she gives us the goddamn money,” the robber snarls, shaking the poor girl by the hair and making her cry out in pain.
“Stop,” Wonpil grits out. “Stop or I’ll make you stop.”
“Yeah?” the guys mocks. “You and whose army?”
“I don’t know about an army,” Jae drawls as he stands up. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Wonpil gaping at him, expression half surprise, half relief. Jae doesn’t like the look on him, he likes Wonpil smiling. Or at least screaming at him. Not scared though, never scared. “But you’re gonna have to go through me too.”
The robber rolls his eyes at that, gestures at the other two men. “Deal with them,” he commands. Jae cracks his knuckles.
In one swift move, he has the first robber locked in a headlock, right arm digging into his throat to stop him from struggling. Jae grunts, brings his elbow down on the back of his head and knocking him out cold.
The other man lunges at him, but Jae is quicker - spider reflexes do help sometimes - and snaps his leg back in a move that sends him rushing back and straight into the diapers shelf.
Panting a bit, Jae turns to looks for the last of the robbers, but finds him missing. It’s only his spider senses that make him dodge at the very last minute as a bullet shoots right by him, grazing him on the shoulder. Jae winces, presses his fingers to the wound only for them to come out stained red.
“Fucker,” he spits out at the robber, who’s too shocked to move, not having expected Jae to be able to dodge the bullet when he had his back to him. “That was my favorite shirt.”
Jae moves, too quick for the robber to react he swats the gun away from him and kicks it away, headbuts the asshole instead of punching him like he really wants to in order to avoid moving his arm too much and then knees him in the crotch just to make it hurt a bit more. He really did like this shirt.
There’s silence for a bit as the people in the supermarket start calming down and taking everything in. Then it’s all a blur of people patting him on the back and gushing over him as they thank him for what he did. Jae just lets them be. It’s certainly nice, he thinks, getting recognition for something he did as himself and not just as Spiderman, even though Spiderman is him. It still feels different, a nice kind of difference.
In the haze of it all, Jae loses sight of Wonpil. They boy gets swallowed up by the crowd of grateful shoppers and even though Jae searches around for him in the supermarket after they have let him go, Wonpil doesn't turn up.
It’s only after the police have arrived that Jae finds him again. Or well, Wonpil finds him.
“What you did there,” the boy says as he takes a seat next to him on the curb near the police car. The officers are refusing to let Jae go, claiming he’s in shock or something, so Jae was just hanging around when Wonpil arrived, trying to decide if he should still bring the eggs back home. “It was amazing.”
“Thanks,” Jae says, can’t really believe what he’s hearing coming out of Wonpil’s mouth. “I just did what anything would have really.”
“Don’t play humble, you’re a hero,” Wonpil says, bumps his shoulder against Jae’s, making him wince when it opens up the bullet wound again. Wonpil notices, because his eyes widen and he brushes his thumb against Jae’s arm carefully. “You’re hurt,” he says.
“It’s just a graze,” Jae answers, blames the way he shivers on the cold night on not because of the way Wonpil keeps stroking his skin. “It’ll heal soon enough, don’t worry.”
“I would imagine so,” Wonpil murmurs, softer now. “Spiderman has survived worse.”
Jae chokes on air.
“What?” he asks, trying for a laugh that comes out stuttering out of his chest as Wonpil just keeps looking at him, waiting. “What, uh, what do you mean by that?”
“Oh, come of it,” he laughs, quirks up a smile like he can’t believe Jae is asking him that question. “I only know one guy who’s capable of dodging a bullet he doesn’t even see coming.” He pauses then, smiles just that little bit brighter. “Only one who would come save my sorry ass too.”
“So you admit you needed my help,” Jae blurts out before he can think better about it and then claps a hand over his mouth when he realizes his mistake.
“I’m still a bit bitter about my sweater,” Wonpil chuckles. “But I could, potentially, forgive you for its loss.”
“Oh, really?” Jae asks, smiles back helplessly. “What would I need to do?”
“Let’s start with your name,” Wonpil answers, scuttling closer to Jae so that he’s pressed right against him, warm and present. “I’m Kim Wonpil, it’s nice to meet you…”
“Jaehyung,” Jae answers the implied question because honestly, fuck secret identities. He saved this one on his own, no suit involved, he’s entitled to a few benefits. “Park Jaehyung.”
“Nice to meet you, Park Jaehyung,” Wonpil says softly, eyes brighter than the lights of the city shining all around them. “And thank you, for saving me.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Jae says, doesn’t quite manage to hide the smile that threatens to break across his face. Not that he minds it an awful lot really, not when Wonpil is smiling back at him too.
And really, Wonpil’s a bit of danger magnet, but that’s fine, Jae thinks. He has no problem being there to save him.