Chapter Text
Leave it to the Ace of the Metaverse.
The day after that mission, Lee Joongi turned himself over to the police. Despite the long drop, the crash, the flames, the man hadn’t died in the Metaverse and his real life self was well enough to walk into the police precinct and confess to crimes of collusion and homicide. It sent the media into a frenzy and the public into a state of concern, a sudden election was now on the horizon, but a change of heart was still a change of heart. Nirvanas had earned another victory.
All sorts of calls and online requests now flooded their way. If they could change the heart of someone who had convinced the country his intentions were pure, they could take on any challenge. Too bad they were on hiatus for now, though.
But Wonshik was on the mend and Jongin’s shoulder, sliced up as it was from a few too many falls and bullets, only needed about a month or so of rehabilitation before he’d be back in the game too.
Maybe longer, actually… because he wasn’t being very good about taking care of it.
“You should be icing.” A voice called from the doorway of Jongin’s apartment. “You can’t save people if your arm's fucked up.”
Jongin rolled his eyes. “My arm’s already halfway healed. I think a day or two of slacking off is fine— Nn! Hey! Careful!”
Jongin’s hand slammed on top of the ice pack that had just been dropped on his shoulder, successfully keeping it from falling further into his lap but failing at the whole ‘hey let’s not hurt our shoulder more’ thing. He huffed as he turned around.
“I thought you were halfway healed~?” Taemin cooed.
“Yeah but halfway healed doesn’t mean you should go and injure me again.” He lifted his hand from the ice and reached for Taemin’s shirt, ignoring the protests of ‘cold cold cold!’ to tug him closer—just a few centimeters apart. He put on his best pout. “You already did a number on my heart.”
“Sorry,” Taemin returned softly, breath hot against Jongin’s skin. He leaned in further and pressed their lips together.
One gentle kiss turned into arms wrapping around one another and Jongin all but pulled Taemin into his lap, injuries be damned. Holding him here, like this, was better healing than any amount of ice or rest or physical therapy.
How it happened, well, Taemin didn’t like to talk about it. What mattered, to him, was that Lee Joongi hadn’t died—“A better revenge is watching him give up his pride and repent,” he’d explained—and Taemin had made it out in one piece.
Jongin preferred to think that he made it out alive but Taemin had a bad reaction to that word when he’d used it first; on the early morning that Taemin turned up outside his apartment building, wide eyed and trembling with his hand clutched across his middle. His eyes weren’t able to meet Jongin’s for those first few days.
But now was different. Some time had passed and Taemin had settled into someone new and different—warm and free. He was off the grid for now, and that meant staying in Jongin’s apartment until he felt ready to face the world again.
Jongin ran his fingers through Taemin’s hair, revealing dark roots. “It’s getting long,” he whispered as they broke apart, lips still brushing.
“Yeah.”
“I like it.”
“I know.”
They kissed again. This time, Taemin crawled more properly into the space next to Jongin. He pressed his palm into the cushion and brushed their arms against one another. His other hand found its way onto Jongin’s chest. Taemin’s head tilted—
A knock on the door startled them both. Taemin started to peel back but Jongin refused to let him, causing Taemin to crash against his chest just as his friends let themselves inside.
“Oh sorry. We interrupting something?” Wonshik froze on the spot and took a step back.
“No,” Moonkyu answered for Jongin and Taemin. “They have all the time in the world to be like this. We can come in.”
“Yeah, you can. But I’m going to make it as awkward as possible.” Jongin tightened his hold around Taemin’s waist. “I’m not letting him go.”
“Y-you should let me go…!” Taemin, flustered, attempted to push back. Jongin just held on harder.
Moonkyu slipped into a spot on the far end of the black leather couch. Wonshik, nearly heeled save for a slight limp, perched on the arm rest. “We come with mission updates… If that’s okay, Taemin.”
“Yeah. Fine.” Taemin successfully managed to free himself from strong arms, and then compromised with sitting on Jongin’s lap, holding on loosely to his neck. That was what he was in therapy for, after all, after a bit of convincing and a lot of hunting.
So Moonkyu spread all of his documents out across Jongin’s coffee table. Swiping between tabs on his laptop and pointing between papers, he ran them through the list of requests received in their downtime in order of—as he saw it—easiest to hardest; ones that they could do without Jongin. Taemin gave his insight here and there, eventually slipping from Jongin’s lap to his knees on the floor in order to do a little bit of his own digging on Moonkyu’s computer. In all the time they’d known each other, Jongin never once saw Moonkyu let anyone touch his laptop. But Taemin was different. Taemin was allowed. And the research he pulled in the ten minutes had the whole team looking on in understanding and awe.
“Are you sure you don’t want to work with us?” Wonshik asked goodnaturedly. “With you on our team we’d be unstoppable.”
“Excuse you. I’m unstoppable now,” Jongin whined in return, welcoming Taemin back to his lap by wrapping his arms around his waist.
“Sure you are. You can fight just fine with that ice pack on your shoulder.”
“Better than your leg—”
“Okay you two, knock it off,” Taemin chuckled. He smiled down at Jongin, pinching his puffed out cheeks before looking at Wonshik. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m retired for good.”
Jongin had thought about retiring. After that mission, as he stood in the empty cafe on an early AM shift, he reasoned with himself that maybe he no longer needed to play superhero anymore. His body would be better off for it. And he and his friends could figure out other ways to spend time with one another—it didn’t always have to be fighting bad guys and changing hearts.
But when the door jingled, and in walked a familiar head of blonde hair just barely falling over very tired eyes, he remembered what he promised his survival on.
“Get out and keep changing this world. You make it seem so easy anyway.”
“Not as easy as cheating death,” he said under his breath as the two of them locked eyes. But you’ve always loved a challenge.
“Hey. I’m new in town.” A smile spread across Taemin’s face. “Care to show me around?”
“Yeah.” Jongin nodded. “I know a great jazz bar.”