Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The apartment feels frighteningly cold. There is a persistent ice in the air that simply can't be dispersed by any form of heating or warmth.

It is completely silent, too—eerily so—which is unusual, since Sieun is so used to the sound of nothingness. It seems so utterly foreign. The atmosphere carries a significant weight that Sieun simply does not know how to hold.

Sieun stands in the doorway, taking up such a tiny amount of space for a grown man. Shrinking into himself, he seamlessly blends into the shadows, as if he has always belonged there.

Alone.

He no longer has anyone to pull him out from the empty void he exists within. No helping hand to drag him from the depths of an ocean of darkness.

Sieun was going to drown in it.

Upon his frame hugs a tight-fitted black blazer, accompanied by a white button-up shirt beneath it. There's also a black tie around his neck—with no pattern or design—of which had been choking Sieun all afternoon.

Or maybe it hasn't been the tie that's had him in a chokehold. Instead, maybe Sieun has been simply suffocating within his own anatomic melancholy.

His sadness, his despondence, and his grief; they all come up his throat at the same time like bile, drowning him from the inside out.

An invisible death, fit for an invisible man.

Death had grew to have a certain type of familiarity for Sieun, lately.

The way it sinks its teeth into people when their backs are turned. The way it simply takes and takes and takes until there is nothing left. The person they once were, erased in a swift moment.

Even if the victim was undeserving, death has no mercy in its design.

The concept of death utterly surrounds Sieun.

It circles him like prey, forcing him into submission. All to an entity of which he had never considered to be a threat until it stood at the locked doors of his loved ones with a key and a scythe.

Sieun can't even bring himself to move from his own doorway. He has no idea how death is so comfortable barging into homes and turning them into caskets. 

The black trousers he's currently wearing haven't even been ironed. They still sport the creases down the front of the legs from where they had been folded within the packaging he had bought them in.

Sieun hadn't had the energy to iron them out himself. No one else cared to do it for him, either.

He doesn't even remember getting dressed this morning.

Autopilot has become a new constant in Sieun's life, and he has become much too accustomed with allowing his body to move on instinct and reflex rather than it needing him to be in control.

Sieun lays dormant within his own mind.

He doesn't care enough to live, to truly live. Sieun simply survives, somehow.

But now, there is a noticeable absence of anyone else in the apartment. Namely his parents, who had been with him merely hours ago at the funeral, only to leave him completely alone to hail a taxi home.

It wasn't much of a surprise—Sieun was used to neglect.

But lately—since that day—he had been given a brief taste of parental love and affection, fed to him on a hollow platter laced with sorrow and sympathy.

His mother had been crowding around him all week.

She was worried, she would say. Something she has never been in regards to Sieun, ever.

The care given to him in the past week had only caused parts of Sieun to regress into the child he used to be—the child he never even had the chance to properly be, as responsibility had been placed on his shoulders before he even knew what the concept of responsibility truly meant.

As a result of the softness, though, he had found himself childishly indulging—much too deeply—into the dark sea of his parent's hearts over the past week. It was a temptation that Sieun was not strong enough to battle against, instead allowing himself to be taken by the waves. 

Momentarily, Sieun allowed himself to forget what it was like to have to swim alone in his sorrows. He started to believe that maybe someone could be there when the current got too strong. A hand for him to hold, to rely and count upon.

How stupid.

The empty apartment taunts him now.

When Sieun got the call on that fateful day, the first thing he had done was shakily walk—on unstable legs with stuttering footsteps—into the living room, his phone still pressed up tightly to his ear.

His hands were shaking, trembling in a rhythm he had never been subjected to before. He's still surprised he even managed to keep grip of his phone for so long.

Tears had brewed in his eyes before he had the chance to swallow them back down, and he was forced to let them spill over his lash line. They ran down his cheeks, painting a watercolour of sadness over him.

Sieun had always specifically hated showing his emotions openly.

Over the years, his face had become a perfect blank slate. No expressions, just Sieun existing on his own accord, leaving his emotions as a neatly kept secret tucked beneath his ribs in the centre of his chest.

Colour barely even blessed his cheeks, simply skin with no heat or life within it.

However, Sieun could not even remember how to control his own tears anymore. The tears simply flowed on their own; a dam with a broken floodgate, an unstoppable force.

He hasn't cried properly since he was a child. He never let himself. The vulnerability of shedding tears never made Sieun feel any lighter afterwards. Instead, it hacked at pieces of his soul that would start to yearn for a type of comfort that would simply never arrive. 

Sorrow takes his soul captive.

In that same moment, with wide, watery eyes, he had looked around the room, vision unseeing like he was an outsider to his own body.

His parents were sat down watching the television. They were on two separate armchairs, a clear unspoken border between them that neither of them ever crossed.

They hadn't even noticed Sieun in the doorway. Or the way his life was uncontrollably falling out from under his feet—the way his knees were caving in on themselves from the heavy weight on his soul.

It took Sieun being utterly consumed by the shock and loss for them to notice.

Surprising they noticed at all, really, as he can recall many instances of which he had been brutally ignored, left to wallow in his own pity despite how loud he begged.

He supposes he should be grateful they took notice of him, but the thought leaves a bitter aftertaste in his mouth that accompanies alongside the sharp stab of grief.

Even if he tried, Sieun couldn't have helped the guttural sob that tore through his chest, leaving his throat raw as it ripped its way out of him.

"M-Min.. Minsu." He could hardly speak, his voice came out as splutters and chokes rather than forming coherent sentences. Sobs turned into violent coughs which turned into his lungs burning with the effort to keep him breathing.

Sieun's face pinched up with the weight of his cries, utterly succumbing to the brutality of loss.

"Minsu's… He—Oh my god."

Even though his parents had spoken to him in response, Sieun has no idea what they said.

He assumes they were filled with a different type of shock, panic, and hopefully concern. 

Sieun's mind was busy reeling with the agony of memories. 

Minsu was the one person Sieun had ever made friends with.

His best friend, his one and only lifeline and the source of his smile. The person who had even taught him how to smile in the first place—who introduced the softness of platonic love into his life to soothe the harsh burn of familial negligence.

They had met when they were just young children, packed with the peak of childhood innocence with the baby fat embedded in their cheeks to prove it.

In the playground, Sieun had been sat on a swing— alone. His mother had ushered him away from her and taken her usual seat on the far side of the park, staying out of the bounds of her own parental responsibility.

His legs were barely long enough to reach the ground from where he sat.

No matter how much he kicked and swayed, the swing barely moved, his efforts falling feeble and useless.

Suddenly, Sieun was met with the feeling of hands pulling the swing backwards—very weakly—before he was pushed forwards again. He still barely moved, but it was miles better than he could do on his own.

Sieun glanced over his shoulder. He was met with another boy, probably around his age, smiling wide with a front tooth missing.

Minsu.

That was their first interaction, and Minsu had stuck to Sieun like glue for the rest of that day. And the next. And each one after that.

Sieun never really spoke much. Minsu did all the talking.

It wasn't an immediate bond, but they built a gradual, steady dependence on one another that only grew as they moved through school together.

Minsu was originally mostly bothersome if anything, yet Sieun grew to enjoy his constant presence.

Before they knew it, they had entwined themselves together.

Sieun hated sleepovers, so Minsu would simply linger around in Sieun's room until the dusk settled over the house. They would hush laughter and giggles into the air, whispered jokes floating between them and landing like a soft, tickling feather.

Sieun's father would insist on dropping Minsu home before it got too late. Sieun thinks his dad just wanted an excuse to leave the house, to get away from both Sieun and his mother.

As they grew up, their bond only strengthened from its foundations upwards. They were a sturdy pair, infallible to even the strongest outward forces.

They were tethered so strongly together in each others lives, weaved between each others existence; a lifelong friendship written into the storybooks of their futures.

Before Sieun knew it, he had completely allowed Minsu into his life. The first person to have a place by his side, and to stay there through anything.

And now, he would also be the last.

Sieun will talk, and a grave will stare back at him.

They were coming up on fifteen years since they first met.

Now, Minsu will never age, ever again. An unwilling stagnancy of his livelihood.

Forever twenty.

No more birthdays, no more celebrations.

No more midnight drunk messages begging Sieun to come pick him up, no more Minsu jokingly pretending Sieun was his brother when they got asked about their friendship.

No more them.

Sieun would be alone for the rest of his life, he was sure of it.

The proof was staring right back at him, with the empty apartment echoing dissonant silence into his ears.

Sieun slips his leather shoes off, nudging them from his heels with his toes. He places them down neatly beside a black pair of running shoes that sit beside the door, untouched.

Minsu had gifted them to him.

He had joked that they should start running together, which quickly received a side eye of disapproval from Sieun. Minsu had watched Sieun fall flat on his face enough times in the school gym to suggest for them to run together.

More seriously, Minsu had then added that he had found a quiet place Sieun might like to walk around. Something about the sunset peeking over a lake, making itself known through the trees and how its soft rays ripple gently through the water.

Sieun will never know where it was.

The shoes will collect layers upon layers of thick dust—Sieun wonders if it'll look the same as the burnt ash in Minsu's urn.

The turmoil churning in Sieun's abdomen persists, laced with grief and sorrow, unwilling to be settled by any form of a calming tide. 

Sieun shuffles further into the hallway, his socked feet gliding across the hardwood floor. He doesn't even have the energy to pick his feet up between his steps. 

The doorway to the living room seems daunting, an artefact of the moment Sieun's life cracked from the edges like glass. 

When Sieun reaches it, his movements stutter.

It wasn't intentional, but trauma sets itself heavy in his bones, and instinct overrides the rest of Sieun's will. One foot falls just over the boundary into the room, while the other remains trapped in the safety of the hallway.

Sieun's chin wobbles lightly, something unsteady tugging on his bottom lip, too. The edges of his lips pull downwards as he summons the bravery of a thousand men to simply walk to his couch.

Silence buzzes in his ears. There's a distant white noise of the bustling streets below his apartment.

It's funny, how the city life continues while innocent lives end. 

The city will never sleep. 

Minsu will never wake up again. 

With a whistling sigh harbouring the sting of grief pressing down on his chest, Sieun somehow makes it to the couch.

The backs of his legs hit the edge of the cushions first, before he gently lowers himself down. 

He doesn't allow himself to slip out of the cage of control he's built for himself. Everything must be calculated, contained. It's the only way Sieun knows how to live.

So, instead of throwing himself down, hoping that he gets swallowed and suffocated by the couch cushions, he sits in one measured motion. 

Hearing the horns of passing cars and the inaudibly grating conversations that float off into laughter from pedestrians on the street, Sieun decides that he cannot exist in his own quiet.

The television remote sits in its holder on the side table, placed with purpose so that Sieun never has his father shouting through the hallways wondering where it has gone. Sieun reaches over in one swift movement.

He grabs the remote, and simply holds it in his hand for a moment. He blinks slowly, eyebrows slightly pinched and lips drawn tightly together.

Weighing up the remote in the palm of his hand, somehow, even Sieun's mind seems empty.

From his mind to the depths of his soul, Sieun is hollowed out by loss and sorrow.

A shaky sigh leaves his aching lungs through his nose. He tries to swallow, but his mouth turns up dry, and the action only causes a raw scrape in the back of his throat. 

Before he can fall deeper into the dark cavern of his echoing skull, Sieun turns on the television, ignoring the tremble in his fingers as he presses the button.

The television crackles on, the screen lighting up in flickers of colour where it was previously blank. 

Sound crackles through the air. Sieun is grateful for the reprieve from his barren thoughts. 

It doesn't last very long.

Dread pools like thick poison in his stomach startlingly quickly.

A news station plays on the television. Sieun didn't choose the channel—it was probably previously watched by his father in the morning over a cup of scalding black coffee, or by his mother as she read her weekly magazine over tea. 

Normally, Sieun is indifferent to the news. He begrudges most of it, shrugging it off like the average person does.

Headlines after headlines float through one ear and out of the other. Only one thing ever catches his attention for long enough to make his eyes roll in disdain.

Heroes take form on the screen, being flaunted around in front of the cameras like crown jewels.

Sieun has always disliked heroes. 

As a child, he used to pray for one to show up at his door.

He had grown up seeing heroes on the television, saving other people from utter devastation. And as he heard his parents voices from down the hallway, screaming and throwing things at each other, he prayed that a hero would come save him too.

No one came.

Was Sieun not worth saving? 

Over time, his dislike for heroes ate away at his spirit. However, it had also become something he just had to live with. He knew there was no getting away from the sight of heroes.

Heroes were everywhere, all over Seoul and scattered across the whole country. There was no escape from heroism. 

Even Minsu loves heroes—had loved them, past tense.

He had always admired them. Sieun found the admiration to be slightly foolish, pointless even.

It would just build up within Minsu with nowhere to go, as heroes would never come for either of them. So, Sieun just thought that the love would die within Minsu without ever being able to spill out.

In the end, Sieun was right about that.

In due course, Sieun had learnt to accept the fact that, simply, no heroes would ever come to his aid either. No one will find refuge for him, and Sieun has no idea how to seek it out for himself—he simply makes a treaty with the idea that he will be left in his own fear for the rest of his life.

Heroes are simply strangers he refuses to learn anything about.

But, he loved his best friend, and therefore loved every single part of him too. Even his admiration for heroes.

No matter how much hatred loomed in Sieun's gut towards them, he pushed it down. For Minsu.

But now, where he would usually avert his eyes, his eyebrows furrow at the sight. He bites his lip as if that will stop the anger that's bubbling up within him.

It's Spider-man.  

Spider-man, somehow smiling even through the mask that covers his entire face.

Spider-man, stood next to Seoul's chief executive Mayor. Minsu's boss, Sieun informally knew him as. The corrupt, stingy, utterly evil man that Minsu was contractually forced to abide by.

Spider-man, shaking hands with Minsu's killer.

The only man that had witnessed the accident, and the man who had covered it all up. 

With the burn of tears singeing his lash line, Sieun can't help the way the speed of his breaths picks up, and a sob threatens to spill from the passage of his shaking lips. 

Spider-man starts speaking into a microphone that's shoved in his face. His voice comes through the television speakers, flooding Sieun's living room. However, Sieun hears none of it. It falls into pure static in his ears.

The television remote is still in Sieun's hand, fingers whitening at the edges at the force behind his grip. 

Sobs continue to spill out of him, deriving from somewhere deep in his chest that he had always intended to keep hidden. 

Acting on the surge of impulse running through his veins, Sieun pulls his arm back, quickly surging it forward again. 

The remote crashes into the screen, creating a banging sound at the collision, before falling awkwardly onto the floor. 

Nothing prevails of Sieun's outburst.

Spider-man remains glued to his screen.

However, it wasn't necessarily Spider-man that Sieun was aiming at.

A newfound need for vengeance tinges Sieun's blood, pumping around his body at full force.

Sieun is not a murderer—he has never even thought about killing the mere spiders in his en suite bathroom. 

But now, staring at the Mayor on his screen with clear tunnel vision, Sieun feels the deathly grip of revenge around his neck.

And with the salt of tears running down his cheeks, Sieun swears to the empty air that Spider-man will not stand in his way. 

Mayor Choi will be his to kill. 

Villainy was not necessarily the path Sieun had always wanted to go down in life. But when heroes had all officially turned their backs on him and left him to wilt in his own darkness, it became the only option he could see for his future.

But there was logistics to becoming a villain.

Firstly, a suit. He didn't think too much about it, really.

In fact, even the mere thought of how his life has began to splinter into crime and wrongdoing just makes ice swell in his stomach. Anxiety hammers against his insides, pungent with his own grief.

Sieun pushes it all down.

He didn't want the suit to be recognisable, or flashy. Some villains in Seoul clearly wanted the whole world to know their name, with detailed costumes and catchy taglines which always caught the attention of the media.

Ultimately, Sieun didn't desire any attention. The only force surging through his blood and seeping into his muscles, tainting his every movement with it's frightening fervour, was the need for vengeance.

So, there wasn't much to think about. He swiftly decided to dress himself in a plain, black, skin-tight bodysuit.

At its core, it will work well. It will conceal his figure enough to hide his identity, while also allowing him to blend in with the night and truly become one with the shadows.

It's where he has always belonged, he supposes.

The suit itself was easy enough to come by—plenty of stores sold tight one-piece bodysuits, and thankfully Sieun didn't look too suspicious turning up to the cashier's desk with only that in his hands.

With the suit itself sorted, Sieun began to think about the other necessary details. Unfortunately, becoming a villain didn't have a handbook. There was no tutorial for his newfound awakening to vigilanteism.

Sieun was so far out of his depth. He couldn't study this—there was no rules or logic. He was being forced to take each crossroad as it comes, something that he had always struggled with.

Sieun usually needs meticulously outlined structure. That had all evaporated in the fire of loss.

Overall, the mask was much harder to forage.

His first stop was his local Halloween dress-up store. The aisles were covered with masks of all sizes and design, but they all revolved around iconic horror characters, or were just much too identifiable. Sieun wanted his face be completely covered, but to avoid drawing any attention of watchful passing eyes where he could.

This all led him to be seated before his mother's sewing machine.

Sieun had managed to scrape together some loose pieces of black fabric—not too scratchy on his skin, and also stretchy enough to fit around his head.

Measuring them out was a struggle, he had never been good with crafts or working with his hands.

Although, he had fortunately grown familiar with the sewing machine itself from when his mother had forced him to learn its inner workings in order to stop him from bothering her when he had fallen down in the playground and scraped a hole through his trousers.

He had always hated the machine, the sounds of the needle punching down repeatedly only grates in his ears.

But, needs must, and he carefully loaded it with a fresh spool of black linen thread and began to stitch the fabrics together into the crooked form of a mask.

It was a shoddy job in its entirety—truthfully, Sieun had no idea what he was doing.

He ends up with obvious stitches poking out over the fabric seams. It's hard for Sieun to care too much, though, as all he needs is for his identity to be hidden and for justice to be served.

Anything else that comes of the costume is a bonus.

When he gets to the eye holes, Sieun hesitates.

One image comes to mind.

He thinks of Spider-man.

Spider-man's mask consists of, what Sieun assumes is, a combination of nanotechnology and skilfully crafted, moving lenses that adhere to Spider-man's—well, the real man beneath the mask's—true expressions.

They squint when the person squints, and widen afterwards too. Sieun wonders how exactly the technology works, and the neat craftsmanship behind it.

Too much time passes where Sieun simply analyses Spider-man. The thought of him, pictures, videos and interviews.

His metallic, streamlined web shooters that cling to his wrist and tether upwards to the palm of his hand.

The web bombs that Sieun notices come from a cartridge that Spider-man pulls from a home on his wrist, throwing it so it explodes into a tangle of webs to wrap up his enemies in one clean swoop.

Trip wires. Wings that cling under his armpits and allow him to glide through the air instead of swinging. Trackers. Sieun takes note of it all.

There's a form of admiration building somewhere deep in his abdomen, but it quenches quickly when he realises who exactly probably would have funded all of Spider-man's tech.

Not Spider-man himself, that's for sure.

Everyone had seen the mess of a costume he had first debuted with, before he was even coined Spider-man. In fact, some people simply titled him onesie guy, or literally just wall climber, as his suit lacked anything identifiable and was simply a red onesie Sieun was sure he had seen in a local charity store beforehand.

However, since Spider-man quickly became such an iconic public figure, Sieun knows the guy must have had money thrown at him from all directions—dirty money from dirty men. All from the likes of the Mayor, probably.

Therefore, Sieun doesn't allow himself to get too hung up on the fact that he alone cannot physically create any flashy technology to build into his suit. He'll have to make do, and counteract the loss with his pitiful tailoring.

Decisions of design and composition pile up high in Sieun's mind.

He lands on sleek slits for the eyes—mainly because the scissors slip in his hands and the oval he was originally going for ends up looking more like an oddly rounded triangle.

He finishes them off with a black see-through mesh, and he pointedly ignores how the final product reminisces Spider-man infinitely more than he had intended.

Finishing touches that Sieun adds to the suit lack very much in perfection, instead focusing on harsh practicality.

With a final consideration of the bodywork of the suit, Sieun decides it cannot just be him that fights in battle. He needs support devices, things to aid him in his endeavours where other people refuse to venture.

Ideas of mechanical gadgets and weapons spiral through Sieun's mind; it's as if he can see them already dangling from his hands and from the suit as if they've somehow manifested themselves into reality.

A utility belt, Sieun thinks, is what he needs.

Sieun summons a black, fabric belt from deep within his wardrobe, purposefully brushing past some of the clothes on the hangers. The ones that he had always worn when hanging out with Minsu.

He thinks he even has some of Minsu's hoodies in there somewhere, hiding in plain sight to Sieun's avoidant eyes. The thought makes him feel violently sick.

The belt is then seamlessly attached around the waist of the suit. He rips apart some other fabric to create pockets and pouches, even going as far as to scavenge some velcro from some old sneakers to secure everything in place.

It's the final addition to Sieun's handiwork.

Sieun wonders that, if Minsu saw him now, how would he react?

Sieun, the boy who spent most of his childhood making friends with the words in his science textbook rather than real people. Sieun, the boy who would spend his lunch breaks sitting around waiting for his one and only best friend to come bounding over to him.

All ruined in the face of death.

What a sick joke.

Evidently, Sieun has nothing more to add to the suit yet—no gadgets or weapons—so the suit ends up hanging in his wardrobe too. Sieun is too nervous to look at what it ends up hanging next to.

Probably next to Minsu's hoodie. How funny, Sieun is sure Minsu would laugh at the irony, if he could.

The creation of Sieun's own tech and weapons doesn't come easy. What starts as small sketches in his notebook turn into blobs of graphite and ink, undecipherable. Pencils and pens sit tightly in his hand, yet the lines never turn out the way he wants them to.

He scraps that notebook quite quickly.

Fortunately, where Sieun lacks in the art department, he makes up for it with brains and knowledge.

But, also, his brain currently just consists of a library of Spider-man, Spider-man, Spider-man.

Sieun ends up hyper-focused on all of Spider-man's tech, and what seem to be his natural super-abilities. He ends up dedicating his waking hours to recreating it where he can.

It's just inspiration, Sieun mentally excuses it as.

Days pass, and before long—with a multitude of hours spent logged onto his university's 3D printer and overtime in the science labs—Sieun is left with various gadgets that he adds to his utility belt.

The first was something akin to a web shooter, yet with a less web-like substance and just something sticky that Sieun managed to make strong enough to hold his entire body weight.

It secretes from an opening sewed into his wrists and seeps into his gloves, making his fingers tacky at his will.

Wall climber.

He stores the liquid cartridges on the side of his belt.

Although, he does work on actual webs, too.

However, these cannot hold his body weight, nothing close to it even. But he feels as if they will be good distractions, so he creates a decent supply of those cartridges too and slides them into the web shooters and the side of his belt.

Next came a pair of infrared goggles that act as night vision and also thermal imaging.

They ended up being too bulky to add straight to his mask—Sieun prefers the sleekness he already has. So, they go inside a pocket in the side of the belt as well.

Blueprints of various other helping technology come to fruition within the labs; some of which end up in the trashcan very quickly, some that get put on the back burner to be fine tuned.

The others that Sieun conclude are worthwhile to spend time on, like a makeshift taser and some brass knuckles, all end up somewhere on his suit, easily accessible.

The entire process of journeying into the beginning of his new villainous identity barely takes a fortnight. What a quick ending to his innocence.

It all comes together, falling into the palm of his hands, just in time for Seoul's council meeting.

Sieun knows exactly where Mayor Choi will be, and when.

Sieun will be there, awaiting the man's arrival within the shadows, accompanied by his grief and a plan to harm.

Spider-man—no hero, in fact—will be able to stop him.

The council comes together exactly a week after Sieun shuts off the sewing machine for the last time, suit finally ready to wear in his descent to murder.

Guilt should be swimming within his mind—fear and apprehension also.

But all Sieun can think about is the flood of death that wrecked his home those mere weeks ago, evidence of a destroyed life—a young man, years of friendship, and a tight knit brotherhood washed away without a trace.

Therefore, Sieun feels as if his actions are merely a drop in the ocean compared to the tsunami that fractured his entire life into an irretrievable amount of pieces.

It all comes down to today.

Sieun's D-Day. Mayor Choi's doomsday.

During the early morning, Sieun spends his time at university, seeking some form of normalcy as he lurks within his own silence.

The neverending pit in his stomach hasn't lessened as the days have gone by—if anything, it's only grown deeper with aching sadness.

A sick feeling hits the back of his throat. It only serves as a reminder of loss, but also acts as justification for Sieun in what he plans to do.

He trails back home after his lecture ends, the sun at its peak with the coming of the afternoon yet hidden behind murky clouds.

He supposes he's lucky his parents haven't been home much lately, but they never are anyway. Minsu used to take their desolate place in the living room and kitchen. Now, the rooms come up empty.

In pride of place, hidden within his wardrobe, the suit dangles on its hanger.

On Sieun's desk sits a notebook, a pen sticking out from one of the pages acting as a bookmark. Enclosed in its pages lays a detailed scheduling of Mayor Choi's errands and meetings.

The only one he has to thank for the information is Minsu—he had stored copies of everything work-related on his laptop, which has lived in Sieun's bedroom for months as Minsu didn't trust himself to not lose it somewhere.

Sieun thinks of it as one final gift from the other boy.

Sieun casts a final glance towards the notebook, then the closed laptop.

Then, finally, to the small polaroid of him and Minsu smiling together celebrating Sieun's birthday last year. The happiness on their faces feels truly alien now.

With that, Sieun turns to the wardrobe. He ignores how his vision blurs with the sting of tears.

Blindly, he reaches for the suit.

He covers his bare legs with it first, pulling it up around his torso and sliding his arms into the designated holes. The fabric glides along his body, and he has to tug in certain places where it clings to him awkwardly thanks to his crooked craftsmanship. But overall, apart from the minute details, the suit seems almost too perfect.

It fits like a second skin, as if Sieun was always supposed to wear it.

A part of him doesn't believe he was always meant to be a villain or vigilante—there must have been a brighter future written for him.

But, also, it all suddenly makes so much sense. The way that Sieun had never amounted to anything in his life.

Sieun's only ever been a charred piece of coal in a world of shining diamonds, as a result, there's another part of his mind knows that this—unearthing corruption through vigilanteism—might just be all he's worth.

The paths before him bend and turn, until the crossroads of decision merge into one. He only has one option.

Despite only being thin layers of fabric, the mask still feels heavy in his hand.

Sieun catches glimpse of himself in the full body mirror beside his bed. He barely recognises the reflection staring back at him. It's a vague recreation of his body, all concealed beneath a black suit, gadgets with the intention to aid murder at his waist.

He doesn't resemble Yeon Sieun anymore.

Maybe Yeon Sieun had already ceased to exist, alongside Kang Minsu.

Two boys, one grave.

Before he can notice how his chin begins to wobble, Sieun pulls the mask over his head in one swift motion. In the same moment, he looks away from the mirror. Wistfully ignorant.

It wouldn't be the best idea to walk down into his apartment complex's lobby in this attire, even more so to be caught by the CCTV cameras in the stairwell. So, Sieun opts for the window.

The window leads out to a very small fire exit. Agilely, Sieun climbs out onto it, careful to not let his footsteps echo on the metal, and slides the window closed behind him.

His eyes slip closed as he tries to swallow a lump in his throat, his Adam's apple struggling around invisible blockages. A shaky breath enters his lungs, followed by a stuttering sigh.

Hands shaking, legs wobbling, Sieun's arm reaches out to the brick wall beside his window.

Hesitantly, his fingers stretch out, almost caressing the coarse surface. With a flex of his wrist, the palm of Sieun's glove is slowly covered with a sticky coating, of which securely connects his hand to the wall.

With that, Sieun takes a deep breath, before heaving himself up onto the wall.

He climbs.

His hands grip tightly to the brick, and he uses his toes for extra security. With a specific quirk of his wrist, one of his hands disconnects from the wall, and he moves it further upwards again. Rinse and repeat.

It's a short climb upwards to the roof of the complex. Sieun feels the wind slapping his face in ways it hasn't done before. It doesn't scare him, though—it's the first time in his life that he's started to feel light.

Sieun reaches the roof before he can even overthink it too much.

Minsu was scared of heights—the thought comes to him before he can suppress it, as he looks out upon the skyline of Seoul.

The sun peeks out between a gap in the greying clouds.

Sieun's heart thumps an uneven rhythm in his chest, powered by anxiety and the grief that he's grown all too friendly with the past few weeks.

Tearing his eyes away from the towering buildings in the distance, he looks down at the roof beneath his feet.

With a final, trembling, deep breath, one of his legs stretch back, and his knees bend ever so slightly. Looking up, he mentally calculates the distance between this roof and the next, and the next.

He's already planned the route he will take—it sits in his notebook, left behind on his desk. The plan has already been completely memorised. It's all he's been doing for the past week.

The black running shoes from Minsu grace his feet, worn for the first time.

And for the first time in his life, Sieun runs.

And he jumps.

The council meeting takes place just outside the centre of Seoul, in a modern building that stands out too much from the run-down apartment blocks beside it.

Sieun sees where the government's priorities lie.

Their money always circulates back to benefiting themselves, rather than the general population who need it the most.

Having traversed quickly and quietly over the rooftops of Seoul, Sieun now perches on the edge of a building opposite of the government complex.

The building is made up of glass walls that allow the general public to peer right in to each individual room—just as Sieun is doing.

It's all very ironic, considering the magnitude of dark secrets that hide within the very foundations of the council. They're all hidden from watchful eyes, yet are held right at the core of everything they do.

From where Sieun perches, Mayor Choi sits at the head of a rectangular table, a whiteboard behind him—of which someone else is writing on—and with various different people seated at the table, staring directly at him.

They are all dressed in the same black, neatly tailored suit with a long tie around their necks. Unity, some would label it as.

Sieun just thinks it's the most performative bullshit he's ever seen.

It only causes the anger within him to spill from the seams, threatening to take control. Somehow, using up all that remains of his will, Sieun manages to calm the flame before it boils over. Not yet, he reminds himself. Stay calm.

His time to strike is just after the meeting ends.

Minsu had always told him about how Mayor Choi lingers alone after every meeting has concluded. It was only ever a brief bridge in a passing conversation—Minsu had no idea how relevant this information would become.

It was always So annoying, Minsu would say, since he would have to go into overtime hours just to hand in his paperwork for the day.

Now, Sieun finds himself thankful for the man's annoying habits.

He waits on the rooftop across from the council building, timing the seconds until the other men leave the room.

Once the first man leaves, Sieun has a good few minutes to get across to the roof of the council building. He isn't concerned about that, he had become very accustomed with the stickiness of his gloves and the power needed in his legs to jump across the gaps.

What he's mostly overthinking is the moments after that, after he gets onto the other roof. Where minutes really come down to individual seconds and Sieun won't have space in his margin of error to even breathe in the wrong direction.

Somehow, Sieun will have to fit his way down through the vent system and come out of the other side, near to the bathroom at the end of the corridor, to be specific.

The floor the meeting was on should be relatively empty, knowing everyone else would have left, leaving Mayor Choi alone and unguarded.

Sieun has already calculated the risks. He had spent a good amount of hours analysing the building's blueprints, and the inner workings of the structure as to exactly where the vents are fitted and where the passage twists or bends.

Everything should go smoothly. Should.

Now that he's here though, Sieun can feel his palms getting clammy—and it's not the stickiness secreting from his wrist.

The suit feels like it's pinching in all the wrong areas, and he's getting caught up with the way the mask fits too tightly and itches around his neck.

He knows he's falling too deep within the void of his mind. He can't stop, though. Sieun is an anchor-less boat floating through stormy seas, and no amount of square breathing or trying to swallow down the bile in his throat will calm the waves.

For a second, he closes his eyes, trying to envision something—anything—that will ground him. And in Sieun's desperation, Minsu's face comes to mind.

A blurry distortion of him, floating facial features that don't necessarily match up to where they are supposed to be.

Sieun is hit with the frightening realisation that, at some point, he won't remember what Minsu looks like.

Sieun's eyelids shoot open.

As his eyes refocus onto the building, he quickly notices that the door to the meeting room has been opened, someone holding it ajar as the conversations the men are having fizzle out into nothing.

As soon as the man's foot grazes the outer boundary of the meeting room, and into the corridor, Sieun's heart lurches in his chest.

It's time.

With a deep breath, deep enough to cause an aching burn in the bottom of his lungs, Sieun stands up and walks to the adjacent edge of the rooftop.

There's too big of a gap between him and the council building — there's a whole road between them, in fact, so Sieun needs to loop around.

He bounces on the balls of his feet, trying to shake the anxiety from his bones and in the hopes grief will slide off of his skin like water. It won't, obviously, but he lets himself indulge in the fantasy.

A sharp exhale leaves his lips, warming the mask for a brief moment before the chill in the air comes back to bite him again.

It's a much shorter route than the one he took to get here in the first place. Now, there's only about three or four rooftops to jump across.

No one has noticed him yet. But also, no one ever has, so Sieun isn't even surprised.

Sieun makes the jumps one after another, swift and succinct like a gymnast completing a routine of which they've practised hundreds of times. Although, Sieun hasn't practised this—not even once—so he guesses it all must come to him naturally. 

The villainy, and the evil.

It takes him not even a minute to reach the council's rooftop.

He takes another moment to catch his breath, mainly to calm his racing heart of which he fears may either beat out of his chest, or stutter and stall in its panic.

The main access point to the vent system is in the centre of the rooftop. It catches Sieun's attention easily, with its metal catching the glints of the sun beneath the grey clouds, and also it's size. It's definitely large enough for a person—for Sieun specifically—to fit through.

He would guess that the purpose of its size is for the maintenance of the system, but he doesn't question it much more than that. It's a convenient coincidence that he will fully take advantage of.

Sieun crouches down before the vent, hooking a hand underneath a small latch towards the bottom. It doesn't open immediately, so he tugs with further force and attempts to jostle the hinges to yank it open.

Finally, with Sieun's weak arm muscles straining beneath his suit, the vent door slams open. A grating, metallic creak ripples through the air. It gets lost to the wind.

He sneaks through the opening, and tries to gently shut the flap behind him, but fails. The impact creates another crashing sound that echoes through the vent ducts. Sieun cringes, his jaw automatically clenching as his limbs freeze up in an attempt to not make any more noise.

Once the air around him settles into silence once more, Sieun starts to move.

The darkness of the vent schematics makes Sieun automatically squint. Even that attempt fails. Especially through the mesh of his lenses, Sieun struggles to see even a few feet ahead of him.

He quickly realises he must rely on his other senses for this, along with the outline of the vents he had already memorised from the building's blueprints.

Sieun starts to crawl through the small space, thankful that Minsu's claustrophobia had never rubbed off on him. Minsu couldn't even go in an elevator without panicking. And here Sieun is, squeezing himself into a dark, metal tunnel that even a cat would probably back out of.

His suit slides nicely against the metal, fabric cushioning the blow as his elbows and knees graze the edges.

With his vision stagnant, Sieun's mind focuses in on his sense of touch. His gloved hands—no longer sticky—brush along the passage searching for bends, dips and corners. Also, his ears perk up, desperate to catch any sound from the rooms below.

In the distance below him, very faintly, a voice bleeds into Sieun's ears.

The voice belongs to a man; it's deep, scratchy in all the wrong places, and causes bile to instinctively collect at the back of Sieun's throat.

He doesn't even need to think about it. Even with how quiet the voice is, even through the walls, the ceiling, and the vent pipes, Sieun knows it's him.

The man who he knows stole Minsu from his bare hands, which didn't even have a steady grip on Minsu in the first place, as he was never something that Sieun would have expected to lose.

The man that Minsu was with that night.

The man whose name Minsu had texted Sieun mere hours before Sieun's phone rang: choi's keeping me late tn for some reason. he's in an extra foul mood today, dunno who pissed him off. might have been me???? we'll see ㅋㅋ

Sieun had never replied to the text.

He never usually did. Minsu was used to his silence, and knew that it didn't mean anything, wasn't an insult.

Sieun hopes he carried that thought into his final moments, and that he knows Sieun would have had so much more to say to him, if given the chance.

At the sound of his voice, Sieun's veins flood with a new type of anger. It's burning and raw, and suddenly feels infinitely more real than it had even earlier today.

He continues moving forward, energised off of his own rage.

The vent crawlspace begins to narrow as he moves further along. It makes Sieun's eyebrows furrow. He had not seen this in the blueprints.

Maybe it was there, in fine-print or in abysmally small detailing in the sketches. Either way, Sieun doesn't know how to proceed.

He's beside one of the many openings that he has passed by in his crawl—the small vent hoods that lead out into the actual rooms of the building, which have even smaller slits on them that allow light through.

The one he's next to right now seems to open out into a hallway, from what Sieun can make out.

Still squinting, he sees the tacky patterned carpet and buzzing fluorescent lighting, along with at least two doors. Mind racing, Sieun mentally calculates how far he's crawled, how many other openings he's passed, and in total where that would leave him in the building.

Mayor Choi's office should be a door or two down on the left, he concludes.

It's not where he wanted to end up, but the narrowing of the vent system brings him a fresh bout of anxiety that he isn't ready to face. The thought of getting stuck up here would be more shameful that getting caught in the act of villainy, really.

Therefore, Sieun listens for movement coming from below him.

The hallway seems to be silent. Possibly weirdly too silent. According to Sieun's scheduling, there should be people leaving and using the elevators that are along the end of this corridor.

Sieun still listens for even the slightest trace of footsteps, or the trail end of a miscellaneous conversation, or even just someone breathing too loudly.

Nothing.

Maybe this should be a good thing. Maybe his schedule was off, meaning Mayor Choi is already completely alone on this floor.

Completely alone, bar Sieun in the ceiling above, waiting within the shadows to strike.

Considering the stark silence, Sieun takes it as an almighty sign that it's time for the plan to truly come together. For Sieun to succumb to his suffering, and to commit an act that he will never be able to reverse, but he will also never regret.

Justice, no matter the cost. 

Before he can give himself the room to overthink, or hesitate, Sieun gently pushes open the vent cover. It's a much softer movement than before, as the vent cover is much lighter and smaller. Therefore, the creaks of the hinges are much more muted, and Sieun holds the cover open with ease.

With a now unrestricted view of the actual hallway beyond the passage, he can see the drop from the ceiling is not far. He should be able to ease his legs down first, and keep grip of the vent to lower himself down without falling flat on his face.

One leg slips down first. He pauses momentarily, ensuring there is still no movement in the hallway, no witnesses or unwanted civilians to get in his way.

It's silent.

So silent.

The other leg follows after, suit stretching slightly from how he manoeuvres himself in the tight space to allow his body to be completely in line with the opening.

His arms strain slightly while supporting his entire body weight. He tries to keep his composure as he drops down into the hallway.

His feet plant firmly onto the floor, the vent cover remaining dangling open.

Sieun looks in one direction down the hallway—towards Mayor Choi's office.

He was right, the hallway is empty. Nothing stands between him and that door, the door that he knows Mayor Choi is probably stood behind, unguarded and unsuspecting, ready for the taking.

Sieun starts to move forward, reaching his hand out to the door handle—

The air knocks straight out of Sieun's lungs, and his entire body barrels towards the floor.

Something—someone—had barged right into his back, purposefully targeted.

Sieun's lungs let out a rugged wheeze.

Before Sieun has the chance to struggle, his hands are being pinned down onto the rough carpet, and there's a body pressing into his back, forcing him down.

His legs start to kick out, hoping to make contact and to injure the other person just slightly enough to force them off guard so their hold lets up. His legs don't touch anything.

It's as if the person knows exactly what's coming for them in every direction, as even when Sieun's head flies backward in an attempt to headbutt them and maybe break their nose, they expertly flinch away.

Sieun doesn't speak. He focuses his energy, his rage and pain, on freeing himself.

The grip is tight, but Sieun has his taser secured onto his utility belt. It's just at his hip, so if he can wriggle his wrist free for even a second—

"The vents? Really, man? That's like.. textbook break-in."

The voice is deep, but not unpleasantly so like Mayor Choi's is. He's clearly a man, and the timbre of his voice is smooth, with enough bass to spark something unnamed deep within Sieun's gut.

It's also a voice Sieun recognises.

He recognises it too easily, in fact.

Sieun has spent hours analysing this man. The image of him is burnt into the back of Sieun's eyelids at this point; his tech, his abilities, the smoothness of his suit as it curves around seemingly all the right places on his body.

None of this was in Sieun's plan. This wasn't supposed to happen, not like this.

Why the fuck is Spider-man here?

Sieun's neck strains as he tries to look upwards, his chin presses awkwardly into the carpet as Spider-man's strong hold on his arms persists.

Twisting his head, he manages to catch sight of the rest of the hallway before him. It's completely empty. With Spider-man's weight behind him, Sieun realises the isolated corridor must be his doing.

Fuck, is all Sieun can make of it, as he envisions security systems he must have overlooked that connect right to Spider-man's crime trackers.

It's the most prestigious building in the neighbourhood, housing some of the most important people in Seoul. Sieun almost can't believe he had been so stupid.

He had considered general alarms and sensors built into the building's framework, which is why the vents seemed the most plausible to him, but Spider-man was not on his radar. Just like how Sieun had never been on Spider-man's either, no matter how much he had needed saving.

Until now.

Sieun continues to writhe in place, tugging against Spider-man's grip violently.

"Hey, just make this easy for me. Stop struggling and maybe I'll see if the cops will skip the handcuffs for you." His voice was entirely teasing—mocking, even. It just enrages Sieun even more.

The lighthearted spirit of Spider-man is no match for the bitterness in Sieun's soul.

At that, Sieun tugs harshly once more, bending his elbow awkwardly and flicking his forearm in a way that makes Spider-man's grip fumble for a split second. He frees his left arm just enough to dig his fingers into his palm, pushing the protruding button in the centre.

A web flies out.

It hits the wall opposite them, useless but exactly where Sieun was aiming.

The act in itself, along with the fact that Sieun shot a literal web out of his wrist, is more than enough to throw Spider-man off of his game.

"What the..?" Spider-man questions, words wrapped within coarse confusion.

Sieun takes full advantage of the fragment of a moment where Spider-man's guard is down. He acts fast, pulling his other arm free while Spider-man analyses the path of the web, and he rips his taser out of it's holder.

He then rolls quickly onto his back, kicking his legs out in the motion.

His knees hook around Spider-man's waist, and he uses the momentum to haul himself upwards, taser flickering with pulses of electricity.

The crackling of the current must heighten Spider-man's senses, as he swiftly zones his attention back in and curls his abdomen away from Sieun's swing.

Spider-man jumps to his feet with practised agility. He lands a step backwards from where Sieun remains on the floor.

He points to the web on the wall.

"What is that?"

And then to the metal on Sieun's wrist.

"What is that? Are those my web shooters?" Spider-man questions sternly, but also buoyant with intrigue. "Have you copied my gear?"

Spider-man's outstretched hand comes up to his own wrist, caressing the metal there as if it were the most precious thing to him. "How do you have your own web shooters, no one's done that before. Let alone used them against me, what?" His voice trails off into a mumble behind his mask, as if he's only really talking to himself.

All Sieun does in response is clench his jaw.

He takes a second to get up to his feet, using the floor to push himself upright. His legs shake slightly, a type of fear and apprehension possessing his movements.

His thumb hovers over the button of his taser. It sparks to life at even the slightest of touch, drawing Spider-man's attention. His mechanical lenses squint at the sight.

Spider-man holds his hands out, almost in surrender but Sieun doubts he really means it. He must be trying to soften Sieun up, just to be able to catch him off guard later.

"We don't need that, okay? And you don't get to go silent on me, copycat. It's very unfair to fight me with my own tech and then not talk to me."

Sieun's eyebrows furrow immediately.

"What did you just call me?" Sieun's voice comes out harsh yet quiet, but he knows Spider-man can hear him.

"Ah, so he speaks! You like that nickname?" Spider-man asks, voice light with humour.

Spider-man doesn't even give Sieun the chance to reply, before continuing in his annoyingly smooth tone. "You kinda look just like me. I mean, the suit?" He lazily gestures to Sieun's body. "I don't know why you're even fighting me right now, it seems like you're a fan—"

Patience is not something Sieun is capable of. Nor is tolerance.

Sieun really doesn't have the time for nicknames.

The taser reignites like the embers of an awakening flame, buzzing loudly in the silence of the hallway. Sieun steps forward sharply, lunging at Spider-man with the intent to not necessarily harm him, but to simply get him out of his way.

Luck just isn't on his side today; Sieun may move fast, but of course Spider-man moves faster.

With a sharp flick of his wrist, Spider-man shoots a flurry of webs towards Sieun, which make him involuntarily flinch. His eyes close automatically, yet the webs don't land anywhere on his body.

They instead stick to his taser, and Spider-man uses Sieun's state of distraction to yank the weapon free from Sieun's hand.

With the way Spider-man flings it, it slides over to the other side of the corridor, so it is completely out of either of their reach.

With nothing in his hand to deter Spider-man—Sieun would think of it as protecting himself, but he questions exactly how much of a danger Spider-man is to him—Sieun instinctively finds himself backing away.

As he steps backwards, slowly, as if walking away from a rabid animal, Sieun whips his head around to the door to the meeting room.

The walls are mostly still windows, and through them, he doesn't see Mayor Choi anywhere.

"Oh shit," Sieun mutters under his breath, mostly getting caught in his mask.

His eyes dart around, looking for evidence of Mayor Choi's presence, or his departure.

Ding.

Sieun's ears perk up at the small sound, easy to miss but he hears it anyway in the silence of the corridor. It's the only sound apart from his and Spider-man's rugged breathing—who is still directly behind him.

Sieun ignores that fact in favour of searching for the source of the sound. Which he finds.

At the end of the corridor, the elevator doors lay wide open.

Within their lack, Mayor Choi stands tall.

Sieun has never seen him up this close, even though they're still a corridor apart. Yet one corridor seems like nothing anymore, and it's as if he can see every detail on the man's face.

The cruelty written into the lines on his face. The hatred seeped into the cold undertones of his skin.

It's nothing like when Sieun saw him on the television.

Somehow, it's worse.

Hatred and anger forces Sieun's respiratory system into overdrive as his breathing picks up, along with his now racing heartbeat. He can feel the blood pumping in his neck, and instinct flowing through his veins.

He can hear Spider-man moving behind him, but he can't find an ounce of room in his mind to focus on that.

Sieun whips his arm straight out in front of him, and a web flies towards the elevator, latching on to the back of the elevator with the trail end falling uselessly from Sieun's grasp.

It catches Mayor Choi's attention easily—good, Sieun thinks, he's watching.

With the Mayor caught off guard, along with the various security personnel who accompany him in the elevator, Sieun spares a quick glance at Spider-man behind him before breaking out into a sprint forward.

As he runs, he reaches for the brass knuckles in the side pocket of his belt.

They fit on his fingers perfectly, as if they were made to sit within his grasp, as if Sieun's sole destiny was to bring harm to people with their metal spires.

Thwip.

Sieun is yanked backwards from a newfound pressure in the centre of his back.

Thwip. Thwip.

His feet are then pulled from under him, sending him flying forwards into the carpet.

Sieun tries to stand back up, but Spider-man's webs are stronger than they look, and his efforts fall feeble. The brass knuckles slip from his hand.

As his fingers dig into the wiry texture of the carpet, grasping for stability in the hopes of pushing himself upright, Sieun's ears are met with the mechanical sound of doors closing.

His head snaps up.

Mayor Choi's face begins to disappear behind doors of steel and iron.

For a second, it feels as if the memory of Minsu disappears too—as if this was all for nothing, and Minsu's legacy will die pitifully within Sieun, as he can't even serve rightful justice for him.

As the sight of Mayor Choi completely vanishes, Sieun swears that the start of a smirk had begun to trail onto the man's face.

Grief and turmoil swirls within Sieun's stomach. It makes him suddenly feel sick.

In his plan, there was no this. There was no failure, no realm where Choi could flee from his wrath.

No Spider-man.

Now, the sight of reality consumes him.

All he can see in the reflection of the elevator doors is himself—though he's unsure if he can even call it that, the blur of black fabric really doesn't resemble him anymore—and Spider-man.

"Damn, you're not even struggling anymore."

Spider-man rolls his shoulders, shaking out his arms as he does so. "I mean, you started off so strong, but normally people are a lot more meaner to me, you know?"

Sieun doesn't know, quite frankly.

Swallowing bile down from the back of his throat, Sieun tries to roll over and sit up from his place on the floor, as much as his feet which are still webbed to carpet will allow.

"Maybe it's not you I wanted to fight." Sieun offers back in a murmur.

He's not entirely willing to make conversation, but instead with the need to offer out a fragment of truth. Perhaps if he speaks it out loud, it'll feel less heavy on his soul, and will stop rotting inside of him.

Sieun leans back on his elbows, eyeing up the taser at the opposite end of the corridor, and the fire escape in the corner.

"Huh," is all Spider-man manages in response.

Glancing up, Sieun's eyes bore in to Spider-man's. All they can see of each other is fabric and mesh that conceals them, but somehow, they don't need any more than that.

Sieun simply watches as Spider-man's mechanical lenses begin to squint at him. He stares at Sieun in pure intrigue, enquiring unspoken questions.

Suddenly, Spider-man fills the silence. "Is that your real voice?"

Frowning, Sieun takes a moment to respond, weighing up the meaning of the question—the hero is probably stalling, waiting for the police to make their way up the staircase and take Sieun away.

"What?"

"Well, most villains," Spider-man waves at hand at Sieun, as if Sieun would have forgotten what he is supposed to be, "they have ridiculous voice changers. You should hear some of the things I've heard. Even I had one at the start, but you?"

Huh. So this is Spider-man's real voice now, is all Sieun gets from that.

It suddenly hits Sieun that, in all of his preparation, he hadn't even truly considered what villains were meant to be like. The unwritten rules or expectations he should abide by.

In all of his preparation, he was too focused on Spider-man.

Weirdly, the turmoil in his stomach doesn't feel as burdensome in this moment.

Spider-man takes his silence as an opportunity to continue, in his warm, vibrant, teasing tone.

"I suppose you wouldn't even tell me though, right? Anonymity and all that. I mean, I could ask you why you're here, too, but I'd probably just be talking to myself. That's also what I'm doing now—" Spider-man's voice turns into inaudible rambles as his hands continue making random gestures in the air.

God, he's insufferable.

And also so different to how Sieun had imagined him.

There's a distant yet overbearing sound of police sirens closing in on Sieun. He assumes the sound is filtering in through the open windows, meaning the cop cars are probably sat right outside the building.

While Spider-man continues rambling to himself, Sieun moves, fast.

The webs at his feet have already started to lose their grip, especially with how Sieun has been rolling his ankles in attempts to free himself. One last time, he looks over at the taser laying idle meters away from him.

Sieun's eyes land back on Spider-man before his hand quickly shoots out, using leverage from the floor to push himself up. His feet rip free from the webs and Sieun barrels himself forwards.

Spider-man begins to attempt to block his path—in fact, he started moving before Sieun even got up. But, Sieun is craftier.

A web flies out from Sieun's wrist, of which the web shooters are already overheating and beginning to run out of substance. Instead of falling from his grasp, though, Sieun instead grabs the end of the web, just like he has seen Spider-man do.

The frontal end of the web lands right where he had aimed it. The taser.

With the end part in his hand, he yanks the taser towards him, and quickly bends to grab it before Spider-man grabs him.

In one swift movement, Sieun buzzes the taser to life, jabbing it into Spider-man's side.

The muscles in Spider-man's stomach tense and spasm as he keels over from the shock, also letting out a loud groan of pain. It gives Sieun the advantageous moment he needs to sprint down the length of the corridor.

Despite taking a thousand volts to the abdomen, Spider-man still tries to hobble after him, spitting out muted curses under his breath.

However, Sieun reaches the fire exit untouched.

He spares one quick glance to Spider-man in the corridor, who is gaining distance on him, yet still moving slow.

Then, Sieun is gone.

Sieun goes home the same way he came; a long route via rooftops and balconies.

Now, though, his movements are much more fatigued. There are bruises blooming underneath the darkness of his suit, and he can feel the muscles in his legs cramping.

The window of his apartment's fire escape remains unlocked, just how he left it. He slowly pushes the glass frame up and open.

He climbs through the window slowly, breathing heavily and taking a break halfway—a single moment where he allows himself to rest on the windowsill. Then, he hauls his other leg through the gap, very much falling into his bedroom.

His wrists ache, his knees throb and his ankles are still sending bolts of pain shooting up his legs from when Spider-man had tripped him with his webs.

Adrenaline that had flooded Sieun's veins earlier has since dissipated, leaving Sieun to mull over his lingering bodily damage and the bouts of guilt inside of him.

Guilt for Minsu, more than anything. As Sieun could not even do something as simple as taking justice, couldn't even fight against one hero.

As he limps further into his bedroom, he stops by the trash can beside his desk, fumbling with his web shooters momentarily. The web cartridges pop out of their sockets, and he flicks the empty one from his right wrist into the trash and leaves the other one on his desk.

His hand stutters as he places it down.

His eyes catch the polaroid that's propped upwards beside his laptop. It's the one of him and Minsu.

Despite the regrets of today, the failure and the disappointment seeping into Sieun's bones, the grief overpowers it. 

Sieun swears to the empty room—and to Minsu's face immortalised in the film of the polaroid—that he will wear this suit again.

Sieun will dedicate his life to this if he has to, in place of the life that was lost.

Sieun just needs to plot his next chance.

And next time, Spider-man won't get in his way. Sieun is sure of it. Even if Spider-man tries, Sieun will make Spider-man move.

While he undresses out of the suit, peeling it off slowly from where it seems glued to his skin, Sieun analyses the memory of fight. The hidden alarms, the security systems, the way Mayor Choi slipped through his fingers.

All because of Spider-man.

Finally, Sieun also thinks of the taser. The single last moment where he had easily sent volts straight through Spider-man's abdomen.

Only one thing comes to mind, though.

Spider-man could have dodged.