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When the lights of the infirmary flick from sterile white to neon green, Kun doesn't do much but sigh and turn to one of his assistants, who's helping him wipe the place down before they clock out. Yukhei, for all his height and muscle, is incredibly soft-hearted. He knows how to handle the gun that’s hidden in his shoulder-mod, but would rather not. His large eyes are even wider with fear as he looks at Kun, and Kun is overcome with a fierce affection for him.
"Go," he nods towards the exit. "I'll take care of this. It's a code green, not red, anyway. If you don't get the clear from me in ten minutes, go fetch Taeyong, okay? Even if Johnny or Doyoung tell you he's busy. Tell them I told you it was okay."
To his credit, Yukhei looks hesitant to go, but when Kun fixes him with an unperturbed stare, he puts into practice what he's learnt over the past few months of working at the head infirmary — always listen to Kun-ge, as Xiaojun had so beautifully put it.
Once he watches the door click shut behind Yukhei's massive form, Kun turns around to face infirmary's glass windows, the borders of which are now glowing with a neon green shield — not unlike the blasts of energy Taeyong's suit send out.
He scans the cityscape for any sign of the upcoming threat. Code green means it's two minutes out, so why can't he see it yet?
Then he hears it. Three knocks, in quick succession.
Kun's eyes flit to the ceiling, and in record time, his hands wrap around the hilt of the knife that has popped out of the mod in his left shoulder.
(Just because he's a medic, doesn't mean he can escape the monthly self-defence checks that all the staff go through. This is NeoTech, after all. When Taeyong had fail to nag all the employees away from working here, he had concluded that the next best thing to do for their safety was to teach them how to deal with situations like this one.
It's a nuisance, seeing that Kun is well-versed in how to handle his knives, but it does help that he hasn’t become too rusty since his days as an SM field agent.)
The chill of the metal hilt against his right hand — mod-free, still fully flesh — grounds him as he assesses the threat.
A black figure sits on the window near the top of the infirmary's ceiling, a single hand and foot clinging precariously to the glass as the rest of his body leans away, ready to make a quick escape. The figure’s free arm is up, bent at a loose ninety-degree angle.
"You come in peace, huh?" Kun mutters to himself, trying to figure out his next move. Situations like this one are tricky for a medic, because this could be a genuine hero in need, or villain taking advantage of his kindness — and, more often than not, his inability to fight back.
The former is unlikely, seeing how Taeyong has reached out to most of the city's heroes to give them access to the tower should they need help, but the latter isn't exactly something Kun needs to be concerned about himself.
He makes the decision quickly, pulling the knife out of his shoulder-mod, and pulling another out of his thigh-mod as well. "Let him in," Kun calls out to the tower's AI, and without warning, the window the figure is leaning on pops right open. Devious little thing, Kun thinks fondly. The AI is awfully loyal to Taeyong, and clearly doesn't approve of Kun's decision. "I know, I know," he murmurs, "Just trust me."
Thankfully, the figure seems to have enhanced senses. Just a second before the window had popped open, he'd leapt up and out of sight. Kun waits patiently for him to realise that the tower hadn't been about to eject him off, and sure enough, in a few moments, he's climbed back down once more.
He's quick, Kun notes. His all-black ensemble just adds to the effect, making him blend into the night like a shadow. It's only when his feet rest on the open window pane, and his head tentatively ducks in, that he seems much more human.
Kun raises an eyebrow. "Are you going to come in?" He asks drily.
The figure drops in gracefully, landing on his two feet despite the ten-foot drop, like some kind of sleek black cat. "Thank you."
The voice gives away that this is probably a grown man, around the same age as him, maybe, but that's not what Kun latches onto. It's the quiver of his words, how he sounds exhausted. Now, it's becoming apparent in his body language, too. He's stiff as a board, clearly because he expects to be attacked at any moment, but that's all the energy he seems to have.
Kun drops the knives in the sink of counter he's leaning on, and steps forward slowly, raising his hands in a similar motion to how the guy himself was, before. "Hey, I'm not going to hurt you. Whatever you've heard about this place, it's not true, okay?"
Wincing at how that must sound, he says, "I know you'd think I'm obligated to say that as an employee here, and you're right. It's your choice to believe me or not."
He pauses for a moment, in case the guy wants to say something. Surprisingly, he does.
"And who are you?" The words sound like they’re meant to come off as mocking, but Kun suspects that this is more of a reflex. The guy doesn’t seem to have it in him right now, for that kind of attitude.
"My name is Qian Kun," he says, slowly lowering one of his hands to pull out his employee ID from the pocket of his scrubs. "I'm the chief medical officer here, and I tend to the our heroes’ injuries myself, but I’m guessing you know that, and that’s why you’re here at the infirmary. I bet you that there's no one who can help you better than I can, and I won't even ask questions if you don't want me to. Can you show me where you're hurt?"
That seems to do the trick. All the tension and false bravado seeps out of the guy with a shudder. He slumps against the window at his back and sinks to the ground. Kun watches as his hands come up and begin to pull at the mask covering his-
"Wait!" He winces at how loud his voice rings out, but the guy stills, and that's enough. Kun sighs. "You don't have to show me your face, you know. Aren't you worried about keeping your identity a secret?"
There’s silence between them for a beat, before the guy starts giggling. Kun doesn’t know what he’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t this.
“Sorry,” the guy says, gasping through his laughter, “It’s just, it’s way too late for that now. Like, half of SM is after me right now, so you understand if I find that hilarious.” He winces, now, the laughter apparently having triggered another pang of pain. “Also, if you’re serious about helping me, I kind of have to take my mask off. It’s easier if I just show you, wait-”
Before Kun can protest further about confidentiality clauses and half of SM? , the guy pulls off his mask. Kun doesn’t know if it’s his will not to invade the guy’s privacy, or his training as a medic, or just human instinct, but rather than his face, the first this his gaze falls on is the large, bloody scratch that runs from the guy’s jawline and down his throat.
Just four hours ago, Kun had been monitoring the news reports of a lizard-monster attack in Gangnam. Things quickly fall into place. “Oh my god,” he breathes, scrambling to the guy’s makeshift seat by the window. “Oh my god, you should have led with that. Can you get up?”
It takes some time, but Kun manages to get him to a counter and begins to work on the wound. True to his word, he doesn’t ask any questions, though the urge to is burning at the tip of his tongue. He’s not the only curious one, it seems, because the guy is watching him too, eyes now bright and quick.
“You said you’re a medical officer? And that you can help me without asking questions?”
“Mhm,” Kun hums, dabbing some salve on the scratch now that it’s clean. “So from now on, if you get hurt from defending the city from it’s latest monster, Mr Vigilante," he says, packing a bit more heat behind the word, "You know where to go instead of trying to grit your teeth and bear the pain for four hours.”
This makes the guy freeze. “How did you know?”
It’s so innocent of him, that Kun resists the urge to laugh and instead shoots him a wry smile. “I work at NeoTech,” he says, “We get live news coverage to keep track of our heroes. That lizard thing that ravaged Gangnam disappeared four hours ago. You show up here, a known safe haven for heroes, four hours later with a massive claw scratch down your throat. It wasn’t hard to put together.”
The guy smiles sheepishly, and now it’s Kun’s turn to freeze. Fuck, he hadn’t noticed it before, but he’s strikingly pretty.
This is going to be a problem. Kun might as well get well-acquainted.
“I’m not going to ask you questions,” he starts, making sure to lead with the assurance, “But if you’re going to keep coming back, then I’m going to need something to call you by. You don’t need to give me your name, but do you have a hero alias, yet?”
The guy’s tongue flits out to swipe past his lower lip, and Kun’s breath hitches. “They call me Shade, because- you can tell, right?” He lifts his arms, both completely metal, to gesture at his all-black ensemble. “But you, officer," he grins devilishly, "can call me Ten.”
There's a lot to unpack there, but Kun latches onto a single word in that sentence and chooses to ignore the rest. “I’m not actually an officer, you know. That’s just the official term, you can just call me Kun.”
The guy- no, Ten, gives him a once-over, and shakes his head, clicking his tongue. “Nah, I think I prefer officer.”
Leaving Kun to ponder what the hell that was supposed to mean, he tumbles over the back of the counter-top, and backs away to the window. “Thanks for your help, officer,” he calls out with a wink, “I’ll swing by the next time I need someone to lovingly caress my face!”
At this, Kun splutters. He wants to protest, but he suspects that that wouldn’t lead anywhere, so instead he quickly calls out, “You can use one of the actual exits, you know!”
Ten’s legs are already hanging out of the window. He smiles, and it's beatific. Kun can't tear his eyes away, even as he pulls the mask back over his face. “I’ll pass!”
His voice is muffled, but the lilt of it rings in Kun’s ears for moments after.
That’s how Yukhei finds him, still clutching the counter, wondering what he's gotten himself into. “Uh, boss? You okay? Xiaojun said that he’d gotten the clear from you…”
“Yeah,” Kun says, eyes still fixed on the cityscape, trying to simultaneously track the numerous shadows of the night. “I’ll be fine. What's the worst that could happen?"