yaya🪽 @gentiliana - Tumblr Blog

Jan 12

love(bug) on the line: THE FINALE [2/2]

⏱︎ PAIRING: nerd! Leehan x uni prez f!reader

⏱︎ GENRE: Spider-Man! AU | fluff, action, angst ⏱︎ SYN: to you, Kim Leehan is your gorgeous nerd of a boyfriend, who hasn't been able to take his eyes off you ever since you made it official. So why is he crawling in through your dorm windows at 3 am on a Saturday... And why is he... is he—breaking up with you...? ⏱︎ TOTAL WC: 33.8k [pt1: 14k, pt2: 19.8k] ⏱︎ T/W: lots of kissing, graphic violence, themes of death ⏱︎ A/N: thank you from the bottom of my heart if you've reached the final part of the lovebug series. it's truly been a labour of love to work on this story, so while im quite sad to say goodbye to it, im also happy to wrap it up quite satisfactorily <33 again, ily all for reading!

.˚⋆ ˖ ⏱︎.ᐟ⋆.˚⋆⊹ ── ORIGINAL | SEQUEL | FINALE [1/2] | [2/2]

★ READ PART 1/2 BEFORE PROCEEDING!!! THIS IS A CONTINUATION!

FALL

Leehan sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the giggly students, back on campus for their first day of the second semester.

They chatter about family vacations and summer internships, voices bright and giddy. Unlike them, Leehan rubs his shadowy eyes before awkwardly placing his glasses back on.

"Riwoo hyung?" His throat croaks when he speaks, hair sticking up oddly as Riwoo spots him peeking in through the crack in the door.

"Leehan? Come in, come in! I was just setting up the classroom." The shorter blond smiles in his naturally amiable way, then looks down at his watch. "Wow, it's still early…even for you."

Leehan wastes no time. "Hyung, what do you know about parasites?"

"Wow, straight to the point, huh?" Riwoo grins, but when Leehan's face remains serious, he decides to answer without teasing. "Considering it's the centre of my thesis, I'd say…a lot."

"Symbiotes in specific."

"Symbiotes? Like the metahuman species on the news?"

Leehan nods.

Riwoo hums in thought as he taps a marker on the desk. "We don't know a lot about dangerous organisms like those just yet, considering they're most likely alien to our planet. But…it would be safe to assume they work like any other parasite."

"Do you think that…hypothetically, it could kill its host?"

"Hypothetically," Riwoo says, "yes. yes it could kill. But there's no saying how long it could take and how painful it would be without a thorough assessment of its physiology and mechanics, of course." When he sees Leehan's curious tilt of the head, he lets out a small laugh. "Interested?"

"Hm?"

"In parasites. You're free to come work in the lab on your own, but I doubt we have anything as cool as an alien symbiote…the most I can offer are tapeworms."

Leehan forces a smile at that—on any other day, he wouldn't have to, because anything Riwoo says is enough to send him into a fit of laughter. Today though, Leehan is distracted.

He had stayed up all night without reaching anything useful. Somehow, he'd managed to coax the symbiote out of his bag and onto his table, but it had barely reacted—simply laying there, weak and limp. As a final resort, he had even tried poking the shapeless goo with a stick to see if it would do something to retaliate…but nothing had happened.

"What if I could get you a sample?" Leehan asks before he can stop himself.

Riwoo's brows scrunch; he doesn't understand.

The younger boy repeats, "D'you think you can run some tests…if I can get you a sample?"

"Of the symbiote?"

The last thing Riwoo expects is for Leehan to nod. He doesn't even give the TA enough time to process the meaning of that before digging into this backpack to take out a Ziploc bag containing some sort of obsidian slime.

"Leehan…" Riwoo squints, then takes a deep breath. "What the actual fuck?"

It's probably the first time Leehan has heard the sweet research student say anything even remotely uncouth, so he assumes it must be a shock response.

"Riwoo hyung, I need you to ask as little questions as possible, but," Leehan says, feverishly, "I already tried testing stimuli—touch, scent, light…it's been pointless so far. I really need your help."

Riwoo looks at him—really looks at him, how frantic Leehan seems, more than just his normally clumsy demeanour. This time, he looks about as sane as some of the villains Riwoo's seen on TV: the way he bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, how red the whites of his eyes look, the sallow complexion of his skin…something is terribly wrong.

But Leehan needs his help and Riwoo does not pry.

"Alright, I'll run some tests," he says as he gingerly takes the transparent bag.

Leehan breathes out a sigh of relief, the knot in his chest easing now that he's got someone who understands the organism better than most people could. Riwoo urges him to skip class in lieu of getting some much needed sleep, and Leehan reluctantly agrees. He doesn't notice the older boy's worried eyes following his figure as he lets the door close behind him.

Before concern can gnaw at his brain, Riwoo pulls out his phone and shoots you a text.

"Hannie—!!"

Flames, roaring around him, tearing like wind through the room—burning flesh, burning everything in its path.

Leehan reacts to your voice like muscle memory, "Y/N!"

"Leehan, here!"

It's all smoke and char, and a figure in the distance, close to the ledge of the building. You. One more step back and you'd be tipping off, too late to be reached, to be saved.

Leehan runs.

His fingers almost meet yours—but almost doesn't cut it when you've already fallen, fading into the grey clouds of smoke below. Leehan hears your screams…or is it him that's screaming? He can't tell.

"Hannie," your voice echoes again.

"Y/N?"

"Hannie, wake up."

"Hm?"

"Wake up, you're sweating." Your face comes into focus. "It's a fever."

Leehan leans up on his elbows, almost slipping on his bedsheet, but you loop an arm under his shoulder to keep him steady. Your other hand comes to check his temperature.

"You're burning up," you say, brushing away the sweaty strands of gold hair. "Let's go to the doctor."

"It's just the weather change," he says dismissively, and it pinches at your annoyance a little.

"Have you been sleeping?"

He doesn't speak, but his eyes evade yours. The boy is no good at lying, no matter how hard he tries to.

"Did you eat at all today?"

Leehan has the decency to look at least a little ashamed, and eventually he shakes his head, a small motion combined with a gulp.

Riwoo had told you earlier, how Leehan had seemed so off that morning. You've been feeling it too—his sudden bouts of silence, when he zones out into space while he normally would've been earnestly listening to you; the way he hasn't asked you to turn on your comms each time he's gone out to patrol or fight. He seems even more alert of danger—obsessively checking the wiretapped police radio for news. You don't even know the last time he took off his suit; it wouldn't be crazy to assume he's wearing it right at this moment too.

There are more obvious signs. For example, he hasn't talked about fish with you in close to two weeks, not since the fire.

Something is terribly wrong, and you hope to the heavens the feeling of dread beginning to grow inside you is just an illusion.

"Hannie, you should take a break from," you pull down his collar just enough for his red suit to peek through, "this."

"People need help. They need Spider-Man."

"And I need you," You guide his head back onto the pillow, tugging off his overshirt. He doesn't fight it, too feeble to muster complaints. "I'm gonna go and get you some soup, yeah? Your mom sent a recipe for when I had the sniffles and it worked like a charm, remember?"

"Y/N, I don't need—"

"Shush, lemme take care of you. It's my duty as your girlfriend," you press a kiss to his cheek, swinging your purse over your shoulder, "Be back in twenty. Don't go anywhere!"

You give him a glare of warning before making your way out of your room, and once you're outside, let out a relieved breath that he still had the forethought to come to you before anyone else in this state.

Leehan stares at the ceiling for what feels like aeons, his head spinning when he strains too much at a spot, despite wearing glasses. His lips feel cracked, muscles weak; somewhere deep inside, he knows this isn't just physical—the recent nightmares have been driving his sanity downwards with each passing day, and in every single one of them, either one of you dies.

BEEEEEEEEEP–!

His watch blares, indicating a blinking signal near the museum. When Leehan wearily reaches for his phone on the side-table, he notices that you had forgotten to take yours with you.

He should stay put, that way, you won't be worried on the chance you come back and don't see him in bed. But when the news feed buzzes to life, Leehan sees the absolute mayhem going on in the streets: people's screams as they try to flee from a giant robot; it bulldozes without any care, sweeping away cars and streetlights with barely a step or two.

They need him, and fast.

Leehan discards his clothes with what energy's left of him, pulling on his mask with trembling hands. He doesn't make it past the window threshold before his body gives out, brain a jumble of dizziness—he could throw up from the nausea.

He's half slumped over, kneeling against the wall, when he feels something prod at his feet.

Venom.

The life form curls around his limbs, growing upwards like vines, twisting itself around Leehan's suit. The resurgence is immediate—a rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins like cold wind, replacing the prior fatigue with something strong, something…addictive.

"What are you…?" Leehan mumbles curiously as he looks down at his own hands. When he tests out a shot of web to the bedpost, it's faster than ever, even more than he could manage on his best days. It must be the symbiote's doing.

We are Venom.

Leehan jumps at the voice; he can’t place whether it comes from near him, or inside of him. When he catches sight of his own reflection in the window, barely illuminated by the setting sun, he reels backwards in shock.

Instead of seeing Spider-Man, Leehan sees an eerie slit of a smile where his mouth should be covered by the mask—a white spider marking his chest, giving way to the spindly, tar-like substance that makes up the rest of him.

Scared? The voice resounds again, deep and thrumming. Its words crawl. Spider-Man’s fear tastes good!

STOP–! Leehan attempts to overpower, to retract control, but the baritone cackle smothers over all his thoughts.

We kid, Venom appeases with a sly smile in his tone. We can help you. If you let us.

The offer stays dangled in front of him like bait; if Leehan was any less desperate, he would have ripped the symbiote off his skin, even if it took flesh with it, and chosen a less risky route to save those people's lives. But he's out of options right now. He's sick, and exhausted, and Venom makes him stronger. It's the simple truth.

He'd be an idiot to turn down the proposition.

Leehan doesn't even need to speak for the thing to understand; he cackles once more, and Leehan feels his own thoughts being assaulted, no safety within a mind that's supposed to be his alone.

It's fine, It's going to be fine, he tells himself over and over like a prayer—he remembers it to be an imitation of how you calm him down in tense situations, with a hand on his back and a kiss to his cheek. Leehan convinces himself that this is a temporary invasion—that he should be okay once he gets the crisis handled, that he can discard Venom once the mission is over and done.

So like always, he puts one foot up on the ledge and leaps.

Okay, so that was a terrible idea.

"You said you'd help!" Leehan screams as his ribcage crushes under the weight of the fifteen-foot-something robot's sole.

We feed on anger, Spider-Man. Not cowardice. Get up.

"I would if I could," Leehan grumbles as he squirms. Eventually he manages to pry an arm from underneath and shoot a tight rope of web around the metal behemoth's neck, yanking it powerfully so that it almost trips over and he takes the chance to haul himself up onto its nape.

To his surprise, his body doesn't ache like it should. When he runs a quick palm over his torso, he feels no broken bones. Venom must have healed him…somehow.

The tank of metal flails around, trying to swat Spider-Man off its back like he was nothing but a pesky fly. Leehan has to fire another jet of cobwebs to veer the giant away from crushing several people on the street—playing puppeteer—but the loss of balance sends it crashing through a line of buildings, eventually landing near a signboard for an ongoing performance, right outside the concert hall.

Leehan needs to stop this thing from hurting more civilians, that's his only priority when springs off to pull out the stun gun from his utility belt.

The…utility belt. Fuck, he'd forgotten it at home.

A rush of panic surges through him; it's worse when the absence of your voice in his ear makes itself evident. He's gonna fail, he's about to—

Kill it! —Venom instructs. Leehan wants to argue that he can't kill a machine, but the symbiote jumbles his thoughts so much that it disorients him, muscles spasming as though Leehan was the puppet now—just a body under the influence of something vile and dangerous.

He feels himself move, sees himself wrangle the robot to the ground, punching a fist through its armour. Venom's own pointless rage contaminates his confusion. And the more he attempts to fight it away, the worse it feels.

Kill! Kill! Kill! Venom is shrieking with uncontainable laughter; with every part of the machine coming off, Leehan feels the pure joy of violence. A little voice in his head—somewhere deep and untouched by the symbiote—tells him to stop. But he's too weak to obey.

Leehan can see his body swell to twice its size, muscles expanding, the writhing biomass of his faux skin morphing into a scythe—and its brought down to slice into metal, sending electric sparks flying into the rubble as wires show underneath. It's all Venom now, no part of Leehan in control. He is but a subconscious voice—there but not really. Floating inside the creature, only half aware. There's jagged teeth—long canines under a lashing tongue, too long to be human, too predatory to be kind. His vision is obscured as though behind a blurry visor, also floating like the rest of him.

There's an unnatural smile at his mouth when the robot stops moving altogether, more bloodthirsty than victorious. Mixed in with the fear in Leehan is a shameless rush of adrenaline.

It feels good—the act of hurting, he thinks. It's the closest to happiness he's felt in weeks.

Somewhere above him, the whirr of engines distracts his thrashing, or more so, distracts Venom. His clawed hands reconfigure into something tentacle-like, aiming for any of the multiple drones hovering overhead. They fade in and out as though behind a holographic screen, reappearing somewhere feets away that the symbiote can't catch up to its speed.

Mysterio.

Mysterio's here—Leehan's sure he is.

Before he can take a moment to think, Venom has already started chasing headfirst after a drone, crashing a hole through the concert hall's brick wall.

WAIT!—Leehan tries, but it's already too late. People scramble out of their chairs, shrieking as they squeeze past bodies and seats. A lady freezes in fear, her eyes bulging out of their sockets at the sight of Venom, of the monstrous creature Leehan was trapped within.

He wants to reach out and help her. He wants to be Spider-Man, but this body cages him in as it courses after the taunting drones.

"You're alright. You're safe, there's no need to worry. I have the situation under control," is what Leehan means to say.

But what comes out of his imposter's mouth is, "Killlllllllll—!!!"

The woman screams in panic, alerting the rest of the crowd at the front, and it belatedly occurs to Leehan that the music was ever there when it suddenly dies with an unpleasant clang of the wrong piano keys. The pianist takes off behind the curtain, and the opera singer lets out a shrill cry of terror.

The sheer frequency of it breaks a vessel inside of Venom, making him keel over in pain.

Human, make it stop! Make it—AHHHHHHHHH!!!

Leehan's own injury meshes with the mess of agony transferred from the symbiote's end, the obsidian material of his skin-suit struggling to peel away from Leehan's body, static washing over him with every attempt to separate.

A shot of fire lands on his arm and it multiplies the misery ten-fold. Venom yells as his skin bubbles up, melting away like grease, acrid smoke stinging the air. Leehan feels all of it, hissing, recoiling futilely. Flames catch onto the long scarlet curtains, spreading in lines around the perimeter, burning through age-old wood and polish. People scream, a beam above the stage crashing onto the floor into dust, and Leehan feels the symbiote leave him.

"Y/N," he says in habit, but you're not here. You're unaware of his state, blissfully oblivious of the dangerous predicament he's put himself under. Maybe that's for the best, he muses.

Leehan picks himself up, makes a half-assed attempt at putting himself back together, and takes one last look at the burning building before he’s forced to flee.

He’s fucked up terribly this time.

"You better have a good explanation." The ice in your voice makes his weary body stiffen over the window, spiking guilt and shame up his spine, rendering him speechless. Nothing he says can make it better.

When he finally looks over, gripping his mask in hand, a heavy gulp squeezing down his throat, Leehan feels sick again. Underneath his red suit, dregs of the symbiote cling to his skin, cold to the touch.

"You didn't call me, you didn't say you were leaving, nothing…" you say through a tight breath. "I've been dead worried, did you realise? I come home, expecting my sick boyfriend to be in bed—where I told him to stay put, and all I get is an empty room and radio silence."

"I'm fine—" Leehan starts, but you cut his excuse off.

"You could have died." It's curt, biting. "Why the fuck wouldn't you turn your comms on?"

"Your phone wasn't with you," is Leehan's answer. He collapses to the floor, vision hazy.

Despite the absolute wreckage to his physical body, he still feels the electric buzz courtesy of the symbiote's effect—alcoholic almost, a fever high that both took away a part of him, and refilled the empty space with an addictive energy. Adrenaline and power. A lethal combo.

"Still," you continue, taking a step towards him, untangling your crossed arms from over your chest. "There were other ways…you could have found me first. Or waited."

"People were about to die."

"You're a person too, you idiot. My person. What should I…" Your voice cracks albeit your attempt to reel it back to a stable line, turning into half a sob the second his eyes meet you. You look away down to the carpet, hiding how you bite your bottom lip to stop it from quivering. "You didn't keep your promise, Leehan."

"Some promises are meant to be broken." The words are out his mouth before he can take it back. You slowly lift your face in shock, wondering if you'd heard him wrong.

"What's happened to you?" There's no malice when you ask, just the slight waver of fear. "You don't talk to me anymore—why won't you just talk to me, huh?"

Silence again; Leehan wishes he had something appeasing to hand you—an assurance of 'I'm sorry, it won't happen again'—but he knows it will be just another lie, a promise he'll worry over but never have the capacity to keep. So long as he is Spider-Man.

Frustration claws at his innards, coiling like ropes into him, mixing with the utter failure of today's events. And there's anger there too—mostly at himself, a lot at Mysterio for planting the seed of doubt in his mind; Leehan curses internally at how foolish he had been for letting it grow rampant until he'd started waking up screaming from visions of death—of your death, of you being pulled into this mess of a life he'd been doomed to live.

Venom's tie to him only amplifies every terrible emotion he's plagued with.

"Let me at least clean you up," you choke back a sniffle, inching closer to try and lean down to meet his eye.

But the soft touch of your fingers over his cheek sends him into panic; he swats it away with more aggression than he means to, like your body had somehow burnt him.

"I—" Leehan shivers as something sad engulfs your expression. Your hand stays frozen in place, not knowing what you'd done wrong to anger him. Or worse yet, to hurt him. "Sorry," he says in the smallest of voices, looking away because one more look at you is all it will take to ruin him beyond repair.

But you don't yell. You don't blame him. Instead, you gingerly bring your hand to your side, then squat down to meet him at eye-length.

"Get some sleep. There's soup on the table," you say softly, and when he doesn't acknowledge it, you purse your lips, then bring yourself to your feet again. Leehan hears footsteps, then a quiet click of the door.

When he looks down at his collarbone, he sees reeds of black clawing up again, desperate to feed on his grim thoughts.

He leaves the soup untouched, crawling out your window for somewhere no one can find him easily.

.˚⋆ ˖ ⏱︎.ᐟ⋆.˚⋆⊹ ────

Time passes, but the recovery is gradual.

You don't mention a thing, and he doesn't bring it up either. It's a slow monotony of pretending away the awkwardness, but it helps, somehow.

Leehan gets coaxed into your bed again, after you'd politely asked his mother for permission to keep him there out of worry. He obeys wordlessly—drinks whatever concoction you slip past his lips, stares blankly in the direction of his suit you'd folded up neatly behind one of your shelves, flexes his fingers as though to test out their strength, feeling slack and weary, and more than often, his eyes stray away to his backpack, where he knows the symbiote remains dormant.

You'd gently taken away his phone; Leehan knows why you do it—to keep him from news channels, from terrible online commenters who'd no doubt found blame in the Venom incident. All Leehan knows for now is that you probably don't know as much about the symbiote's relation to him either, given you hadn't asked a single question, nor had you looked into his belongings for any traces of danger. And logically, that should mean the general public hadn't connected the dots either. There's some relief in that, but not much.

Then there are the babysitters you not-so-secretly sent his way when you're too busy with school-work.

Sometimes it's Woonhak, who casually strolls into your dorm room with an annoyingly big grin on his face; it looks too big to be real, and Leehan can already tell he's trying to brighten up his mood.

"Leehan Hyung! Wait, should I say Spidey Hyung? Is that too weird… Anyways," he's rambling as he pulls out several bags of dinosaur-shaped gummies and prawn crackers from a plastic bag. "Y/N has been on my back about me 'breaking important lab equipment'—" He mockingly adds air quotes, rolling his eyes comically. "Not like our university can't afford it, it's just that they spend all their funding on the athletics department and well—back to my point, she was saying how you've been sick and I volunteered to check up if it meant not having her breathe down my neck every time I'm trying to connect two wires together."

The younger boy never really acknowledges Spider-Man's public absence, and Leehan thanks him internally.

Leehan gratefully chews on a piece of candy without saying much in response. Words don't make it past his throat as easy these days.

Thankfully, Woonhak does enough talking for two people—he's jabbering on as though playing a part in a one-man show, taking deep breaths between every gap only to continue with an even lengthier monologue about space-time travel, and engineering recreational flamethrowers, and of course, once he runs out of wind, he switches to asking non-stop questions about being Spider-Man.

"When you swing from one building to the next, going at the speed you do, do you ever get airsick? Cuz there are medications for nausea you know."

"On a scale from 1 to 10, how likely are you to let me borrow the suit…? I'll even dry clean it for you!"

"So… do you like make the webs or…'make' the webs if you know what I mean—"

Leehan does not know what he means, so he just shrugs, scooting deeper into his cocoon made of blankets.

He means well, Leehan knows this, but some days he's just glad Woonhak is too preoccupied with his projects to torment his personal space. However, you have decided that he's not to be left completely alone at all times, which means it's Riwoo's turn to take care of him.

Unlike Woonhak, the TA acts more like a coddling mother—even more than his real one.

"You need to eat to feel stronger. Just bear the taste for a little more, okay? Now, say aaaaaah—"

"I know it's cold but you need the sponge baths. I promise to bring more sweaters for you tonight."

"Don't even think about coming back to class tomorrow—you've still got a temperature and you can barely hold a pen in your hand, let alone stand on your own two feet. I've already put in a request to extend the medical leave."

Leehan feels like a bedridden patient, inching closer to death by the day.

He's lying flat on the mattress, head propped up high, a cold towel on his forehead as Riwoo refills the water jug beside the bed. Leehan has been feeling better lately—no nightmares to plague his sleep, and no news of villains to take up his thoughts. His world has been strangely quiet.

"Hyung." He tilts his head to face Riwoo. "About the sample…"

Riwoo stares at him expressionlessly for a beat, then sighs, giving into Leehan's inquiry.

"I did what I could, but obviously, there are limits—" Leehan automatically perks up. "There's the basics: strength, durability, elasticity, healing… Exceptional performance in each of these factors. The symbiote seems to be made of some sort of organic polymer with insane regenerative capacity."

"And…?"

"Well, I'm guessing the government could have good use for it; imagine how it could revolutionise medicine, or the military."

Leehan gazes off into the distance as the other boy watches him. Riwoo looks as though he's wondering whether to ask Leehan questions of his own, but he swallows it down without prying.

When he too has to leave, Leehan has short windows of time to spend in his own company, before you'll eventually come home and berate him for forgetting to eat again. Most of it, he uses to wallow in his hyperfixation: Venom, who has started to consume his thoughts in more ways than one. He knows he can use this to fix his weakness, to finally beat Mysterio for good.

And that's how he ends up looking forward to Woonhak's visit for once.

Out of the three of you, he'd be the easiest to convince, given his over-interest in Leehan's part-time persona as Spider-Man.

"Leehan-ie hyung, you look like you're doing better! I must be an awesome nurse," he muses to himself, setting down a bag of takeout.

"Woonhak-ah," Leehan's voice startles him, not having heard it clearly in ages. "I need your help."

At first, the boy's entire face lights up like a Christmas tree. Soon after, it dissolves into a grimace and a gulp of fear. Leehan can tell he's afraid of what will be asked of him, and more importantly, of your reaction if he agrees.

"In return, you can ask me anything you want—I'll answer all of it," Leehan adds, a last ditch effort.

It isn't a secret that Woonhak has been suspiciously hoarding his used tissues and plastic water bottles to sell online as merchandise—not when he has the nerve to ask Leehan how high a crinkly napkin could sell for. Leehan is half glad that Woonhak isn't a Biotechnology major or he'd have most likely stolen his DNA for some sort of cloning experiment.The most absurd thing he has done so far is casually mention that he dabbles in writing Spider-Man fanfiction online, and while it sounds relatively harmless, Leehan does not want details.

Leehan is positive he'll take the bait—that the opportunity to get closer to Spider-Man looks alluring to the boy.

When Woonhak seems to slowly lower his defence, Leehan feels optimistic enough to ask, "Just let me borrow your phone for a bit," he says. "Just a bit."

He hesitantly pulls out his phone and hands it to Leehan, the grip on it loosening when Leehan flashes him a pathetic pout, wet eyes and all. Woonhak fiddles with the tapered end of a pillow as Leehan opens up his socials and scrolls down the newsfeed.

It's so much worse than he'd anticipated.

'Spider-Man fails to show; local concert hall burns down'—the tabloid headline reads, accompanied by reactions from internet users below, each more sour than the last.

user1091: knew 'vigilante justice' was just a hoax. where are superheros when you need them? probably off on vacation pretending to care about the world ugh.

spidermansucks: I was there when this happened, some monster beat the shit out of a robot and then set fire to a building. It's lucky no one died.

rando-on-the-street: this is all Spider-Man's fault. he should have stopped the criminals from breaking out of prison in the first place.

SpideyHak06: MAYBE HE WAS BUSY SAVING THE CITY YOU ASSHOLES! stop lying and go get a job

Some are mild, bordering on just frustration at the incident being so poorly handled. The rest simply point fingers at Spider-Man for not being quick enough—for not caring enough to stop Venom's damage. The only saving grace is a lack of footage, and Leehan wonders if that's somehow Mysterio's doing, some twisted way to mask the truth just enough for the public to hate Leehan.

He can't stop scrolling once he's started, and what he finds leaves a bitter taste on his tongue.

'Fault', 'Incompetent', 'Fake'—the words echo uneasily in his brain, along with the imagined visual of people's angry expressions aimed his way. Street interviews dig the point even deeper, clarifying how much public scrutiny he'd been subjected to since the event, how any tiny mistake he'd made before this had been dug up to examine under a microscope—to really make it clear that Spider-Man was no more than an attention seeker, too inept to make any real difference in the world.

The very same people he'd dedicated himself to saving each day, they had turned his back on him.

Leehan hands the phone back, already feeling an oncoming migraine. Woonhak observes quietly for a second, then brings his hand down to pat Leehan's shoulder.

"Don't tell Y/N," he mumbles, and Leehan sighs to agree.

Once he's left in privacy once more, Leehan's thoughts start to bubble like acid, pulling him in and out of shallow sleep.

.˚⋆ ˖ ⏱︎.ᐟ⋆.˚⋆⊹ ────

Days stop feeling real—just a blur of time he spends thinking about fire and anger and disappointments. When his fever starts to die down, you don't push as hard for Woonhak and Riwoo to supervise, the three of you only taking turns to drop by with his notes or food.

On Halloween, the campus starts to brim with excitement once more—night markets and booths in place, welcoming students clad in costumes, some sultry, some committed to the humour of it all.

Woonhak shows up in a less-than-authentic replica of the spidey suit and you groan at him.

"You could've been anything, literally anything for Halloween—a wizard, or a ghoul, or I don't know…a freakin' dinosaur for all I care, and you choose to dress up as my boyfriend?"

"Hey," Woonhak puts his hands up to clear his name, "I liked him before I knew he was your boyfriend."

"That's not the point—!"

Leehan clears his throat to interrupt your spat. "You guys should go now, if you don't want to be late for the haunted house," he says, propped against the headboard with a plushie hugging his chest.

"Are you sure about this… what if your temperature flares up again?" Your brows knit in worry as you slowly move a strand of hair off his face. You don't touch as carelessly anymore; Leehan can't blame you, but the feeling that swirls in his stomach does not sit well.

"Go," he hopes he sounds natural, "Woonhak bought tickets anyway."

"I can ask Riwoo—"

"Hyung has a meeting with his supervisor today. You don't need to call him," Leehan assures you. "Really, Y/N, I'm fine now."

He fakes a grin for good measure. You narrow your eyes, not believing it to be genuine in the least.

But you sigh, letting up. "Alright… call me if you need me." Then you add under your breath, "Please."

He sees how tired your eyes look in that moment, worry and exhaustion swimming behind the glazed-over look in them, and suddenly feels a pang of regret to his chest.

You don't deserve this. He doesn't deserve you. If he were anyone else, you'd be laughing now, joking about how Woonhak wouldn't last a minute into the haunted house. But Leehan is unfortunately frail in his confidence, too anxious for his own good, and he isn't worth the trouble you're going through.

But he still holds onto you, selfishly.

When he waves the two of you off, he doesn't miss the tense glance you spare him before the door clicks closed and he hears the distant echo of you asking Woonhak how he plans to go to the bathroom in his spandex onesie.

This isn't breaking another promise, Leehan mutters in his mind. He's just…taking a break. Recuperating with fresh air. Being proactive.

From up on the clock tower, he can see everything: the busy streets full of scary decorations and parade goers, the orange glow of string lights illuminating vendors, children with their little goodie bags, and a moon hanging low in the night sky.

Leehan lays out his scattered notes on the flat surface behind the ledge, throwing off his mask to the side before sitting down with a pencil in hand and his laptop propped up on his lap. His backpack is right beside him, and the Ziploc bag containing the symbiote sample inside.

What's another night of no sleep—it's not like he's been faring well lately anyways. He spends time researching Mysterio and the ruckus he'd caused twice. Fires. Robots. Lasers. Holograms. They weigh him down like lies. His eyes begin to burn at some point, but he pays it no attention, simply lets his body take over on autopilot. Each new article he comes across makes his heart tighten and thump against his ribs.

It's clear now, the world is starting to hate Spider-Man.

There is more criticism than kind words left for him, some calling him the worst of names, blaming him for things that are out of his control. Leehan can't take it. He needs to fix this, he needs a way out.

So he tries—throwing himself into running more tests on Venom on top of what he'd gathered from Riwoo.

He stays at a standstill for a long time, until—

"Oh."

The symbiote reacts violently when the clock strikes a loud, metallic hour hand at midnight, spasming in a futile attempt to escape the Petri dish he's placed it on.

Sound.

Sound is its weakness.

Then something else occurs to him, the way Venom had screamed and split as it touched heat. Sound and temperature—two factors neither he nor Riwoo had considered yet.

And so starts the experimenting.

He slowly builds his own makeshift lab, a hundred feet high above the city, accumulating equipment as he goes. First, he does the unsavoury act of breaking into the campus lab in the middle of the night to borrow a microscope. And then slowly, another tool, then another, then…

By 4 AM in the morning, he's crawling back into your room, discarding his suit, making quick work to change into his pyjamas, and crawling under the sheets. He pretends to be asleep when he hears the door creak open and your footsteps approach.

The twist of keeping a secret squeezes at him even as he sees daybreak approach.

In two days time, Leehan tries to actively bond with the symbiote.

He'd figured it had something to with his emotions, that Venom was attracted to his negative thoughts, the kind that made him regret everything the next day.

But he tries anyway; Leehan focuses on what makes him angry, of Mysterio's gleeful chides as he watched Spider-Man crumble to the floor, as fire had almost consumed him whole and left no evidence behind. He thinks of the articles, of people spewing insults against him, condemning him for neglecting the city. He thinks of how sad he makes you these days.

And it works. Venom is curling around him once more, binding his body into a single physical entity.

Finally! We were getting impatient—the creature drawls.

Leehan stands atop the tower and truly feels his renewed power. It's like a fresh breath after inhaling smoke for the longest time. When he leaps, there is no fear. When he's swinging from one concrete building to the next, his webs never run out. They feel stronger somehow. Sturdier. He trusts himself—or this version of himself—more than the real one.

His routine morphs into a fast-paced order of classes, research, and more surveillance. Outwardly, he's back to normal, but Leehan knows it's so far from the truth. He hasn't felt this restless ever.

On mornings, he patrols as usual, eyes peeled for a man with a cape and helmet. Ready to strike if needed. Everything else is a second priority.

At nights, he makes the excuse of needing to catch up with all his missed assignments, shoving the bitter taste of a lie down and putting on his suit for yet another sleepless shift.

The weather begins to harden, the air growing colder as fall slowly bleeds into winter.

He doesn't eat three full meals a day, resorting to the occasional energy bar or instant noodles; he's zoning out during classes, averting Riwoo's concerned gaze, hoping he isn't relaying the information to you. And his suit…at night, it barely shows it's red anymore, blending into the city's after hours as Venom shows himself on Leehan, watching Spider-Man's face planted up on the big screen above buildings with the latest news of what he's done wrong to offend the public.

And the nightmares, they become bone-chilling.

There's you, in multiple scenarios, and dying in each before Leehan can reach for your hands. Drowning sometimes. Burning in others. The look in your eyes breaks him open, slowly, withering any semblance of sanity left, chipping away at his being. The more he dreams, the worse it gets.

"Hannie," your voice bubbles around his ear, water cascading as he dips lower into the pool.

Leehan closes his eyes and tries to drown everything out. Focuses on happy memories.

You and him—at the beach, scavenging for pebbles, at the aquarium looking at jellyfish and sharks. Kissing. The warmth when you trace his skin, the first time you'd leaned up and kissed his cheek. The sound of your voice when you giggle, when you look at him softly, in awe, in love…

It isn't too long before murky black swirls begin to taint his thoughts, creeping into the crevices of his brain, ruining what's good.

Doc Ock towering above you, you crouching below pretending to be brave, pretending you couldn't have died that day because of him—because of Leehan.

Kill, Kill, Kill—! Venom is sneering.

"You shouldn't have been chosen to be Spider-Man at all"—Mysterio's voice rings the loudest.

Leehan feels dizzy. He feels lost.

He begins to choke, and not on water. His vision blinds, panic surging, a deadly scream ringing in his mind, telling him to ruin everything that's making him feel this way. Leehan tries to remind himself that he is kind, but the hot white anger that flares up makes him forget immediately.

Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill—!!!!! It shrieks, dense and boiling. He thinks of his own hands around your throat, curling black smoke around it, watching as the life drains out of you. It's inseparable now—him and the symbiote, whether fused or not, it feeds on him.

Stop it, he thinks weakly. Please, stop.

It isn't until minutes later he finally gasps for air, breaking through the water's surface, and his eyes prick with the sting of tears.

.˚⋆ ˖ ⏱︎.ᐟ⋆.˚⋆⊹ ────

WINTER

Leehan hasn't texted you in 5 days.

Which is strange, because you haven't seen him properly in over a week. Usually, he'd at least be ringing you up for missions, to stay with him on call while he chased after a petty criminal or two. If not, he'd be laying flat over your blankets, flipping through his book as you worked on a project at your desk.

It's dark outside, way past midnight, light winter rain drizzling down, tapping at your window panes. Your laptop is propped open, the news anchor reading out the headlines monotonously:

"Spider-Man under fire: city questions if its saviour is losing his edge. Officials are wondering if the need for a superhero is truly necessary, and if vigilante justice is justice at all. Is the collateral damage truly worth the mistakes of one masked hero?"

You glance down at the phone in your hand, tracing your eyes over the screen as the grip on your pen tightens.

TUESDAY

hannie / bug boy: class ended late. can we cancel dinner? Y/N-ie ♡!!!: yeah, no problem. call me in the morning yeah?

WEDNESDAY

Y/N-ie ♡!!!: hey you forgot to call, i'm worried you didn't eat last night Read 10:30 PM

THURSDAY

Y/N-ie ♡!!!: hannie, are you home? Read 5:00 PM

FRIDAY

Y/N-ie ♡!!!: prof beck recommended me for an internship, it's like super big and the best in the city. do you want to go celebrate tonight?

SATURDAY

Y/N-ie ♡!!!: i don't wanna bother you if ure busy but lemme know when u get better yeah? i miss talking to u, it'a been a while… anyways, ily <33 sleep well.

The unanswered texts glare back at you. A tiny part of you feels a strange sense of deja vu, and the rest of you reject the notion vehemently.

Nothing bad is going to happen… Nothing bad had happened; Leehan is safe. He just needs time to get better, to recover from whatever had happened that day he'd come back to you looking frail and broken.

You can wait a little longer, you tell yourself. But it does nothing to curb the fact that you miss him terribly.

A long sigh escapes your mouth, and you're about to slam the laptop down in irritation when you hear the window creaking open.

You don't even need to look—you already know it's him.

"Leehan!" Your feet move immediately, a bright grin spreading across your cheeks as you throw your arms around him before he can even make it across the ledge. "You came!"

While you can't see his expression as you hug his body to yours, coaxing his head to rest over your shoulder, you sense the difference in his demeanour—how stiff he feels, the tension in his hands and how they don't come to hold you; they just stay languid at his sides, empty.

Your fingers twist into the material of his flannel. "What's wrong? …are you okay—wait, are you hurt—"

Before you start to frantically search him for wounds, Leehan stops you by the wrist.

"Y/N," he exhales, eyes weary behind his rain-splattered glasses. "I have to tell you something; it's…important."

"Yeah, of course. You can tell me anything, you already know that," You attempt a small smile, trying to calm him down when he looks this close to breaking down. "Sit down, I'll get you some tea."

"It can't wait," Leehan says, and it sounds like a plea. Like he'd barely mustered up the guts to speak and could lose his courage if he wastes any more time.

You nod, then wait patiently. Absentmindedly, your fingers remain grasping the end of his shirt, tethering your feet to the spot and stopping your head from spiralling.

"I—" he begins in a small voice, "We should stop this."

You furrow your brow in confusion, not understanding.

Leehan hangs his head, refusing to meet your eyes, a painful trail of gulp travelling down his throat before he repeats:

"We should break up."

…

The world stands still, something static humming around the two of you—uncomfortable and cold. It makes you want to throw up.

"What?"

"I can't keep doing this to us—to you, I—it's unfair to you, Y/N. And I'll be damned if I'm the reason you're miserable." Leehan is biting his lips harsh enough to draw blood; watching him makes you almost feel the metal on your own tongue. His hands are fists now, a thin rim of red under his eyes, hair unkempt.

Despite everything, your first instinct is to worry about whether he's been taking care of himself.

"I thought we were past this," you keep your voice levelled. "We're partners, remember? In sickness and in health." A weary laugh escapes you at the futile attempt at a joke. He doesn't react.

"I'm sorry," he tries to sound impassive and fails monumentally. You hear a sob in his voice when he says, "Forget me and move on. You have your whole life ahead…don't throw that away—"

"It's not that easy! It's not easy, I can't just throw away everything between us." You motion to the minute space between your bodies, leading his face to yours, looking him head-on. "This, what we have, it's not disposable. And you're an idiot to think you'd be so easily forgotten."

"Y/N–"

"We were good together. Things were good, we were happy. Leehan, we just need to get through this like always…slowly, one day at a time," you try.

But Leehan has made up his mind. He puts more distance between you, even when you refuse to let go.

"It doesn't matter how bad I want you, or you want me. We're doomed to fail, okay? There isn't a single future where we can be happy and alive."

"You make me happy, you idiot," you scream, tears spilling without restraint now. "You. Not a promise of safety. Not a comfortable life, either. I don't need white picket fences and dinner dates… I want us, you and I—having picnics, going on missions, looking at fish. I don't care as long as you'll keep me around."

Leehan shakes his head, more stubborn than he's ever been. "Don't be foolish. You're too smart to ignore what could happen to you if you stick around with me."

Something taut snaps inside you; your voice rises, "I've stuck around for this long haven't I? What's some more—"

"You don't get it."

"Then explain it to me!" A sob wrecks past your lips—then grows quieter, sadder. Your hand on his shirt pulls tight enough to stretch the fabric. "Talk to me, please, Hannie. I'm trying to understand…"

"I…can't."

"Did I do something wrong?" You say it so softly, so sincerely that Leehan has to look at you.

"Never." He fights the urge to bring his thumb to your cheek, to wipe at the tear-stained skin there. "You're perfect. Always have been."

"Then why?"

"Because you deserve someone better than me. Someone just as kind."

You want to scoff. To pull him by the collar and press your lips to his and make him believe that there is no one kinder than him that you know of.

But Leehan doesn't let you when he pries your fingers off of his shirt, moving backwards until his legs hit the wall.

You promised me, you want to say.

Some promises are meant to be broken—you hear the echo of his voice from a while ago. It stings.

Then he's speaking, and it feels like a whisper when the rain begins to crash down twice as hard, his voice muffled by water on concrete. "I'm sorry," are his last words before he disappears into the night, barely a shadow at your window-ledge at first, then nothing at all.

At 3 AM on a cold Saturday morning, your heart breaks into a million pieces, and Leehan leaves his behind.

Looking back, you should have probably seen this coming. Or at least that's what you tell yourself to feel better. It doesn't work, not one bit.

Your recent observation is that a break up is a lot like the five stages of grief:

First there's denial.

You don't believe it. Leehan would not end your relationship, he would not give up on you this easily. He wouldn't. It was strong, the feelings you had for him, and you're positive it's the exact same for him.

Then it bleeds into anger.

Every time you look at the Polaroids of the two of you together, you feel an insurmountable amount of rage. The scent of rain makes you see red, the thought of him makes you want to punch a pillow. When Woonhak walks in at an unfortunate time, you almost throw it straight at his face before he immediately walks back the same way and shuts the door in front of him, face pale from your ambush.

Bargaining is third.

Usually you wouldn't be drinking this much—you barely like the taste of alcohol, let alone how it makes you feel. But here you are, slumped on the floor of your room, knocking the bottle back as it burns your throat going down. When nothing remains, you're clawing for your phone, staring at the lock-screen: a candid picture of him staring at the aquarium glass, eyes shiny and big.

The next day, you're waking up to a string of incoherent texts you'd sent him, progressively growing embarrassing as you scroll down. Your pride is nowhere to be seen in them when it's just you begging for him to talk to you, promising you can try again—that it'll be different this time.

Depression looks no better on you.

Crying should feel like a release, like finally letting go of a held breath, but your heart thuds painfully against your ribcage as a stream of tears flows down. And it's as close to the end of the world as you'd ever felt.

Sometimes you even find yourself crying when you wake up from a dream—of a bright smile that reminds you of the sun and the sea, of hair the colour of spun gold, of seeing the city from above, safe in his arms.

Acceptance never really comes, but you hold a seat for it, terrified of the day it might arrive.

November is turning out to be a terrible month for Leehan.

He didn't think it would be easy—not by any means. From the second he'd decided to end it, he'd already predicted how hard it would be to stay away from you.

Leehan doesn't even know who he is without you.

As a kid, he'd always latched onto creatures with all the innocence and naivety that came with childhood. His father called it a phase, his mother called it 'Our Leehan-ie just has a tender heart'. But the thing about loving too hard was the aftermath of it—every time a fish died, or when the family dog got too old and succumbed, he'd sobbed into his mom's arms without holding back. It got better with age; he'd learnt to let go without letting the hurt get to him, accepting it as part of life. Seeing a sort of beauty in endings.

Leehan hadn't planned to fall in love back then, let alone have to watch you die over and over again every time he'd slipped into slumber.

So yeah, it was for the best. When he eventually hunted Mysterio down and confronted whatever came after, when one or neither of them won for good, you'd be safe regardless.

And if he did…die, then it'll be easier for you to let him go this way. Even if it means you hate him now.

"All units, stand-by. A possible explosion at the natural history museum downtown," the police radio transmits right into Leehan's phone as he crouches on top of the clock tower, scanning the city below him. It's colder now, more windy—erratic and unpleasant. He takes a deep breath in, watching the white spider-symbol on his chest contract over the black suit, darting a web quicker than his mind moves.

Anything for us to kill, Spidey? Venom chimes dutifully within his brain.

Leehan has learnt not to lower his guard, so he refuses to reply and focuses on directing himself to the museum location.

Silent treatment? Rude.

Can you shut up, I have work to do—Leehan chides.

It's a routine now: Venom's voice in his head accompanying him like a devil on the shoulder as he moves on autopilot, dousing another fire, holding up another collapsing pillar, trying to get as many civilians out unharmed. Leehan does not stay to entertain pleasantries any more—he ignores reporters and news crews without caring for making a statement. On worse days, he has lost his temper and snapped at them, but the lesson was learnt when his public rating dropped to an all time low with every broadcast out there kept replaying “Spider-Man threatens innocent passerbys".

Hence why he preferred to work discreetly now, letting the black of his suit camouflage him—sneaking into buildings and making quick work of the next mess Mysterio had left for him to salvage. Each of them feels like a trap, to wear down his body and mind. Almost like he wanted Leehan to drive himself mad for the pure fun of watching it happen. If it weren't for Venom, he might have died already.

The only semblance of peace he gets in a day is getting to watch you from a safe distance.

Like some twisted version of a guardian angel, Leehan makes sure you're safe. Even when he stares down at your texts, the ones he has to reject all instinct to keep from replying to, a twinge of relief keeps him going—that you are alive and breathing. He tells himself that's the only reason he hasn't deleted your number off his phone.

He watches you on mornings when you're on your way to class, during your lunches with Woonhak and the lab team in the quads, makes sure no one is following you when it gets dark outside, when you're alone. And sometimes you turn to look at him, almost straight through him—and Leehan feels a shiver travel down his spine even when he knows there is no way you can see him from such a long distance.

It's like you sense his presence with something beyond logic.

But each time, you sigh as though in disappointment, like you were probably just imagining him there, and you turn back to walk away.

Then there are titbits of information Woonhak brings on his barge-ins that help a little with the paranoia.

"You look like you're hanging on by a thread," the younger boy sympathises, making himself at home on Leehan's bed. "No pun intended."

Leehan has no energy to entertain him, so he simply purses his lips and goes back to scribbling on his notebook that was progressively being filled with new findings on the symbiote.

"Riwoo hyung is with Y/N," Woonhak adds.

Leehan can't help but jolt slightly.

Thankfully, Woonhak doesn't need to be prompted to continue, "She's doing better these days. Hyung's been dragging her to try new restaurants, so she's eating better. Oh, and she's taking that internship with Dr. Beck next year. He says she could easily land a junior researcher position at Oscorp."

"That's good," Leehan's voice is small but he means every word. It was good that your friends are there for you when he couldn't be.

"You guys will figure it out, you know," Woonhak says suddenly, without a shred of doubt. "If any two people can find their way back to each other, it's you guys."

Leehan pauses for a breath.

It's not that he doesn't believe the same; a part of him will always belong to you, would always look for you in a crowd and seek out your voice like a lighthouse. By the time it happens, he wonders if he'll be Kim Leehan anymore—the boy you fell in love with in the first place. Or will he just be a vestige of himself, simply a vessel for the symbiote…a weapon to get back at Mysterio.

He doesn't reply. When Woonhak eventually starts to yawn, he excuses himself out with a slurred out goodnight, leaving Leehan for yet another night of patrol and research.

.˚⋆ ˖ ⏱︎.ᐟ⋆.˚⋆⊹ ────

December fares no better.

Campus grows steadily quieter once the exam season wears down, bringing more snow and rain with it. He does his usual regimen—a half-attended handful of classes, barely passed exams, patrol, patrol, then more patrol.

"—shouldn't be pulling so many all nighters. That's why you lost marks over here, and—" Riwoo is on an uncharacteristic tangent about Leehan's latest grades, scolding him for his sudden drop in interest.

Leehan listens with one ear, and tries to close off the other one when Venom starts spewing his own string of complains:

Human, this is boring. Where is the blood… We want to KILLLLL—!

Shut up, Leehan replies mentally, sneaking an annoyed glance down his collar where the suit rested.

"Zebrafish reach up to 4 to 5 centimetres in length, not inches… How did you even get that wrong, Han-ah? It's so careless—" Riwoo is saying as they walk across the grounds into the campus cafe, and Leehan wishes he could get some caffeine in him sooner than Venom can jump back in with various versions of ‘Kill ‘, and ‘Die’.

These days, Leehan feels more like a babysitter than a vessel, if he's being completely honest. And his psyche has only been deteriorating with the severe lack of sleep and any real food. Thank heavens for coffee and instant rice, he reckons.

They queue up for the counter, Leehan pretend-nodding along to whatever Riwoo is saying, head slumped down, his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans. It's quieter than usual with most of the students having headed home for winter break already—only bits and pieces of conversations, mixed with the comforting scent of breakfast, in the small space around them.

But as the universe would have it, all of Leehan's defences lower at once at the sound of your voice.

You're a couple spots in front of him, chatting animatedly with Doctor Beck as he grabs two cups off the counter.

Leehan should look away, or better yet, turn around and make a break for it. But Riwoo has already noticed the way his body stiffens, how he freezes at the sight of your face, and Leehan realises it's already too late.

Thankfully, you don't seem to notice, too busy conversing.

"—I'm heading home this weekend, so I should be able to send in those final documents soon enough," you say smiling. "Thank you again, Professor. If it wasn't for your letter of recommendation, this would never have happened."

"Nonsense," Doctor Beck waves away your modesty. "You're a brilliant young scientist, Miss L/N. Oscorp will be lucky to have you."

You reply with a bashful smile, and while it looks perfect and practised, Leehan can tell that you're not all there. There are shadows underneath your eyes, and you've forgotten to tie your hair back. Even your clothes look slightly wrinkled.

He hates the possibility that he could be the cause of it.

It doesn't matter, Leehan repeats inwardly. You were going to be okay. You were going to be happy and successful and eventually forget he ever existed. That was the plan.

Are you about to cry over your girlfriend? Venom smirks tauntingly. Our bad, we meant ex-girlfriend.

It takes every bit of resolve to not burn the symbiote right then and there, but as fate would have it, Riwoo gets ushered forward to make his order. By the time they've turned back to find a spot to wait, you have already disappeared past the door.

Follow them.

Leehan doesn't immediately take it seriously. But Venom repeats again—Follow those two.

What for?

She could be in danger, you know.

Y/N is fine. She won't be in class anyways, it's her last day of finals.

Wow, and here we thought you'd stopped stalking—

It's not stalking!

Follow them. We'd like to see something.

Why?

Curious.

I have to get back to my work station. There's a lot to do if I want to stop Mysterio before it's too late.

FOLLOW THEM—!!

Leehan flinches visibly, earning a concerned glance from Riwoo. He gives an awkward smile, taking the coffee from the older boy's hand.

Can you not yell? Leehan rebukes telepathically.

But the symbiote is relentless as always, already beginning to curl its body around Leehan's, threatening to bond with him right in the middle of the cafe in front of everyone. Leehan panics, a hand coming to grab at his chest on pure instinct.

"Are you okay?" Riwoo leans in. "Do you need to go to the clinic?"

"Ah, it's nothing hyung, just a heartburn," Leehan makes a half-convincing excuse.

Riwoo doesn't seem to buy it, but before Leehan can derail the conversation away, Venom is cackling at his misery. His head throbs from the sheer volume of it, pounding against his skull like his brain was being eaten alive.

FINE—! Leehan yells. It takes a moment of held breath before he notices Riwoo's shocked expression and realises he'd said it out loud instead of thinking it.

"Sorry, I—" He attempts to undo his mistake, but Riwoo seems to be about to suggest again he go to a doctor, so Leehan beats him to it, "I'll make a booking. And don't worry, Woonhak can take me."

Woonhak will absolutely not be taking him anywhere; Leehan would rather trust his health in the hands (or fins) of a brain-dead fish before he'd have resorted to Woonhak as an option. Instead, he returns his coffee cup back to Riwoo, bows in apology, and sprints off out of the cafe.

The robotics lab is empty today, at least from what Leehan can gauge through the windows. If it were anyone else, he wouldn't be able to see into the room from all the way at the top of the opposite building—but fortunate for him, his superhuman senses had only sharpened under the effects of the symbiote.

He hears broken sentences; Woonhak is bidding goodbye after gathering his formulae sheets and you're pulling him along with you, making it clear that you won't be sparing an extra pen in the middle of the exam if he had forgotten one.

Despite everything, the normalcy of your banter makes Leehan's heart soften.

Once you've disappeared, Professor Beck's face appears through the parted curtains. He turns to take a seat at his desk, flipping a pencil between his fingers. His brows are scrunched in thought, lips a thin line—grim and stony. His other hand reaches into his coat to fish something out.

And then Leehan's entire world stops.

His heart constricts painfully at the sight, a rock forming at his throat, making his tongue taste like acid.

Quentin Beck turns the object, watching how the metal reflects the winter sun. And then his expression turns sourer, teeth gritted as he squeezes it between his fist with obvious rage.

The keychain.

Leehan's keychain. The one he'd lost under the bridge, the one he'd spent hours looking for, the one…

The one he had seen dangled in front of him, from Mysterio's hand.

Leehan doesn't stomach the implication easily—he feels bile rise before Venom distracts him enough for him to push it down.

What is he saying? the symbiote asks.

I can't tell…

Use one of her inventions. Your girlfriend's.

Leehan doesn't correct him; his mind moves with muscle memory, fingers already reaching to tap his watch. The nanobot spiders come alive at once, floating invisibly through the air until one lands safely at the window ledge.

"Enabling microphone," Leehan commands as he plugs in his Bluetooth earphones, something he had heard you passingly mention you wanted to install—it seems like you had ended up doing it eventually. Doctor Beck's mumbling vibrates through his ear, incoherent at first, then the words slowly grow longer, making more sense.

"Soon, boy….it's only a matter of time before you take your last breath." The professor seethes. "Keep falling into my traps and eventually, I'll make sure you won't have legs to run away any more.

I'll break you inch by inch until there's nothing but bones left of you…until you finally realise how you don't deserve to be hailed as everyone's king. Hah—! 'Spider-Man'… how arrogant… it's time someone put you in your place! First you, then everyone else who's ever had the foolish idea to feed your ego…."

Leehan feels dizzy. His knees give out as he collapses onto the concrete rooftop, keeling over to swallow the panic.

"And then your girlfriend," Beck says, making every hair on Leehan stand up. "Good thing she landed right into the palm of my hands," he's grinning as he speaks, "Good thing you hurt her so bad that she didn't think twice before taking my proposition. Soon, she'll be off to Oscorp, you'll be dead, and I won't have a pest to distract me while I blow their entire company to bits. Along with all the technology they stole from me…"

Leehan is ripping the earphones out before he can continue, head spinning as he books it for his house, barely stumbling in through the window and spilling his guts into the toilet.

He feels sick all over.

Quentin Beck is Mysterio.

The thought makes him recoil away, landing backwards with the cold tiles under his palms.

Mysterio had been right there, a hair's breadth away, right under his nose, and Leehan hadn't known. He feels stupid to never have doubted it would be someone known to him. And then another wave of nausea hits him at the realisation of what this meant.

Beck had been watching him from the very first day Leehan had been introduced by you… Maybe even before that. His paranoia wasn't wrongly placed, it had been real all along.

Every little scenario, each odd happening—they piece together to complete the puzzle, until Leehan feels like he's seeing clearly for the first time in a very long time. The sudden reappearance of Doc Ock, the jailbreak, the illusions and fire and carefully curated mousetraps, set in place simply to drive Spider-Man mad—no, to drive Leehan mad. Because Beck had been surveying him long before Leehan had the mind to pay it any mind.

And now, Quentin Beck had successfully made a dent in his life, plaguing his thoughts with fear and vengeance.

The words Oscorp and technology stand out in his memory; on shaky feet, Leehan trudges to his laptop to search up what could link the man to the corporation. It doesn't take too long to skim through articles to find the truth Beck had been trying so hard to quell:

"Senior Oscorp Researcher fired for malpractice: Quentin Beck endangers humanity with the proposal of superpowered military drones. Oscorp responds quickly."

The articles are few in quantity, and seems to have been swept under the rug courtesy of Oscorp's PR team. And any damage they hadn't been able to explain away, they seem to have blamed on the now Professor, compensating his loss of livelihood with a unglorified teaching position at the city's university.

Kill now? Venom sneers with the cadence of an animal growling for meat, and this time, Leehan does not oppose him.

"Soon," he whispers instead, tone turning cold. "After Y/N leaves for home… She has to be safe before I rip the head off that asshole."

Now you're talking. Spidey's grown a pair, I see. The symbiote is gleeful—Leehan can clearly imagine the hungry grin on his face if he were masked right now, ready to pounce if given permission to.

"Patient now," Leehan says, and Venom only calms down because it sounds like a promise. "You can kill him all you want, but first, we need a game plan."

The evening starts with a drizzle—too soft to predict anything harsher to follow.

It's cold, people swathed in their fluffy winter coats and tightly wrapped scarves, the traffic jam-packed with everyone heading home for the holidays. December 21st—the day Leehan knows you'd be safely tucked away in a car or train, far away from the trouble that was about to ensue.

Once the initial shock had worn off, Leehan had found the energy to get down to business, flipping through tens and hundreds of pages of Quentin Beck's research profile and previous portfolios, trying to figure out how exactly he had designed his Mysterio persona.

When Leehan had eventually realised that Robotics lingo and drone models made no sense to him, he had finally resorted to asking Woonhak for another favour.

Needless to say, Woonhak had been more than eager to help.

"You're taking an interest in Robotics!? Is this your ploy to win Y/N over, because might I say, it would most definitely work on me," Woonhak delivers a greasy wink to punctuate his point, and Leehan has to hold back a groan.

"Will you help or not?"

"Listen, the way to a girl's heart is through combat-grade drones. I totally approve!" Woonhak plants his hands on Leehan's shoulders, shaking him slightly in enthusiasm. "And also, you need all the help you can get after she dumped you."

"She didn't dump me—"

"Let's get to work, hyungie!" The younger is already barrelling past him, leading him to the corner of his mostly messy couch. Then he turns around abruptly, eyes wide and sparkly like a puppy hearing the word walk. "Oh my god, does this mean I'm officially part of Spider-Man's team…"

"Sure."

"And that Spider-Man needs me. That I get to boss Spider-Man around…AM I SPIDER-MAN'S BOSS!? I've dreamt of days like this, wow…."

"I'm kicking you off the team if you don't stop right there."

Once they've settled down, Woonhak doesn't need to be prompted to talk, given it was his favourite hobby next to Spider-Man fanaticism and time machine fantasies. He builds off of the word robotics and covers a whole array of topics, most of which is nothing but hogwash to Leehan's untrained ears.

Parts of it sound familiar though. He must have heard you talk about it once upon a time and his brain had most likely held onto the memory without him knowing.

"So…" he begins carefully, right when Woonhak takes a deep breath after a long tangent on Teleoperation. "What about Beck? Your professor—what does he do?"

"Doctor Beck?" Woonhak quirks his head to the side, taking a bite out of his bowl of rice. "He's chill. Why?"

"No, like…what does he do? What does he like? Dislike? Y'know…stuff like that."

This only makes Woonhak even more perplexed. He gives Leehan a judgmental look. "Are you trying to win back Y/N or seduce our Robotics professor…"

"It's part of my tactic, okay?" Leehan sighs, finding no other way to wheedle the information he desperately needs.

Woonhak doesn't seem too bothered by the excuse. "Hmm…he's a funny guy sometimes. Like a very quirky, mad scientist typa guy. Likes to mess around with ideas like holographic illusions and tricks. My theory is that he wanted to be a magician as a child but never had the flair for it; Y/N says he's just getting bored the older he gets. We have a bet going."

Slowly and casually, Leehan manages to gather as much on Quentin Beck, filing it away mentally to be put down into his personal research notes. If Woonhak gets suspicious about anything, Leehan points out the window at a non-existent bird, and without fail, the younger boy looks over—not unlike a hyper dog, he muses. Rest of the time, he throws in a bait or two about Spider-Man and Woonhak bites it every single time, any prior scepticism abandoned in favour of fanboying.

Which brings Leehan back to the present—perched on his usual spot, at the very top of the clock tower, the tallest building in the city, bathed by the glow of a hanging moon.

Unusually however, he also has a phone in one hand, and Woonhak's genius expertise to aid his plan in the other.

"HELLO THERE, PEOPLE OF THE CITY," he begins somewhat awkwardly, watching the big screens light up all around the city square, every television and radio breached, a live broadcast in place. "THIS IS YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOOD SPIDER-MAN SPEAKING. NOT TO WORRY, IT'S JUST A PERSONAL ANNOUNCEMENT TO MY DEAREST FRIEND AND OVERALL 'WORST DRESSED' PERSON WITHIN A THOUSAND MILE RADIUS—MR. MYSTERIO, THE FAILED MAGICIAN WANNABE."

Leehan can hear the sneer in his own voice echo through the public systems: people stopping their cars to turn up the radio, news vans making a speedy run to get the latest scoop, teenagers tapping their screens to scroll through live updates. The entire city stops for a split second, Christmas shopping put on a pause to listen to Spider-Man's sudden declaration.

"YOU'VE WATCHED ME, TOYED WITH MY LIFE, ATTEMPTED EVERYTHING TO DRAG ME DOWN WITH YOU. BUT GUESS WHAT…" Leehan grins behind his mask to match Venom's own smile. "YOU'RE A PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A SUPERVILLAIN. YOU AREN'T A GOD—ALL YOU ARE IS A SAD OLD MAN PROJECTING HIS OWN INSECURITIES ONTO OTHERS."

The words are mirrors of what he'd told Leehan the first time he almost killed him, and Leehan can't help but feel a sick sense of happiness at saying it back now.

"CATCH ME IF YOU CAN," he says. "YOU KNOW WHERE TO LOOK."

And with that, he shuts down the feed at once, screens turning static.

Good job, Venom adds with a hint of pride.

Shouts blare out from below—people's outraged cries, demanding justice for Spider-Man with the abrupt revelations. They might not know who Mysterio is yet, but the public opinion is quick to turn against a potential enemy, subjecting him to angry insults without waiting to see reason. Cars honk in protest, reporters springing to action to interview angry civilians, chants of 'Spider-Man rules' already coming to life beneath on the streets.

The bait works like a charm.

Before Leehan can count to ten, Venom's happiness flares up, making it known that he'd found a new prey to hunt.

"Ah, look who's right on time," Leehan smiles, dangling his feet down off the dome, watching the way the helmeted figure levitating mid-air, red cape whipping angrily behind him, chest heaving in anger above where Leehan sits.

"You!—"

"You're not that intimidating once your tricks are exposed, you know." Leehan pretends to check his fingernails for dirt, which aids to be useless given he was wearing his symbiote-fused black suit. "It's like a magician. The illusion only works as long as you don't reveal your secrets. But you… you're a phoney top to bottom. Just cheap camera tricks and invisible wires, right? Maybe a few optical illusions here and there of course."

"How dare you!" Mysterio fumes, and with it, the green smoke around him burns angrily. "You insolent, arrogant—"

"Yeah, yeah, cry me a river," Leehan taunts, now springing up to his feet. "I already know what you think of me—you’ve made it crystal clear two separate times, so I think we can forgo introductions now. Are you gonna fight me or what?"

Mysterio barely gives a second of thought before commanding one of his drones to shoot a fiery laser right at Leehan's chest. But Venom has honed his senses beyond human capacity that he responds without the need to think, a quick flip that dodges the beam and has him land smoothly on all fours.

"Miss me," Leehan cackles, and it sounds more like Venom this time—gruff and deep.

Mysterio's face might be hidden beneath his fishbowl of a helmet, but the way his moves get frantic after proves Leehan's suspicions to be true.

He's getting sloppy.

A web shoots out to grab Mysterio by the neck, a quick pull of Leehan's wrist doing away with the helmet as it plummets to the ground feet below. Beck's terrified face shows itself.

He tries to hide it with a palm, but it's useless when Leehan has known for a while now.

"Why did you do all of this? Because of some petty revenge you wanna plan against Oscorp?"

Beck's face falls. "How did you…"

"You monologue when you think too hard. Should probably stop doing that in case someone's spying on you."

Beck grabs Leehan's string of web and yanks, landing the two of them in an aerial fight; Leehan can barely keep his feet on solid ground when Mysterio abandons his drones in favour of his fist, jamming a sharp elbow into his stomach, rendering his webs useless for the time being.

So Leehan does the logical thing—he grabs Beck as hard as he can and drags him down with him, leaving a human-shaped hole in the brick dome and plunging downwards together, crashing down onto a metal grill, pressed into his shoulder blades.

Leehan is lithe, swinging a fist into Beck's jaw. The snap of bone sends a shiver of rage down his—or Venom's—spine, and soon after, he's pummelling into muscle and skeleton without caring what breaks.

How dare you threaten me, Venom sounds clear and loud.

"You wanted to hurt Y/N," Leehan barks out, punctuating each word with a punch. "You were using her to get to me."

Instead of conceding as Leehan expects him to, Beck only grins through a mouthful of blood.

Before Leehan can swipe that look off his face with another blow, he hears a snap of fingers.

The room begins to cloud with smoke—eerie and green, sparks of pixels flickering around him. The scenery begins to transition from the inside of the tower to something tubular and fleshy, almost like the belly of a large animal.

An illusion. Just an illusion, Leehan reminds himself.

"Could have proved me wrong this time, but my verdict remains unchanged," Mysterio's voice rings out, the same way it had in all of Leehan's nightmares and memories. "You're still incompetent."

Leehan shoots a web at the silhouette he sees behind the smoke screen, but the veil parts just enough to show empty space. Venom's frustration begins to gnaw under his own, stringed together with a mess of expletives.

The scene shifts once more, body falling through a void until he finds himself trapped inside a globe made of glass.

A fish bowl?

Leehan bangs against the walls, attempting a scream, but nothing comes out of his throat. Water begins to drip through the crack above, filling the empty space with rounded droplets, a haze of what seems to be dream-like fish and octopods, floating and phasing through his body.

It would have been a beautiful sight if not for how terrifying it feels.

Water rises until it drowns his entire lower half—Leehan can barely yell when it creeps higher, threatening to break past his throat, past his nose, until air is stolen from his lungs and he chokes—

Once again, the scene changes.

This time, it's a mirror maze. Each reflection is a past enemy: each with a scathing remark to throw at him, making it clear how much they wanted to skin him alive at the next chance.

Then, your voice.

"Hannie!" You sound frightened to see him. Or maybe that's sorrow he sees on you: wet lashes, blurry eyes, the way you clutch your hands to your chest. "Please."

"Y/N?" he asks despite himself, inching closer even when Venom howls at him to back off.

Leehan sees you hesitantly extend a hand, reaching out for him, like in his dreams. But then you're falling backwards, through the sheen of glass and smoke, down and down into pitch black nothingness…

And he follows because there isn't a world in which he wouldn't.

His feet move first, then his body dives forward, finding a warmth against his own chest that he refuses to let go of. His mouth moves around your name as everything falls apart under his feet, metal almost slashing through clothing—and if it wasn't for Venom, it would have taken his flesh with it, no doubt.

Dust blows as he rolls on the bricked floor, a dull pain throbbing in his head when he blearily opens his eyes. Only to see Mysterio sneer down at him, hovering.

"She's still your weakness huh?" He quirks his head to the side. "Surely you won't mind if I pay her a visit after I'm done with you… after all, I know exactly where she's off to."

"DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE," Leehan stammers through gritted teeth. When he tries to get up, his legs feel like jelly, organs squeezing in pain as his insides regenerate too fast, making him see blinding white for a moment.

"Still the same, you—"

Leehan springs a web over his mouth, leaping from wall to wall as he wraps a thick sheet of silk around Beck's mouth, lithely dodging his annoyed laser shots—left, right, a leap over his head, then a swift kick to his chest that pushes the man backwards.

"I studied your drones," Leehan adds, huffing as he spots the tiny dent in Beck's plans. "It's just like you—flashy but too careless. Your need to be known shows."

"WHAT?" Beck has broken free of the webbed muzzle now, grasping at the floor under him as he skids back frantically with every step Leehan takes, an ominous twist of his mouth, slitted eyes narrowing and expanding like a broken transition between him and Venom, anger building first, then replaced by disappointment, then resentment.

"The pixels flicker; your illusion has holes," is Leehan's final blow as he readies his aim at the spot near Beck's head.

Beck raises an arm to shoot a spray of fire at him, and at the exact same time, Leehan's webbing twists around the invisible drone, forcing it to crash down violently and break apart into two clean slices.

Smoke billows and fire catches, making Venom shriek in agony as the heat overtakes its senses, Leehan's own body rejecting the fire as he claws at the material of his suit, splitting and morphing, trying to separate from its host. The scalding heat inches through to his own skin, burning, burning, burning…

Get out of my head! Leehan screams. Leave.

Venom seems to want the same thing, but it's only Leehan's resolve that can expel him completely—Leehan knows this from months of experimental trials. The host is in charge, not the symbiote.

A deep breath, then a blank mind. Leehan thinks of what brings him clarity and strength—it comes easily: the expanse of blue, sand under his feet, the scent of salt and breeze and your perfume lingering right underneath. Then your hands in his, and the softness with which you call his name.

When Leehan finally opens his eyes, he sees red.

His suit is back to normal, his body no longer Venom's. The adrenaline leaves him feeling high and spent—or maybe that's the injuries, Leehan isn't sure anymore. A trickle of black fluid spills to the ground, writhing slightly, and Beck's shallow breathing dies down.

The man lies there unmoving. Leehan belatedly realises that it's over.

Everything is over.

He's not wasting time looking back when the only thing he wants to do—needs to do—is find you. Leehan sends up a prayer hoping you aren't gone just yet, that you'll stay just a second longer because he needs you to know. Even if it means your feelings may have changed… None of that matters now, just that Leehan could have died and he'd have done it without saying those three important words to you.

Maybe it's the rush of adrenaline, or maybe it's the leftover fight in him, but he spares no glance behind him when he's leaping out a broken window, not seeing how Venom's remnants creep closer and closer to Beck's frozen body before its warmth leaves for good.

You haven't breathed correctly in the past hour.

The traffic blares around you, cars honking at each other in face of Spider-Man's impromptu announcement to the entire city. The phone in your hand feel heavier than it should, a thumb hovering over Leehan's name as you debate whether to call.

What if he's not okay?

What if…

"Hey, what the fuck is that?" Some guy hollers through a sunroof, standing up to get a good view at the bridge opposite the road. "Are those…spider webs???"

You lean forward to tell the cab driver to stop, even though the car hadn't inched a step closer in the past hour or so, and click open the door to see for yourself.

Under the blinking starlight, a single message is woven onto the cables of the suspension bridge, and you don't even need to assess the all too familiar handwriting to know who the sender is.

I LOVE YOU—it reads.

Your first thought is that Leehan is okay, he's made it out alive.

The second is the monumental epiphany that you'd never said it to each other, and that he'd been the first to tell you now.

The third is a rush of fear that it might be his last too. What if he only felt the need to relay it knowing he'd never see you again. What if he isn't okay after all. What if—

"Thinking too hard," Leehan's voice whispers behind you. He sits atop a car, the passengers inside gaping at the fact that THE Spider-Man was right there above them, separated only by a roof and nothing more.

Passengers pull out their phone cameras, flashes going off promptly. Kids wave and point at him, parents too stunned into silence, a small crowd forming around the two of you. But nothing else matters—not when you feel his heavy stare through the material of his mask, and your chest tightens with the sheer force of wanting to reach out.

But you don't have to, not when he's sweeping you off the ground and swinging you to the very top of the bridge's tower.

The sky is inky blue behind him when he takes off the mask, holding you tighter as his eyes meet yours.

"I missed yo—" you begin to say, but he seals your words with a kiss.

"I love you," Leehan whispers against you, bringing his forehead to rest against yours. "Sorry I'm late."

You shake your head. "You could never be late. All the time in the world, remember?"

"Did you hate me?"

"I could never hate you, Kim Leehan." You brush a sweaty blond strand out of his face, wiping a smudge of dirt away with your thumb. "You can be an idiot sometimes, but I'd never hate you. I love you too much for that."

Leehan smiles in what feels like the first time in forever, the weight inside of him resting gently, the world around stopping to spin just to suspend the two of you in a bubble. From tens of feet above everyone, you're safe.

"I-I haven't been the best boyfriend, I know," Leehan admits into the crook of your neck. "There are things I should have done differently—done better."

"It's okay, you didn't mean to."

"No, I-I kept things from you. You should have been the first person I came to after… after everything." He almost falters at the way your eyes soften at his words. "There's a lot to be said. I don't know how to start…"

His voice tapers off into a self-depreciating chuckle, but you bring him back with a kiss to the cheek.

"All the time in the world, bug boy. We'll talk whenever you want, and I'll listen like I always do."

A mellow drizzle begins to sprinkle down, making Leehan look softer than ever against the watercolour-blue sky. Once upon a time, you'd thought that he looked beautiful in blue, and you realise that your verdict hasn't changed since then.

"Woonhak will be thrilled to know we're back together," Leehan nuzzles into you, finding something gentle and apocalyptic in the way it's just you and him there, in love. "Riwoo hyung told me that he kept calling us his parents."

"Dramatic as expected," you grin.

"Does this mean you forgive me?" Leehan's voice is gentle, with something nervous underneath it.

"Hmmm…" You pretend to think, watching him gulp anxiously, hands stiffening with every second that passes. "Maybe… if you can make up for it."

"Anything you want. Name your price," he nods eagerly, tangling his fingers into your hair

"First a rerun of that first date at the aquarium, then you buy another penguin keychain to replace the old one so we can match again." Your grin is blinding and big.

It occurs to Leehan that there is indeed a lot to be said. He simply slips the keychain out of his glove cuff, placing it carefully into your palm, curling your fingers over it. He'd had the mind to pick it up from where it had dropped beside him. It's caked with grime, blood that could be his own or not, but the metal is still cool to the touch. Two birds of a feather—it reads, the same as you remember yours to be.

"You found it," you say in half amusement, half wonder. "How?"

"That's the part we'll need to talk about. Preferably over that dinner date I need to make up for."

"Oh c'mon, don't make it all suspenseful now. Haven't I waited long enough?"

You definitely had a point there…

But Leehan isn't entirely sure how to approach the revelation that your Robotics professor was the same person that had been out for his blood. Maybe there isn't a way to sugarcoat the situation at all, so he comes clean in what he hopes isn't a mess of incoherent sentences that could warrant a suggestion to book himself into the mental ward.

Thankfully, and like always, you listen without judgement.

"Professor Beck is Mysterio?" you repeat his conclusion "Mysterio has been hurting you all this time… and the symbiote…"

"I should have told you…I just…I didn't want to drag you into my mess," Leehan sighs.

But you simply take his hand in yours, holding the little keychain between the two of you, pressing a reassuring thumb over his glove. "You must have been scared. And alone."

Leehan does not want to lie again, so he nods. You pull him in for a tight hug, letting him fit perfectly against you, with all the intention of wanting to keep him safe for a change.

"Sorry about your internship though… Beck's sorta gone," he murmurs in a pout and it makes you chuckle.

"Hmm, don't worry. I'm smart enough to get another one on my own without his recommendation," you assure him with a few pats on his back. "Sorry you lost your goo."

"Hey, his name is Venom."

"You named the goo?"

"No, he came with a name. He's more sentient once he fuses…"

"Yeah, definitely a dinner worthy conversation. Maybe over hotpot?"

"Please," Leehan almost whines in relief. "I'm so sick of eating instant food and gummies. Woonhak tried cooking for me once and I swear to god the meat was expired. Gave me diarrhoea for like a week."

"That's headline worthy—Spider-Man halts activities due to bowel issues… It's got a nice ring to it. Maybe I should call up the reporters and sell it for some cash—"

"Y/N..." he pouts harder; you giggle at his natural cuteness, then lean in to wipe the pout right off his face with another kiss.

Leehan, ever the opportunist, kisses back without waiting for permission, coaxing control right out of you and into his hands. He braces your jaw with a strong palm, kissing like a man starved. And maybe he was—judging by how eager his mouth feels against yours—a little salty, making a mess of your emotions as you push back with fervour.

"I love you so much," he whispers between kisses. "More than anything in the world…"

You open your mouth—to return the kiss or to respond to his declaration, you're not sure. But any and all words vanish when a loud BOOM turns both your attentions away.

Smoke spirals in a distance, and slowly when the cloud clears up, you see the building behind it.

The clock tower stands tall, rubble plunging down onto the streets, police sirens beginning to blare as commotion ensues. It's much past midnight now, and usually the city would be swimming in a quiet haze of night-life. Tonight, it's mayhem.

Tides rise from the water below, morphing into phantom-like monsters, illusionary beings made of fire and ash forming out of thin air as people rush away screaming, piling into cars and buildings for safety.

Leehan lets you hold onto him as he swings you over the bridge, past the water, and safely sets you down onto your feet when he reaches underneath the clock tower. He's about to tell you to go take cover and turn on your comms when—

"I'm coming in with you," you speak, resolute.

"Oh no, absolutely not."

"Bug boy, not to be rude, but you don't know the first thing about robots—and I do. Let me handle this with you."

He wants to protest again, but Leehan knows there's no way out for him anymore—unless he managed to lock you up in a car or something until it was over, but then you'd definitely take that as an insult to your pride and capability. So he agrees with a deep sigh.

"Fine," he huffs. "But promise if If I tell you to run, you run."

You give him a determined nod, already sprinting off in the direction of the clock tower, so Leehan has to jog to keep up. He manages to pull on his mask before anyone can sneak a glance.

Before the two of you cross the threshold, he glances back at you. "Also, I did learn a little about robots by the way… Woonhak helped."

You can't help but beam with pride at that.

"Kim Leehan, I have never found you more attractive than I do now." You wink before dashing up the stairs, stunning him into bashful silence. Underneath his mask, his face burns.

Focus.

He berates himself for being so weak to your advances, trying to expel the fact that he was blushing like a schoolgirl at the thought of his girlfriend finding him attractive, while in the midst of the city's imminent downfall if he didn't get it together.

Leehan decides to help you out by shooting a web upwards to wrap around the topmost copper railing, swinging himself upwards and taking you with him.

"Hey, if this Spidey thing doesn't work out long term, you can always offer your transport services to the public," you quip as he lets you down.

A sharp crack of lightning disrupts the peace, frizzling through the jagged hole in the dome above. Thunder begins to roll, grey clouds billowing angrily, the start of something terrible.

In front of you, a silhouette materialises. Larger than he should be, green inferno blazing behind, snapping like a cape—crawling through the brassy gears, circling around them.

Leehan throws a protective arm in front of you. "Stay near me. Don't leave," he reminds you.

The creature makes an inhuman sound, guttural. Quentin Beck's voice is somewhere in there, but smothered by the nightmarish baritone of Venom.

They've fused. Somehow.

Leehan has to repeat to himself not to panic—to stay calm for your sake. But it's your steady arm around his upper arm that brings him down to earth.

"Don't think too hard," the hybrid drawls out. "I let him take over. He needed a body, I needed you dead. Perfect symbiosis."

It occurs to Leehan that this thing—this twisted version of Beck, was still more human than symbiote. Which led to the obvious conclusion that he could still be defeated.

You seem to have the same thought.

"Get Riwoo hyung on call," he says. You don't dawdle, already pulling up your contacts.

Beck moves closer, letting his smoke coalesce into shapes—innocent people shrieking in fear, bubbling fish that fade into obscurity with a simple swish of its tail, a mutant lizard that leaps across the clock's inner dials—miscellaneous nonsense.

"Hypnogens," you state. "Could be paralytic…keep on your toe, yeah?"

"Do I ever not?" Leehan finds the humour to add, and its worth the shot when you grin back.

"Hello?" Riwoo's voice springs into Leehan's ear—he figures you'd connected his comms three-way.

"We need your help, hyung? Can't really explain but it involves a parasitic villain and—"

"Who? Venom?" Riwoo asks as he chews on something.

"Wait," Leehan's wild eyes meet your confused ones. "You knew!?"

"Oh…was it supposed to be a secret…? You kind of bought me a sample and I took a wild guess—Kim Woonhak, will you stop banging your pots together, I'm on a call!"

The absurdity of the situation gives Leehan a whiplash. Here they were, talking on the phone like they weren't in the middle of facing off against a very real threat, possibly deadly hallucinogens surrounding them, while their two friends sat on the other end making a ruckus in Woonhak's kitchen like it wasn't past 1 AM already.

Lo and behold, Woonhak barrels over to interrupt the conversation.

"Hi hyung! Whatcha up to…? We were too busy playing board games, so I haven't turned the TV on yet."

"Woonhak."

"Oh wait shit…I meant, we haven't turned the TV to watch that whale documentary you've been pestering me about, ha ha." He laughs awkwardly, turning to Riwoo to make the excuse worse. "No other reason… What other reason would there be? It's not like Leehan-ie hyung has a second, super secretive, super famous job or anything…"

"Woonhak, you can stop. I don't mind if hyung knows."

"Oh, THANK GOD, because I don't know how many more creative excuses I've got left in me to be honest."

Before Leehan can get to his point, Riwoo is chiming in as well, "You know that I already know he's Spider-Man right?"

Leehan himself is now startled.

"How…"

"Again, you aren't that discreet. The first time you disappeared after Doc Ock had mysteriously made a comeback, you told me that the press paid you to interview 'modern oceanic hybrids' because you're a marine biology student. That's not even a thing."

You keel over clutching your stomach at how funny the situation had evolved—but when it drives Mysterio even more crazy to know that none of you were afraid of him as much as you should be, he doubles down on his powers.

He begins to send one surreal visual after another, trapping you and Leehan in the middle of a hallucinatory circle. They're bizarre, sometimes large and fiery, other times dreamlike, designed to break past your mental walls.

"He's using neurotransmitters. That's why the robots won't die unless he does," you supply, picking through your professor's specific quirks in design. He's always preferred it over remote controlled robotics.

"Venom makes him harder to be killed. It's highly regenerative, so we need to strike at it's weakness…" Leehan says. "Hyung, I figured out it has something to do with heat and sound, but we need to break past the threshold somehow to make sure he doesn't just heal himself over again."

"Where are you right now?" Riwoo asks.

Leehan gives a quick rundown of his location, handing the turn over to you when he feels his skin prickle through his suit. The gas has started to do its job.

He holds onto you as he dodges the snake-like tentacles of smoke, making sure none of it gets into your system. A shot of web sideways, and he barely grazes the leg of a misty spider-like monster, several more spawning beneath—too reminiscent of Leehan's childhood nightmares.

"You okay?" he asks and you nod.

But it's not long after that his web starts to thin out, the abrasive gas eating away at his support until you're both falling downwards.

Somewhere in the darkness, his hands slip from yours, and he lands on all fours.

"Y/N!" Leehan yells out into the shadows.

"Hannie?" your voice calls back, but you aren't there.

You sound far away and near all at once, direction and space making no sense while confined in this hallucinatory hell designed for you.

Leehan turns to call again, but you stand there, eyes vacant.

"Hey…"

You reach out your fingers, ready to welcome him into your embrace. Leehan moves without thinking at first, but then he hears it—a distant echo that sounds like 'bug boy—!'.

This one isn't you…it's yet another invention of Beck's.

Leehan's hand curls into a fist as an eerie smile creeps over fake-you.

"You thought I'd take you back so easily?" you sneer, corrupting his thoughts. "After everything you've put me through… Are you not ashamed, Kim Leehan?"

Leehan isn't immune to how close this you sound to the real thing—but he's studied your cadence and the way you say his name so many times now, that it is sure as day that the hallucination's taunt cannot hold a candle to your giggles.

"Bug boy, where are you?" you—the real you—calls out.

"Here!" Leehan turns to run to you, trying hard to not trip in the pitch black room. He ignores every illusion that Beck places around him, following your voice like a moth to a flame.

He feels your warmth before he sees you.

"You're okay." Leehan hugs you tight. "I thought I'd lost you."

"You will never get rid of me, bug boy," you assure him with a squeeze.

"Okay, lovebirds, can we get back to beating the bad guy now?" Riwoo snaps you back to attention. "Y/N, if you can somehow find a way to create a large explosion, or some sort of amplified sound, it might get Venom to back off. Fire should work too, but it needs to burn through the cells before they start restoring themselves."

"The problem is that there are also drones involved," you explain. "Beck's gone haywire with his smoke and laser. Wait…maybe we can use that to our advantage somehow…"

"Woah, hold on," Woonhak reappears into your ears. "Beck? As in, our professor Beck?? Our professor's evil???"

"Long story," you say with a tired sigh.

"Does this mean I can't get that letter of recommendation he promised me after I graduate—"

"Woonhak, focus!" You turn back to Leehan, intertwining your fingers with his. "Remember those stun grenades I'd made?"

Leehan nods.

"I want you to use those as a distraction while I try something that might work. But I'll need your webs."

"Wait," Leehan's brows furrow in worry. "We aren't separating—it's too dangerous."

"Hannie, do you trust me?"

"Yes, of course I do—"

"Then trust me when I say we'll always find our way back to each other." You offer him a soft smile. "No matter what, okay? It's you and me against the world. Plus, I'll be right here." You tap at where his ear should be.

Leehan lets go of your hand only when you give him a non-verbal cue that it's time to get to business. He ignores Riwoo and Woonhak's embarrassing coos while he heads the opposite way in search of Beck.

You climb up the spiral stairwell to the highest point reachable, while Leehan drops into a crouch some floors below, resting himself steadily over a flat piece of cog. Rain begins to pelt down slowly, drenching him. At your tap over a giant wheel, Leehan springs a jet of webs to tie around its pinion.

"Trying to be clever?" Beck leers, appearing below Leehan, his body covered in a mass of symbiotic semifluid—curling, lashing, whipping menacingly at air. "Now be a pair of brave children and come down, won't you… Fight me head on."

Leehan ties the other end of the web around a tube at his feet, using his now freed hands to reach for his utility belt. Beck is slow to react when a stun grenade explodes into his chest.

The symbiote shrieks in pain as a deafening bang transpires, writhing when Leehan follows it with more launched one after the other, overriding its senses.

At the same time, you're trying to push the cog to turn, using the web as a leverage in what looks like a quickly thought version of a pulley system. Planting your feet firmly to the narrow mesh flooring, you pull with a grunt. It moves barely enough for a spark to come alive.

"It's working!" Leehan hears you exclaim, and it brings a sense of optimism to his own movements. Beck tries to rip the symbiote off of him, but the more he flails, the more it clings onto him. Unlike with Leehan, Venom seems to need Beck's life source to remain intact after the damage done.

Leehan helps you out by adding another stream of webs for support, pushing his entire body weight backwards as he too begins to pull. The cog moves clockwise, its age-old teeth harshly scraping against metal. The speedier you get it to rotate, the quicker the friction turns to heat, sparking a dim yellow first, then steadily builds up to a blinding white flame.

The fire travels down the wiring, through metal and cords, setting the entire tower ablaze—and with it, Venom. You and Leehan remain safe at the centre, simply watching as Beck shrieks in agony, crying words of anger and insult at Spider-Man till he slumps over.

"You'll…pay for this," he grunts in his own voice, burns casing his skin. Before he takes his final breath, perhaps as his last act of vengeance, Quentin Beck looks straight at you. Then with his remaining shred of vitality, he commands a drone to fire its laser at the grill that keeps you balanced.

"NO—" Leehan springs into action at once, but the beam breaks your footing, and snaps the web in your fist into two. His eyes meet your frightened ones in what feels like a slow-moving dream.

The clock hands move to 1:21.

You're falling, slipping away when he isn't quick enough—not near enough to reach you, just like in his nightmares. They feel like a premonition now.

Leehan is diving after you, shooting a web at your fading silhouette, trying so hard to make it to you.

Your lips move to mould the shape of I love you around them; Leehan prays this isn't a farewell.

Cogs and wheels frame your fall, making you look small and so, so human. There is nothing but the sound of a downpour in his ear. Leehan has never felt this scared in his entire life.

A split second before your body makes contact with the dusty ground some hundred feet below, his web manages to wrap around your torso; your head slumping back in whiplash.

Leehan drops next to you at once.

"Y/N?" he crouches down to rest you in his lap, moving your hair away from your face. "Hey, look at me. You're okay now."

Your lips don't move. Nothing happens.

Leehan rips off his mask to discard it somewhere. "Y/N… c'mon, it's over now—wake up."

His hair sags under the weight of rain, hands cradling your unmoving face reverently, too scared to press too hard lest you break.

It can't be over. It shouldn't be over so soon. You'd promised him all the time in the world, so why had you broke your end of it.

In a moment of haze, Leehan wonders if this was the universe's sick way of getting back at him for abandoning you before.

"We were supposed to last," he chokes on a sob into he crook of your neck, wishing more than anything for your fingers to come alive and brush through his strands. "You and I can make it through anything. Right Y/N?"

The fire around him dies down as though it understands not to disturb his grieving, too weak to survive in the face of the rain's wrath. It turns to ash and smoke, billowing out the cracks and into the starry sky.

"I love you." Tears roll down Leehan's face. He thinks of you when you were full of life…it feels like a lifetime ago now—your determined grin when you came up with a supposedly impossible idea, all the things you were supposed to do….the amazing inventions you were going to change the world with.

Woonhak's quiet sobs leak through your in-ears that have fallen out onto the ground, accompanied by Riwoo's gentle breathing.

At 1:21 AM on a pouring winter morning, Leehan's heart cleaves into two halves. And yours stop beating.

The world stills, and everything good refuses to exist for him. He burrows his head deeper into the crook of your neck, memorising what's left of your warmth, refusing to let go even when you aren't responding—

"Bug boy, why're you crying?"

Leehan thinks he's hallucinating again, that your voice is just an effect of his insanity, but the hands that come to brush back his hair feels too real to be a figment of imagination.

"Y-Y/N…?" Leehan finally lifts his head to look at you.

You're still breathing shallow, but your eyes have cracked open just a smidge, and an amused quirk of your lips lets him know that you aren't dead.

"Do you have some leftover Venom in your bag? I may need to regenerate some of my organs…" you quip lightly and Leehan crushes you into an all-consuming hug, his heart beating out of his chest, tears still spilling.

Riwoo whoops in the background, and Woonhak does a celebratory backflip, his excitement bleeding into Leehan's own.

"Told you I won't leave you that easily," you say as you wipe away at his wet cheeks, even going as far as dabbing it with your sleeve.

Leehan catches your wrist gently.

"I thought you almost broke your promise," he confesses, quiet, meant for just your ears.

Your eyes crinkle. "But those are the best kind."

The city stills, illusions vanishing away like they'd never been there in the first place, and Leehan presses a kiss to your palm.

On a rainy December night, you find your way back to each other again.

[EPILOGUE—5 years later]

SPRING

Being a to-be-wed is not a task for the weak.

7:00 AM

Your hair is coiled perfectly, coming down in ringlets to frame your face. There's soft blush on your cheeks, your lips painted a colour that brings out your features.

The suite is beautiful from where you stand, adorned in a long white dress, twirling in front of the mirror. Out the window, the sea sparkles a light blue under the morning sun. You carefully adjust the veil on your head, fastening your dangling earrings.

Everything is perfect, and you couldn't be happier.

7:00 AM

The groom's room is in chaotic disarray.

Woonhak is coughing on a mouthful of complimentary donuts that was supposed to be saved for the reception, getting crumbs all over his new tux, and Riwoo keeps opening and closing the velvet box anxiously—afraid he'd somehow mess up his only job as the ring bearer.

"Hyung, breathe," Woonhak manages to choke out. It's directed at a wildly pacing Leehan.

"What if Y/N says no…" he suddenly drops to a crouch, cradling his head in his hands, a genuinely worried expression crossing his face.

"Five years and you're still no better than you used to be…tsk, tsk." Woonhak shakes his head in disapproval.

But Riwoo is kind enough to come crouch next to Leehan, an empathetic hand at his back. "Leehan, you and I both know how entirely wrong you are. She loves you more than anyone else in the world. There is not a single universe where she'd say no."

"What if…" Leehan barely makes himself seen through the crook of his elbows. "What if she realises I'm not good enough for her?"

"Then who is?"

"Huh?"

Riwoo repeats once more, "Then who is good for her, if not you?"

Leehan comes short of an answer. There is no person that can match up to you—no one who he can imagine keeping up with you while you ran to your golden future. And yet, you'd chosen him.

It isn't long until the wedding planner knocks on the door to usher everyone out, interrupting Leehan's mini meltdown for good. He sucks in a deep breath, steadies himself, and follows the rest out.

7:40 AM

An 8 o'clock ceremony was as uncommon as they came, but you'd been stubborn about just this one thing (and several other demands, depending on if you asked Woonhak or not).

In all fairness, nothing about this whole ordeal was run-of-the-mill.

When Leehan had proposed to you, he'd done it at the beach, the sun setting behind the waves, your feet dipped in shallow water. He'd popped out a pebble to offer to you with the most shy grin you'd ever witnessed on his face, kneeling right into the wet sand and proceeding to get his jeans wet.

Needless to say, the ride home was an awkward one, most of his lower half splotched and soaking. But it hadn't mattered too much when the both of you wore matching grins and your hands held onto a pebble the shade of your eyes.

Woonhak had shrieked at the news, way too excited about the fact that Spider-Man was about to be a married man soon. Riwoo had pulled the both of you into a tight hug, sobbing into your shoulders like a mother about to let go of her children.

"Look at you two," he had been sobbing. "my babies—all grown up."

"Hyung, you sound so old right now," Leehan had quipped over his neck, exchanging an amused glance with you. You'd simply shrugged and let Riwoo hold you in the same position until his arms started to go numb.

Currently, you wait with bated breath, a bouquet of white tulips in hand as the door opens before you. It's a pleasant sort of sunny today—perfect weather for a wedding.

"Cue music, bride on standby," the wedding coordinator adjusts his microphone. "In three, two, one—and begin entrance!"

8:00 AM

Leehan holds his breath as you come into view, a trail of white over the long carpets laid on the sand. Woonhak walks some distance in front, tossing petals more enthusiastically than any one ever could (he'd volunteered himself as the flower girl when you'd brought up the idea for the sake of humour).

Beside him, Riwoo stands dutifully with the box safely placed inside his pockets, and Mr. Kim readies himself to proceed with the ceremony as the officiant. He'd pretended to not care when you had asked for his help, but after all, it was the biology project that he had assigned once upon a time that brought the two of you together—a partnership that had eventually evolved into something precious and lifelong.

"Dearly beloved," Mr. Kim begins once you reach the groom. "We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of two brilliant, beautiful people…."

8:00 AM

Leehan is so gorgeous, is your first thought.

His dark tux and dark hair makes him look ethereal with the cerulean sea as a backdrop, his slightly glistening eyes that you're sure is from holding back tears—everything about Leehan has you head over heels in love.

Woonhak sprinkles his flower petals onto the carpet and sand, Riwoo watches you both in adoration, your and Leehan's parents huddled together on the frontmost pew, sniffling and dabbing at their cheeks with a handkerchief.

"Dearly beloved," Mr. Kim begins once you reach your fiancé—soon to be husband. "We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of two brilliant, beautiful people…."

Soft music joins the sway of breeze, tides rising and crashing, everything warm—golden. All you see is Leehan when your hands fall safely into his.

"Do you, Kim Leehan, take L/N Y/N to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

Leehan does not look away from you. " I do," he whispers.

"And do you, L/N Y/N, take Kim Leehan to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

You smile. "I—"

BEEEEEEEEEEEP—!!!

Leehan’s watch has gone off, tucked under the cuff of his tux sleeve.

The crowd stares in confusion. Mr Kim pauses his officiating. You look at Leehan, he looks at you—a secret language that perplexes everyone else but Riwoo and Woonhak.

There's no pleasantries or apologies made when you grab his hand and make a run for it.

Your heels slip off as warm sand meets the soles of your feet, and you break out into an unrestrained fit of giggles when Leehan starts to discard his expensive tux somewhere on the ground, his Spidey suit peeking through the white shirt over it.

Somewhere behind you, Woonhak starts to make excuses on your behalf.

"The groom's got a terrible bladder," he placates the crowd. "And the bride has bad separation anxiety."

Riwoo thumps him aggressively on the back with a tight smile and a "Stop. Talking." muttered through gritted teeth.

Once you're a safe distance away from the wedding goers, Leehan abruptly turns to you with wide eyes.

"Wait, you didn't say I do yet," he realises.

The sheer sincerity with which he says it makes you reach up and steal a kiss from him.

"I do," you say before he responds. "Forever, bug boy."

He sighs with a smile. "Forever…"

But you're already pulling him along, off to the next mission. "Now let's go kick some butt!" you shout excitedly, making him giggle too.

Being Spider-Man is still the coolest job in the world. He loves all of it—the perks and the hard parts alike. It's sort of like a marriage, Leehan muses.

However, if it means he will get to sprint through the rest of his life with your hand in his, it's a risk he's willing to brave.

But Leehan has to admit—nothing beats being your husband.

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