Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“New York, the big city, the city that never sleeps, the city that is filled with chaos every now and then, the city that gave birth to a little girl (me), and her enormously small and bright mind of hers (my mind). And it also gave life to millions of people who every day have a new experience to tell about. 

Look, NYC is like a kind of maze that is difficult to solve, but at the same time full of nice surprises that can fill your soul. Full of cool, funny and a little... weird people –but in a good way, don't get me wrong!– You can see a lot in just one day in New York. Art exhibits in central park? you can see them all! Oh, and the rat guy who's always hanging out in the subway? or the pigeon guy! Or... all the people you can see in the city. The ones in Times Square? yep, not the weirdos! the cool people, like... the guy with the saxophone? Hell yeah! him.

Oh, and the mad scientist who wanted to attack the city but was actually having a manic attack and everything he said was nothing more than a farce? Have you seen him? Yes... Scary! “I will make the human race the inferior race!” or ”We reptilians will take over the world and its people!” –He was on pages of The Daily Bugle for a whole week! Can you imagine that? Giving that silly guy such a name… He’s gross, actually. His realistic alien suit? OH, HELL NAH–

The thing about NYC is that. There are a lot of people! Too many. But don't get me wrong, you know? It's not a bad thing. The bad thing is when you start getting individuals –let's call them that for now– who just want to sow fear, generate real chaos and create a world full of bad things, anger, sadness, that everything is black and white! …And well, you get the point.

Call them Mr. or Mrs. negative, I don’t know!

New York needs someone who can take charge of those guys, the police are not enough. I’ve seen them! With this little eye of mine, I’ve seen them… on TV though, but I have! Like yeah, I get it “New York” the city full of surprises *rainbows and sparkles* but that’s just in the central part of the whole district! 

I live in Queens. I usually don’t go on that many adventures trying to know what’s going on in the world, or the city itself. Not only that, but I try to live my life as peacefully as it can, going from home to school, from school to the lab, from the lab to get pizza, and from that yummy yummy pizza, back home. S A F E T L Y. Sometimes I bring my skateboard with me, or my bicycle, so I can get to places faster than I often do, but that’s it. I don’t need anything or anyone that’s going to bother my peaceful life. I mean, I already have a big sister that’s going to bother me for the rest of my life, and those guys from school too, and that granny from the eleventh floor, she’s not chill at all. 

What I’m trying to say is that, even though you think this city is cool and whatever, sometimes it is darker than it looks”

“So… that means that I’m not allowed to be around in the city and…” The girl in front of her gave her a scanning look. The what the fuck are you saying look. “You?” She’s not a big help either so who are we fooling, right? 

“I– No! What? You’re twisting my words, Yizhuo!”

“I am not. In fact, you’re the one who started this whole lecture of how to survive in NYC 101, dummy edition. And the more I think about it, you should make that lecture to yourself.” 

“First of all, It’s your first day here in New York. Second of all, uh, hello? I’m supposed to be giving you this whole lecture! And third of all, I’m not a dummy! Say that to my GPA”

“And who told you to give me a lecture?” 

“Your mom” That didn’t come out as supposed to…

Well… 

“How dare you, Kim Minjeong! That’s not a nice thing to say to your best friend!” The voice of a familiar woman makes the little blond girl shiver from head to toe. “Mom would be really upset and disappointed with you!”

“Hey! I didn’t mean it like that!” Said the blond girl, even though she could’ve made her sentence sound not that offensive, Yizhuo knows what she’s talking about! And her sister on the other hand is making sure to annoy the hell out of Minjeong. 

“Sure, you little dummy” The older girl gave her a pat in her shoulder. “It's funny when I can mess out with you” Oh, and the grin the girl had on her face… Damn, that’s a punchable face right there! If only Yizhuo wasn’t there a whole fight would’ve happened. 

“Hi, Yizhuo” She said with a real smile on her face this time. 

“Hi, Taeyeon! How's uni going?”

“Good! good…” Her sister was, this time looking at her with a confused look, wondering WHY ON EARTH Minjeong is looking at her like she just committed some kind of crime or something.  “What?” 

“Well, you’re interrupting us, don’t you see?” 

“I live here too, Minjeong,” she replied, trying to dodge the darts coming out of her sister's eyes. “Besides, it's been so long since I last saw Yizhuo!”

“Same here! I miss my other sis too” She’s no longer welcomed to her house.

And, yeah… that’s that. Her sister always looked at Yizhuo as her own little sister –as if Minjeong wasn’t her own little sister– Taeyeon saw when Min and Ning became best friends really early in their life, like, at five and four years old! So the bond she had with them was really cute! And their chemistry was also something to notice, those two were like the dumb and the dumber (Minjeong being the dumber, but shhh, don’t tell her that!) so you can guess that their life was full of laughter and good memories. 

Oh but– Yeah, no! It definitely hadn't been that long since the older had seen Yizhuo. It must have been about, what? Two months? Since they had last seen each other. 

Oh my god. Two months! 

“−I went back to my hometown!”

“Really? Is your family doing alright?”

The. Audacity. They’re having a conversation. The two of them! Without Minjeong!

“Hey! I’m still here!”

 “Sis, relax, I just told you that it’s been too long since I've seen Yizhuo! We’re just catching up–”

“And I don’t care! It’s been two months, Tae! Let me and Yizhuo alone” And with that the older just sighed and walked over to Yizhuo to whisper something in her ear, which, of course! Ning burst out laughing like some kind of, I don’t know! Comedy show, whatever. 

So, long story short? Taeyeon did leave them alone, but with the only condition that, if she’s going to be spending time alone while they’re all laughs full of Haha’s, she’ll be the one choosing what they’re getting for dinner this time. 

It was a good reunion, not like if Yizhuo was out for so long, the both grew up together in some random neighborhood in Brooklyn! But with Ning gone almost all summer break, and some weeks before it, Minjeong was all left alone, spending time with her sister, her lab supervisor and… some random kids from her building. 

She didn’t have the best of life, like, she’s just a normal girl! And the only thing she really wants from now on is to keep that normal life and try to survive for the rest of the year and try to make it to prom with a couple (thing that it’s almost impossible for her since she’s not slick at all, she doesn’t know how to flirt and most important? She’s a total introvert with people she doesn’t fully know. And since she only has one friend, and a weird relationship with her chemistry lab partner, there’s no way on earth that Minjeong is making her way to prom with a date.)

But she, indeed, has a plan. The only thing she really needs is the courage to go and talk to the girl she really wants to invite to prom. And that’s the one and only president of the student council: Yu Jimin. Or Karina… Yup! That cute girl that’s pretty well known in the whole school, and Minjeong is one hundred percent sure that the girl is also known in the whole city, BECAUSE. With that face, she easily could pass as a top tier model

Aaaand now we’re here. 

Time skipping. 

Three months after that scene you just saw. 

And oh! Kim Minjeong didn’t had the courage to go and speak to Jimin. The only thing that DID change in those months was… well. Let me start the story again so you can keep up with them! or her.

Kim Minjeong! 

An oddly normal, not out of the ordinary, and very sweet last year high school student. Amazing grades, amazing appearance, amazing communication skills!  well… maybe not that amazing, but still! Amazing in all kinds of ways, she LOVES helping people! Like cats in some random tree, grandmas trying to cross the street, teaching kids how to swing a bat (even though she’s never done that in her full seventeen years of existence), and many more things that can keep us talking all day long.

The thing is that she's no longer that, uh… “normal”. She kinda was bitten by some random radioactive spider that gave her incredible superpowers but also a lot of responsibility for some random seventeen years old girl.

You know the famous words! “with great power comes great responsibility”

She's doing this silly little job for the city, like swinging in the streets, teaching bad bad really bad boys a lesson, and telling lame jokes when she's in an awkward situation. Like right now, because if she didn't have the audacity to make her big appearance in her bedroom from her window (and we're talking about a window of a twenty-something-story building, so you kinda guess that that's not a normal thing for a teenager to do) her best friend wouldn't be lying almost dead on her bedroom floor.

So… yeah… good work Spider! Min…? Gosh, she's in need of a new name.

She’s trying to make sure that Yizhuo is at least breathing, because, yeah, if she didn’t have those silly powers she now has and it’s Yizhuo now who has them, she would've been screaming all over her place! and the only way to shut her up is either throwing her from her window or calling Jimin and telling her that Minjeong needs CPR. (a thing that never is going to happen, by the way)

Throwing her homemade suit in her bed and taking some new clothes to change, and don’t look suspicious in case her sister is home yet, she ran to the kitchen to look for a bag of ice, in case her friend ends up with a bump in her head, some meds in case she ends up with migraine by the time she’s in her room trying to explain how the fuck she’s hanging –crawling if we’re being specific– from the ceiling and how she’s the new vigilante of NYC. 

By the time she’s done looking for all the things she needs, in any case Yizhuo is dying for real, she goes to her room and opening her door revealing a really curious girl inspecting her suit and trying her mask on, acting like if Minjeong didn’t scare the hell out of her moments earlier. 

“You. are. him” Were the first words that came out of the girl's mouth for the first time.

And wait a damn minute. HIM? People thought that Minjeong, Spider-Min, was a MAN?!

“What the fuck, Yizhuo!?” 

“No! What the fuck you!” 

“What do you mean by him?!” Started Minjeong, clearly in distress

“Everyone thought you were a guy playing hero!” 

Ouch? So people did think that Minjeong was a guy. Well she doesn’t speak that much when she’s helping people, and when she does, she tries to lower her voice, so people don't recognize her later, and by all that she can’t really blame Yizhuo if she also thought that this vigilante was, in fact, a man.

“Well I’m not! And that’s offensive, I’m not playing hero!” Her hands went from her waist to her head, moving them through the air trying to find some logical reason as to why people believed she was actually a man. She can’t be screaming from the rooftops things that can be used to make connections between her and “Spider-Min”, she looks like those big balloons outside the car lots. Yeah, she kinda gets why people thought that she could be a him, but she’s not going to say that to Ning because that’s too much explanation. “I just happen to be… one?”

“Whatever you say, Saitama” 

“Huh?” 

“The bald guy from One Punch Man?” 

“Of course I know who is him!” Is Yizhuo messing with her? She really can’t tell, but for her way of saying that, she knows that there’s a little seriousness(?) in her voice. “And that’s also offensive. You really think that I’m going to be bald in the future?”

I mean, there are a lot of worries in Minjeong's mind right now, so you really can’t blame her for all the things she’s saying! If her best friend is comparing her with a bald guy Minjeong will think that that’s a way of telling her that she’s going bald! And with her really new superpowers she doesn’t know (yet) if there’s going to be a side effect besides her superpowers!

“What?” And Yizhuo on the other hand is done. First she finds out that her best friend, and platonic soulmate, is this new vigilante that people thought was a man under some name like Spider-Man, and now she has to deal with Minjeongs identity crisis? And to think that she was the one who fainted! “Relax, dude, you’re not going bald! not if you keep stressing instead of explaining why the fuck you were sticking to your ceiling!”

“First of all, you’re using my mask, so if you can be a little more cautious and not try it on, it’ll be better”

“You’re no fun, Kim Minjeong”

“Hey! I spent weeks making that. I had to sneak into the sewing club and after that I had to sneak into the lab so I could make web liquid or whatever you want to call it, and then to the robotics and tech club, with the weirdos you know? that Derek guy, so i could make the web shooter and then–”

“Okay, I heard enough of you now” If Minjeong wasn’t Nings best friend, she’s one hundred percent sure that she’ll be punching her in the face so she can shut her mouth for two seconds. “I didn’t ask how you made your suit or your webs… I just want to know how on earth you got your superpowers, bro”

“You could’ve said that!”

“I did!”

“You did?”

“If you keep doing that, I swear to god that I’m going to–”

“Okay, okay! Calm down, girl! I’m going to tell you the story…”

“You better be” She gave her a slightly concerned, slightly judging look. Giving Minjeong the chance to start explaining everything from the beginning. 

(It all started almost a week after the last time she hung out with Yizhuo. 

Minjeong had this “job” at Oscorp, a company that makes cool things to help people, such as eradicate pollution and help improve, or clean, the environment, and many other things! 

The thing is that Minjeong really didn’t have a job, it was more like an internship where they taught her advanced physics, chemistry, a little programming and all kinds of STEM knowledge that could help her start her college career if she really wanted to pursue and get an engineering major at NYU –and maybe also get a real job at Oscorp–

And there she was, studying the process of how to make a machine that could make the dead cells of a dying body to revive. Something that was so impressive to her, because imagine that you’re dying and then someone tells you –Hey! We have this cool machine that can cure almost every disease in the world! you should try it– and then you’re no longer sick. Maybe they could cure cancer if every research and work is well done and made.

Taking notes was part of the “job” so everything that Dr. Connors was saying she needed to write it down in her notebook. It wasn’t that hard, or that was something that she felt it was. There were worse jobs out there than her current one! And it wasn’t a real one, well… for the most part. 
In one of the breaks they gave her she decided to go for a walk to the modified species area. And for no surprise there were alot of animals and insects in that building! Some rats on one side, bees, spiders, reptiles, oh! and even a cyberdog! 

Something that caught her eye was the fact that the spiders that were in one of those capsules weren’t any of the types that she saw in her life. Those were weird, they had a number in their opisthosoma, it was blurry but you could notice the little four and eight on it.

She was curious about it. Her teachers really didn’t let her in those areas, so it was her first time seeing them up close and not far behind those windows they had in the laboratory. 

So… could you blame her? 

If… one of those little spiders crawled out of its place and made her way up to Minjeong’s hoodie? I wouldn’t! 

Now, imagine the surprise in Minjeong’s face when she felt something biting the back of her neck on her way to the subway. 

There it was. 

A little dead spider in her hand. 

“What the…” The girl said after opening her hand and looking at the –now– dead arthropod “Oh… Oh no…”

Minjeong's face was a total poem. She was sweating, feeling dizzy and with this tingling sense in the back of her head. She started feeling sick out of the sudden and making her way to the upcoming train was the best idea she had that day. 

She really didn’t feel she was dying but she also wasn’t entirely sure she was going to be okay after being bitten by a spider. 

It was a slow ride, and sprint, back home. She didn’t want to scare her sister with her current state so she ran to her bedroom and started to figure everything out. 

And by trying to close her door as quietly as possible, she quickly let go of the handle, pulling it out of her door. 

The thing was that the handle, which was no longer on her door, did not fall to the ground… and it remained completely attached to her hand.

She tried to shake her hand to let it go but that wasn’t really helping her at all, it was worse because all the papers, cables, and things that were on her battling space were attached to her other hand, to her feet and that was no good thing at all.

“Fuck! What is wrong with me!” Shaking almost her whole body she fell to the ground, and not only that, but almost her entire closet too. But if it wasn’t for her fast reflexes she would be lying –or stamped– on her bedroom floor. “Huh…?”

A knocking sound brought her out of her thoughts. “Min? Everything good there? I heard you complaining about something and things falling down” It was her sister, now she needs to think about something to say. 

“Uh, Yeah! I was just… Dancing! Yup, everything good, Tae!” Stupid. 

“Uhm, alright. Tell me if you need help with your…” She hesitated to say the word for a moment. “dancing, okay?” 

“Yup! Thank!” Totally stupid. Taeyeon knows that Minjeong has two left feet so it was impossible for her little sister to be dancing out of the blue. 

Minjeong went silent for a moment, trying to sort her mind out. 

A spider bit her.

She's not dying.

She now has fast reflexes.

She broke her door.

Everything is sticking to her feets and hands.

And she’s sweating like a pig.

A spider bit her… 

“Ha, in what world could that be real… right?” She knows for fact that those spiders were genetically modified so there could be a chance that it gave her spider senses? “Straight up bullshit, hell no”

She standed up from the floor and went to her computer trying to find the right answers because all she had now was this strange “power” and… a headache that was killing her slowly. 

After almost an hour looking for something that could help her with this strange condition that she now has she left her desktop without more questions and no answers.

She should ask Dr. Connors if he knows something about the spiders… She thought it would be a good idea, but what happens if he accuses her of stealing scientific work and maybe radioactive!? She could lose her first and only job! And there’s no way that she’s going to let that happen.

The little clock that was on her night stand was marking eleven o’clock and tomorrow was her first day after summer break. 

“Tomorrow everything is going to be okay, everything is going back to normal” She knew that not everything was going back to normal, but giving yourself a lecture after a whole day full of chaos was a go for the girl.

So she hoped for the best before heading to bed, she was exhausted.)

“And after that I went to school and because of these stupid powers I got into a fight with Jeno and… gosh that was totally embarrassing because Jimin was watching all that and–” Her friend wasn’t saying anything and it started to make her a little worried. “Yizhuo? Are you okay?”

“You fucking idiot” Sweet words Ning! “You’ve been three fucking months doing these dangerous jobs that the police or the FBI or even the CIA should be doing!”

“But I’m good!”

“Yeah I can tell, dummy”

She really didn’t know if Yizhuo was mad at her for not telling her anything or if she was mad because fighting that crazy people could take her life at any point, a thing that she feared a little but her fully recovered bones are alright so! 

Asking her shouldn’t be a bad idea, but she was a tiny bit scared.

She knows that Yizhuo sees her as a sister and loves her more than anything in the world, so if something bad really happens to her, Yizhuo would never forgive her, not even in a million years. “Are you mad?” 

“I’m not mad. It’s just that… out of all people it was you all the time”

“You know that my luck is not the best”

Yizhuo let out a little chuckle. That was a good sign for her.

“Just one question, tough” The youngest looked between her and the suit that was sitting in her bed. Minjeong gave her a reassuring look so the other girl continued speaking. “Do you go swinging while listening to music? Oh! and do you go swinging to school? Or you just go walking like a normal citizen?” Ning had a big smile, she wasn’t mad at her, she seemed genuinely happy knowing that her friend was Spider…Min. Spider-Min. Yup.

Not a man at all! She refuses the fact that people still think that she’s a guy. 

“I thought that it was just one question?”

They smiled at each other.

She needed that. She needed someone to talk about all the problems that her superpowers gave her. It wasn’t easy. Helping people and, above all, stopping so many criminal cases that could harm the millions of people who lived in the city was not an easy task. So she’s genuinely happy that her sister of another mother knew about her little secret. 

Maybe they could make a good team. 

🕷️

They were a good team. 

After that day, Yizhuo helped her by making a new suit, because her original suit was not cool at all and needed to be more technologic if she wanted to catch the bad guys faster. 

Or that was what Yizhuo said.

The owner of the fabric store was caught off guard after the two girls told him that they needed a fabric that could withstand blows from all types of weapons, exposure to fire, and an endless list of things that, according to Yizhuo, was totally necessary.

Red and blue were the colors they decided to use, trying to recreate part of the first suit that Min made by hand. 

A spider logo was in the middle of her chest and all the details (like the simulated webs in her mask, her shoes, and her lenses) were added a day after finishing the ultimate spider-suit. 

Not to forget to mention that with Yizhuo abilities in programming and all the telecommunication skills she had (a good hacker, Minjeong would say) they made a friendly neighborhood spider-min app and now Minjeong has full access to all the policies radios in the city, a built in speaker and ear-phone so she knows when someone is calling her, and micro sd with her favorite music. 

A whole week full of hard work by the two girls ended up with the coolest suit of all times and the new most downloaded app in all of NYC. 

And with Bang Bang by K’naan in the background, She was swinging all over Queens to get to her chemistry class quickly. The only problem? A guy named Prowler was robbing The Daily Bugle payroll office. So she had to turn her short two-minute “ride” into a chase that was going to cost her on-time arrival at school. 

The guy was not at all new to her list of bad guys. Aaron, thirty years old, and a family of criminals to feed. Prowler worked for Wilson Fisk, so it seemed a little odd that his new target was The Daily Bugle. 

“Hey big guy! I thought we already talked about stealing things that don't belong to you.”Just hearing Minjeong's voice caused Prowler to throw one of his grenades directly at the girl. “Aaron? I thought we had already become friends!” 

The girl heard a growl from the man seconds before he ran toward the spot where she stood to start a fight. 

“Oh! Are we playing tag?”

The Prowler's suit had claws, and the fact that it was made entirely of metal gave it an enormous amount of strength. For every blow that hit her, Minjeong felt how her muscles were decaying more and more, she knew that it had not been a good idea to fight against Kingpin during the wee hours of the morning. The guy may have a face like a thumb, which should be funny! but all the damage he was wreaking on the city was not funny at all. 

Besides! after Minjeong took over Wilson, which should have been good news, because, hello? one less bad guy! The Daily Bugle runs an article calling her the bad guy. 

Bullshit! 

Like right now! Prowler had the advantage due to the thousands of gadgets he used against Minjeong. Clones of himself? Man, it was really giving her a pain in the ass.

“Don't you think it's unfair? you should give me one of those clones so he can play with one of mine too”

Another grunt accompanied by severe blows, that she was able to dodge with total ease, went straight at Minjeong. 

The girl knew Aaron hated her and the best way to destroy his patience was to talk nonstop.

“Aaron if you keep doing this, you know damn well you won't be a good example for your… son? Are you even married?!” 

“Shut the fuck up! You don't know shit about my life.” 

“Hey, hey! let's watch the language please! there are children who may be listening!”

“I'm so going to kill you!” And this was the perfect opportunity for Minjeong, Aaron was totally blinded by the hatred generated by the girl and everything she said about his family. Meters closer and closer to Minjeong, she took a leap and swung to reach one of the walls nearby.

“Why don’t we play another game? Maybe that can be more distressing than destroying the city!”

Prowler was standing right under one of the ventilation systems of the place, and Minjeong's next move was to use her webs to shoot at it. With a perfect move she managed to get them to fall right on top of the man, but she knew that wouldn't be enough to stop him for as long as possible before the police arrived, so she decided to keep everything stuck to the ground with her webs.

“I thought you'd give me a much more exciting fight this time, Aaron!”

“Oh, go to hell!” It was a funny scene, seeing Aaron stuck to the ground, unable to move any of his limbs and with only his head making small movements every time he spoke.

“Kisses to your cellmates! You say hi to Wilson, I'm absolutely sure he'd love to see you!”

Minjeong really thought it was going to take longer to stop the Prowler from his little show. But looking at it from another point of view, she was half an hour late for her first class and she knew perfectly well that her lab partner was going to hate her for it.

It shouldn't take her more than ten minutes to swing down to her school, hide her suit in one of the vents, grab her backpack and let Yizhuo know that she no longer had to worry about her! It was easy… at least to say that was easy.

She resumed the song she was once playing, and made her way to her school as fast as possible. 

“MJ! I just saw you on the news! The Prowler, again?” It was Yizhuo on her phone.

“This time was an easy take, actually! I fought him for like, fifteen minutes or so”

“Any broken bones this time?” She knew that Yizhuo was saying it in most part as a joke, but there was a little concern in her voice.

“Nope, I’m in one piece this time!”

“Cool! That’s good to know. Where are you by the way? The professor is asking about you and this time you lab part–”

“I’m almost there! I swear, and if you can tell Johnny that I’m almost there it’ll be way better”

“Sure! But, Min… John–”

“Gotta go now Yizhuo! I’m on the roof, see ya in class!”

She didn’t give her friend the time to tell her whatever she was trying to say to her. Because, first of all, she needs to concentrate every time she’s swinging through the city, because she doesn’t pay attention at all, then she'll end up stuck to a wall or window like a slime.

Her way to the roof and to get her backpack was really fast. It was autumn right now so she didn’t have the necessity to take her suit off, so she just put on her normal clothes and ran towards her class. 

She excused her way in, saying her sorrys to her professor by being late… again. Looking in the whole salon she tried to find Johnny in one of the stations, but she just couldn't find him.

“Minjeong Kim?” She heard her professor behind her.

“Yes, Mr Lee?”

“Johnny is sick, he’s not going to be attending this whole week. Your new lab partner is Miss Yu”

Fuck. 

Oh no.

She started looking for Yizhuo instead. The quick notification sound made her look for her phone and see if it was who she's hoping to be. 

Ningie ❤️‍🩹:
 Good luck with Yu… 

She has to be for real, because what the fuck Ning Yizhuo. You’re not helping at all!

:🕷️ Jeongie 
 broimdyingwhatthefuckisoingon

icanrtwsfkjasfhdgdf do displzdksjf

 
She looked up at Yizhuo and the girl gave her two thumbs up before turning to her new lab partner as well. 

Minjeong made her way to Jimin’s counter. She was shaking, she definitely wasn’t thinking that something like this would be happening just minutes after fighting someone! She normally doesn’t feel afraid of those guys, but right now she feels so little besides the other girl.

Jimin just gave her a warm smile that made her weak to the knee, and made her melt by the sweetness of the other girl. 

Damn, she’s so down for her.

It’s silly. 

Stand up, Kim Minjeong!

Man… It was going to be a really long day for her after all.