Chapter Text
Spider-man is supposed to be strong. He gets the girl, he saves the day, and he is invincible (and not invisible, that one’s Miles Morales’ Spider-man). Everyone knew his catchphrase by now, no thanks to the other spider-men counterparts that are getting recognition from the real world— the Peter Parkers and the Miles Moraleses. Unfortunately for Universe-3107 Spiderman, he wasn’t famous or anything like that. Hell, his people don’t even call him Spiderman.
Let’s start from the beginning. His name is Choi Jiung, Reality 3107’s one and only Spider-man. His backstory is that he lost his memories, only aware that his reality was plagued by some fucked up group called Alcor. He gets his telekinesis powers from a ring, and while time travelling with Keeho, an interdimensional spider landed on him and bit him, giving him spider-powers on top of having telekinesis. He fell in love, realized he will never have a happy relationship with a man, and got back up on his feet because Alcor still exists everywhere. He never gets a break.
Well, except when he hops over to the multiverse. Sometimes, in between saving people, he finds a small bubble of time when he can just hop over to a universe where other spidermen existed, and where he isn’t the One and Only spiderman. Differences existed, sure, but the feeling was there. He wasn’t the only one whose life was fucked over by a spider.
Though this universe did host like every variation of spider-man to exist. Even people he knew. He’s seen like two Spider-Keeho... as scary as that sounded. He’s also seen a Japanese-looking guy who he’s pretty sure was Soul if he was talkative. It felt like paradise for him who lived a solitary life in Korea, being one of the few people who still had their sanity together in a quickly dying world.
“Yo Jiung.” Keeho called. Spider-Keeho 1 as he called him. It was the Spiderman counterpart that resembled his universe’s Keeho closest, so he called him Keeho 1. Not like Keeho would ever know he’d resorted to nicknaming him with numbers. Or maybe Keeho was doing the same, who knows.
He glanced at Keeho 1, “What’s up?”.
Keeho 1 lifted two different suits, one with pink and white motifs while the other had black and violet motifs, “If I, hypothetically, were to change my branding to something else other than the old and washed red and blue like everyone else here, which one would just scream ‘KEEHO!’? Like one look and you’d be like ‘Omo, that’s the Korea’s best Spider-Man, Yoon Keeho!’” Keeho gestured wildly, flailing the two spidey-suits in his hands as if to prove a point.
At this point, Jiung wondered where responsibility ended and where delusion and ego started for Keeho. Wondering about it would give him a headache, so he opted to shut his brain from that train of thought.
“Why not bedazzle ‘KEEHO’ on your suit instead?” He offered. However, Keeho scoffed at the idea, “Are you dumb? That’d like, really really blow my cover! No, I want the fans to think whenever they see Spider-Man on TV that ‘Omo, Keeho’s just like Spider-Man!’ so I can go on V-live and say ‘Guys, Spider-Man’s just like me for real’ and it’d be this whole thing on Twitter!” Keeho immediately rebuked. None of those words made sense.
“V-live? Twitter? Is that like... the X-live and Vitter in your universe?” Jiung asked, afraid to even entertain the suits question. He would rather deal with an inflated ego of his universe’s Keeho rather than the god complex idol slash hero Keeho 1.
“X-live sounds so weird and how do you even live with VITTER??” Keeho 1 gasped dramatically and shook his head, like the biggest crimes ever had been committed to him specifically.
Jiung rolled his eyes, “Anyway, why would you want people to think ‘That’s Keeho!’ and ‘He’s just like Keeho!’ at the same time? That doesn’t make sense dude.” He fiddled with his “spidey-suit”, which was just a well-put together outfit for post-apocalyptic Korea. White long sleeves that covered his entire body, and a white polyester ski mask that Jongseob and Soul modified to cover his whole face— something to mess with the facial recognition of Alcor drones. Other spidermen have criticized him for his lack of personality for his suit, so he haphazardly painted spider-lines over everything, accidentally spilling some paint here and there.
“Because your suit looks just like my Jiung’s hair in one of our comebacks! Here’s a pic!” Keeho aggressively shoved his phone to Jiung’s face. His universe’s Jiung really did have white bleached hair with colored streaks. The make-up artist did well, and he remarked the circular earrings with an internal nod. His universe’s Jiung had taste, so that’s good.
“And look!” Keeho swiped, moving to a group photo, which inevitably created a deep pit in Jiung’s stomach, deeper than the Mariana’s Trench probably. “Here’s the group photo! It looks so sick that Jiung’s hair is like that, so I need to up my Spidersuit game!”
Jiung wasn’t focused on whatever Keeho said, instead he focused on the group photo. In the picture, Keeho is seen posing with 5 other people: Jiung, Theo, Soul, Jongseob... and Intak. Keeho’s Intak. Their faces looked happier, less burdened. His universe’s Theo looked like he didn’t shut everyone out of his life. Soul seems solemn, yet the brightness in his eyes contrasted the Soul in his universe. Jongseob was happier, he could tell; none of that grief and jadedness an apocalypse would cause. And Intak... looked the exact same. A coy smile, maybe he had more baby fat compared to his Intak, but the same throughout. The encouraging smile, the bright eyes, the same facial features, and everything good about Intak.
“Uh... yeah.” Jiung pried his eyes away from the phone, afraid of looking more. Afraid that Keeho would pick up on it as quickly as his universe’s Keeho did. To his horror, though, Keeho was still Keeho even in different universes. In fact, he’d be worse if he had powers. Which he did.
“Oh? Is our Jiungie eyeing Intak?” He teased bluntly, “Oh my God, I never expected to discover something like this from the Spider-verse instead of hearing it from Jiung himself! Tell me all the details IMMEDIATELY!” Keeho shook Jiung, as if moving him around would reveal a story that he wanted to hear. Jiung doubts anyone wanted to hear his story out of the whole multiverse, but Keeho’s insistence begged otherwise.
“Get lost, Keeho,” Jiung waves him off, “Don’t you have a comeback to focus on?”
Keeho whined, “Ugh, don’t remind me! But! That’s not my problem here,” he smirked as he plopped himself down on a chair next to Jiung, “because the time difference here, as I realized, is 1 to 100! So, an hour in my reality is 100 hours here! I literally have all the time in the world, Jyung.”
Jiung sighed in defeat. He used to pray that Keeho would never pick up on that time difference. He realized it after his first visit, but Keeho apparently didn’t as Jiung got to use the “comeback preparations” trick for quite a while.
“You wouldn’t want to hear it.” Jiung refuted as he stood up to leave. Keeho’s hand on his shoulder was firm and had no plans of entertaining escape, though. “Choi Jiung, you’re going to tell me noww.” He insisted in his lowest voice possible, something Jiung never took seriously until now. Jiung didn’t like it. The way Keeho acted the exact same as his universe’s Keeho. The way this Keeho had more strength to pry further, or that they had no implied shared past to get in the way. Or maybe that’s exactly what he needed to finally let this story out of his chest. To finally unburden himself of this stifling feeling that has ruined him for a long time now.
“Fine. But you owe me.” Jiung sat back down and glared at his hamburger. There was a sense of luxury every time he stops by here. No Alcor drones, no lack of food, and no lack of people. It was noisy, and it was everything Jiung wished for his reality. In all honesty, he was just stalling for time.
“I guess before I can even tell you about... Intak... I have to tell you about the situation in my universe.” He decided.
“Ugh, isn’t it all the same? You study in New Korea, you got bitten by a radioactive spider, you discovered your powers, your unc-“ Keeho began rambling, to which Jiung shook his head, an effective silencer for the ramblemouth.
“I- I guess we’ll go where I can remember earliest, yeah?” Jiung nervously chuckled and fiddled with the tin foil wrapping of his food. Jongseob always scolded him about playing with food, but Jiung’s nerves were getting to him.
It was scary as shit.
Realizing that your memories weren’t complete, or that there were weird cultish people everywhere out to get you. You don’t know who to trust, and it seems like the only person not actively trying to murder you is just as clueless as you. It was scary as shit for Jiung. He ran, and ran, and ran. He looked everywhere, and he tried to live. Just live.
However, fragments of his memory come back here and there. Faint whispers of lips colliding, of plans to escape to New Zealand, of happiness hidden away between alleyways and dark corners. But each memory confused him more, because he looks at Keeho at times and wonder why they fell for each other. Was that part of Alcor’s drug? Was it because Jiung hasn’t met anyone who wasn’t out to kill him yet? He really hated how it felt, to have a past with someone. Even worse was that neither of them really acknowledged it. Jiung lay awake at night wondering if the guilty feeling in his chest was from the thought that he stopped reciprocating Keeho’s feelings, or the fact that he didn’t feel guilty at all. Did he feel guilty about not being guilty?
While jumping through time to reach 2020, Jiung finally had the courage to ask Keeho.
“Hey... is it okay?”
Keeho smiled faintly, like he had expected this question long ago, “Yep. We’re good, Jiung. I honestly don’t feel the same anymore. Weird, right?”
But that felt like a lie. He never asked further. They held hands as they jumped through locations and time, sometimes going back instead of forward. Keeho grows weary after a few jumps though, so they seek shelter in some timeline in some random location they landed in. Every night since their conversation, Jiung lay awake at night with the horror of the ‘thing’ between them. He wanted to get rid of the feeling of somehow being an incompetent partner to Keeho, but how could he even begin when he felt like he didn’t know this man at all? He twists in his ‘bed’ and ponders.
That was until they finally reached 2020. It was their last shot that day. Was it 2019? 2004? He cannot— could NOT tell the time anymore. He grabbed on to Keeho’s wrist as they jumped through time once again—
“Wait, you’re telling me I have time travelling powers? ARE YOU SERIOUS?!” Keeho 1 interrupted Jiung’s train of thought. He glared at the obnoxious man, obviously unsatisfied, “are you going to let me finish?”
Keeho 1 chuckled awkwardly, “Woah, uhm okay, continue.”
It was that one time that Jiung felt like the jump lasted too long. He opened his eyes in the middle of their jump for the first time, only to realize that Keeho’s face was contorted in pain. He tried calling out to Keeho only to realize his voice couldn’t manifest itself in the area between space and time, as if he was just an unwilling viewer of this exchange. He could barely even move as he witnessed space and time fragment, fold, and twist itself into a grotesque kaleidoscope.
While Keeho struggled to get through the year 2020, he noticed that there was... something, that was crawling over Keeho’s shoulder. Jiung sensed something was wrong with the way that fragment of space clung to Keeho, so he tried to focus on it; maybe move it with his mind. The result? That fragment stuck to him and “bit” him.
He barely had the time to think about it because suddenly he’s in a different location, Keeho’s jump finally finished.
“Ah, shit. That was unnecessarily hard! Haa, fuck-“ Keeho gasped, laboured breaths while he perspired next to Jiung.
“I’LL KILL YOU!” Someone shouted in the distance which caught both of their attention. Without a second thought, Jiung dragged Keeho using his telekinesis towards the sound. He couldn’t understand it, but the prickly feeling in his brain was nagging at him to run as fast as he could to the source of the shout. Like a sense. An instinct. A calling.
“Not again!” A voice shouted back, accompanied by incoherent screeches. Jiung was sure of it now, the guy who just shouted was in danger. He could feel it. He ran faster, and instinctively reached out-
“Oh, what the hell!” Keeho panicked as he processed what he just saw. “Choi Jiung, what the hell was that?!” It was nothing else than Jiung’s first spiderweb. It was awkward, and it was creepy, but the culprit could barely care at the moment. He needed to get to the source of the voice and save him. His ears were ringing at a volume that would make his ears bleed, and his body moved half-instinctively and half by telekinesis when he failed to land on ground on time.
With Jiung’s brain working overtime, they reached the source soon enough. That’s when Jiung saw it. A bloody teen, surprisingly clean of wounds, yet blood soaked his clothes. He saw the teen preparing his metal bat to swing at a freakishly moving humanoid, but he was faster. With a thought, he pushed the crazed ‘zombies’ aside, startling the teen.
“What in the world-“ He gasped, dropping his bat to the side. He looked behind him, only to see Jiung and Keeho. Jiung didn’t know what kind of reaction the teen would have but shouting out “Who are you guys?” was definitely not what he was expecting.
Keeho’s response had been quicker than Jiung’s, “Who are YOU?”. At the moment the teen turned to look at them, Jiung had been unable to speak. The adrenaline felt like it was still in his veins. Not to mention the fact that his brain was buzzing for some reas-
“Watch out!” He instinctively stopped the flying bullet headed for the bloodied teen’s head using his telekinesis, which startled Keeho and the teen. At this point of time, Jiung’s brain was going overdrive at how loud it’s shouting at him. Pure instincts have taken over his entire body, utilizing both his telekinesis and whatever spiderweb he could manage out of his body. He reached out his hand to push the wave of bodies away as they tried to crash into the haphazardly made barricade, even adding the web between gaps to prevent it from collapsing-
“Woah, you really did all that just for Intak and not for me?? Your vague situationship after who knows how many years?” Keeho 1 decided to drop his formality and return to being Keeho. Jiung groaned at the sentiment while Keeho 1 didn’t even bat an eyelid and rambled on, “I can’t believe your universe’s ME would be such a pushover! Just letting another MAN walk all over him and forget about him the moment he meets some twink off the streets— who, mind you, is still bloody as hell-“
“Can you just Shut Up!?” Jiung begged from the deepest pits of his heart. Opening up to people was hard, much less opening up to someone he technically knew, much less when that person is Yoon Keeho. In general, it’s a bad idea to talk to Yoon Keeho, no matter what universe. He didn’t know why he’s talking to him now, but the regret was settling in.
“I can, but like-“, Keeho 1 waves his hand around, “knowing I had a situationship with you in another universe is crazy not gonna lie.”
Jiung’s head snaps to attention, “We had a what?”
Keeho 1 shrugs, “Situationship? Like when two people can’t put a label on their relationship and so they just decide to meet up on faux dates, have sex, all th-“ “I know what a situationship is, dumbass. I’m asking you what you mean we’re a thing in your universe as well?” Jiung cut the rambling fool off before he goes into specifics of what sex is to someone who’s 24 years old.
“Oh,” Keeho shrugs, “My Jiung just wanted to experiment a bit I guess. He said he’s never tried it with a guy before so I did, and we kinda just have sex casually or whatever. Not sure if my Jiung also likes my Intak though, will have to interrogate him later.”
Jiung groaned for Keeho’s universe’s Jiung, “Please don’t. Other than the fact that he isn’t me, he’d probably be weirded out that his human sex toy starts asking about another man. You’d just make him assume you’re jealous.” Keeho gasps at the notion, but realizes the likelihood of that scenario happening, “Damn… you’re right.”
“Anyway…” Jiung trails off, trying to go back to where his story left off.
Intak stares at the two of them with wide-eyed wonder, “Are you guys like… superheroes or something?” Keeho, in Keeho fashion, goes “No, we’re obviously Men in Black,” and the joke quite obviously goes over the teen’s head Jiung could practically see it fly. Without any immediate threats to their life, the adrenaline finally wore off which sent Jiung reeling.
He fell to his knees, retching whatever he had for lunch 17 years ago— or was it 10 minutes ago? Was it even Lunch? Whatever his body had in it, he had ejected it without remorse and onto the cold pavement. The teen panics, as anybody would in that scenario, and scurries off calling some person’s name Jiung couldn’t bother to decipher over the loud ringing between his ears.
His head hurts so bad. Everything is painful, so damn painful. He felt like a million ants were biting and tearing at his skin with every second. Breathing itself was a pain. He didn’t know how long this lasted— maybe it was 3 seconds, or maybe it was 3 years. All he could do was weakly throw up, sob, and take shaky breaths as he tried to focus on remaining in existence. Keeho’s comforting hands weren’t much of help, really, as it felt just like someone intentionally snuffing cigarettes on his skin.
As he edged death, though, all the pain disappeared in an instant. He felt like a newborn, and that he could see the world clearer and better now. He could also feel better, if that made sense. He could taste the air in a sense. And he could feel the strong arms of someone carrying him bridal style, his arms wrapped around the person’s neck. He barely registered the roundish cheeks and sharp almond eyes that were looking at him with deep concern. He could smell the strong iron scent in the air and taste his own gut acid sitting in his mouth. Above it all, his ears could only focus on two syllables that were ringing out from around the two of them.
“INTAK!”
‘So his name’s Intak? What a pretty name.’ was all Jiung could think of before he passed out in Intak’s arms. The space between his arms felt so warm and comforting that Jiung finally felt like he’d get the first sound sleep he’ll have in forever.