Work Text:
The sun is beating down on the pavement beneath Yuta’s hands, having connected with the surface when he… fell?
“Oh my God! Are you okay?” Someone yells and he is too busy staring at his rescuer, thinking to himself that he was probably almost killed. He sits back on his hunches and pulls at the arms of the person he landed on who looks remarkably unharmed considering he must have run in front of a car and pushed Yuta out of the way only to end up on the ground beneath him.
His rescuer checks him over quickly and then breaks out into what Yuta can only describe as a slightly maniacal grin. “Woah, that was like super close! You should, uh, like totally watch where you’re going,” he says and gives Yuta’s shoulder a hard pat.
“Yeah,” Yuta agrees. “Thanks!” He brushes off lint on his rescuer’s shirt and pulls them both up. The girl who drove the car is hysterically crying and he quickly tells her he is okay. “My fault. I really didn’t see you coming.” He remembers her from a class he took last year, but her name eludes him.
In the time it takes to console her, his rescuer has already made his excuses and Yuta watches him disappear through the last minute morning crew with a black Jansport bag slung over his shoulder.
It occupies his mind throughout classes that day and he feels like he can see his rescuer at the corner of his eyes, always disappearing into a crowd like a phantom. He thinks about his kind eyes and the strength it took to move Yuta out of harm’s way, arms woven tightly around his waist to keep the impact of the pavement light.
He finally spots his rescuer on his way to soccer practice sitting with an open textbook in front of him and what looks like a sturdy black laptop. There are round black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose and a hand constantly worrying at his hair, leaving it sticking up in several different directions.
Yuta takes out an extra apple from his backpack and jumps onto the bench in front of him.
His rescuer looks up surprised and then flushes an interesting shade of red when he realises who it is.
Yuta sits down the apple on top of the chemistry textbook. “I’m Japanese, you know.”
“What?” the kid says confused.
“Japanese. There is a whole code of honour and all,” Yuta says and picks at the textbook to see which one it is. “So, life debt. Gotta pay it back.”
His rescuer pulls the book closed and unknowingly shows exactly how advanced it is. “That’s okay. The car wasn’t that close anyway.”
“I’ll start with a name then, dear rescuer,” Yuta says and makes sure to leer suggestively. It usually makes people roll their eyes, but not this kid.
“Mark,” the kid stammers. “Mark Lee.”
“Hello Mark Lee.” Yuta sticks out his hand and Mark reaches out for it carefully. “I’m Nakamoto Yuta or Yuta Nakamoto depending on your level of Americanisation. I would officially like to thank you for saving my life this morning.”
“I’m actually Canadian,” Mark mutters. “And you’re, like, welcome, I guess.”
Johnny calls for him to get his ass in gear and he winks at his new friend before sprinting to practice.
-
“You dropped your wallet.”
Yuta instinctually reaches into his back pocket and turns around to see no one behind him, except for a shadow on the side-walk. He looks up.
On the side of a wall, stuck to a drain pipe, sits Spider-Man.
He has seen the masked vigilante only once before, zooming over his head in Manhattan when he was out shopping with his mom. The white spider eyes arches, the only indication that there is a human behind the mask - or what passes for human anyway. The suit is impressive up close, he notes, and wonders how someone would go about making one.
Spider-Man holds out his hand. “Here,” he says and throws the wallet in a fine arch, making it easy for Yuta to catch.
“Thanks,” Yuta says and bows his head in thanks.
“Later,” Spider-Man says and holds out his hand, white web shooting from his wrist and jumps into the air.
Yuta looks after him with a smile until he is out of sight.
He finds a park bench in the shade and settles with bubble tea from an artsy corner store and his AirPods. He stares at the world around him, fiddling with the notebook in his hand and the pencil in the other. Maybe he will draw the skyline like he usually does, but when he puts pencil to paper the intricate patterns of the red and blue suit of New York’s masked vigilante jumps out to him. He draws the arched eyes, the vague indents of ears and the long-legged spider on the suit’s chest.
He only stops drawing because the sun is almost gone and he should be on his way home. The night air is refreshing compared to the dirty air of the day and he breathes it in while he walks, listening to the gentle rhythm of the music. It is blissful to stare at the world while it passes by in ignorance, wondering what the story of each of the people who passes him are. Are they sad or happy? Are they busy or late? Is it one and the same? He smiles at a mother and daughter passing by him with their small fluffy dog and thinks that they are probably just fine.
He had stopped to watch them pass and he looks inside the restaurant in front of him only to find a familiar face staring back at him. He gives Mark a jaunty wave and pulls out his AirPods.
Mark closes his textbook on the counter and comes outside with a smile of his own. “What are you doing here?” He asks flustered. “It’s not really like uhm your neighbourhood.”
“I like parks,” Yuta tells him. “Your neighbourhood happens to have one of my favourites.”
“It is a good park,” Mark agrees. “You want something to drink, or?”
Yuta nods eagerly. “Do you work here?”
“Sometimes. It’s my aunt’s. It should get busy here in like an hour.”
There is a cosy feel to the restaurant with its warm colours and perfect mood lighting. Mark leads him up to the counter and high chairs, indicating that he should take a seat. While he is busy getting them both cokes, Yuta nosily shifts through the textbook Mark was studying, curious to know just a little bit more. It is not a book from the school curriculum because Yuta is pretty sure he has read them all and it is only when he discovers the brochure for SM Corp that he understands.
“We’re going for the same internship,” he notes when Mark finally settles on the high chair beside him.
Mark picks at the condensation on the glass and looks down at his notes. “A guy can dream, right?”
“I want on a tour there last year, but it got cut short because someone got lost and shut one of the labs down,” Yuta reminisces. “They thought it was corporate espionage or something. It was pretty wild.”
Mark looks at him funny.
“You should definitely try,” Yuta says and places his hand over Mark’s wrist, caressing the wrist bone just slightly.
The tips of Mark’s ears turns red, but he still stares back not unlike the day of the almost accident when they had collided together onto the concrete with Mark on his back.
“You want to get coffee or something?” Mark says surprisingly firm. “Not here at my aunt’s restaurant, but...”
“Like a date?” Yuta asks amused
Mark grins awkwardly. “I mean no, of course not... I mean yes, yeah like a date kinda thingy.”
“We just met.”
“Yeah, but you’re really hot and I was so staring when the car came... so that was lucky, I guess.”
Yuta grins.
“So, not a date kinda thingy, but a real definite date ‘cause you’re really hot,” Mark says and promptly looks mortified. “Oh my gosh, I’m so awkward. Please don’t feel obligated or anything because of that life debt thingy.”
“I definitely wasn’t thinking about that,” Yuta says laughing. “I’d love to go on a date with you.”
They exchange numbers and Yuta learns that Mark has only been in New York City for about a year, making Yuta the designated local.
He reluctantly leaves when the promised rush does actually appear that hour later and someone shouts Mark’s name. He waves at Mark when he leaves with a spring in his step.
-
Despite generally liking people, Yuta never dated much. There has always been something to study, something new to discover, and when he gets antsy he plays soccer. Discovering Mark however is a breath of fresh air. He breathes in the joy of life and thinks true meaning might be found if he stares into Mark’s eyes long enough.
They kiss for the first time in the subway as it passes into Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge. Huddled together at the end of a cart, Yuta has an arm over Mark’s shoulders and he stares long and hard until Mark finally looks up just enough for their gazes to connect. Yuta waits until finally he feels lips at the corner of his mouth, a quick peck, leaving just the imprint of softness and making him want more.
He leans forward until his nose gently presses against skin and slides his own lips against Mark’s. It is just a press but he feels Mark press against him, seeking instinctually the warmth of another body.
When they part, Yuta feels slightly lightheaded and he leans his head against the side of the car.
“Woah,” Mark breathes out.
“Let’s do more of that,” Yuta states.
“Definitely.”
Yuta does not attend the private school on a scholarship, but he knows that Mark does so they make the deal that he pays for the museum and Mark pays for food.
They walk around the American Museum of Natural History like the giant nerds they both are, taking in the dinosaur skeletons with the right amount of awe, staring at the sky in the planetarium and walk the hall that showcases human origin.
Yuta stops in front of an almost familiar face, just close enough to his own human ancestor but still out of reach. Mark comes up beside him and leans against him.
“Do you think Spider-Man is how we have evolved?” Yuta asks. “Crawling on walls and doing flips in the air?”
“Uh,” Mark says, stiffening slightly. “I don’t think spiders typically have anything to do with human evolution.”
“We all crawled once. Maybe we’re regressing?”
Mark pulls him around to face him. “Wait, are you serious?”
Yuta shrugs. “What if when Spider-Man takes his mask off he has eight eyes? Maybe that’s why he needs to wear a mask in the first place.”
“He doesn’t have eight eyes,” Mark says flustered.
“Ah so you know him?”
“What? No!”
“How do you know he doesn’t have eight eyes then?” Yuta says and taps the side of his head.
Mark is frozen. “I d... don’t.”
Yuta throws his arms around Mark’s shoulders and leads them towards another exhibition. “It’s settled. Spider-Man has eight eyes. Maybe he is even hiding some truly hideous pinchers behind that suit.”
They sit on the steps of Times Square watching the spectacle and eating hotdogs for about an hour before it nears the time he needs to take Mark back home. They take the appropriate amount of pictures, some with outstretched arms and one where Yuta spills his sausage down his shirt which leaves a red stain. Mark laughs his head off while he pouts and they end up with matching ‘I heart NY’ shirts that Yuta proudly wears on the way home. They had encountered a gaggle of Japanese tourists in the gift shop and he got to show off his language skills when he learned it was a travelling group from Osaka.
“Do you miss home?” Mark asks on the ride out of Manhattan.
“This is my home right now,” Yuta replies. “We’ve always moved around a lot. Learned English from the nanny and Japanese from my parents.”
“I only know like rudimentary French,” Mark says. “We never spoke Korean at home.”
Yuta tactfully does not ask about his parents. “I know some pretty cool Korean
dramas you could watch,” he suggests.
Mark perks up. “I’d love that!”
“Good.” Yuta pulls him in for another kiss. He has been stealing them in bits and pieces during the day and they leave Mark with increasingly red lips and wild eyes. He congratulates himself on a day well spent.
-
He gets out of class a little early two days after their Manhattan date and slaps Johnny’s shoulder in goodbye before hoisting up his backpack and racing towards the second floor where the juniors are. He leans against the lockers in front of Mark’s class and waits for the bell to ring.
Students stream out, some slow and playful, some running, and then he spots Mark or rather hears him and his distinctive laughter over the noise. Mark is talking to a friend excitedly, playfully punching him when something seems particularly funny just like he had done to Yuta on their date, almost as if he could not quite contain the energy brimming inside.
He spots Yuta quickly and draws his friend over, plastering himself to Yuta’s side and is rewarded with an arm over his shoulders. “I told you about my buddy Chenle, right?” he says.
In one of the admittedly dozens of text messages they have shared someone named Chenle did appear as a topic of conversation pretty often. Likes Stephen Curry. PUBG. Plays piano like any good Asian son.
“I think it’s impossible for your boyfriend not to know who I am with the way you talk,” Chenle remarks and grins wolfishly. “Yuta, right?”
“Yeah,” Yuta says and they bump fists. “Do you mind me borrowing your friend for a moment?”
“Nope! Have fun,” Chenle says and waves them off.
Yuta keeps his arm around Mark’s shoulders when he leads them outside towards a bench in the shade of a tree near the track field.
He listens to Mark’s rambling story about basketball practice, nodding in all the right places while rummaging through his backpack for the snacks he brought for them. He hands Mark a Twizzler and makes sure their feet are tangled underneath the table.
“Yo, you’re not even listening to me,” Mark pouts, hitting the end of the Twizzler against Yuta’s shoulders.
“I was,” Yuta responds with a grin. “Something something Chenle something something basketball.”
Another hit from the Twizzler.
He caresses Mark’s ear. “Your eyes were distracting me.”
Mark cringes but he does settle closer, leaning into Yuta’s touch like a contented cat. They settle on doing homework together and playing footsie under the table like an all-American fairytale. Mark exudes confidence when he scribbles in his notebook, a cute wrinkle between his eyes from concentrating. He never asks for help or spends a long time on one problem. It might be one of the reasons Yuta likes him best.
“Cool,” Mark says when Yuta pulls out his binder with the recognisable pattern of Spider-Man’s logo on the front. He had drawn it during an English class last week, still remembering vividly the patterns of the impressive suit. It feels like all he is drawing lately. The spider is surrounded by intricate black webbing from his marker.
“It’s a cool logo,” he says.
“You think what he’s doing is cool, too?” Mark asks hesitantly. “Fighting crime and stuff.”
Yuta mulls it over. “The world could do with a bit more good.”
He remembers the Battle of New York like a distant memory, the towering spaceship, but mostly when he thinks about New York he thinks about it like it is now, rebuilt and strong. There is an allure in wanting to know what the superheroes do, but then he would not have this, sitting underneath a beautiful tree with a beautiful boy.
“Do you mean that?” Mark says hesitantly. “Because I think he tries the best he can.”
“I think so, too,” Yuta says. “Bet he doesn’t have beautiful boys handing him Twizzlers after class.”
Mark is strangely quiet after that, but Yuta clasps their hands together and enjoys this time as well.
-
“I can’t hear you, Mark,” Yuta says annoyed.
The swishing sound on the other end of the phone call does not lessen.
He has been standing outside the café for fifteen minutes before Mark had finally deigned to call. It is cool, almost below freezing and the summer romance they had has grown as bleak as the oncoming winter. He tries not to let it get to him, Mark always being late or sometimes not even showing up at all, because Mark is always sorry and always tries to make it up to him.
“Just... ive... m... tes.” The swishing is even worse than when Mark had called in the first place.
“It’s cold and I’m freezing,” Yuta says him. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“No! ... us ... wait!”
Yuta hangs up and promptly hides his hands in his pockets. He starts towards the subway entrance when he sees something red and blue swinging from one building to the next, but he is not in the mood to stop and stare, instead ducking his head into the collar of his jacket and trudging along.
He wants to go back to the summer when he thought Mark always being late was cute and just a little quirk, but sometimes when he looks at the boy who saved his life now all he sees is Friday nights at parties by himself or Saturdays third-wheeling Johnny and his date of the weekend and Mark constantly running late. It doesn’t feel cute anymore.
He waits for just a minute on the platform before the right train comes along. He boards and finds an empty seat away from a couple making out, side-eyeing them jealously. The door’s beep, signalling closing, and Yuta blinks at the blur who just manages to jump inside.
“What the...” he says astounded and sighs when he sees a windswept Mark unwinding himself from his impressive jump, holding a mostly flowerless bouquet against himself. His sweatshirt is inside out and he is not wearing a jacket despite the cold.
“Don’t go home,” Mark pleads and holds out the sad flowers only to look at them in surprise when they obviously did not look like the ones he bought.
The couple are obviously laughing at him and he gives them a dirty look, taking the flowers because they might be ugly but Mark did buy them for him.
“Can we please go to my Auntie’s?” Mark whines. “I really didn’t mean to be late.”
“You never mean to,” Yuta says sadly and pulls Mark down beside him. “Also where is your jacket? I’m not going to be responsible for you getting pneumonia.”
Mark stares down at himself in surprise, seeing his inside-out sweatshirt.
“You didn’t even realise,” Yuta says, pulling off his scarf and wrapping it around Mark’s neck.
“Yuta,” Mark says softly. “You know my like heart, right? I want to be with you.”
“I know.” Yuta leans his forehead against Mark’s and breathes in his scent, the scent of the fresh air and something he can’t quite pinpoint. “But you’re kinda a crappy boyfriend.”
“I am,” Mark whines. “And you’re so good and considerate and...”
Their lips meet and he presses his tongue between Mark’s lips, running it along his bottom teeth. A soft moan escapes and hands fasten in his hair, massaging the base of his skull.
They spring apart when the subway doors close loudly and Yuta watches his stop pass by. He pouts but Mark merely grins and pulls him in for another kiss.
-
“I totally lost my phone,” Mark says when Yuta opens the front door. “Did I make it on time?”
“You’re half an hour early,” Yuta tells him with a grin and beckons him inside.
Mark jumps inside with a suit bag slung over one shoulder and a single red rose that he hands Yuta after pressing a quick kiss onto his lips. “Wait, you told me to be here at four?”
Yuta slings an arm around his shoulders. “Yeah and we’re leaving at five. I know you.”
Aside from the perpetual lateness, there are several things that makes Mark great.
There were three particularly trying days during spring break where Yuta suffered a nasty dose of existential dread over his future and in a moment of insanity he broke up with him. He could blame the alcohol that he was not supposed to be drinking, but as it were he has yet to find a cure for Mark’s big puppy eyes when he stood outside his door on the third day. The facts are as they have always been - Harvard. The SM Corp internship. A doctorate if he wants.
That is After Prom-Yuta’s problem, though.
They croon Childish Gambino’s Redbone in his father’s Mustang playing from Yuta’s phone because for the third time while he has known Mark, the absentminded boy seems to have misplaced it. It should probably annoy him more than it does.
“You look great today,” he says and brings Mark’s right hand up to his lips to press a kiss to his knuckles.
“Yeah, right,” Mark says. “You look like a gazillion times better than me.”
Yuta does look great. His suit is custom made, navy with black labels and instead of a tie, he wears shiny dangly earrings and black eyeliner. Usually, he tries to blend in, to not stand out in a crowd because his peers are cruel and, well, he learned the hard way. He has grown out his hair, dyed it ash grey and put on grey contacts - just for tonight, he will be uniquely himself.
Besides, Mark thinks he looks hot.
He parks outside the gymnasium right behind an obnoxiously big limousine.
“Limousines are tacky,” he tells its occupants when they stumble out.
“I’m flying out to Korea in less than a month,” Johnny says, arm slung over the shoulders of a very pretty girl that Yuta at that moment can’t remember the name of. “My last few moments of freedom. This is style.”
“Hi! I’m Mark,” Mark tells the girl excitedly. “We’re in Trig together, right?”
“We are,” the girl replies with a big smile. “I’m Sarah.”
“And I’m Johnny!”
Mark laughs but since Yuta has heard that one before, he merely sighs and pulls Mark towards their favourite bench, waving off Johnny and Sarah for the moment.
“Where are we going?”
Yuta pulls him in for a kiss. “Can’t do this inside.”
Mark sighs against his lips and encircles Yuta’s waist with his arms.
And then curiously, he faints.
-
“Yuta! Wake up!”
The floor is hard and dirty is his first thought. Then he wonders why he is on a hard and dirty floor.
“Yo! I’m serious, you need to wake up like right now!”
Something rattles and he groans, sitting up slowly and taking in his surroundings. He is in some sort of cage, adjacent to another cage holding a frantic-looking Mark.
“Are you okay?” Mark asks, his fingers holding onto the wire fence. “You’re bleeding.”
There is a spot at the back of his head that throbs more than the rest of him. He hesitantly reaches up and gently touches the spot, revealing blood.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
Yuta gives Mark an unimpressed look. “I’m fine... physically fine, anyway.”
Mark looks sceptical for a moment, but does eventually turn towards the locks holding them in. As cute frown appears on his forehead when he reaches out for the lock holding the chain and wire fence together. “I think I can...”
The door opens opposite their cages and Yuta moves backwards until his back reaches the wall as far away from the man as possible. A man he has never seen before.
“Hello boys,” the man says with a raspy voice. He is holding a cigarette in one hand and a phone in the other. “Sorry to interrupt prom.”
The acrid smell of the smoke stings Yuta’s eyes while he watches Mark move closer to the man, apparently self-preservation be damned.
“It’s just as soon as we solve this ‘issue’, I’ll let one of you get back to that prom,” the man remarks, pulling over an old chair and sitting in front of both of the cages. “Tell me - whose phone is this?”
He holds out the phone and it lights up to reveal a familiar picture of Yuta and Mark taken at their infamous first Manhattan date. Times Square is distinct in the background while their faces are mushed together. Even the stupid ketchup stain is there.
The only thought that goes through Yuta’s head is why does their kidnapper have Mark’s phone?
“No takers?” The man asks. “Okay, let me tell you what I think - I think one of you is Spider-Man.”
A burst of hysterical laughter bubbles up in Yuta’s throat.
The man arches an eyebrow and Yuta slinks back against the wall, wondering again why Mark is not covering in fear.
“Look, sir, this is clearly a mistake,” Mark says. “Don’t you think Spider-Man has more important things to do than go to a lame high school prom?”
“Evidently not since this phone was found while we chased Spider-Man out of our super secret lair,” the man says, imitating Spider-Man’s two pointed fingers and closed fist, looking like Spider-Man swinging from one building to the next. “I literally saw it flying from his pocket.”
Yuta is beginning to see Mark in a slightly different light, so different in fact that he feels slightly light-headed. Again, it might just be the concussion. It does make a certain kind of sense, he supposes, and thinks back on their first initial meeting during the near car accident. If Spider-Man is able to swing from one skyscraper to the next while doing truly athletic flips in the air then Mark jumping in front of a moving car seems fairly basic. For a superhero that is.
Because Mark is a superhero... or at least superhuman.
“I am kinda disappointed, though,” the evil villain says. “Being duped by a teenager, two teenagers.”
“Yeah, that’s really embarrassing,” Mark says. “Like that haircut.”
“Mark!” Yuta hisses.
Admittedly, Evil Guy does have a somewhat embarrassing haircut, a sort of comb-over that can’t seem to stay flat. He reacts aggressively, getting up from his chair and pushes against the wire fence where Mark stands unmoved. “I’ll knock that sarcasm right outta you,” he snarls and stands back.
When the door shuts behind him, Mark finally stands back from the cage. In his hand, he has a familiar watch that Yuta sees him wearing everyday, one that he definitely just stole from Evil Guy. Mark fastens it around his wrist and taps on the screen. “Juliette?”
“Yes, Mark,” a tiny mechanic female voice replies from the watch.
“Where are we?”
“Brooklyn. Do you want me to send out a distress signal?”
Mark looks up from the watch.
Yuta stares back.
“Not yet,” he tells the tiny voice.
“Fancy watch,” Yuta says, breaking their awkward silence. “Is it like Alexa?”
“I’m an intelligent AI,” the tiny voice says affronted, though he is not quite sure how a watch can sound affronted - it being a watch and all. “Alexa is a two-dimensional robot whose intelligence...”
“Mute,” Mark demands and the rest of the sentence is left hanging in the air. He grins nervously.
“So, Spider-Man,” Yuta says, crawling closer. “You have a plan?”
Mark looks down at the floor. “You’re not mad?”
“Explains a lot.”
The lateness, the weird breezy phone calls, the bruises that are never there the next day... all of it showcases a compelling argument that Yuta perhaps should have sussed out his secret identity when Spider-Man literally swung over his head and seconds later Mark appeared with his sweatshirt turned inside out in December. Or maybe the thousand weird looks and questions about the morality of what Spider-Man was doing. Any of those things should have rung a bell somewhere but perhaps he only saw what he wanted to see.
Mark has always cloaked his cleverness beneath layers of awkwardness and friendliness but Yuta isn’t fooled. Did he think Mark Lee was hiding beneath the red and blue mask of Spider-Man - definitely not. Is Mark capable? Strangely, of that he has no doubt.
“Juliette, how many people are guarding us?” Mark asks the watch, pointing his wrist towards the door and a blue shimmering laser seems to scan the door and the connecting wall.
“Three people,” Juliette says. “I really should call for backup.”
“You are my back-up,” Mark says, scanning the cages for what Yuta assumes are weak spots. Yuta points towards the lower point of where their two cages intersect. With a single sharp kick, Mark is able to pull the wire fence to the side and crawl into Yuta’s cage.
Yuta hugs him for a really long time.
A tentative hand touches the back of his head. “I’m not the one with a bleeding wound,” Mark murmurs into his neck.
He presses an open mouthed kiss against his lips and finally releases him. “Let’s get out of here.”
He once saw a YouTube clip of Spider-Man narrowly managing to stop two colliding cars from crashing. Mark uses this strength to kick through the wire fence while hanging from the top of the cage, swinging himself forward with enough force. Two goons are summoned by the noise, hurtling through the door with guns drawn that Mark has disarmed within seconds and a very athletic midair kick.
“Impressive,” Yuta remarks, stepping over a passed-out goon. “Where is that one guy?”
Mark peers into the hallway with one arm holding Yuta behind him. “His name is Gary,” he whispers. “I stumbled over his illegal weapon’s layer two weeks ago.”
“What kind of name is Gary,” Yuta whispers back.
“He calls himself the Weaponizer.”
“Suitably dramatic.”
Mark’s snort is an agreement, Yuta decides and allows Mark to once again push him out of sight while another pair of goons waltzes by towards their make-shift prison.
Juliette shows the way with a little laser light scanning rooms and hallways. A little red arrow functions as their guide because it... she apparently knows enough to be quiet. She leads them to the roof which is a warehouse just on the outskirts of Queens. The city is still alive, enough for Yuta to realise that they haven’t been captured for long.
“You can call for back-up now,” Mark tells Juliette.
“Yes, Mark,” she replies.
He then looks a Yuta with a mischievous look in his eyes who manages to think ‘oh no’ before being thrown off a literal rooftop and then being caught mid-air. He clings onto Mark whose muscles strain under the weight of both swinging from the thin web and holding them both up. It’s a nice night, though, the air a gentle caress instead of a roaring wind while they swing between the warehouses, but Yuta holds on tighter, not out of fear.
-
Mark swings over the edge of the roof, landing elegantly on the tips of his feet.
“Are you showing off?” Yuta grins.
“Maybe,” Mark replies coyly, walking over while rummaging through a little first aid kit he had gone to buy at a nearby 7/11 on the corner. His hair sticks up from swinging through the air, his tie loose and the top buttons open. Instead of looking like a superhero, Yuta mostly thinks he looks debauched and fondly thinks back on their make-out session before Mark went down for the kit.
“Smart and athletic,” he says. “Did I win the lottery?”
Mark sits down behind him, ears extremely red, and rustles with a packet that lets out the distinct smell of antibacterial.
Yuta hisses when it touches his wound.
“It doesn’t look too bad,” Mark says and runs his fingers through Yuta’s hair, presumably to cover the wound. “We can go back to the prom if you want.”
“Won’t the ‘Weaponizer’ come back for us?”
“Juliette is a great back-up,” Mark tells him. “She called some... good friends.”
“I am,” Juliette agrees, the circle of Mark’s watch lighting up in red.
“I like her,” Yuta remarks.
“We like you, too, Yuta-san,” she says in Japanese and a tiny hologram of a finger heart lights up.
They sit in silence for a while, watching the Manhattan skyline. They huddle together while Yuta grapples with the enormity of what he now knows. He can’t un-know or un-see the strength that it takes for Mark to swing himself from one building to the next, or gloss over the fact that he got himself into trouble with an arms dealer.
“You know that tour at SM Corp you went on last year?” Mark asks, leaning back just a little so that their eyes can connect. “The one with the corporate espionage.”
“Yeah?” Yuta says curiously.
“It kinda wasn’t espionage or anything like that. There was this lab and I was stupid and curious.”
“You caused the lockdown?”
Mark looks embarrassed. “I did. But then I woke up the next day and everything was like super amplified. Like crazy amplified.”
“That’s your origin story? SM Corp is the supervillain,” Yuta says, running his hands up Mark’s arms.
“What does that even mean? I just know that the internship is going to get me on the inside and I’ll finally get some real answers about what happened to me.”
Yuta sighs. “They are kinda shady.”
Mark nods eagerly. “I have all this power. What if something happened and I could have stopped it?”
“It’s a big responsibility.”
Mark doesn’t deny it.
“I guess the universe could do worse,” Yuta says. “You know those guys who fought in the Battle of New York? I don’t know them, not personally. I don’t know their heart. But I know yours.”
“You’re a good person, too! Your heart is like so much better than mine.”
Yuta kisses him soundly. He doesn’t agree but Mark always gives people the benefit of the doubt.
Chenle is leaning against a car, arms crossed and smirk on his lips, when they finally descend the roof. “Your alibi is here,” he says.
“I should’ve known you were in on the secret,” Yuta remarks.
“Yeah, looks like I’m not alone anymore,” Chenle says and jumps into the car.
His tiny puppy jumps into Mark’s arms when they settle in the back seat, wagging its tail excitedly.
“Cutie,” Mark says, voice pitched high and scrunching the puppy’s face and ears between his hands.
“I found your phone,” Chenle says and hands Yuta his phone over his shoulder. The screen is cracked but otherwise looks to be working. Yuta likes his own wallpaper much more than the ketchup-stained memory of their first date that was on Mark’s phone because his picture is newer and it’s a reminder that their relationship didn’t end with their foolish three-day breakup. In fact, the picture is from that night, their reunion, both in pyjamas in his living room while his mom puttered around in the kitchen, making sure nothing untoward was happening between them. They snuck kisses whenever she looked away, but somehow Yuta knew she was giving them plenty of leeway.
Yuta knew then that leaving Mark behind to go to college wouldn’t be easy. Heading back to his prom while knowing this enormous secret, he somehow knows that leaving completely won’t be possible at all.
-
Johnny has a plastic crown jauntily placed on his head when he spots them sneaking in. “You totally got laid!” he fake whispers over the music.
“No!” Mark says scandalised.
Johnny winks. “Sure you didn’t.”
Yuta grins against Mark’s ear, sneaking a hand around his waist. “You don’t have to lie, baby.”
“Ew!” Johnny exclaims, sticking his fingers in his ears and dancing back to his date.
The song changes to something slower, something romantic. Yuta’s heart is still beating quickly from everything that has happened, so he wraps himself around Mark’s frame, dragging him onto the dance floor.
Mark sighs against him, resting his chin on Yuta’s shoulder, while they sway to Ed Sheeran.
“Are you ever scared?” Yuta asks.
Mark’s arms tighten around him. “All the time.”
His classmates are around them, arms around each other like they didn’t spend the last many years competing for the same trophies, scholarships and accolades. Some of them are like Yuta, expat children who will return to their home countries, and some are leaving for internships the day after school ends, already one step closer to changing the world. This wistful feeling, this moment in time where he can still be young and in love... who will he be when he leaves this school? Who will sit by Mark at lunch while his mind is a million miles away, worrying about arms dealers and other things Yuta can’t hope to understand.
“I won’t tell anyone,” he promises. “I won’t even be disappointed when you’re late.”
Mark chuckles. “Next time, I’ll just tell you I’m staking out the Weaponizer instead of being late.”
“Take out someone with a cooler name next time,” Yuta suggest. “‘Spider-Man takes out The Death Machine’ sounds way cooler.”
“It really doesn’t.”
“No, you’re right, ‘Spider-Man’.”
Mark leans back so that their eyes connect. His shoulders are shaking, his eyes crescent moons and he slaps Yuta’s shoulder with barely any force. Juliette shifts between hearts and lips on Mark’s wrist, so he takes the suggestion, quickly looking around to make sure the chaperones aren’t looking before pressing his lips against his boyfriend’s.
The song changes into something upbeat, but they stay where they are, locked together.