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Apr 16

CANON EVENT ⟡ 박우주 (PART ONE)

암팡지다 ★ you’d spent the majority of your superhero career trying to avoid canon events. the dreaded, unchangeable moments that shaped every spider-person’s life. despite being told that there was nothing to be done about your fate, you took it into your own hands. you’d be the first spider to break the chain. then martin edwards park came along.

warnings ★ swearing, characters being dramatic, typical teenager stuff, HEAVY ANGST like i cried while writing some bits, canon typical spiderman violence, elements of psychological abuse and like… manipulation, sort of, themes of love and loss, minor character death, some narrative haunting, angst, cliffhanger, aaanndd reader has attachment issues and gets really mean.

genre ★ spiderwoman au, superhero au, slight 2000s au, strangers to friends, friends into lovers, romance, comedy, angst, action, spiderwoman!reader, mj!martin, bff!juhoon, martin x reader

word count ★ 29k of 40k

notes ★ ok so remember when i said a martin au where reader is spiderwoman and he’s your mj would be cool. yeah i wrote it. also enjoy the woojin (lngshot) cameos he’s my newest little guy. not proofread because i mean LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THIS THING!!

listen to… me when i’m spider-man

ALRIGHT, LET’S DO THIS one last time.

When you were sixteen, you were bitten by a radioactive spider, and for the last two and a half years, you’ve been your dimension’s one and only Spider-Woman. I’m pretty sure the audience knows the rest.

You saved the city, defeated a big bad, and did it all while having zero gymnastics experience and more anxiety than was fit for someone your size.

It was in your last year of high school that you fell in love for the second and final time in your life. The night before your eighteenth birthday, in fact, the promise of future love sealed with an upside-down kiss under neon city lights.

But, before we get to that, I guess I’ve got to set the scene leading up to that moment. You know, just so that we’re all on the same page.

2026년 2월 11일

11 FEBRUARY, 2026

서울 Seoul

The streets were packed with people as you expertly weaved through the crowds, dragging your very begrudging best friend behind you with a grunt of effort. Of course, he’d been the one to suggest that you go out shopping at this late hour, yet he’d been the first to complain once he’d seen how many people had had the same idea as him.

The days leading up to Valentine’s Day had been spent working, both on schoolwork and saving unknowing couples from vengeful villains who hated celebrations of romance and happiness for some reason, while Juhoon had passed the day reading nonfiction to, quote-unquote, “detox his brain from the romance-fuelled nightmare which was this upcoming holiday,” after which he nagged you to go shopping with him until you—spent, bloodied, and beaten—gave in. You raced through the streets, your legs carrying you to the department store closest to yours and Juhoon’s neighbourhood.

It was surprisingly busy for the hour, though, you didn’t know a time where Seoul wasn’t bursting with life. You finally stopped, setting your hands on your hips with finality as your fingers slipped out from Juhoon’s hold. “Right,” you said, out of breath. “What did you need to get here?”

He glanced up at the bright, fluorescent light casting a very unflattering shadow over the two of you, all gangly limbs and fitted jeans, worn shoes, annoying spots and rusted jewellery, seemingly in thought. “T-shirts,” he answered finally, nodding. “Lots and lots of T-shirts.”

“Alright, then. Lead the way.”

You ambled over to the clothing racks, stocked with everything from designer to second-hand to a brand you liked to call might as well have just come from absolutely nowhere. Juhoon took his time browsing, his left hand angling the shirts over his lean form while his right was used to balance all those he’d chosen for proper fitting, and maybe even buying.

When he’d circled the same rack for the fourth time, passing you his possible purchases to hold while he carefully carded through each and every top like he hadn’t seen them all five times before, you decided that you’d let him do his thing and occupy yourself with something else. Surely he’d come to find you if he’d grabbed something else he wanted to get.

You found yourself in a different section of the shop, still on the same floor as Juhoon, in the technology aisle. Everything from headphones to chargers to DVD players to the thing you’d been looking for the longest—cameras. Like with their clothing section, the department store had a lovely selection of brand new and secondhand devices alike, so you could take your time deciding whether you wanted to spend four months’ wages on a new camera, or just one.

You’d been searching for a particular sort of camera to add to your ever-growing collection. Well, you supposed not too particular; you didn’t have any models in mind, just vibes. You squinted at the racks, seeing everything you already had; small digital cameras for more candid pictures, camcorders for idle moments and memories, professional cameras for picture day, but not what you needed.

You turned, thinking to yourself where to look for something small, sturdy, grainy, that takes film, and can be used for the more romantic—

BANG!

In a rather comical moment, you were sent flying as you crashed into someone, landing smack on your bum. Your palms ached as they took the brunt of your fall, your wrists clicking in a way that definitely wasn’t normal. You brought a hand up to your face with a pained groan, before realising the familiar frame of your tortoiseshell glasses was missing. With a lurch, the small crack! you’d heard as you fell replayed in your mind, and you cautiously looked up to face whoever you’d bumped into.

You wondered how the hell your spidey senses hadn’t given you so much as a slight sting because of the sheer size of the guy you’d somehow completely missed when turning around.

The first you saw of him were his shoes—large, spotless Converses swimming in baggy denim. He was big, and tall, it seemed, long legs like a highway that took you over the plains of his lean body, and eventually, with a shiver from your side, a very pretty, very confused face. Shaggy blonde hair went this way and that as he shook his head in recovery, dark brown eyes adjusting to the abrupt change of setting.

His glance soon found yours, and his eyes widened in realisation as he seemed to process what had happened. Before you had another moment to appreciate the view, he got up, hands already reaching for you as apologies spilled from his pillowy lips. “Oh, my God, I am so sorry. I didn’t even see you there, and— That probably sounds bad, doesn’t it? I’m not saying you’re short, or anything, it’s just…” He paused, the pads of his fingers resting on your wrist as he pulled you up with less effort than was appropriate for your palpitating heart. “Wait, do you even understand English? ‘Cause I’m speaking English. Ah, crap. Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to bump into y—”

“It’s fine,” you interjected, yanking your arm out of his grip as if he’d shocked you. Which, mentally, perhaps not physically, he had. “I’m fine. I understand English. And Korean. And, yeah, I’m short. I get it. But I’m the one who bumped into you. I wasn’t looking where I was going, and—”

He reached for your hand again, imploring, “No, seriously, it’s not your f—”

You began, “I didn’t mean to hurt y—”

And so on it went for the next fifteen seconds. Eventually, you stopped yourself, looking down at the awfully interesting and blurry floor, before glancing back up at the ridiculously handsome stranger whose camera you’d broken.

Wait. Your eyes widened, finally noticing the camera hanging loose around his neck, and most importantly, the broken lense staring at you like a foul gesture. “Oh, shit. Oh, crap. I’m so sorry. Your camera— I— Ohhh, I am so, so sorry.”

He glanced down, hands subconsciously cupping the expensive gadget. “Oh, this? Don’t worry about it.” He waved a dismissive hand, like, Don’t sweat it. “It’s ancient, and the lens was screwed up anyway. That’s the whole reason I’m here, actually.”

“Oh.”

You seemed to be saying that a lot these days.

He smiled, and you thought your knees might buckle beneath you. “Yeah. Oh.” Then he laughed, and the sound was like the gates of heaven opening and ushering you in with soft, steady hands on your back. “Anyway, do I… know you? You look kind of familiar.” Oh, shit. Oh, shit, oh— “Do you go to Siryeok Academy?”

You nodded dumbly. Why the hell were you even afraid that he may have known? “Uh, yeah.”

If it could, his smile widened. “Hey, me too! You’re Class 3A, right?” He said your name, experimentally, as if testing out the vowels, and again received a dumb nod from you. He held out his hand for you to shake. “I’m Martin. Class 3B. Nice to meet you.”

You glanced down at his hand—sharp, lean, sparkling with silver rings. His wrist was encircled by several bracelets. You took it into your own, your rings clashing against his as you shook hands. Martin. The name sounded familiar, and you found yourself repeating it after he’d introduced himself. Martin. You were sure you’d heard it somewhere before. Did he play sports, maybe?

Mmm… no. As attractive as he was, it was clear he wasn’t fit sports-wise. He was too lanky to be a swimmer or a soccer player, too skinny to play volleyball or basketball, and those were Siryeok’s most famous sports programs. For some reason, he looked like he’d be pretty bad at table tennis, too, so you ruled that out as well. Maybe he was in some sort of club?

“You’re part of the school’s newspaper, right?” you guessed, and as soon as you said the words you realised you’d read his name somewhere before. Martin Edwards Park. 박우주. Park Woojoo, lead photographer of the school newspaper, photographer of Siryeok Academy’s yearbook since 2024.

His eyes seemed to light up—or maybe you were just hallucinating; where were your glasses?—and he nodded. “Yeah, yeah. The— I’m the leader, actually. Of… it. The photography. The photography department at the newspaper.”

An awkward silence settled over you, wherein it became increasingly obvious to you that you’d dropped all of Juhoon’s promise purchases, and still hadn’t located your glasses.

You heard shuffling, and looking up, you saw Martin crouching amidst the chaos, picking up a brown frame that looked laughably small in his hands. “Oh, crap. I totally forgot about your… glasses.” He raised them in front of his face, revealing the cracked rim and lens. “Shit. Sorry.”

You snatched them from his hands, startling him. “It’s fine,” you said quickly, dropping to your knees to collect the fallen shirts. “It’s… I needed to get a new pair, anyway.” That was a lie. You’d only bought this pair a few months ago.

He promptly followed suit, helping you pick them up without question. “Still, I’m sorry. They’re totally wrecked now. If I’d just looked where I was going—”

“Martin,” you interrupted, cutting him off to both of your surprises. “It’s fine. They’re just glasses. Besides, I already wasn’t looking where I was going. Neither of us stood a chance.”

He chuckled softly, the sound light and heavenly and pretty much enough to make you cry. “When you say it like that, then… yeah. I feel a little less like an ass.”

“Good,” you said, standing up, hands full once more. You gave him the best smile you could while your brain was wailing about just how damn pretty he was and how you’d probably never find beauty like that again in your life and— “That was my intention.”

He tilted his head, wondering aloud, “So, now that I’ve officially met you, do I get to say, ‘See you at school’?”

What an odd question to ask. He could say anything to you and you’d be eternally grateful he even wasted his breath on you. Then again, you couldn’t exactly tell him that without scaring him off, either, so all you said was, “Sure. I’ll see you at school, Martin.”

He grinned. “See ya. Hope you find the camera you were looking for.”

“Wh—?”

But he was already gone, disappearing among the many shoppers in the store, leaving you alone, in the middle of the tech aisle, still carrying all your friend’s shirts that he was hopefully going to buy. If not, you’d have come all for nothing.

…Okay, maybe not for nothing. But still, meeting the most beautiful man on the planet was not good enough to justify you being dragged out after such a tiring day.

You found Juhoon right where you left him, perhaps positioned a centimetre or two to the right, in front of a different rack than the previous one. He seemed to take as much notice of your arrival as he had of your departure, which was to say, none at all. Until,

“Where did you run off to?” he asked, tilting his head towards you in subtle question. “Someone need saving?”

“No,” you said. “I was just looking around the tech aisle.”

He hummed. “Still looking for that film camera, huh?”

“Yup.”

“And where are your glasses?”

You froze. He wasn’t even looking at you! How did he know you weren’t wearing them anymore?

“Oh. I, uh… funny story, actually. I bumped into someone, and my glasses broke,” you explained, with no stiffness or bubble in your throat whatsoever.

His expression remained unchanged. “Must’ve been quite the fall, huh? Didn’t your spidey senses tingle or something?”

You grimaced. “Please don’t say ‘tingle’. It’s gross. And why does it sound like you’re interrogating me?”

Finally, he turned to face you with that same calm manner, something simmering beneath the surface. “Because you’re being all awkward, and I can practically feel the heat radiating off you, which means you saw someone who made you flustered, which means you ran into a cute guy, which means I need to know everything there is to know about him before he breaks your heart into a million little pieces the same way he broke your glasses.”

A small, tense silence ensued, and you gave Juhoon possibly the most shocked stare you could manage since that time you accidentally made Tuseokgi explode in the middle of a Seoul subway station.

“O…kay.” You shifted your weight from foot to foot, explaining, “His name’s Martin. He goes to Siryeok. He was looking for a new camera because his old one was broken or something, and he’s the lead photographer of—”

“The school paper,” Juhoon finished for you, nodding like he knew who you were talking about. “I’ve met him a few times before.” He paused, before adding, “He’s alright. Kind of weird. Really bad at table tennis.”

You frowned. “Weird?”

He shrugged. “Kind of lanky, kind of awkward. But he’s chill, I guess.”

“Oh. Well. Thanks for that, then?”

“Pleasure. Now, where did I put my wallet?”

As is to be expected, it’s difficult being a vigilante and a high school student at the same time. Trying to balance both lifestyles, not to neglect either side of your life, was a feat you hadn’t yet mastered. Most days you showed up to school on time, but every now and then, there was a day where your nemeses decided to make your life just that little bit more difficult by robbing a bank, or pickpocketing an old lady, or trying to wipe out your entire family with no remorse to be found in their broken bodies. You know, small things that you wished you could leave, but that would put you in a really awkward position if anyone were to find out there had been a superhero in the city who didn’t bother to save them from getting mugged one morning.

And sometimes, it wasn’t just in the mornings. Sometimes, it was while you were trying to go through your school day as usual, trying not to focus on the fact that Gapchung told you he’d rip off your head and eat it the previous night, or that this weird spotty creature kept phasing in and out of existence and was floating just outside your classroom. Today was one of those days.

“Man, I really can’t do this today,” you complained, dodging a kick as the masked figure who’d been tailing you since you left your flat attempted to retaliate. “I just ironed my uniform this morning. And I’ve got a Calculus test! Does that mean nothing to you people?!”

You weren’t sure where this person had found you, or why they’d decided to make you their target. They didn’t look like a supervillain—they didn’t even really look like a normal, low-budget villain, to be honest. Just some kid in a kabuki mask throwing badly-timed kicks your way for whatever reason. Why would they be trying to rob you?

They said nothing, swung, and you ducked. “I mean, couldn’t you have tried to rob someone who looked a little bit richer? Someone who has bodyguards to knock you out, maybe?”

The fight didn’t last too long, mostly because this person clearly had no idea what they were doing. They were fighting with reckless abandon, as if they were more trying to prove something than to do any real damage to you. You saw them off with a final, well-placed hit that sent them crashing to the ground, crumpling in a heap in the middle of a dark alleyway.

You stepped back for a moment, trying to catch your breath, because for whatever reason, the spider that gave you your powers forgot the part where you were supposed to have gotten incredible stamina. Maybe that was payback for costing it its life, or something. You didn’t pay the mysterious figure any mind past assessing their form—lean, a bit short, smaller than most villains. There were no distinguishing marks or features on their body, partly because they were dressed head to toe in black, their face shrouded by a white and red mask. A fox, you noted. Mm. Odd.

Before you could stare for a moment longer, your phone pinged in your skirt pocket. You slid it out of the soft material, its screen lighting up to show several messages from Juhoon.

주 dude, where are you?? classes start in 15 minutes… did someone get robbed

are u fighting a big bad

But that wasn’t what caught your attention. The timestamp on the messages… 7.45… Cripes! Your eyes widened, and with a last glance the stranger’s way, you raced out of the alleyway and into the busy street, running as fast as you could through the early morning crowds. Pushing down the festering feeling that something was amiss, something wasn’t right.

Juhoon was waiting for you at the school gates, leaning against the large, ornate black iron, staring at his phone as if anticipating something. That something probably being a text back from you, because you rarely, if ever, left him on read. His head lifted only when you were a few metres from him, eyes squinting against the pale sunlight and not betraying anything besides slight annoyance.

“Finally,” he sighed. “Where were you?”

“Sorry,” you breathed, putting your hands on your knees. “Someone jumped me in an alleyway, New Jersey style.”

He frowned. “Familiar?”

You shook your head. “No. New.”

A hum, and you both turned to walk side by side up the steps leading into the school building, voices hushed and hauntingly casual as you spoke. “Any powers?”

“Not that they showed,” you answered. “They were pretty small, too.”

“So, your newest villain is a teenager?”

“Looks like. One with really bad karate moves.”

That got an amused snort out of him. “Like you would know.”

“Hey! Even if I never did a day’s exercise in my life before becoming a superhero, I know a good roundhouse kick when I see one.”

“Right.”

You parted with a mocking Right his way as the start of your day was signalled by the sound of the electric clock ringing through the halls, you making your way to your homeroom, Juhoon making his way to his.

The rest of your day looked as if it would pass by without a hitch. You attended classes, wrote your Calculus test (which you didn’t do too badly on, you thought) and enjoyed a villain-free lunch. You and Juhoon sat across from one another in agreeable silence, only exchanging a few words in the fifteen minutes you were given to rest between classes.

“You know,” Juhoon started, chewing thoughtfully on a strip of pork, “I was thinking of signing up for the school newspaper.”

You glanced up at him from your own lunch—jajangmyeon, kimchi fried rice, and several very unhealthy sweets, all packed affectionately by your stepmother, Mirae—your eyes clear in their question. You hadn’t gotten new glasses since the incident, and were now staring at the rather adorable blur which was your best friend, eyes squinted both in question and blindness. “Since when did journalism interest you?”

“Since never,” he answered swiftly. “But I need something to do to have an excuse to skip hagwon, and I’m not interested in any of the other clubs.” He nodded to you. “You wanna do it with me?”

You shifted in your seat. Something—not spider-like intuition, no, simply an apt understanding of your friend’s sly thinking process—told you that this was going exactly where you thought it would. “If this is about Martin—”

“Of course it’s about Martin,” he interrupted. “You like him, don’t you?”

“Juhoon, I’ve met him once.”

“Then let me correct myself. You like the look of him, don’t you?”

“Maybe a bit.”

“So, wouldn’t us joining the school paper be a good excuse to see more of him?” He tilted his head, feigning consideration. “Maybe even get to know him better?”

You sighed. “Hoon…”

He gave you a look. A rare glimpse of his face free of the pretences he kept up to maintain a nonchalant façade, his eyes softening, pouty lips twisting sympathetically. “You need to get out there again. Not… not just dating—though if that’s what you wanna do, I won’t protest.” He raised his hands in a placating gesture, before adding, “You need to learn to get close to someone again.”

You pouted, trying to lighten the mood. “I’m already close to you, aren’t I?”

It didn’t work. Juhoon didn’t budge, not for one second. “You know what I mean. It’s been a year since Gyu—”

“I know.”

You knew. You wished you didn’t. You wished that horrid day wasn’t still fresh in your mind, burnt into your heart as if it had only happened the previous day. You wished you didn’t feel his absence every waking moment. You wished you hadn’t pushed him away, convinced yourself that it wasn’t that serious, that you didn’t need to rush to his side immediately. And most importantly, you wished it never happened.

“…Then you’ll know that you need to start opening up your heart again. You can’t be with me all the time.”

“What, you don’t like having me around?”

He sighed softly. “That’s not what I said. You need to separate yourself from me sometime. All the things you’ve been doing repeatedly since it happened. Old habits. Old friends. They’ve got to be left behind eventually. You need to live your own life. And most importantly, you need to learn to open up again.”

A long silence passed before you could will yourself to say anything. Your eyes burned with tears wanting to fall; your throat closed with emotion. Before anyone could see, you harshly wiped at your eyes and tried for a smile. All he was doing was looking out for you. You, his best friend, who he’d known since middle school. You, his best friend, who he found out lived a double life. You, his best friend, who was one of a kind in abilities and curses. You, his best friend, who deserved more than a half-assed last year of high school spent trying to balance your studies and hero work.

You relented with a sigh, tinged at the edges with feigned annoyance. “Alright, fine. I’ll join the newspaper with you. Let’s just hope they actually want us.”

Juhoon smiled. Soft, hopeful. “Great. Now…” His soft grin turned into something slow, sinister. “If I remember correctly, you know someone who could help get us in.”

Tracking Martin down proved to be an oddly difficult task; surprising given his size and the fact that he couldn’t exactly blend in anywhere. During the day, you’d tried any possible area; the school’s basketball court, his classroom—even the newsroom had been deserted when you peeked your head in, only the faint hum of an electric fan recycling hot air occupying the room.

After your classes ended, and no villains made any attempts on your life between 15.00 and 16.00, you headed to the basketball court where Juhoon spent most of his afternoons. It was only a few blocks from Siryeok Academy, a hop, skip, and a jump if you hurried, though this particular afternoon, you took your time.

You knew you’d be spending the rest of the afternoon there, watching Juhoon idly practice his shoots and dribbles while you tried to do your homework. You wouldn’t actually finish it, of course, instead joining him in an impromptu game and cramming between midnight and the next morning before school to finish all your assignments.

Because you had decided to take your time for the first time in… a while, you supposed, you got to see a lot more sights that you didn’t usually have the opportunity to see on other afternoons, where you were more eager to escape from the prison which was your specialised high school. The twitter of birds floated through the air, as if aided by the cool breeze, and you bundled your parka tighter around your form as a plume of breath escaped your lips. The tip of your nose felt as if it would fall off. It was in that moment that you wished you’d been bitten by a radioactive space heater that gave you the power to control your own body temperature. Alas, all you’d gotten was a manky spider that made you shoot webs from your wrists and stick to walls.

The sun still hung high in the sky by the time you passed the park on the way to the basketball court, pale and cold in the freezing early evening air. You walked past the garden, vast and covered mostly in shimmering snowflakes, before your feet ground to an abrupt halt. The hairs on the back of your neck stood; your fingertips tingled with electricity. Something was wrong, and not just the fact that you’d used the word ‘tingle’.

You whipped around, turning with a dangerous look. Or, as dangerous as you could manage while freezing your ass off. Predictably, there was nothing. No one. Not a single soul to catch you off guard. Releasing a small, disappointed sigh, you turned, and made your way further down the street…

Only to feel that same tingle a few metres on. Again, you looked back. What was it that was bothering you so much?

“You alright there?”

“Christ!”

You turned with a start to the boy in front of you, nearly crashing straight into his chest. Your ring and index finger closed over your palm before you shook your hands out at the sight of him, smoothly acting as if you weren’t about to shoot Martin with webs stickier than superglue. He stood a few paces before you, hands clasped around a brand new camera, smiling as if nothing was wrong.

“I— J…eez. I didn’t see you there,” you breathed.

He laughed softly. “You got pretty bad eyesight then, huh?” Then, as if processing his inappropriate joke, his smile dropped. “Sorry. That was messed up.”

“It’s fine,” you said. “I ran into you twice in two days. I think you get a pass to call me blind.”

That got another laugh out of him. He seemed to do that so easily. “Truth, truth. But, uh, what are you doing here at this hour?”

You frowned. “It’s not even five.”

“Right. It’s not.” He smiled sheepishly. “Guess I lost track of time. I’ve been out here taking pictures since school came out, so it feels like I’ve been walking around forever.”

You wondered what exactly he’d need to be photographing this time of year. Your school had no big upcoming events—no events at all, really—and picture day had already passed. Maybe he was working on a new article?

“That actually reminds me,” you started, and he nodded, as if silently telling you he was listening, “I, uh, I’ve been looking for you.”

His brow wrinkled in surprise.

“I mean— not for anything weird,” you said quickly. “I’ve just been thinking, these days, about maybe joining the school paper…? One of my friends would also like to join. We’d like to join. Together. Obviously.” You cleared your throat, wishing the ground would swallow you whole. “Would you have any idea where we could go to join? Somewhere to sign up, maybe?”

Something unfamiliar flickered in his eyes, warm and exciting—excited. “Uh, yeah, actually, I do. I could just introduce you guys at the next meeting, and we can take things from there. The team has a meeting once a week, and you guys can just jump in whenever. We’ll probably talk specifics after that. Does your friend, uh…?”

“Juhoon.”

“Juhoon. Oh! I know him. He’s in Class 3C, right? Undefeated Rank 1 in English?”

“The one and only.”

“Cool. Like I said, I know him— or, I guess, I know of him. My friend Woojin sits behind him. He plays basketball, right?”

You lifted a shoulder. “As best as he can.”

Another soft laugh, like water bubbling over in a stream. God, you were hopeless. “Does he know anything about photography? Journalism, maybe? We need someone to write our weekly update pages.”

“He knows everything I taught him,” you said. “Which, to be honest, isn’t much. I’m pretty sure he’ll be able to do the update pages. He’s just been looking for something to pass the time with.”

“Well, then he’s come to the right place,” Martin joked. “The paper takes up a lot of your free time.”

“Great for him, then,” you smiled.

“And you? You do, uh… photography?”

With a faint nod, you said, “I try. I’ve done some work for friends before, but nothing, um, professional, so if that’s what you guys are expecting—”

“No, no, not at all,” he assured. “The only pictures we take that aren’t for articles are the school pictures, and I do that by myself most times. Nah, as long as you know how to work a camera and take a couple of pictures that aren’t completely blurry, you’ll be fine.”

Silence seemed to come naturally between you and Martin once all was said and done. You found you didn’t mind it as much as you thought.

You tilted your head. “So, I’ll see you at the next school paper meeting?”

He nodded. “Yeah. It’s Friday at six.”

“Noted. Thanks.”

You’d always been an observant person, even before being bitten. You were told it was a Spider thing; the multiverse seemed to like you all observant. Socially savvy. Some, of course, were less so than others, but you could be counted amongst the lucky few who were. Yet, when Martin looked at you, held his gaze fixed on your form for longer than was necessary for someone who’d only met you the day before, your mind was elsewhere. Definitely not on him; not his eyes, at least. The rest of him, certainly.

He cleared his throat, fiddling with the delicate silver chain around his neck. “See you Friday?”

You smiled. “See you Friday.”

Juhoon was waiting by the time you reached the basketball court, ball tucked under his arm as he watched you walk in, eyes crinkled in a sly smile, as if he knew exactly what had happened before you arrived.

You groaned softly, rubbing at your forehead in irritation. “What’s with the creepy ass smile?”

He shrugged his shoulders, feigning a look of innocence. It didn’t sell; he was feeling far too smug. “I dunno. You tell me.”

You narrowed your eyes. “You’re insufferable.”

“Tell me about it,” he sighed, before quickly moving on to the next order of business. “So, are we part of the school paper?”

Your eyes travelled heavenwards, considering. “We’re as good as, I’d say. We just have a meeting to attend on Friday.”

“Friday?” he asked.

“Friday,” you confirmed. “At six.”

He sighed, slipping the ball out from under his arm and bouncing it on the hard surface of the court. “Oh, goodie. Staying late after school because a couple of kids take themselves too seriously!”

“Hey,” you said, approaching the stands, “we’re about to become a couple of kids who take themselves too seriously.”

“And I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said with a tight smile.

You watched as he attempted to throw a few hoops, your chin resting in your palm. “You could’ve just gotten a part-time job, you know.”

He scoffed. “And had this face wasted on a nine to five? No thank you. ‘Journalist’ sounds astronomically better than ‘barista’.”

When Friday eventually rolled around, and the schoolday had passed, you and Juhoon made your way to the newsroom. It was located next to the teacher’s lounge, somewhere in the recesses of the school where no one but the kids from the school paper and A&V club dared to go. The two of you shared a look when you stopped outside the door labelled Newsroom, brows set in determination.

You started, “Okay—”

“Play it cool,” Juhoon finished for you. “Don’t—”

“Say anything stupid, or—”

“Say anything too smart. Just—”

“Be yourself,” you said harmoniously. Then, frowning, Juhoon added, “Maybe not too much. Otherwise we’ll end up scaring people away.”

You pouted. “I thought you said I should open up more.”

“Yeah, to Martin. Not to random geeks who care about what happens in this school.” Not even having to glance your way to see your mouth opening to retaliate, he raised a single, slender finger and said, “Nothing you say will convince me that we will be one with the random geeks after this. It simply won’t. I’m too cool and your jeans are too baggy.”

Your eyes lit up. “Is that a short form of saying I’m also cool?”

“It’s a short form of saying you like wearing clothes that make you look like you’re three apples tall.”

A huff escaped your mouth, and before you allowed yourself to get any angrier at your best friend, you muttered, “Just open the damn door.”

He smiled. “My pleasure.”

The newsroom was small, big enough only to fit a handful of large desks where the students in charge presumably worked. A large whiteboard stood in the middle of the room, scribbled with half-formed ideas and sketches that didn’t make it to the end. The air smelled of freshly brewed—but undeniably cheap—coffee and muffins, the sweet, cloying kind you find at breakfast cafés that stick to your fingers. An idle chatter had been floating through the room until you entered, eight sets of eyes settling on your forms like hawks zeroing in on their prey.

Yeesh. Someone in showbiz really had to rebrand the newspaper nerd trope, because these kids were scary. As in, Doc Ock trying to kill you was easier to handle than this; them just staring at you as if you’d sprouted from the ground like an invasive pest. That scary.

You recognised only a few of the faces you were met with. None noteworthy enough to name, except for the smiling face you were met with when you turned your attention to the whiteboard.

“You made it!” Martin said, and he seemed more excited to have you there than you actually were to be there. He gestured for you to come in, relaying to the others, “Guys, these are the students I told you about, the ones who want to join the newspaper.”

That brief introduction seemed to sell you enough to the others that they graced you with slight smiles now. One by one, they introduced themselves by name, waving as you tried desperately to remember all of them. Unfortunately, you wouldn’t be able to name them off the top of your head until a few months later, but, you know, you had other talents. Your English teacher, Mrs Lee, was also present, and she greeted you with a kind smile and a polite nod.

Martin invited you and Juhoon to sit down, and you took seats beside each other on a small sofa, with roughly enough size that the two of you could fit snugly on it. It was worn, crimson cushion soft and a little bit flat; it had probably been brought from the teachers’ lounge once they tired of it. You didn’t mind how it felt, though Juhoon seemed to have some trouble adjusting to the worn headrest digging into his shoulders.

“You guys came at the perfect time,” Martin said once you were settled. “We were actually discussing what we wanted to roll out next week, and we were looking for some ideas.”

Mm. After the weekend, you’d only be going to school for two days on account of Seollal, the three-day lunar new year celebration, yet he was determined to make the most of those two days.

You raised your hand hesitantly, to which he acknowledged you with a smile, an expectant nod. You didn’t need your spidey senses to tell you everyone’s eyes shifted to you then. “Well, uh… since it’s Seollal, there’ll be plenty of celebrations from today till the eighteenth. I heard there’s festivals at the palaces and some of the art and history museums. Maybe we could all attend one, and write about the experience? I mean… you know, entry is free, and everything. All it’ll cost us is participation.”

Martin tilted his head, as if in thought, when in reality he’d made up his mind the moment you raised your hand. “That sounds like a great idea, actually. We’ll split up into groups of two, maybe three, and attend the festivals for the day. A sort of Seollal in Seoul article that covers all the ways it’s celebrated.”

“How will we know which ones to go to?” one of the students, a girl named Noeul, piped up sceptically. “Which ones aren’t going to be kitschy tourist traps… you know, basic things like that we need to know.”

Martin turned to you, eyes expectant. His expression seemed to say, gently, with a faint smile etched into his words, Well, genius?

“We can look it up sometime,” you said. “You know… what the major festivals are.”

From the sidelines, Noeul scoffed.

Juhoon’s brow creased in a frown, and he raised a brow at you, like, Did she just—?

Martin’s gaze, however, remained gentle, understanding. You had an idea, a pretty good one at that, and that was all that mattered right now. It was one more idea than he’d been given when they started this meeting before you and Juhoon showed up, almost an hour ago. You could easily figure out specifics before the eighteenth.

“That sounds like a good plan to me,” he smiled, nodding his head in approval. “We can each do some reading separately this afternoon, and talk over the phone later about locations and teams.” He glanced around the room, as if waiting for someone to object, or suggest a better idea. They didn’t.

There was something about the way Martin stood, the way he carried himself, that would’ve convinced you he was in charge even if he hadn’t already told you. His posture was relaxed, if a bit firm, yet he commanded the room with nothing more than a sweep of his eyes over the group. His face was slack, stony, almost, as he waited for words that would never come. And just as quickly, that stoic front fell away, and he was the awkward, lanky kid you’d first bumped into, all toothy smiles and badly-timed quips.

He clasped his hands together. “Well, then, that… pretty much concludes everything, I guess. We can talk throughout the week about what we’ll be doing next week.” He turned to start rubbing things off the whiteboard, continuing, “I heard there’s a soccer game Wednesday, so we need someone there to cover everything. But that’s two weeks from now, so we’ll worry about it then.”

He waved his hand dismissively, and everyone moved out of their seats to start packing their things. Mrs Lee smiled at him, and they shared a polite bow. “Good work today, Woojoo.” She turned to you then, anticipation dancing in her eyes. “I’m very excited to see how your idea turns out. I’m confident it’ll do very well.”

You found yourself grinning back, looking just a little bit like a tryhard. Juhoon noticed, snickering softly.

Your smile disappeared just as quickly as it had come, and you shot a dirty look his way. He sighed softly, unfazed, while the rest of the team left one by one. The two of you floated towards the coffee table as if subconsciously—two, three hours since your last meal had that effect on you. “Well, so much for our first meeting. It was ten minutes long and I barely said a word.”

You chuckled, handing him a sticky muffin and taking one for yourself. He accepted it with soft thanks.

“Don’t worry about it,” Martin said, and you turned to see him approaching the two of you, the room now completely empty. “We were busy for an hour before you guys came, and we weren’t getting anywhere.”

“Oh, really?” Juhoon asked, mouth half full. He swallowed a bit, then, “Sorry. But you guys really didn’t progress before we got here?”

Martin pursed his lips. “Nope. The paper’s not exactly a factory of creativity these days.”

You snorted. “Was it ever?” Then, upon realising what the hell you’d just said in front of the lead photographer of the school newspaper, “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. That was messed up. The paper has always been a masterpiece.”

He laughed, whether at your backtrack or your horrified expression, you didn’t know. “Nah, you’re fine. We haven’t been doing too good these past few months. Mostly because, like, seventy percent of our team is just kids who are looking to pass the time instead of committing to other electives.”

You and Juhoon shared a wide-eyed glance. Martin noticed.

“Don’t worry. She told me about why you wanted to join,” he assured Juhoon. “The difference between you two and them is that you actually have talent. I’ve seen some of your work,” he said, the sentiment directed at you.

Your eyes grew impossibly wider. “Wh—? Me? My work? My… work? How did you—?” You screwed your eyes shut in confusion. “What work?”

“You know, on your socials.” He lifted a shoulder. “Your Cyworld is kind of like a goldmine.”

Your Cyworld. How did he even find that? It was a tiny page with less than twenty friends that you barely used!

Okay, that was a lie. Because your page was virtually deserted, you liked using it to yell into the void sometimes. You’d posted an entry just that morning on your way to school—a picture of you and Juhoon, mid-conversation as you made your way to the bus stop. Martin had probably seen it, if he’d been stalking your homepage.

To your horror, Juhoon cracked a smile—a smile that could only mean he agreed and planned on giving his five cents. His very unwanted five cents. “Right? She takes some of the best photos.” He bumped his shoulder with yours, adding, “One of the reasons I wanted her to join with me is so that her creativity isn’t wasted on her minihompy.”

“You didn’t tell me that before,” you said through gritted teeth, leaning in so that only he could hear you.

“Because you wouldn’t have listened to me for shit,” Juhoon replied in the same tone.

Martin watched the exchange with amusement, shaking his head with a smile. “Well, all I’m sayin’ is, I’m grateful you two joined. I’ll add you guys to the group chat on Kakaotalk. You use that, right?” Chances were, you did, but some people still preferred old-fashioned SMS—or, in Mrs Lee’s case, emails.

“Uh, yeah, we do,” you nodded. You both gave him your numbers, and your email addresses—just to be safe, who knew, maybe he was old-fashioned like that. You weren’t one to judge… much.

That night, after you finished the little homework you’d been given before Seollal, you hopped onto your computer to do your nightly Cyworld scroll. Say what you want about screentime before bed, but it was important that you were updated on the happenings of your friends’ lives. Your feed was mostly just them, your friends going about their days, slyly documenting their classes or shifts at work.

Then, in that little hot-pink-highlighted box titled Activity, you saw it.

teenboi 우주 sent a friend request!

You found out that Martin was obsessed with you the day before Seollal.

You’d been discussing back and forth how your following three days off would go—you found out where the different festivals would be held, who would go where, what the objective was and what you wanted the articles to be about. What began as short, professional exchanges in the groupchat became late night conversations about personal things, outings in the name of ‘research’.

It was on one of these particular outings in the days leading up to Seollal where you discovered his secret. Or, perhaps, project. You’d been walking through the streets, the sun hanging low in the sky, city bustling with people, when he pulled up his camera from where it hung, as always, around his slender neck, gazing keenly through the lens at the walls of nearby buildings and faraway highrises.

You frowned, halfway into a bite of tteokbeokki while he attempted to capture something in the near dead of night. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m trying to catch Spider-Woman.”

Freeze! screamed something inside you. Maybe spidey-sense. Maybe that “oh, shit, this is going to come back to bite me in the ass” intuition that comes with having a crush who is too close to your personal situation for comfort. So you did. You froze, in the middle of the street, trainers scuffing against the tarmac as you skidded to an abrupt halt, staring up at Martin as if he’d just spoken another language.

He noticed, sighing, embarrassment clear in the way his cheeks turned pink. “Listen, I know it sounds crazy. I mean, catching a superhero? Seoul’s only superhero? It sounds insane. Impossible, even. But there’s… there’s just something that makes me think I can do it. Like, I know she frequents this neighbourhood—” He gestured to the surrounding area, your neighbourhood, Mia-dong, Gangbuk-gu— “and that she’s usually out at this time. I just think that maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to catch a glimpse of her one day.”

You’d heard many villain monologues over the past year and a half. Long, unending soliloquies that revolved mostly around the villains themselves and why they wanted you dead. How they’d been watching you, tracking your every move, and how your identity would eventually be revealed after your untimely death.

This wasn’t like that. Martin spoke with determination, yes, but the drive and passion of someone who cared. He continued, “I’m not even trying to find out who’s behind the mask. I just want to talk to her. To ask her… what it’s like, doing what she does, every day. How she does it. What keeps her going. I mean, is she like us? Is she a normal teenager? Does she have a family? Does she not? Is that the reason why she protects other people, because she couldn’t protect the people she loved?”

Bingo. “You seem to care a lot more about the girl than the mask.”

He lifted a shoulder. “It’s… it’s nothing, I guess. It would make a good story for me. I just— I dunno. I don’t wanna do an exposé and ruin her life. I just want to maybe… get coffee with her, or somethin’. You know. Talk.”

“Yeah,” you said softly, throat burning. “I do.”

“About… real things. And maybe how she exploded a villain with her mind.”

You snickered, though were sure it only looked like an unknowing gesture in his eyes. Not exactly what happened, but close enough, you supposed. You didn’t have the power to explode someone with your mind, but he could find that out when he had coffee with Spider-Woman one day.

He looked at you from the corner of his eyes, how you were smiling, laughing at him. Pretty. So, so pretty. “You think it’s stupid, don’t you?”

“What? No, of course I don’t,” you assured him. “I like that you care about her motivations and not just her identity. The Daily Bugle could learn from you.”

He snorted. “Yeah, I guess.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Whatever. Let’s get back to work, yeah? Don’t want you thinking I’m some sort of Spider-Woman fanatic.”

You bumped your shoulder with his, smiling. Or, tried to, only to end up bumping closer to his elbow due to his rather gargantuan size. “Oh, I’m sure she’d be flattered if she knew.”

2026년 2월 17~18일

17–18 FEBRUARY, 2026

서울 Seoul

TUESDAY

You had two problems.

One: the kabuki kid was back.

Two: she came back while you were at a festival. With Martin, Juhoon, Noeul, and another student that was part of the paper.

The five of you had gathered at Unhyeongung Palace for the second out of four festivals that only ran from the sixteenth. Similarly, the next two, which would be tackled by you and Martin on one, and Seonghyeon and Keonho, a pair of eleventh-graders, on another, would only be held on the day of Seollal.

The Happy Seollal Festival featured a variety of activities and entertainment such as archery, yutnori (a traditional Korean game that involved sticks and perplexed the life out of you), traditional crafts, gugak performances, and rice cake sharing. You’d just finished up a round of traditional crafts and were walking around the festival with badly made lanterns and jewellery, when Juhoon excused himself under the guise that he wanted to check out one of the food stalls nearby. Truth was, and you knew this, he wanted to get you and Martin alone for whatever reason. He didn’t know yet that your insane charisma and pull made the mere need for smalltalk obsolete, and honestly, neither did you.

And Martin, maybe, who was too busy snapping pictures of the stalls and adorable families to notice you batting your eyelashes at him. Infuriatingly, that just made him more attractive. A man who could focus on the job he set out to do. Damn.

Noeul trailed behind you all the while, hands folded decisively over her chest. She eyed the festival with great scepticism, and about as much enthusiasm as a prisoner being shown to their cell. She’d made herself scarce to you in the days leading up to the festival, opting to make conversation with other members of the paper when you met in person, gracing you only with a faint, dismissive, “Hello,” if she did speak to you.

You didn’t mind, mostly because you had no idea what the hell her problem was. For all you knew, she was an introvert who was afraid of talking to people. You wouldn’t judge.

Though, it seemed often she did. “I hope those pictures of yours are focused on the people, Woojoo, and not that superhero you want to catch.”

“I don’t want to catch her,” Martin replied, snapping a picture of a passing girl and her pet shiba. “But, yeah, I’m focusing on the people. Don’t worry, Noeul.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Let me know when you’ve got something worthwhile.”

You watched as she left, made her way to a nearby stall that was selling a variety of cakes and other sweets, her black jacket billowing behind her. You probably should’ve questioned her lack of manners even then, the uncertain tug she gave your gut, though all your lovestruck brain could focus on was Martin and his stupid camera.

Somewhere between Juhoon’s disappearance and Martin’s hard work and Noeul’s absence, your gut grew cold. A faint buzz emanated in your temples; the earth shook, red and blue separating as you narrowed your eyes. A sting. A pull. An ache.

Then,

DANGER!

It happened slowly, almost with utmost deliberation. A mechanic whir, small, nearly gentle steps. The music that had been drifting through the air beforehand continued, but there was a sort of hesitation that you knew you weren’t imagining. Your ears perked at the sound of rubber snapping—a mask shuttled over a face that would soon be invisible.

“People of Seoul…”

The crowd turned slowly, slowly enough that you could slip through the sea of people without being noticed. In the middle of a raised platform that had been pulling through one of the festival’s many attractions, now stood a familiar foxy face. Kabuki—as you were calling them for now, until they told you their true villain alias and, yes, that was a thing that happened—spread their arms wide, voice booming through the streets.

“I have something to ask you. Are you not afraid of defending yourselves from the growing danger in this country? Do you not wish you could protect yourself without having to depend on a hero who can’t be fully trusted?”

“Crap,” you muttered. You glanced at Martin, who was looking at the scene with his eyes squinted in confusion.

“What the…?”

“I have to go!” you half-realised, half-announced. Your legs seemed to move forward on their own, carrying you through the sea of people.

Martin turned, seeing you no longer at his side. “Wait—!”

But you were already gone. You tore through the crowd to get to Juhoon, who had been watching Kabuki from where he still stood by the stalls. “Hoon,” you panted, shoving his shoulder to get his attention. He turned, stunned, and you continued, “I need you to create a diversion. Something that gets everyone’s attention off of… that.” You gestured vaguely to the platform, Kabuki delivering their monologue, just everything happening in that moment, really.

He glanced back, then at you. “That your newest villain?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you’re gonna take care of them now?”

“Yep.”

He nodded resolutely. “Got it. I’ll fake a heart attack.”

Being a superhero wasn’t all television cracked it up to be. In fact, there were no epic battles, no quick-witted villains, no red carpet movie premiere. Just you, changing into your suit in an alleyway while some sort of traditional marching band made their way through the streets, along with—you were sure—a quarter of Seoul’s population. With a resigned sigh and a shake of your head, you swung over the festival, index and middle finger pressed into your palm. You flailed a bit; you always did. In your defence, it was quite the adjustment to make, suddenly being on the ground then zipping through the air like a— well. A spider.

“Several years ago, a brave scientist at Kwangsu Labs devised a plan. A plan that would render the country—the world—changed forever. A plan which became a simple serum, kept in a small container the size of my palm.”

They opened their palm, and glinting in the sunlight, was a small, dark-green ingot roughly the size of a syringe.

You tried your best to keep a low profile, though scaling a building was not something particularly ‘low profile’ at all. You kept a keen eye on Kabuki, who’d gained more of the crowd’s attention since beginning their speech.

“He proposed that we should all be equal in terms of physical strength, and that the human body could actually take more than we thought it could. He believed, that if we merely took certain aspects of another creature’s DNA—”

A gasp rippled through the crowd, as was expected, once word spread that a young man had had a heart attack amidst the celebrations. Soon, everyone had forgotten of the imposter, all their attention focused on the next exciting thing. That thing, of course, being your best friend faking a medical emergency.

People’s heads whipped in the direction of the distressed voice, a few gingerly approaching Juhoon, who’d promptly collapsed in front of the stall, and was now laying flat on his back, eyes wide, mouth open, on the concrete.

Aaannnddd that was your cue.

You leapt without a second thought, having positioned yourself directly across from Kabuki, and yanked them up into the air with a web shot from the pores in your wrist. They yelped, the deep rumble they’d forced their voice to be forgotten in the moment of shock.

You landed in the crevice between two buildings, Kabuki falling to the ground with a harsh thud. You landed on your feet, light and practiced.

“So,” you started, “seems like you weren’t done trying to get my attention, were you?”

“I wasn’t doing that to get your attention,” they spat, getting to their feet. “I was doing it to send a message.”

You stared at them, eyes half-moons of scepticism as you backed yourself onto a wall, crouching sideways on the red brick. “That message being… what, exactly? Cross-species mutation as a solution to the political and economic state of the world right now?”

“You have no idea what you’re getting into, Spider,” they said.

“No,” you admitted, “I don’t. Which is why you’re going to tell me exactly what it is you plan on doing, exactly what it is you wish to achieve. Why did you follow me here? What do you want?” You wiggled the syringe you’d grabbed from their hands in front of their eyes, sensing their shock at the sight of it. “And what is this?”

“If I recall correctly, you were the one doing the following.”

“You attacked me less than a week ago,” you shot back. “And now you’re here, where I am, delivering a godawful speech in the middle of a Seollal festival. That seems an awful lot like you following me.”

They shrugged. “Semantics.”

Your eyes narrowed, becoming crescents of disapproval. “That’s not how you use that word.”

“I think you’re focusing on entirely the wrong thing, Spider.”

Click.

Before you were given a chance to dignify their words with an answer, the sharp shutter of a camera flash burnt your eyes. Both of you reared your heads back, and when you opened your eyes, Martin was staring right back at you.

Your eyes widened. They noticed. Yet before they even had another chance to strike, you removed yourself from your perch, hitting them square in the back of the head. It wasn’t hard, not hard enough to knock them out cold, but it was enough to buy you some time and save a very gorgeous, oblivious, idiotic boy’s life. They crumpled to the floor in a pathetic heap. Silence followed.

He stared at you, at Kabuki’s stunned form. You, them. Them, you. Then,

“Oh… my… G—”

Before you could think about what you were doing, you’d webbed his mouth shut, his next words lost inside the sticky silk. His eyes remained wide, he kept talking, kept gesturing like you were supposed to know what he was saying, and all you could do was stare.

All you wanted to do was tell him to get lost, to escape with his life while he still could. You had to… didn’t you? It was your obligation as a superhero. As his friend. As his future wife (hopefully). So you stepped forward, lacing your fingers like a news anchor. “Sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave,” you said, deepening your voice. It came out raspy and wrong, like you’d been smoking cigarettes while having a cold. But at least it didn’t sound like you. “This is some very serious, uh… hero business. No cameras allowed, I’m afraid.”

He tried to say something. Probably, “Oh, my GOD, it’s Spider-Woman!”

That was usually the reaction you got when you interacted with civilians.

“Um. Yeah. I’m Spider-Woman. Now, could you please, maybe, just… leave? F-for your own safety,” you added quickly, approaching Kabuki’s unmoving form. Okay, maybe you did hit them hard enough to knock them out cold. “Please. I’d really appreciate it!”

He paused, clearly considering your words. You could see the consideration swirling in her brown eyes, the push and pull between his journalistic integrity telling him to stay and get a story out of you, and his respectful attitude telling him to listen to the qualified superhero in front of him. Then, with a small sigh that you couldn’t hear, he hung his head, nodding before he turned around and left, expertly pretending as if nothing had happened.

WEDNESDAY

“And then she tells me… she looks me straight in the eyes, and says, ‘Sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave. This is some very serious hero business happening here.’” Martin sighed, shaking his head. “I was so bummed! But then again, it’s not like I couldn’t not listen to her, right? I mean, she’s Spider-Woman. I think she knows what she’s talking about.”

“Yeah,” you chuckled, the sound pulled out of you like a borrowed breath. “…Yeah.”

“Anyway.” He shrugged, fingers weaving string through delicate wood expertly. “I didn’t get to ask her out for coffee, which… kind of a drag.” He pointed at you then, his eyes lighting up with excitement. “But I got to meet her! That’s definitely something.”

On the eighteenth, you and Martin ventured to the Hanseong Baekje Museum to attend the Seollal Grand Festival. You’d gotten there in the afternoon, following the most important New Years’ celebrations with your own families; despite that, your limited time at the festival had been action-packed with kite making (which you were surprisingly good at), tteok grilling, and a round of percussion performances that lasted until the sun started to set.

Martin had kindly invited you back to his house after the festival, where you’d found yourself sitting atop a slanted brick roof, watching the sky sink lower behind the horizon. You were technically supposed to be reviewing your article, editing out bits of the snippets you recorded that couldn’t be added, sifting through the hundreds of blurry, moody pictures you’d taken in search of a few good ones worthy of a school newspaper article, but Martin had taken to de- and reconstructing the kites you’d made at the festival.

“We can totally work on top of the roof,” Martin had insisted when you questioned his earlier suggestion. “It’s exactly like working in my room, just with some fly ambience.”

That’s how you got here, knees pressed against each other, shoulder brushing his, as you tried to click through your camera with an ironclad grip on the cover. The Edwards-Parks lived in a two-storey house, and you were not about to drop your precious camera from such a height. The two of you were still in your hanboks, sitting carefully on two folded towels so as not to ruin the precious pink and mint-coloured cotton.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to ask her out, though,” you said, and only clocked the odd wording after you’d spoken. “I mean… you know what I mean.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I know. Don’t worry.” He shifted in his seat, his uncomfortable perch on the roof, scooching closer to you.

Your breath hitched. He was close. Too close. You could feel his chest pressing lightly into your back from where he’d moved behind you to see over your shoulder, could feel the brush of his fingers against your side as he seemed to gesticulate words he hadn’t yet said. He smelled like faded cologne and printer ink, hands probably stained with the same stuff.

“You got any good ones?”

What, pickup lines? Sure. You had plenty.

“Uh— yeah. I think I got a few key pictures while we were making kites, and when we grilled tteok.” You switched to a picture of an earlier moment at the festival, the scene frozen in time.

Martin, excitedly showing off his tongs to the camera. Martin, brow creased in concentration as he turned a rice cake on its side. Martin, his eyes widened and mouth hanging open in shock as that same rice cake burst into flames.

His breath felt warm on your skin when he chuckled. “Maybe don’t use that one,” he suggested with a shy smile, voice low.

You grinned despite yourself, despite your brain screaming, Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit, ohshitohshitoh— “I think it looks nice,” you quipped. “Really brings out the Seollal spirit.”

“I’d have my Korean citizenship revoked if anyone saw me burning tteok!”

“I don’t think that’s how citizenships work, Martin.”

He deadpanned, giving you a look like, Come on. He knew you knew what he meant. You weren’t stupid. “Whatever,” he said, smiling. “At least we have more than one acceptable picture, even if I’m not in any of them.”

You frowned. What?

“Oh, you think you were the only one taking pictures today?” He shook his head, amused by your guileless nature. “Nah. I’ve got a whole harddrive of Seollal pictures of you.”

“Why?” you asked, eyes wide.

“Because you’re part of this project. Duh! What, did you think I was gonna let you help me research, document, and write the article without giving you credit? Please. I’m not cold like that. Plus, there’s no way I could’ve done it alone. Even if I was enough of a dick to try and take all the credit for myself, no one in the entire school would believe it.”

His admission got a snort out of you, and he grinned like he’d just won a prize. “You’ve got a pretty nice laugh, you know that? Like a… a really joyful horse.”

You stopped. “I sound like a horse to you?”

“A really joyful one,” he defended.

The comment didn’t even offend you. Couldn’t, because it was Martin who had said it. Martin who had admitted it with the same smile you wore around him, the same look in his eyes as when you saw him. Martin who looked so pretty under the moonlight in his traditional clothing, fingers drumming nervously at his side.

Martin who made you think, Crap. I am so fucked.

“By the way, what happened at the festival yesterday?”

You turned your head, the hair at the back of your neck raising in surprise—shock, attention. “What— what do you mean?” you asked, smoothly leaning back on your palms.

“You ran off, like, halfway through,” he said. “Between the weird speech and Juhoon passing out in front of a sweetbread stand.”

“Oh. That. I was, uh… I wasn’t feeling too well. Yeah, I was feeling kind of crappy, and overwhelmed, so I just—” you paused to make a vague, sweeping gesture that explained everything— “disappeared a little. And then after that, you know, I had to go and visit Juhoon in the hospital…”

He was fine, by the way. The doctors realised he’d faked everything and discharged him with a slap on the wrist before anyone besides you could get concerned enough to go and pay him a visit.

“Oh.” He nodded, as if that answer satisfied him. “Well, just tell me next time, then, yeah? You had me worried.”

He worried. He worried about you. Him worrying meant he cared. Him worrying about you meant he cared about you.

Ah, crap. You were so fucked.

That Monday, you walked into school with an unfamiliar but altogether welcome pep in your step. Not just because you felt sure of yourself, as if you could take on the world, and definitely not just because the Martin Edwards Park had asked you on a date.

But that was definitely a big part of it.

Juhoon was waiting for you by the gates, as always, backpack slung over his shoulder. His head was tilted, mouth pulled into a smile that told you he already knew everything. “You’re chipper this morning,” he commented, easily falling into step with you as you made your way to the steps. “Woojoo finally make a move?”

You tried not to let your surprise show, though the significant reduction of pep in your step must’ve given you away. “How’d you know?”

“Oh, please. You haven’t looked this happy since Musinsa had a clearance sale on low rise jeans, and even then, you weren’t jumping around like you are now.”

You sighed, shaking your head as you opened the doors, letting Juhoon pass. “If you must know, yes, he did. He asked me out on Friday while we were busy editing our article.” Said article had been published over the weekend, and was going to be passed around the school during the day. Martin had called it an obvious success. “We’re getting pizza on Friday.”

Juhoon hummed, pleased. “Cool. And you? How’re you feeling about all of this?”

“What, me finally scoring my dream man? I feel fantastic.”

“What do you mean ‘finally’? You’ve known him for a week!”

“That is more than enough time to fall madly in love with someone. I have proof.”

“I have a feeling you’re going to say something like—”

“It’s me. I’m the proof,” you grinned.

“Knew it.”

You made your way to your classrooms, separated only by a wall, a few students doing the same. It was still early; most kids were still waiting for the second bus of the morning, the one that usually brought most of Siryeok’s student body to school. Juhoon leaned against the doorframe of your classroom, shoulder hitting the polished wood.

You heard the faint click of heels before you saw the girl attached to them, and, turning, found Noeul coming your way. You hadn’t spoken since the festival, hadn’t had any reason to. Yet, here she was, very obviously making her way towards you.

You greeted her with a polite bow that she didn’t return, and said, “Morning, Noeul-ssi. Can I help with anything?”

She looked at you the way she looked at everyone else—as if you were inconveniencing her just by existing. “I suppose not,” she sighed. “I just wanted to give you this.” She reached into her bag, and pulled out what looked to be a flyer.

You accepted it, turning the paper over in your hands. It was an invitation to an in-depth tour of Oscorp’s Seoul headquarters, as well as information on one of their newest experiments—nothing that particularly interested you. You frowned, trying not to look too disappointed. “Is this—?”

“The subject for our next article,” Noeul cut in. “Mrs Lee greenlit it, and Martin insisted you went. Only a few of us will be going, so consider yourself lucky.”

Juhoon’s eyes widened, and it took everything in you not to look up and met his gaze. “Um… thanks. I’m just—”

“It’s next month, on the 21st. Don’t be late.” She stopped, giving you one last pointed look before leaving.

You watched her go in shock, before you finally allowed yourself to make eye contact with Juhoon. His brow had furrowed, both in surprise and indignation. He smiled, slow and low, his face saying everything.

“What a delight!” he exclaimed sardonically, shaking his head.

You rolled your eyes. “Tell me about it.” You waved the flyer in your hands. “You going to this thing?”

He shook his head. “My boyfriend didn’t insist that I attended.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you grumbled, warm cheeks suggesting you’d have liked it otherwise.

“Yeah, well. I wouldn’t do something like this for you, so he’s got to be somethin’ more than a friend.”

“Whatever.” You stopped across from him, back resting on the door. You looked around, left, right, to see if anyone was near, and lowered your voice. “You find out what was in that syringe yet?”

Juhoon sighed. As much as he tried to fight it, he was starting to become your guy in the chair—the man who knew everything behind the missions you went on, the villains you fought, the things you found. It wasn’t much help to him that he was so smart. “Not yet. Just give me some time. I think I’ll be able to tell you what it is by Friday.” He smiled then, short and sweet. “Before your date.”

You fought a smile of your own. “Thanks, Hoon.”

The day passed by in a pleasant haze, and before you knew it, you were packing up after your last period and making your way to the newsroom. It was, as you’d learnt, a much livelier place this time of year; after all the holidays, with graduation a month away. Students flitted around the room, ducking under desks for lost pencils and rummaging through drawers for printer ink for that one last copy they needed to make.

Martin was already there, seated on one of the couches, his laptop resting on his thighs. His brow was set in concentration, long, lean fingers deftly working over the keyboard. It looked like he was working on something new, and when you peeked over his shoulder, you caught the headline, Beneath the Mask: A Peek At the Woman Saving Seoul One Person At a Time.

“Hey, Tin,” you greeted, and he turned with a smile at the ready.

“Hey,” he replied, voice soft, almost a welcoming hum. “You’re early.”

You looked up at the room full of hurried students. “I am?”

He seemed to take in the room, as if for the first time, exhaling in amusement. “They’re also here early.” He checked his watch, showing it to you. “Meeting doesn’t start until five.”

“Ah.” You nodded, placing your bag on the floor where you took a seat next to him, suave as one of those leads in TV dramas. “Juhoon’s on his way. You busy with something new already?”

“How’d you know?” he asked, and you could swear you heard feigned surprise in his voice. “Yeah, no, I’m workin’ on something. I finally mapped out what I want my Spider-Woman interview to go like. I’ve got a few questions, none of ‘em too invasive. Just…” He paused, eyes fixed on his screen. “The sorts of questions that say a lot about a person without them needing to reveal too much.” He turned back to you, smiling. “Y’know?”

You swallowed the lump forming in your throat. “Yeah, I know.”

“Oh! By the way,” he began, shifting in his seat, drawing your attention back to him, “I didn’t tell you about that pizza place I wanted to take you. It’s on Wausan-ro, across from that Chinese place I told you about?”

You nodded, remembering he’d mentioned it in passing once. They had great egg fried rice, he’d said. And pork.

“Well, it can get a little busy at night, so I was wondering if we could maybe meet there at, like, five.” He shrugged, tilting his head. “Anytime before sunset is fine. I just think we should get a bite to eat, and then… I dunno… see where the night takes us?”

You laughed softly; not in scorn, but in genuine adoration. He was so cute. “That sounds really nice, Martin. I’ll see you there at five.”

That got you a toothy grin. His two front teeth were more prominent than the others, you noticed. “Sounds great.”

Icy wind drifted through the cool night, ruffling the lapel of your jacket. Below you, the city was bustling with activity, as always, people going about their lives, finishing up a long days’ work or wrapping up a first date, going grocery shopping for their families or simply for themselves.

You leaned against the rough brick wall, your legs braced stably under you as you hugged your knees to your chest, eyes flitting over the landscape in search of anything amiss. You found nothing. Yet.

Your phone buzzed in your pocket, and you slipped it out without a second thought. It was Juhoon, probably calling to hear how patrol was going. You pressed your phone against your masked cheek, answering with a faint, “What?”

“Okay, first of all, hi,” he greeted, sounding out of breath, as if he’d just run a marathon. “Hope patrol is going well. Second, I finally found out what that kabuki kid stole.”

If you weren’t balanced against the wall of an apartment complex, you’d have sat up straighter. “Really? What was it?”

“Shh. Don’t rush. Let me give you the full story, with all the bells and whistles and shit. You better sit down for this one.”

You didn’t, but he didn’t have to know that.

“So, when you first brought it to me, I thought it looked like some sort of chemical compound. Toxic waste, or some sort of transformative substance. Well, I did some research, and based off the branding on the canister, I traced its origins back to Kwangsu Labs, a local subsidiary of Oscorp.”

You hummed, giving him a small, “Ohhh.”

He continued, “Now, you know how Kwangsu have been on that weird eugenics path for a while? Mixing human and animal DNA to create a superior race, or some crazy shit like that?”

“Yeah, yeah,” you said. “They tried to experiment with scorpion DNA a while back, and, well… we all know that didn’t turn out too well.” More specifically, one of their scientists was mutated to the point of no return, and you had to deal with the evil mess they’d made of him afterwards.

“Right. Well, it looks like that incident didn’t deter them at all, because whatever’s in that syringe—I don’t know yet—but I feel like it’s something similar. It’s dated only a few weeks ago. That means it was created recently.”

You clicked your tongue, the information churning over in your head like bad soup. “Which means Kabuki is probably going to use it for the same reason that scientist did.”

“Invulnerability,” Juhoon finished grimly.

“Shit,” you breathed.

Years ago, the large, privately-funded institute Oscorp opened its own subsidiary in Seoul—Kwangsu Labs, focused on scientific research and development where Oscorp as a whole was more focused on technology. The founder of the labs, the man it was named after, had done extensive research during his time at several of the country’s best universities on the merging of human DNA with that of other creatures’, most notably arachnids. He believed that their special abilities—scorpions manually slowing their metabolism, spiders’ strength and skill with silk—paired with human DNA could create a nearly invulnerable class of human.

That same man became one of your first villains. Tuseokgi, a disgraced scientist who’d deformed himself after a botched DNA transplant that left him with the body of a scorpion. After his death, Kwangsu Labs publicly shut down their DNA project, and the idea of merging cross-species characteristics became something only radicals considered. It seemed, though, Kwangsu Labs hadn’t been as deterred by their founder’s death as the public would’ve liked to believe.

“And that, I mean— that stuff is deadly,” you said. “Remember what happened with their head scientist?”

“Oh, I do,” he grimaced. You hadn’t been quite the same after that night in the Seoul Metro. Not just because of his death, but because of what it meant for you. That was the same night you sewed your suit and mask. “That’s when it went botched. I’m just worried they’ve improved the formula, or something. Who knows what someone could be capable of if they successfully swapped DNA with one of the most dangerous predators out there?”

Your face fell to a disappointed deadpan, your eyes becoming unimpressed half-moons. “Thanks for that, Juhoon. Really helping morale over here.”

“I’m just being realistic,” he defended. “Didn’t you say the kabuki kid was stronger than when you last fought them? That could mean something already changed.”

You held back a sigh. “Yeah, you’re right. I just…” Okay. Trying not to sigh wouldn’t work. You just had to. “Why does it have to happen now? Like, now, the second I finally get a shot at living a semi-normal life? I mean, villain activity has been minimal these past few days, and then, all of a sudden, literally right before my first date ever, boom! Some kid in a kabuki mask wants to become some superhuman scorpion and wreck shit. It’s just— it’s so selfish. Like, could this not have waited until I was, I dunno, at least past the talking stage with Tin?”

Juhoon, who had been patiently listening to your rant because God knows you needed one, snorted softly. “Oh, he’s ‘Tin’, now? We on the nickname stage already?” You shook your head at his antics, missing how he lit up as a realisation struck him. “Wait. Isn’t he, like, your sseom, now?”

“Oh, my God, shut up.”

“No, no, I mean— this is good. It means you’re serious about him. And him allowing it… means he might be serious about you, too.”

Feeling your cheeks warm, you muttered, “Whatever. Let me know when you find anything on Kwangsu Labs and whatever Kabuki stole from them.”

“Roger that, Spidey.”

“Ew. Don’t call me that.”

“Okie dokie, Spidey.”

You sighed, your eyes slanted lines against your mask. “You’re so…” Without another word, cutting off his laugh on the other line, you hung up the phone, slipping it back into your pocket. You know. Because your suit had pockets. Obviously.

Just your luck, your patrol was not peaceful that night. You had to break up a fight between a loan shark and an old lady that ended up with you pinned to the floor, a knife pressing into your throat, hard enough to draw blood. The old lady was long gone—it was only you and the shark in a dingy alleyway in one of the dodgier areas of Sillim-dong. It was outside of your usual jurisdiction, so no wonder you weren’t welcomed like you usually were back home.

“What makes you think you can meddle in my business, insect?”

“Arachnid, but, you know, semantics,” you choked out.

“You just cost me nearly one million won, letting that ahjumma run off like that. How do you suppose you’ll repay that debt?”

You narrowed your eyes, fingers snaking around his wrists. “Do you take debit card?”

“I’d prefer your life,” he said, too casually. “You know, an eye for an eye.”

Luckily, you had super powers, and all he had was a knife. Your hold on him tightened, and electric currents crawled up his arm, flinging halfway into a massive bin, stunned beyond reason.

Your fingertips crackled with electricity, and you shook yourself out of the daze it had left you in, pointing to him victoriously.

“Venom blast, bitch!” Then, swaggering over to his crumpled form, you added, “And it’s ‘a life for a life’, genius. You can’t kill me and say you only took my eye. Metaphors can be adjusted. You were already on that train, too.”

You turned, striding out of the alleyway with a gleeful jump. “Spider-Woman, out!”

Friday came quicker than expected, and sooner than later, you were faced with the evening you’d been looking forward to that whole week.

Your very first date.

Martin had agreed to meet you at a bus stop between his and your neighbourhoods, that would take you to the pizza place on Wausan-ro. There, you’d grab a bite to eat and, in his words, “see where the night takes you.” You liked the sound of that. It sounded like you’d be seeing a lot more of him than you were able to at school, like you’d be learning more about him past the usual getting to know someone on surface level facts.

You’d dressed for the occasion, a simple jumper and jeans and a pair of shoes impressive enough to elevate the outfit, but not so much so that someone would think you were going anywhere besides a normal, chilled first date. Because that’s what it was—that’s how Martin was. Normal. Chilled. Everything you weren’t. The jeans did wonders for your figure, and the jumper was a vintage find from one of your many trips to Dongmyo with Juhoon. The shoes were Mirae’s, the same pair she’d worn on her first date with your father. Her good luck shoes.

The bus stop was busy, normally so for the time of day, and you took a seat on the bench next to an elderly man who was engrossed in his book. You crossed your leg over the other, lips forming a thoughtful pout as you waited.

A scream cut through the air, shrill, enough to make your blood run cold, make your suit seem to tighten from where it clung to your skin underneath your clothes. You looked to your right, where the sound had come from, and found a black jacket billowing in the wind as someone pushed their way through the crowds gathering on the street, heading to—

Heading to an abandoned warehouse off the second street to the left.

Your skin prickled. Your temples ached. Run! everything in you seemed to scream.

You exhaled impatiently, flicking on your phone. 16.20. You were supposed to meet Martin at the bus stop at 16.30.

You had time.

You followed the trail left by Kabuki soon after changing into your suit in the most secluded area you could find nearby—the bathroom of a 7/11. The warehouse was far, further than you’d thought, blocks away from proper civilisation, in a district where only factories and ghost buildings existed.

The moment you stepped into that abandoned warehouse, you could feel it. Memories. A chunk of the second storey had been broken off and flung at you before you even knew how to unstick from walls. The leftmost window had been shattered with how hard you threw Tuseokgi through it. The hinges of the door had been nearly ripped off without how eagerly you’d clawed at them, clutching your bleeding side and barely escaping with your life.

Juhoon and Gyumin had been the ones to find you, passed out on the floor of your dorm room back at school, half dead and infected with something that would change all your lives.

The Kwangsu Labs emblem glared back at you from the unwashed wall like it was sneering. Taunting you. Speak of the devil, and some kid in a stupid fox mask will lead you literally directly to its old headquarters. Or something.

It wasn’t empty, oddly enough. A punching bag hung deeper into the building, and a worktable had been set up across from it. Backpacks and stolen goods littered the floor, and a crumpled pair of jeans hung over the back of a janky office chair. Kabuki had made themselves quite comfortable here, it seemed.

You took a step forward, and—

SHWING!

You yelped at the sensation of something lifting you off the ground, a pair of arms that were too strong, and tying you to a large, sturdy surface. It all happened so quickly, ropes being spun around you, effectively trapping you. You struggled against the restraints, eyes squeezing shut with effort.

“I’d stop struggling, if I were you.”

Kabuki stood in front of you, arms crossed smugly over their chest. You scoffed softly, shaking your head. Ropes were nothing.

“It’s over, man. I got you. You’re basically dead meat, so let’s just wrap this up, yeah? We don’t even need a fight. Just let me turn you in, and this is all finished in, like, five minutes, tops.” When they said nothing, you frowned. Time to switch languages. “Hello~? Kabuki?”

Their eyes narrowed obviously behind their mask as they took an offended step back. “I beg your pardon, are you calling me Kabuki?”

“I thought that was obvious,” you said. “I mean, you wear a kabuki mask everywhere.”

“It’s not a kabuki mask.”

You frowned. “What is it, then? Like, a costume, or something? Do you have a fox onesie at home?”

“You truly are a joke,” they spat. “I’ve got you tied up in a less than ideal area, and you’re here cracking jokes as if nothing’s the matter.”

“That’s because nothing is the matter,” you shot back. “Look, I’ve got other places to be, so let’s make this quick, okay?” You shifted, fingers deftly reaching for one of the weak knots tied behind your back. “Word of advice: don’t watch the mouth.”

You wriggled your hands free of the ropes. “Watch the hands.”

You held up your untied hands, getting to your feet. With a leap, you kicked the punching bag, sending it flying at them. They were knocked over, hard.

With a frustrated grunt, Kabuki jumped to their feet and retaliated with a punch. You narrowly missed it, ducking one millisecond in time. With another gruff sigh, they seemed to realise you wouldn’t leave until one of you was settled for the evening.

The fight progressed quickly, the two of you exchanging and dodging hits, your brow splitting open under their knuckles. Ah, shit. That would make you significantly less cute, and you had someone to impress tonight. The best you could do was repay the favour by kicking them in the stomach, sending them flying into a crumbling column that collapsed on top of them.

You approached the rubble, trying to catch your breath. “Okay. I’ll ask you this a second and last time.” You picked up a discarded canister laying on its side—a bigger version of exactly what they’d stolen at the festival, as you’d predicted—shoving one in their face. “What is this, and why do you need it?”

Kabuki was breathing heavily, lifting themselves from the ground with great effort. “You don’t know? You’ve not figured it out yourself yet, genius?”

Something was off. Way off. The way they were talking to you, as if you were nothing to fear, no one to take seriously. It wasn’t normal. There was no anger present in their voice, no indignation. Simply chagrined indifference. Like you didn’t matter. Like they’d do anything to get what they wanted. Sure, all villains’ motivations revolved around that, but they all saw you as an obstacle. Here, you felt terribly… overlooked. Like you were nothing more than a pebble on their road to destiny.

“I might have an idea of what it is,” you breathed, gaze hard beneath your mask. “You’re using it to improve your abilities, aren’t you? You stole this from Kwangsu Labs.”

Kabuki grinned, and though you couldn’t see it, you could feel its coldness from beneath the hard plastic covering their face. “Clever girl,” they commented. “It only took you meeting me three times.”

“Hey, hang out with me more, and you’ll see what a genius I actually am,” you snarked.

Kabuki shook their head. “You don’t get it, do you? You, the Spider-Woman. You don’t understand what’s at stake here. Not at all.” They inched closer, until you could see the colour of their eyes behind their mask. Brown, lined with smooth, dark mascara. “Atrotosium has the power to change the country— to change the world. To change everyone on this planet. To improve everyone on this planet. And you try to keep me from letting it see the light of day.”

“There’s a reason Kwangsu Labs ended that experiment so long ago,” you shot back. “Someone died. You don’t think that’s proof enough that we shouldn’t try to change people into something they’re not?”

“Kwangsu died a hero,” they gritted out. “He showed the world how powerful one could become with more than human DNA.” You could even hear them smirk as they added, “He even defeated you, Seoul’s friendly neighbourhood spider.”

“Last I checked, he was the one who died, not me.”

“Living or dying has nothing to do with it. He scared you, didn’t he? Perhaps that was his plan. To plant the seed. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but one of Kwangsu’s spiders gave you your powers.” They stopped, placing their hands serenely behind their back. “So, what, you don’t want the rest of the world to have your powers? The formulas, they’d create cases like you, Spider-Woman. Do you not want the people of Seoul to be more like you?”

“As a matter of fact,” you said, “no, I don’t. You don’t understand the hardships of separating from your humanity. I— I don’t expect you to. All I’m asking is that you reconsider whatever it is you want to do.”

“I want to make the world a better place,” they said.

They all did. Villains.

“Taking away everyone’s humanity without their consent won’t do anything but cause harm,” you said gravely. “I won’t let you do it.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet, that you think you can do anything to stop me,” they said.

Then something unexpected happened.

Kabuki, as they had been standing before you, disappeared. As in, phased out of existence. Became invisible. You couldn’t see where they went, where they were going. All you could see, if you focused all your attention on a specific place, was the outline of their translucent shadow. Their familiar coat.

Your ears pricked up, picking up a sound from the entrance. Footsteps.

“And you can call me Min, by the way.”

And then they were gone.

You stood in silence for a moment. All you could do was stand; take in what had just happened. You tried to catch them again, tried to catch up, but how could you try to find someone who’d clearly honed their abilities past the point of your understanding? How could you chase someone you couldn’t even see? Min’s footsteps left no sound, no print. Nothing. It was as if their scent had been wiped from your senses.

You stood in the middle of a deserted street, in one of the less favourable areas of Seoul, left alone by a villain who’d only brought you there to toy with you. How does one recover from this, exactly?

As if that wasn’t already bad enough, the anxious part of your brain took control of your hand, and slipped your phone out of your pocket, clicking it on so you could see the time.

16:45.

Shit.

Shit!

You raced up the street, frantically scrolling through your contacts in search of Martin’s number. You finally found it, that new nickname with a heart tacked on the end, and pressed call.

He answered almost immediately. “Hey, are you okay?”

Oh, he made your heart ache. You were fifteen minutes late to meeting him and his brain went directly towards your wellbeing. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine! There’s just been, uh, a change in plans.” You ducked into the same bathroom you’d used to change out of your suit, shucking off your mask, the rest of it following afterwards. You tried desperately to keep your phone between your shoulder and cheek, pressed to your ear so you could hear Martin as you pulled on your jumper and jeans. “I’ll meet you directly at the pizza place. No worries about taking the bus there.”

He paused, and your ears pricked at the sound of him standing up from wherever he’d been sitting. Possibly the same bench you’d been on mere minutes ago. “Um, okay. Is everything alright? What happened that you couldn’t meet me here?”

“Oh, nothing serious,” you smiled, turning to assess your reflection in the mirror. Your brow was split open, and there was dirt smeared over your cheek. Nothing some lukewarm 7/11 tap water couldn’t fix. “I just, uh, got held up at hagwon. My teacher made me take an extra pop quiz.”

“Oh.” He clicked his tongue in understanding, and you could imagine him nodding. “I hate when that happens. Well, uh, just let me know when you’re close. I’ll wait for you outside.”

“Ah, you don’t have to,” you insisted.

“Yeah, well, I want to,” he said softly.

Oh.

“I— You— you can, if you want,” you stuttered. “That’d be nice, actually. I’m… I’ll be there in ten minutes. Promise.”

“Great. Travel safe, yeah? Don’t want anything happening to you before I can take you on a proper date.”

God, he was killing you! “Yeah, I— I will. See you in ten.”

“See you in ten, pretty.”

You walked out of that cramped bathroom with cheeks warmer than the sun, eyes wide as saucers. You’d bundled your suit in your arms, the fabric limp in your hold.

“Ah!”

Just as you’d gotten close to the exit, you were stopped by the cashier—a middle aged woman around your stepmother’s age, along with what looked to be her young son. You froze, a deer caught in headlights.

“I’ll pay you ten thousand won each if you don’t tell anyone about this.”

잠시 후…

스파이더맨이 와우산로에 도착하다.

AFTER A WHILE…

SPIDER-WOMAN ARRIVES AT WAUSAN ROAD.

You were sweating like a pig.

While that was probably not the best sentence to begin the next scene, it was an undeniably true statement as you finally reached the street filled with restaurants and cafés, small bistros and a good amount of bars. Martin was waiting for you at the entrance of the pizza place, hands placed patiently in his pockets. He looked pretty today. So painfully pretty. God, what did you do in your past life to deserve this?

You slowed to a stop, red bottoms digging into your feet as you approached the entrance. Martin caught sight of you, doing a little double take upon seeing your dewy skin.

Why am I so sweaty??

“Why are you so sweaty?” Martin asked, frowning in question.

You paused, and, with a quick smile, said, “It’s a puberty thing.”

Wait. You were seventeen. “I don’t know why I said that. I’m not going through puberty. I— I did! But I’m done. I’m… a woman…” you said, deepening your voice to sell the act.

You wouldn’t have been surprised if Martin laughed you all the way into an early grave after that. Instead, all he did was smile, somewhat in confusion, and say, “Alright.”

He didn’t seem to mind you and your terrible, inescapable awkwardness. He showed you inside, where you took a seat across from him, crossing your arms over the table.

The food was great, as was the atmosphere. The place he’d brought you to was small, but packed with people, buzzing with excitement and activity. Warm lights shone overhead, bathing Martin in a haze that made his skin look tanner than it already was.

“This is nice,” you commented, picking up your third slice of the night. You took a bite, the warm, stringy cheese melting in your mouth.

Martin watched in amusement. “You like it, huh? Wait until I show you my other spots.”

You feigned exaggerated interest, widening your eyes comically. “Really? Do tell.”

“Okay, don’t be making fun of me, now,” he pleaded with a laugh. “I will, though. There’s a lot of my world I still wanna show you.”

You softened. “There is?”

“Of course! I mean… look, I know we haven’t known each other for that long, or whatever, but I really like you, and I want you to know about my life outside the paper,” he confessed. “I want you to meet my friends, and hang out with me on days we’re not supposed to work together. I want you to show me your world, too.”

Your world. Villains, late nights, double lives, and danger beyond human comprehension. Keeping the city safe outside of the public eye, cleaning everything up before anyone even noticed something was wrong. Blood, dirt, tears, sweat. Nothing anyone would wish for.

You softened at the suggestion. “Yeah,” you agreed. “That’d be nice.”

Safe to say, the date was a success. Of course it was. You knew you enjoyed being around Martin, and this outing was simply further proof of how good you worked together. You talked about everything from school to work to family drama and future plans, and learnt a lot about him in the process.

As the night wound on, and on, and the restaurants in the area were beginning to close up for the night, you simply moved to a different spot, taking a seat in a nearby park and continuing your conversation there.

The subject was constantly shifting, jumping from one place to another in a way that made conversation flow seamlessly.

At one point, it was about food.

“Oh, come on,” Martin complained, using the soft drink can in his hand to gesticulate, “how could you like pineapple burgers but not pineapple pizza?”

“Because it’s disgusting!” you defended. “I mean, the warm pineapple juice mixing with the cheese and tomato sauce? Yuck!”

“Like pineapple and chicken are any better!”

At another, it was about university.

“I haven’t decided on a major yet,” you confessed, shifting from where you sat next to Martin on the grass. “Which I guess isn’t too great, because graduation is two months away.”

He shrugged. “I think it’s fine. You don’t have to have everything figured out at seventeen, ya know.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Don’t you already have a major and school in mind?”

He smiled, wide and joyful and totally caught out. “Maybe… but that’s me. You’re you.”

Sometimes, it was just about whatever entered your minds in that moment.

“Do you think aliens think about us the same way we do about them?”

Your head lolled over to better see Martin, laying next to you on the scratchy grass. Your skin was starting to itch in the odd places where your jumper rode up and exposed your back and middle, but you didn’t mind if it meant getting to be this close to him.

“Maybe,” you said, tone laced with genuine consideration. “I like to think that they look at us like we’re their clueless intergalactic little siblings.”

You could hear his grin when he spoke. “Like, they’d fly over Earth, and be like, ‘It’s so cute how they think we’re not real’. Like that?”

You hummed. “‘I wonder when they’ll discover how to travel further than Mars.’”

He giggled, the sound bright and bubbling like cold water rolling over a stone in a flowing river. “This is gonna sound weird, but, I gotta ask…”

“Mm?”

“Opinion on alternate universes?”

You paused. “What, like, universes where everything is the same, except a few details are different?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed.

“Hmm…”

“I’m from another dimension.” She laughed, shaking her head. “I mean, another another dimension.”

“Is this the younger from 1610?” he wondered, the smaller Spider playfully struggling in his hold.

She glanced at you, decisive. “I’m Gwen.”

“My name is Pavitr Prabhakar, and for the past six months—”

He blinked. “E-0818? Never ‘eard of it.” Then, with a harsh smack to your arm, “Welcome to the team, regardless. The name’s Hobie.”

“I’m Miles.”

“Peter B Parker.”

“Peni Parker.”

“Lee Minhyung.”

“Spider-Man.”

“Spider-Woman.”

You exhaled lightly. “I might’ve given it some thought. I mean, it seems pretty likely.”

Martin was so excited he nearly sat up straight to agree with you. “Right?! I know some people think it’s impossible, but to me, it’s like, anything could be possible, even—and especially—things beyond our scientific comprehension. There’s no way quantum theory isn’t just a theory.”

“You’re right,” you admitted. “No way for us to know, is there? We might just be existing in a different dimension, having this very conversation, except… I don’t know, one of us had pink hair, and we didn’t think alternate realities existed.”

“Exactly!”

Dating as a superhero was difficult.

This, you discovered, a few weeks after Martin officially asked you to be more than his sseom, more than simply a girl who made his cheeks turn red, more than the girl he wished was his.

You’d been warned against it, by a particularly depressed Spider who had gotten the short end of the stick romantically… and pretty much every other way, too. He’d told you to steer clear of relationships, especially as a superhero, because you just didn’t have enough time for both.

There were fights that took precedence over dates, villains that learnt of partners and tried to hurt them, injuries you’d have to hide, excuses you’d have to come up with, all in the name of keeping your relationship together. The most dangerous of these, though, were your partner discovering your secret without you telling them—worse yet, discovering you while you were on the job.

That particular problem is what you struggled with the most. Because as an aspiring journalist and photographer, Martin was everywhere.

But, to be honest, you couldn’t ever blame him for what happened next.

Wait, what happened? you might be wondering.

Well…

Montage, cue!

Dates with Martin were easy, because the two of you were so head over heels for one another that you’d be happy doing your weekly errands together. However, he had an undeniable hopeless romantic streak—one that made him ask you things like, “You want to go on a joyride?” on a Thursday night while you were supposed to be studying. One that made him match the themes of your minihompies on Cyworld because he thought the idea was cute. One that got you love letters and mismatched lyrics scribbled on the back of exam papers, origami hearts and shared earphones, long walks and your hand in his under the stars.

Your one and only problem was that trouble seemed to follow wherever you went.

Martin’s skin was warm as his arm pressed against yours, his hands clasped over his mouth as he cheered his friend, Woojin, on in a game of basketball between two losers. The other loser, your dearest Juhoon, was standing on the other side of the court, looking like he’d given up before the match had begun.

He leaned into you, not minding the heat it created. You discovered early on in your friendship that Martin liked physical touch, whether that touch was romantic or not didn’t matter in the slightest. Though it did change things a bit, him being your boyfriend.

Wah… it felt weird to say that. Boyfriend. You had a boyfriend. One that wasn’t constantly in grave danger because of you. One that wasn’t going to die at the hands of a crazed mutant.

Somewhere during the match, you’d excused yourself to get some fresh air. You’d walked off the basketball court after assuring everyone that you were fine, and that you’d come back with water.

And now, you were dodging punches from a beetle mutant.

Gapchung had been waiting for you at the street corner for whatever reason, maybe because she’d missed punching you in the face, maybe because she liked making your life difficult. Regardless of the reason, she was there, and you needed her not to be.

“Seriously,” you grunted, “why can’t you just stay—” your hand shot out, covering her in webs— “away? I’m trying to go on a date, here!”

“Oh?” the older woman taunted, almost immediately breaking free of her restraints. “Do tell me about your newest little mortal project.”

You rolled your eyes beneath your mask. “Yeah, no thanks. No offence, but I’m not going to try and do girl talk with a middle-aged woman who thinks beating a kid’s ass behind an H-mart is a good way to spend her Saturday.”

You heard Martin’s footsteps before you saw him, the sound light and clear in your ears. Your eyes widened. “Shit,” you cursed.

Gapchung seemed to have heard it, as well. “Seems like I’ll be able to meet him today. You didn’t need to tell me anything about him, after all!”

Tap. Tap. Tap. Martin was getting closer, and he sounded impatient. Worried, even.

You reared back, lodging your fist in Gapchung’s jaw without a second thought. She fell to the ground, stunned.

Ping! The footsteps stopped. Martin had gotten a text—probably from Woojin, demanding to know where he’d gone in the middle of his and Juhoon’s match. That bought you enough time to rip off your mask, and pull your clothes over it, covering up the higher neck just as he rounded the corner to the H-mart.

“Oh!” Martin exclaimed when he found you browsing through the racks thoughtfully, definitely not out of breath or anything. “Where were you, babe? You were gone for almost twenty minutes.”

You hummed noncommittally. “Oh, I got distracted on the way. Cute dogs, you know.”

He smiled understandingly, already reaching for your hand. “Alright. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“Okay, so, I traced back Min’s activity over the past few weeks.” Juhoon pushed his chair in closer, knees knocking against his desk as his fingers deftly worked across the keyboard. You were in his dorm room back at Siryeok, a study session having turned into a full-on investigation of everything there was to know about Min. “I checked CCTV footage, public records, etcetera, and… of course, didn’t come up with much, because we don’t know who they are,” he confessed.

You deflated, more so if that was even possible, from your spot on his bed. “We know that already,” you sighed.

“But— buuuttt… I did find this.” A few taps, and then he was signalling for you to look up. You complied, coming face to face with a blurry screen capture of someone in a back alley. The person’s face was hard to make out, curtained by a head of long, black hair, but you recognised their build easily. Short, slender, yet undeniably strong. “Looks like Min is a girl, after all. And what’s more…”

He zoomed in, the pixels disappearing to focus on a discarded backpack with a familiar label.

SIRYEOK ACADEMY.

“Holy… crap!” you said, eyes widening. “Min is a Siryeok student? But— this doesn’t make any sense!”

“Nothing about this makes sense,” Juhoon reasoned. “She’s literally hunting you down and shutting down Seollal festivals to talk about cross-species mutation and what it could mean for the future. What about any aspect of your life makes any sense?”

Okay. He got you there.

You frowned, but before you could shoot back, his front door opened, revealing a curious-looking Martin.

Juhoon quickly met your eyes. You sent him a silent message.

The two of you scrambled to erase any evidence that you’d been doing anything involving Seoul’s newest supervillain. You jumped up from the bed, tidying up the place while Juhoon not only plugged out his laptop, but shoved it under his pillow and proceeded to flip onto his bed; you leaned against his desk, slipping more than a few times before finally finding a proper perch. All inconspicuously, of course.

“Hey, Ju— oh! There you are,” Martin smiled, features softening at the sight of you in a way that made your legs feel like jelly. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

You hummed in question. “Yeah? What did you need?”

He shook his head, stepping into the room. “Nothin’. Just wanted to see you… and maybe ask if you have those pictures from the soccer game last week?”

Once, it was you who almost caught him out.

It had been a long night. I mean, a long night. The kind where you stalked Min for hours on end, studying her every move as she leapt across the city. You’d already had your suspicions as to who she was. It was difficult not to, when you recognised the way she spoke to you even if her voice was distorted, when you couldn’t distinguish between her coldness at night and in the newsroom.

She’d met with Tombstone, one of the many crime lords in Seoul, and one of the few men you’d ever genuinely feared. It was easy to see why they’d teamed up; she must’ve had access to Kwangsu Labs some way or another, and Tombstone had the means and the money to finance her takeover. The payout would be worth it for the both of them, monetarily and otherwise.

Safe to say, though, their little meeting hadn’t gone to plan. You’d shown up, sorted things out, and were currently on your way back home when you spotted him.

Martin, hunched over his camera on the pavement in front of a small, 24-hour shop.

He was deep in focus, eyes trained on the screen and nothing but. You swore that you couldn’t help yourself, couldn’t not give him a bit of a scare.

You approached him, your steps light and soundless, and climbed onto the eave, the soles of your feet sticking to the hard surface as you stood upside down, crossing your arms over your chest as you looked over his shoulder to see what he was so focused on.

Your cheeks warmed upon being met with pictures of who else but yourself. Candids, taken whenever you weren’t looking. One while you walking out of class. One while you tried to steal Juhoon’s basketball. One while you were at the Seollal festival, turned away from the camera. Still, you persisted in your teasing.

“Good evening, sir.”

Martin’s head shot up and, upon seeing who was hanging over him, the rest of him followed. He ducked trying not to bump his head with yours, nearly falling over himself in the process. “Spider-Woman!”

You nodded. “The one and only. Hope you’re having a good night.”

“I, uh… I guess I am, yeah,” he replied. “Thanks for asking. How— how is it going with you?”

It was an altogether odd situation Martin had found himself in, talking to his hero under the weirdest and most unpredictable circumstances. He hoped she didn’t see what he was looking through. Getting caught cheesing over pictures you took of your girlfriend was embarrassing enough, but to be caught by the Spider-Woman doing that same thing would be a fate worse than death.

But before he could ask any follow-up questions, before it could progress any further, you replied, “Fine, thanks.” And before he knew it, you were gone, hopping onto the concrete, running off, and yelling a farewell over your shoulder.

“Keep safe, Martin!”

“I— I will!” he replied, missing how Spider-Woman seemed to know his name. Then, “Wait, w—?”

That night was fun. Toying with him. You did it a few times, so much so that Martin confided in you that he was afraid Spider-Woman was onto him about the article.

Besides that?

The struggle was endless, inescapable.

Later that same week, you ducked behind a tree, narrowly avoiding Martin’s gaze as he passed by, his camera in hand. You swept a hand over your bloodied face, ripping your mask off. The night air felt cold against your skin. Shadows of whichever villain you’d been fighting passed through the streets as they escaped.

On another outing for the paper, you had to excuse yourself when you heard a scuffle a few blocks away. Halfway through the fight, with your hands wound desperately around Doc Ock’s throat, you yelped, ears pricking up at the sound of Martin’s voice. “I think the lighting’s better here,” he told Seonghyeon, passing by you without a second glance.

You glared at the scientist struggling in your hold, your hand clasped over her mouth.

Sometimes, duty called while you were on dates. Like early in March, you were in the middle of a movie when your temples began to ache. You sighed softly, trying to focus on the screen in front of you, on Martin’s arm wound tightly around your shoulder. You walked past a car crash that night; he shielded you from the scene, but you already knew. It was your fault.

Other times, he caught onto your attitude instead of your secrets. Like now, as he was laying beside you while you scrolled through the different programmes your ideal schools offered, and he played with the hem of your shirt. “You’ve been really quiet these days,” he noticed, palm splayed comfortably over the small of your back. “Is there anything you wanna tell me?”

You shook your head, adjusting the glasses you’d finally gotten to replace the others. “I’m alright,” you said, “just tired.”

He hummed, not buying it. “Mm… feels like something’s wrong. You’ve been all weird since our last date.” He paused, brow furrowing in thought. “Did the car crash upset you that much?”

You settled on giving him a yes, just to get him off your back. You received the opposite—literally.

He sat up, pressing your back into his chest as he pulled you closer, resting his chin on your shoulder. “Sorry, baby,” he said, though he wasn’t to blame for the upset. You were. You knew. You knew. “I’m sure whoever was involved came out fine.”

Fifty six stitches and a broken leg. “Yeah, I guess so. I just… I thought Seoul had a superhero to stop these things from happening, you know?”

“Yeah, well… Spider-Woman’s gotta catch a break sometime, right?”

Right.

Most times, it was manageable. Being a superhero and being a girlfriend. You’d been blessed with an understanding boyfriend, who could make a romantic moment out of any situation, no matter how mundane it was at its core. Usually, if you excused yourself in the middle of a date, if you ran off to the bathroom and came back with several new bruises littered in areas he couldn’t see, he’d smile understandingly, telling you, “It’s fine, babe. I don’t mind waiting.”

But there were times, days like this, where you could see his resolve cracking. Where you could feel the disappointment radiating off him. He never let it show, never gave you any reason to believe he was anything other than delighted to just be given a crumb of your attention, because most of the time, he was. But you could feel it. See it. Hear it. He wanted more of you, and he was becoming impatient to find out why he couldn’t have it.

Oscorp Korea was located somewhere in Upper Gangnam, among the private hospitals and massive apartment complexes where each of the flats cost billions each. Your small group had gathered at the front steps of the large, imposing building, all tall walls and reflective glass windows you couldn’t even try to see into.

Despite its affluent location, something about the place felt off; probably because your first real supervillain had worked there, and one of the experiments conducted there had led him to where he was currently: several metres under the ground.

Your group was small, as Noeul had mentioned on the way over. Only five people including you were present—Martin, Noeul, Seonghyeon, and Mrs Lee—because apparently the multi-billion won company couldn’t afford to get all-access passes for more than five people.

You were escorted around the building by Professor Na Jinyoung, the current head scientist at Oscorp. He was tall, gaunt, and spoke with the same sort of accent that Koreans who spent time aboard did. He rolled his rs in a pretentious manner, and would every so often glance at you like you’d done something to offend him. Maybe he didn’t like your Crocs.

You weren’t completely sure why you’d been invited along to this. After all, the article Noeul had suggested you write was merely an overview of what happened at Oscorp, as part of your tertiary education glossary that covered the most popular career options for students depending on which courses and schools they chose. You weren’t remotely interested in science, or physics—yeah, I know, a Spider not interested in physics, shock, horror, gasp, great Scott, and all that—so you wouldn’t be too knowledgeable about the goings on of anything there.

But Noeul had invited you along, and you, for some reason, didn’t want to make a bad impression on her, and Martin had insisted that you join, so you came anyway.

That was your first mistake.

Your second mistake was wearing your suit under your jumper, because that morning, you had a feeling you’d need it. You did.

When you were about halfway through the tour, having covered the company’s extensive quantum nanoscience research programme, as well as their current computer science projects, you were all excused for a lunch break that you could spend either in the Oscorp cafeteria, or each exploring the grounds to your hearts’ content.

You opted for the former, on the grounds that you hadn’t eaten since that morning when you left home, and your stepmother had bid you farewell with a kiss on your cheek and a packet of honeybread hurled at your head as you ran out the door.

You took a seat next to Martin, who’d been deep in conversation with Seonghyeon about villains you’d fought. Or rather, villains Spider-Woman had fought.

“You can’t convince me that Tombstone isn’t the worst,” Seonghyeon claimed, shoving a spoonful of sticky rice into his mouth. As the review writer for the school paper, the younger boy had a lot of opinions, none that were possibly swayed by emotion nor reason. “I mean, he’s, like, four times her size.”

Martin shook his head. “Nuh-uh. Doc Ock is the worst, easy. She has deadly tech, and she can basically fly!” Without looking at you, he slid a small packet of bungeoppang onto your lunch tray. You smiled, and he returned the favour once he saw it. Then, turning back to Seonghyeon, “You just like Tombstone for the shock value ‘cause he doesn’t have superpowers.”

Seonghyeon gasped, offended. “Untrue. His motives are also far more twisted and dark. He doesn’t even have a reason to want Spider-Woman dead.”

Martin rolled his eyes, turning to you. “Babe,” he said, the new nickname rolling off his tongue like he’d said it a thousand times, “what do you think? Worst Spider-Woman villain to ever exist. Like, ever. Go.”

You pretended to think. Of course, you knew. The Kingpin. It was closer to Seonghyeon’s answer than Martin’s was. Most of your worst villains were normal people with no special abilities, no motivations besides pure, unrelenting bloodthirst. Kingpin had been like that—driven only by a need for money, power, and death to those he saw as unworthy. You’d been nearly killed many times, but the few fights you’d had with Kingpin before he died had been the worst. Worse than Tuseokgi. Worse than Spot.

That, and you had to defeat him twice.

“Probably Doc Ock,” you nodded in agreement, making Martin smile like he’d won some sort of prize. “Those tentacles…” You shivered for effect. “Nothing would be worse for me than that.”

Seonghyeon snickered. “Yeah, well, luckily you aren’t Spider-Woman, or you’d be dead meat.”

Pfft. You. Being Spider-Woman. Truly hilarious.

Lunch eventually passed, and you all gathered in the nanophotonics lab, where you were due for a tour through the company’s collection of telescopes. That is, if either Noeul or Professor Jinyoung were present.

Mrs Lee frowned, checking the time on her watch. “It’s been almost fifteen minutes since we were supposed to start… and Noeul is nowhere to be found.” You noticed her gnawing at her bottom lip—a nervous tic, you’d found. She was probably worried for the girl’s wellbeing, worried because she was supposed to be the one to ensure she got home safely and in one piece to her mother.

Martin and Seonghyeon were at a loss regarding where she could be. After all, she’d been here more times than they had, on account of her internship at Kwangsu Labs. Neither of them knew where anything was, or where she might’ve wandered off to.

As your teacher and friends were discussing amongst themselves, you felt the urge to volunteer to try and find her. Something in your gut was saying go.

The halls of Oscorp were cold, telling of its stoic, sinister nature. There were many winding pathways, enough to make one believe they were caught in a deadly maze. Emphasis on deadly, because the air didn’t move. People seemed to be on autopilot, eyes glazed over, movements practiced.

You found Noeul between the neuro- and nanoscience labs, talking to none other than Professor Jinyoung.

Hide.

So you hid behind a cold iron pillar, watching them converse in hushed tones. Then, they were gone.

You followed the sound of their footsteps, ears pricked. Something’s about to happen. Something big.

And that’s when you saw it.

Noeul, shrugging on a black jacket as she followed Professor Jinyoung down a hallway leading to the entrance of an unlabelled laboratory. It billowed as she walked, creating the same silhouette as the one you’d seen running down the street to the abandoned Kwangsu Labs factory.

Your blood ran cold; the tips of your fingers turning numb.

Min Noeul was your newest villain.

You knew all about canon events.

Those dreaded, dreaded moments in every Spider’s life, the events that make them— make you who you are. The radioactive spider. Your uncle. The police captain. Your first love. Things that have happened to you in the past two and a half years, that have left you beaten, bloodied, and bruised, that have forced you to, no matter how many times you fell, get back up again.

Someone once told you that they were inevitable.

“There’s… nothing you can do about them. Trust me, I’ve tried. It doesn’t always end well. Or ever, for that matter. All you can do is hope you don’t get it as bad as the rest of us.”

You decided long ago that they wouldn’t be.

But that didn’t mean you weren’t scared.

The first time you hurt Martin was by complete accident.

The two of you had gone out with a few friends to celebrate your graduation a few hours following the official ceremony. The air was alight with excitement and expectation, with the promise of your near future. In a month or two you’d be off to university, and after that—who knows what you’d be free to do.

Juhoon sat across from you in the barbecue joint, the wooden bench digging into his back. He was passionately debating a very serious matter with Woojin, who sat not too far from him.

“Arial is the only possible contender for best font!” Woojin argued, mouth full of dokgalbi fresh off the grill. Despite never having been part of the school paper, sticking rather to the basketball team, Woojin had his fair share of opinions when it came to digital formatting of written works.

“Saying that when Times New Roman is right there is blasphemy,” Juhoon shot back.

“I’m sorry, but I cannot respect you if that’s your true opinion,” he said earnestly, a hand on his chest as if he were confessing in a court of law.

“Hey, at least I’m not a Comic Sans defender,” Juhoon said. “I fucking hate Comic Sans,” he muttered, mostly to himself.

Woojin sighed. “At least.”

You watched the scene unfold with a glimmer of amusement in your eyes, though your attention wanted to be focused elsewhere. Particularly on the tall, well-dressed beauty who’d been staring at the side of your face for the past ten minutes. “Martin,” you sang. “You’re staring.”

“I know,” he said unabashedly. “You’re really pretty, you know? Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Yeah. You. Constantly.”

He grinned. “Good to know that your boyfriend only ever speaks the truth, huh?” He wrapped his arm around your shoulder, taking a sip of whatever insanely sugary soft drink you were sure he ordered. The scent of faded cologne and printer ink stuck to him even now.

It brought back an unexpected memory. One that had no ties to the moment you were in, one that bore no resemblance to your current surroundings. That made you wonder if it was truly a memory, or not rather a premonition.

“I remember, he and I used to hang out every day.”

“Yeah?”

Her face softened with something unspoken, but loud. Grief. “Yeah.”

You’d been smiling, none the wiser, until you caught her look. “What happened?”

She ducked her head, and when she spoke next, it was through tears struggling not to fall. “What happens with all of us when we’re in love. He died.”

You stiffened. Martin noticed.

Juhoon was deep into dissecting an amusing conversation he’d had with his guidance counselor, something along the lines of, “The conversation was very Orwellian in the sense that the guidance counselor kept saying, ‘Or, well…’ whenever I brought up a counterpoint to her saying my only option was modelling. Well, look who’s going to KU now!”

Martin leant down, his plump lips brushing the shell of your ear. What would’ve been a tantalising action if you weren’t going numb. “Hey, everything okay?”

You forced a smile wider than what he was used to. “Yeah. I’m good. Just tired.”

You were always just tired.

A few weeks later, right before classes started, you went to visit Gyumin. It had been a rough day of moving and admin and fighting crime, and all you’d really wanted to do was find some peace and quiet. In a city like Seoul, there was no other place to find it besides the gardens where eternal rest was the norm. It became even quieter at night.

You were still in your suit, your breath hot inside your mask, the scent of ink drifting through your nose. Song Gyumin’s headstone was small, little more than a peak that stuck out of the tall grass growing around it. His parents didn’t come to take care of it, still too heartbroken to face the reality that their son had been dead for over a year. Since you were responsible, you took it upon yourself to clean up his grave every now and then.

Today you’d brought flowers, lilies, his favourite.

Your feet were planted on the same spot they’d been since you’d started visiting him here. The grass no longer tried to grow where you stood. “Hi, Gyu,” you started. “I, uh… trust everything’s good up there. Or down there. I don’t— I don’t know where you’d rather be right now. Probably alive. Ha-ha.” You laughed weakly, before you shook it off. “Anyway, I, um… I’m going to university soon, did you hear? Yeah. SNU. Liberal studies, because I couldn’t decide on a major. And I— I’ve got a boyfriend, now. I don’t think I mentioned that.” You wrinkled your nose, trying to keep the tears at bay. “No, I don’t think I did. He’s nothing like you. He’s tall, and bright, and funny, and he tries his best to make me laugh. He’s kind, and he likes me, and… I can’t help but think I’m about to screw things up.”

You sniffled, not even trying to stop the tears anymore. Your throat burned with the need to release them, so you did. “I’m scared, man. I’m scared and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to stop myself from messing this all up. I just feel like, with— with university, and with Noeul around, I can’t give him what he deserves. I’m afraid I’ll hurt him the same way I hurt you. Worse.”

But it couldn’t get any worse, could it? Not when your Gwen was already dead.

CRACK!

You stiffened, muscles buzzing with tension. You weren’t alone.

“Hey, babe—”

You whirled around, your body acting on its own at the feeling of someone’s hands on you. The intruder was shot back in an explosion of blue that left your fingertips crackling with bioelectric energy.

Martin groaned, curling into a foetal position in the dewy grass.

Wait. Martin. Babe.

You gasped, rushing to his side. “Oh, my God. Tin, I am so, so sorry. I didn’t even— I wasn’t looking. I thought you were someone else, and I panicked. I just—” You tried to get the words out, to express how truly sorry you were, no regard for your current state, or identity, but your words failed you. They always did, around him.

“W-what?” he murmured, eyes squinted against the harsh lamplight shining behind you. “Who…”

You hesitated, reaching for the collar of his jacket.

“SMPA, put your hands where I can see them!”

Flashlights rolled into your field of vision, and with them, the footsteps of patrolling policemen. God, could this night get any worse?!

You stood up gingerly, groaning boyfriend still at your feet, as a pair of officers approached you. They hadn’t drawn their guns yet; though their hands rested on their hips, ready for your retaliation.

It never came. One of them stepped forward too quickly, and without thought, a long, sticky string of web that attached to the window of a passing car.

Okay. It seemed like it could.

You noticed the faint tug on your wrist, glancing at the officers, then at Martin, who’d grabbed onto your ankle to try and hoist himself to his feet. “Uh, sayonara?” you tried.

It was all chaos after that. You flew through the air, holding Martin to your side after you were able to pick him up—all hulky one-hundred and ninety centimetres of him. He was deceptively heavy, even for you who had been blessed-cursed with superhuman strength. Eventually, you could disconnect from the passing car which, you soon realised, was actually a truck speeding at a disproportionate speed, and you redirected your webs to aid you over an office complex. But, of course, not without knocking Martin’s head on a street sign.

One thing led to another, and soon you were running through the streets of Seoul, Martin passed out in your arms. You didn’t receive any odd looks—after all, this was the city where public meltdowns and busking gone wrong went widely ignored or unnoticed. Who’d pay attention to Spider-Woman potentially kidnapping a university student?

The pavements you passed over were slippery, possibly due to the late night, early morning dew settling from the low-hanging clouds. So of course, you had to eat straight shit.

You fell to the floor in a pathetic heap, near the entrance of a subway station, your arm hanging numbly over the descending stairs. Martin’s head had luckily landed on your stomach, which meant he wouldn’t be as concussed as he could’ve been. And the people passing by? They paid you absolutely no mind.

“Uh, maybe you guys can go around?” you wondered aloud. The bottom of your mask had ridden up, revealing your bruised lip. No one listened. A couple and their bichon frisé actually stepped over you. You sighed. “Okay. Thanks, Seoul.”

How would you explain this to Martin when he woke up?

“And these nodes, where the lines converge?”

“They are The Canon. Chapters that are a part of every spider’s story, every time. Some good, some bad. Some very, very bad.”

You knew all about canon events.

Those dreaded, dreaded moments in every Spider’s life, the events that make them— make you who you are. The radioactive spider. Your uncle. The police captain. Your first love.

You’d asked Gwen about them, once. In the pocket between two worlds, where the lines between realities blurred. She’d shaken her head, as if she didn’t want to. Then she told you anyway.

There were many, most of which you’d already experienced. Then, there were some that she herself hadn’t yet come into contact with. Ones she was unsure of. There was the quitting being Spider-Man.

“Haven’t done that one yet,” she’d sighed. “But I’m pretty damn close.”

There was the upside down kiss.

“Definitely haven’t done that one yet. Don’t plan on ever doing it, either.”

And there was the second shot at love.

“I mean… it worked for Peter B, didn’t it?” you’d thought. At the time, though, you didn’t even want a second love. You had your first, and back then, he seemed like he’d be the last.

“Yeah, but… he did a lot of things differently,” she said. “He got to do a lot of things that we never will. Whose to say our next loves are safe? Peter has MJ. There’s no guaranteeing we’ll have one.”

Right. All you had was Martin. Lovely, adoring, kind, mortal Martin.

The second time you hurt him may have been on purpose.

Seoul in April was usually a time of peace and regeneration, the peak of spring bringing in a wave of tourists and locals alike to parks and other such attractions, oohing and ahing at the beautiful cherry blossoms that bloomed on the streets, that floated through the air and fell into your hair. For most, it meant beauty, and calm, and sunshine in abundance.

For you, it meant peak crime season.

Because of the influx of tourists, many of Seoul’s lesser-privileged chancers did what they did best: take chances. It wasn’t necessarily crime, per se, though certainly sketchy activity that could land naive foreigners in sticky situations that foreign affairs couldn’t really solve. You patrolled a lot more, stayed out late more, cancelled dates more. You practically became a ghost.

Which explained why Martin was upset with you.

You’ll admit, ever since the incident in the cemetery, you’d been carefully avoiding him. Screening his calls unless you had important plans, skipping hangouts, bailing early on those you did come to. Most of the time it was because you had other things to tend to. Noeul had expanded her circle, and become involved with more people—richer, more influential, more evil than Tombstone could ever have been. People with more means that simply putting you in the ground. People with means to have the whole country under their thumbs. You had to intercept her plans almost every week now, and it was getting more and more difficult to keep track of her now that you lived on opposite sides of the city, studied at completely different universities, operated on wildly different ends of the moral spectrum.

Sometimes, though, it was because you were too afraid to face him.

Too afraid to look at him, his beautiful eyes, his warm, kind smile, and have to face the music. And have to accept the fact that, if you kept him around any longer, he could die because of you, at the hands of someone who’d kill him just to get to you. Just like Gyumin had. Your Gwen.

You couldn’t let your second chance at love go like that, too.

Your fan fluttered lamely from the ceiling of your dorm room, doing nothing more than recycling hot air into the already stuffy space. Your phone rested on your chest, replaying the same voicemail you’d received over a week ago. Martin’s voice was raspy with disuse, though his excitement bubbled over into the audio nonetheless.

“Hey, baby. I have some good news. Mr Jeong approved my entry, which means I could have my work exhibited at CCCS. Isn’t that great?”

The exhibition. Martin had told you all about it, how his photography professor had promised the student with the best personal article that their pictures—because nearly every student in his class was also an aspiring photographer—would be displayed in an arts centre in Seoul. The project consisted of two parts, an entry, and the official article, which would also have the chance to be published in the Daily Bugle, the newspaper he worked for. The newspaper everyone in Seoul, even the young people, read.

You hadn’t responded to that message all week.

A knock on your door pulled you from your reverie, and you begrudgingly looked up as if you’d magically see who was behind it just by that simple action. You hoped it wasn’t Juhoon, coming to bug you about eating and ‘getting back out there’, neither of which you felt like doing.

Well, you’d never know until you actually went and opened the door. With a resigned sigh, you got up from your bed, fixing your shorts as they stuck to the undersides of your thighs, waddling towards the front door.

You didn’t blink at the sight of your boyfriend, though you hadn’t at all expected him. In the months you’d started university, his hair had grown, become curlier with the perm his mom insisted he got. But he was still your Martin. Just angrier because of you. Like now. He was angry, that much you could tell. He didn’t show it outwardly, but the way his eyes landed on your form, the way his jaw ticked with how hard he clenched it—those small details gave him away.

He let himself in once you stepped aside, opening the door wider for him. He turned, looked around like he was trying to find something to focus on besides you, and finally let himself look at you.

“You haven’t been answering my texts,” he said stiffly.

You nodded. “I haven’t.”

“Or my calls.”

“Mhm.”

“Or my emails, or anything I send you to try and get a word out of you.” His jaw clicked. You could hear his teeth grinding against one another. “You’ve been weird ever since last month. Is everything… is everything okay? Is there something going on?” For a moment, he sounded genuinely concerned.

Your reply came swiftly and harsher than you intended for it to. “There’s nothing. Nothing’s happened since you asked me that same question a week ago.”

He caught on to your tone. “Oh, alright. Sorry. I just though, you know, since my girlfriend wasn’t telling me anything, something might be wrong.” He narrowed his eyes, sighing. “What’s with you, these days? Juhoon says you’ve been checked out, even Mirae is saying—”

“Oh, you’re going behind my back, now?” you interrupted. “Talking to my stepmom about my behaviour?”

“What else am I supposed to do?” he demanded. “You gave me no other choice!”

“You could’ve come to talk to me directly first.”

“No, I couldn’t, because you’re never around anymore! I mean, where are you even, when you’re not in class?”

You scoffed. “You wouldn’t understand.”

That seemed to do it for him. “You’re right! I have no idea what’s going on with you! So why don’t you tell me?!”

“Can’t you just listen to me?”

“Alright. You got it. I’m listening! Say whatever you wanna say. What do you got to tell me so bad?!”

You paused. If you told him now, it would all be over. The hiding. The pains. The secrets. Your relationship. You couldn’t risk that. You couldn’t risk losing him just because you couldn’t handle some pressure. You shook your head, avoiding his red-hot gaze. “Whatever. Just leave.”

He faltered. “What?”

“I said, leave. You don’t like the way I act, the way I am? Leave, ‘cause I’m not changing for you!”

He stared at you for a moment, seemingly in thought. As if everything he’d thought about you was being proven wrong before his own eyes. Then, huffing, he grumbled, “Fine. That’s what you want, that’s what you get. I tried my best with you. I really did.”

He stormed out of your room, slamming the door shut behind him, leaving you in thick, tense silence, and for the first time in ages, you felt lighter. Worse, definitely. Tears streamed freely down your face, snot gathered at your nostrils; it was an ugly sight, but it was something you’d needed.

You felt like shit. Your life was over. Your love didn’t stand a chance. You ruined everything. But Martin had to be safe now.

Right?

“I just… I can’t believe she’d say something like that!” Martin exclaimed, leaves crunching under his sneakers as he speed walked through the park on his way home. Unlike his peers, he didn’t live in the dorms on Hanyang’s campus. Instead, he stayed happily at home, only half an hours’ walk away. “I mean, what could be so important that she’d ditch me for almost a month straight, and then kick me out the moment I try to talk to her about it?”

On the other end, Juhoon sighed. He knew. God, did he know. He also had an inkling as to why you’d been avoiding Martin. Something about the fate of your lovers, the dangers that came with loving mortals as a person with enemies. “I…”

He hesitated. Martin noticed.

“You know, don’t you?”

Again, Juhoon released a sigh carrying exhaustion past someone of his age. “It’s not my secret to tell, Tin. It’s up to her to tell you on her own time, when she’s ready.” If she’s ever ready.

Martin paused, stopping in his tracks. “Could you at least give me a hint? How bad is it? How illegal is it?” He just wanted to know. You could be a murderer, for all he cared. He’d still want you. All he needed was to know.

“It’s not illegal at all. But, Tin, it’s… it’s pretty bad.”

He frowned. “Bad how?”

“I can’t tell you. It’s just… it’s dangerous. And the people she deals with, Martin…”

“What?” he asked. “What kind of people does she deal with?”

But Juhoon had gone silent. Only the crackle of static hummed in his ears. He looked at his phone, confusion etched into his handsome features. “What the…?”

He was so preoccupied with whatever had gone wrong with his phone that he didn’t even see the shadow approaching from behind. Didn’t even hear the footsteps, or the invisible body accompanying them. He didn’t see her, not until it was too late.

His phone fell to the ground, the line clicking back to life. Juhoon was still on the other end, halfway through his sentence.

“…don’t want to know.” After a moments’ pause with no response, he asked, “Tin? Where’d you go?”

His voice echoed into the night, everywhere but into Martin’s ears.

“Hello? Are you still there?”

일주일 후 A WEEK PASSES

The Seoul Metro was deserted when you arrived, hands balled into fists at your sides. The fluorescent lights cast an eerie glow over the area, turning your light purple suit a sickly shade of green. She’d told you to meet her here, at exactly midnight. She hadn’t told you why; hadn’t revealed her motivation, nor her intention. You may well have gone blindfolded, with how much trust you were putting in her.

Noeul had been quiet. Too quiet. Her operations seemed to have halted completely, her steady stream of supplies from Kwangsu Labs having disappeared off the radar since your argument with Martin. Though that had nothing to do with it. Something was amiss. That, you were very clearly aware of as soon as you stepped off the last stair. Something was about to go very, very wrong.

“Nice to see you accepted my invitation, at least, spider.”

Her cold voice rang through the station as if it were being broadcasted, sent shivers down your spine as if she were whispering directly in your ear. You turned in the direction it came from, though found nothing but the empty subway station behind you.

“I’ve got to say, I’m surprised. I mean, you don’t have time for your boyfriend, but you’ve got time for me? I’m honestly flattered.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” you demanded. Obviously she knew you knew. She’d had eyes on you since before you started dating him.

“Oh, don’t be coy. You know who I’m talking about. That lanky boy who goes to Hanyang. You know, you used to be in the school paper with him. He and I were friends, once.”

She still distorted her voice, after all this time, but you could recognise that cold inflection anywhere.

“If you had any guts, you’d show yourself,” you bit out.

She hummed. “Hmm… tempting. Alright. You want to see me?”

She glimmered to life, and from the corner of your eye, you noticed her rearing back her first. “I can do you one better.”

You narrowly avoided her punch, catching her fist in your own. You turned your arm, twisting hers behind her back. “You’ve been pretty quiet this past while,” you said. “Why the sudden silence? Things not work out as you expected?”

She struggled out of your grip, dodging your kicks with an easy bow. “Oh, no. Things have been working out quite well for me, actually. We plan on broadcasting our message to the country first thing tomorrow morning, just as the sun rises from behind the mountains. Right after we deploy the drones.”

You stopped. “Drones?”

Her mask lifted as she smiled beneath it. “Don’t you know? Right, of course you don’t. We moved our headquarters to a more private area so that you wouldn’t be able to trace us with your impeccable…” Her mask shifted, and you could tell she was wrinkling her nose in disgust. “…arachnid abilities.

“Speaking of,” she continued. “Back to the drones. Yes, we plan on releasing them an hour or so before our broadcast. Small, harmless things, simply meant to deliver the future to the people of this country in a more convenient way than what the scientists at Kwangsu Labs had originally planned on.”

Your eyes narrowed. “You’re going to feed these innocent people Atrotosium not only without their consent, but without their knowledge?”

“It’s what’s best for the general populace,” she replied, as if it were as simple a statement as the sky is blue. “We as humans are meant to adapt to survive our environment, but this world has become too violent too quickly for us to be able to defend ourselves with the bodies we were given. It’ll take ages for the mind to catch on—unless we speed up the process.”

“By denying everyone their humanity and turning them into… into mutants?” you spat.

She tilted her head. “You say that like it’s a bad thing. If I recall correctly, you were the first-ever mutant human to exist. Aren’t you doing relatively well for yourself?”

“No, I’m not!” you argued. “My life sucks.”

“I’m sure that’s just because of your personality,” she said. “Not because of your abilities. Anywho…” She strode towards you, looking as if she were planning to go past you. “…I’ve got more important matters to tend to than this. Goodbye.”

You caught her wrist, your spinnerest aching at the exertion. “You brought me here. Why? Why did you need me if you were going to do this regardless? Why waste your time like that?”

“To waste yours,” she said. “If you’d been anywhere else, more focused on your human friends and the human aspects of your life, you wouldn’t have missed the dozens of frantic calls to your phone. Your friends would have reached you, would-be in-laws would’ve called you awake, all shading concerns for where their precious son was.”

You froze.

“No.”

She didn’t.

“I did. Not only will our drones be deployed for the whole city to see, but the people of Seoul will also be given a show to the tragic and untimely death of Spider-Woman’s biggest fan, who took his life after realising that, surprise surprise, heroes never live up to their word.”

“…I thought Seoul had a superhero to stop these things from happening, you know?”

“No,” you repeated, reaching out for her. Desperately. Mortally. “You wouldn’t. Please. You wouldn’t.”

She yanked her wrist free of your grip. “What makes you think I have any obligation to heed your requests when you couldn’t do the same for me?”

You spoke through budding tears, your mind running a hundred kilometres a second. Where was Martin? How much time did he have left? How quickly did you need to get to him to save him? “What are you talking about?”

Noeul stopped. Really, truly stopped. Stepped back, as if seeing you for the first time. Then, lifting her mask, you were met with her hard, beautiful face, holding back the same tears you were.

“What am I talking about? What… am I talking about?”

Another step back, another statement spit in your face.

“Min Kwangsu. My father. The man you blew to bits in this very station!”

Min Kwangsu. The founder of Kwangsu Labs. The second and second last victim to the mutation serum of his own creation. Tuseokgi. The man who’d nearly killed you trying to capture you, to run his experiments on you. Experiments for a mutation he caused. The man who you’d held down with a ferocity you never knew you’d possessed. The man who begged for his life as electric currents ran through his body, while the corpse of your first and only love became cold only metres away. A corpse he’d made. Min Kwangsu. The man who’d left behind a wife and a daughter and a trail of dead bodies in his wake.

That’s why she wanted these people—the whole country—to change. So that they’d be as protected against people like her father as you were. Invulnerable. But she saw it the other way. She wanted people to be as protected against people like you as her father couldn’t be. The same way Gyumin couldn’t be protected against him.

You stepped back, shaking your head. “That wasn’t me,” you said. Because it couldn’t have been. That girl who’d killed Min Kwangsu, she was someone completely different. Someone overtaken with rage. Someone you never wanted to be again. Someone that begged to be let out to save the lives of millions in exchange for one meaningless one. Two, if you counted your own.

“It was you,” she spat. “I saw you. I saw you that night, running out of this station while my father’s body was abandoned amongst the wreckage. I watched him die, and now…” She shook her head, eyes crazed. “I’m going to make you suffer a fate worse than that. I’m going to kill you. Here. In this station. And you won’t ever know what happened to any of the people you loved.”

No.

No. You wouldn’t ever let that happen.

“I can’t let you do that,” you breathed.

“I’m afraid you don’t have a say in this, insect.”

“And I’m afraid you underestimate my ability to deviate from the path people want me to follow.”

Before she could process what you’d said, you struck. Hard, square in her chest. She flew back, her head knocking against the subway steps. You approached her stunned form, hands on your hips.

“I’m sorry, Noeul. But I can’t let you do this. No matter how evil you think I am. I care more about innocent people than I do about you, or anyone else, for that matter. This isn’t me getting revenge. This is me protecting my home.”

You ran through the streets of Seoul like a maniac.

You tried to figure out where Noeul could’ve possibly been planning to send her drones from. Soon enough, though, you remembered why exactly you had a guy in the chair.

Juhoon wasn’t happy to be called up at midnight, even less so by you, who’d been ignoring his calls for help for the past week. You could tell he’d contemplated just not answering at all, pulling the same move you did, because he answered the phone with, “This better be good.”

“It is,” you rushed, narrowly dodging a drunken salaryman, “I swear to almighty God, Juhoon, it is.”

“Spill.”

“Okay, uh… shit. Where do I start? First, I need you to do a sweep of any highly concentrated energy levels, particularly the kind you find in drones.”

You could hear his frown. “Context?”

“Need to know basis. The safety of the country is kind of at stake here.”

“Nuh-uh. Nope. Sorry. You’ve lost ‘no questions asked’ privileges when you didn’t answer my calls about your boyfriend who, by the way, is still fucking missing. Tell me why you need what you need, or I’m letting some ecoterrorist blow this place to bits without lifting a pretty little finger.”

You sighed, but you couldn’t deny that you deserved it. That and a good smack upside the head. “Okay. Um. So it turns out that Noeul is Min, also known as Kabuki, also known as the girl who’s been trying to turn the whole country into mutants for the past four months, and that I may be the reason she’s evil in the first place. Long story short, she’s planning on releasing millions of drones that are actually going to deposit Atrotosium into peoples’ bloodstreams without their knowledge, and she’s also kidnapped Martin, and is planning on throwing him from some sort of tower with the drones and framing his death as a suicide because I killed her dad.”

A long, tense silence followed.

Then,

“Well, shit.”

“Yeah,” you breathed. “You feel like helping me now?”

He paused, before saying, “Only because Martin’s in danger.”

You nodded, though you couldn’t stop the ache in your heart at his answer. Your best friend, who’d seen you through the best and worst of times, was now so alienated from you he only wanted to help you to save someone else. Your boyfriend. And it was all your fault.

“Right,” you agreed. “For Martin.”

Then, “…And maybe a bit for you, too.”

You smiled. You smiled so hard your cheeks started to hurt, your eyes watered with unshed tears.

“Thanks, Jju. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“I have some idea. Now—” there was a scuffle on the other end, telling you he was rolling out of bed and groggily making his way to his computer— “you said to scan for high energy densities in the city? I got you.” The sound of clicking tiles echoed in your ears as you rounded a corner, nearly slipping on something you didn’t want to know the contents of that had spilled onto the street. Juhoon made a small noise, like, Aha! “Here we are. High levels of EMF found in Namsan Tower, right at the top.”

You huffed in frustration. Of course, Noeul had to choose the most extravagant and inaccessible spot to do her villain work. Typical. You should’ve known the girl who sent you article documents filled to the brim with embeds and self-illustrated graphs would go above and beyond with the theatrics. How nice it would be to have a villain who just wanted to do their evil things and be done with them—no bells and whistles needed.

“Really? Namsan Tower? God,” you swore. “Fine. I’ve just left Seoul Station, so from here—”

“Best route to go is through Namsan Park,” Juhoon finished for you.

“Right. Yeah. Fuck. Oh, I do not want to climb those stairs right now,” you complained. “But, you know, fate of my second love and whatnot.”

“Fate of the country, or whatever,” he added.

“The less important one, yeah,” you said. “Anyway, uh, I’ll keep you updated. Just stay close to your phone. I’ll call when I need help.”

“I can’t exactly help from here, but sure,” he said.

“…Thanks, Jju. For everything.”

“Only ever a pleasure, dipshit.”

It was a nearly impossible task, but you eventually made it to Namsan Tower. The attraction was closed to the public due to the late hour, but because you had superpowers and the sheer, desperate will of a girl in love, you made it work.

The drones—and hopefully Martin—were hidden away in the observatory, Juhoon revealed, scattered around the seventh floor. You may or may not have broken a few locks to get inside, and you may or may not have desperately crawled up an elevator shaft to get there, but before you knew it, you were standing in front of the door separating you and everything you needed to save the city. The country.

The door was unlocked, the room cold and devoid of life. As you walked in, you started to feel that same, all-too familiar tug in your gut, a cold flame lit in the pit of your stomach. Something was off. And, you weren’t alone.

The massive body hurtling towards you was a pretty good indication of that.

You should’ve known Noeul would have people guarding the observatory in the rare event that she actually couldn’t kill you. From his size he looked to be one of Tombstone’s men, big and bad and very much in the mood for murder. Despite his size, it was a quick fight, over before he could even register you throwing him out of the room and into a pillar that collapsed on top of him.

The second man who ran towards you was a bit more difficult to beat, probably because he was bigger than Tombstone himself. He threw you around a bit; may or may not have fractured a bone or two. You slid across the floor, halfway across the observatory, your back bumping into something cold, and hard. You groaned softly, blindly reaching out for it. Your fingers curled around what felt like the leg of a chair and, forcing your eyes open, you came face to face with Martin, staring down at you from where he was tied up. A cloth was wrapped around his mouth—seriously, Noeul and Tombstone’s methods could not be more passé—causing his desperate words to come out muffled into the fabric.

You could imagine what he was saying, though. Probably something along the lines of, “Holy crap it’s Spider-Woman! Save me! These crazy bitches have kept me locked up for the past week!”

“Don’t worry,” you told him, gingerly getting to your feet. “I’ve got this. I’ll, uh, untie you in a sec. Just give me a moment.”

Luckily, winning the fight was merely a matter of knocking the guy out cold, which was easily accomplished by smashing a table over his head. All in a moment’s work, too. After that, it was merely a matter of untying Martin and finding the drones, getting Juhoon to hack into their programming and turn them into functionless bricks. How you would do that, though, without revealing your identity, was a nonissue. You didn’t care about hiding anymore. Not when it had come to this point. Not when you knew Martin wouldn’t want you afterwards anyway.

You approached him slowly, walking with a faint limp as you reached out to untie his restraints. You did it easily, tugging the cloth down from where it rested over his mouth. He gasped, gaining his breath in rapid, deep bursts; yet, he didn’t move. You crouched down in front of him, expression concerned beneath your mask.

“Are you alright, Martin?” you asked softly. You tried for a smile he wouldn’t be able to see. “Sorry for taking so long.”

He breathed deeply, glancing at you like a caged animal. “I’m, uh… as fine as a kidnapping victim could be, I guess? Is that a good answer?”

“Any answer is a good answer,” you said. You stood up, holding out your hand for him. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here. You’ve probably had enough of this place.”

He took your hand easily, his palm warm in yours, as he let you help him to his feet. For a twisted moment, you could imagine you were here together, as a couple, merely holding hands and walking through the Namsan Observatory on a date. “Not really. She kept me holed up in a van most of the time, so the change in scenery was nice. Plus, I meant, thousand-won view right there,” he laughed, pointing at the windows, looking out over Seoul. He paused. “Sorry. I’m tryna cope right now, and making jokes is the only way I know how.”

“It’s fine,” you soothed. “As long as you’re not, like, damaged beyond comprehension.”

He shook his head. “I’m not that bad, at least. Maybe only a little bit damaged, but I’m sure my therapist can work with that. Or, you know, the one I’m gonna get after all this is over.”

You nodded, walking him to the exit. “I’ll be with you in a moment, okay? I just need to make a call. Save the city, you know.”

He nodded numbly, letting go of your hand. He didn’t question just who Spider-Woman would’ve needed to call to save the city.

You stepped back into the observatory, slipping your phone out of your suit pocket and dialling Juhoon’s number. He answered almost immediately. “Shoot.”

“I need you to help me disable these drones,” you said. “I’m sure I can, like, drop them all from here and let them shatter to pieces, but that’d be cruel to whoever has to come to clean in a few hours.”

“Already on it,” he replied. A series of clicks and clacks on the other end, then… “Huh. That’s weird.”

You groaned. “What?”

“I can’t get into the systems. That means they’re not controlled from a third party program. They must have individual chips in them, or something.”

Great. Just your luck. You were this close to saving Martin and the country, and something like this came up. “Aw, crap. Alright. Do you at least know where they’re hidden?”

“Yeah. They’re all stored in a vent; it should be just above you.”

You glanced up, and sure enough, there was a removable grille positioned perfectly above you. Too perfectly.

“Okay, thanks, Jju.”

“No problem.”

You jumped up, hanging upside down as you ripped open that small section of the ceiling. From afar, Martin watched in awe.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to her doin’ that,” he muttered. There was something so oddly familiar about the way she moved, how she positioned herself when she crouched or gesticulated with her gloved hands. He was probably just hallucinating, imagining there to be more closeness between them than there really was.

One by one, you were able to open up the drones and slip out the individual chips that had been inserted into a small flash drive inside each device. At some point, Martin drifted closer to you, watching silently as you expertly worked your way through them.

“If you’re gonna keep staring, you might as well come and help,” you muttered, though you knew you wouldn’t let him. He didn’t have the energy to respond.

Something’s not right, said your gut. You frowned. Still? Everything had been handled. Tombstone’s thugs were knocked out. Martin was safe. The drones were handled. What else was there that could possibly be keeping you here, making your temples burn and your mind buzz?

Your heart lurched at the slow, grating sound of something heavy scraping against the polished floor. It came from behind the twin doors, the ones you’d shut the moment you’d thrown Tombstone’s men out of the room. The air crackled with electricity that didn’t come from you.

LOOK OUT!

You leapt out of the way, taking Martin with you as the doors burst open in a rush of blue, sizzling with smoke at the edges.

Then, that voice. That cold, cold voice you’d left behind in Seoul Station.

“I hope you didn’t think I was finished with you, Spider-Woman?” Noeul demanded, voice raised as her eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness, trying to find you in the shadows.

Beneath you, Martin froze. “Noeul…?”

You pressed a finger over his lips. “Shh. Don’t say a word.” He seemed to get the message, because he didn’t say anything after that. His skin felt warm from where you pressed your palm against his cheek, whispering, “I just need to defeat this crazy woman before she turns the entire population of Seoul into mutants real quick. Don’t move. See you in a bit.”

He nodded quickly. You smiled.

Then, it was time to jump into action.

Noeul fought like her life depended on it, as if she would stop at nothing to see you dead at her feet. Which, looking into her eyes, wide and crazed, you were convinced was exactly what she wanted. She didn’t look when she struck, stumbled into things, fought in a way that was more dangerous to her than to you. She ripped at your mask, tearing it apart piece by piece, until only the most important part of your face was covered.

You went too easy on her.

You didn’t give it your all, didn’t sweep her off her feet or throw her around as you would’ve on a normal day. Because this wasn’t normal. She wasn’t in her right mind; she was wildly irrational and out of control. She didn’t know what she was doing. So your heart wasn’t in it. It just isn’t fair to her, you reasoned. You were much stronger than she was, much more experienced. She didn’t stand a chance. But there was only one thing that could beat experience and strength.

Desperation.

“You may have slipped from my grasp back there,” she gritted out, grunting with effort as she picked you up and tried to throw you across the room. “But that doesn’t mean you’ll win. That doesn’t mean you’ll ever beat me. Not when I’ve gone above and beyond to make myself better than you. Not when I’ve got everything you don’t.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” you replied, kicking her off you half-heartedly. “You’re emotional, and unstable. I understand. I’ve felt that way, too—”

“No, you don’t understand!” she yelled, stepping back. “You don’t understand what it’s like, losing someone so dear to you. But you will. You will, very soon.”

That’s when she went invisible. The room went silent, and the only thing you could hear was your own heartbeat thumping in your ears. You didn’t hear her step away, didn’t hear her approaching that dark corner of the observatory. You only saw the glimmer of her when it was too late. You rushed forward, the scene unfolding in front of your eyes too much to bear. You wouldn’t let this happen. You wouldn’t let Noeul take more lives than she should. You wouldn’t let your second shot at love die. You ran towards Noeul, now fully visible, tackling her to the ground before she could reach Martin with that shard digging into her palms.

She got the best of you, pinning you to the ground like that had been her plan all along. “I can’t wait to see you die, Spider-Woman.”

She tugged at the remains of your mask. You grabbed her wrist, ripping her hands off you. “No. No. Get off me. Don’t even think of touching me!”

From the corner of your eye, you saw Martin rise slowly, rubbing at his temples. He blinked, registering how close you were to him and, like a fool, rushed forward to help you.

Your eyes widened. “Martin, no—!”

Noeul reared back, reaching over to grab the collar of his jacket before he could reach her. You got to your feet, nearly falling over as you tried to get to him in time. Noeul grasped his collar tighter, yet, that wasn’t her plan. She didn’t want to hurt him, not really. That wasn’t her only intention. She wanted to fool you. And what better way to fool someone than to threaten the life of someone they love?

You grabbed at her, trying to pull her off of him, trying to get him away from her. It worked, only for a moment, when you covered her eyes and pulled your arm around her neck. But it was enough to get him away from her.

He ran as quickly as he could, no encouragement needed from you, until he reached the exit. He turned back, something unspoken clear in his eyes. Something was telling him not to leave. Something was begging him to stay.

Noeul grabbed at you, picking you up and throwing you onto the floor as if you weighed nothing. Your body ached with overexertion, with injury and fatigue. You couldn’t fight for much longer. And she knew.

“Are you tired?” she asked, voice mocking. You desperately tried to get away from her, backing up, but she wouldn’t relent. “How sad. Spider-Woman meeting her untimely end; not because she fought valiantly, but because she was too exhausted to even continue. Tell me, Spider-Woman, how can the people of this city depend on you when you can’t even take down someone your own size?”

You shook your head. “You’re nothing to me,” you lied. “Just another… villain of the week.”

She sneered. “We’ll see about that.” She reared back, preparing to deliver the final blow. The killing shot. You weren’t supposed to survive this; you could feel that much. You wouldn’t be able to, either.

Martin watched from afar, tucked into the shadows. “Come on, Spider-Woman,” he urged. “Get up.”

Noeul laughed darkly. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.”

You caught her arm before she could strike. Electricity crackled between the two of you, the same colour mingling at different wavelengths. You shuddered, the energy too much to handle. She didn’t need to know that.

“I’m sorry,” you rasped. Blood trickled from your mouth as you spoke. “I’m not going to kill you, Noeul. I can’t. But I also can’t let you go down the same path your father did.”

She froze. “What?”

CRRRRRAAAACK!

The young girl flew back, thrown across the room with the force from the venom strike. Her head hit the back of the wall, the same way it had hit those steps earlier in the station. She groaned softly, curling in on herself in pain, body still shaking with anger. Silence enveloped the room, but the air was alight with energy. Your body shook with exhaustion, your eyelids heavy beneath the weight of your fatigue. You didn’t even notice your hand pulling up the remnants of your mask, revealing your face for everyone to see. All you wanted to do was breathe fresh air.

The weight of your choice was echoed by the gasp that came from the double doors only a few metres away from the scene. Your head shot up, weary eyes widening at the sight of Martin, still alive, still safe, but still there. You smiled brokenly, approaching him with your arms spread wide. You could worry about Noeul later. All you cared about in that moment was him.

He let you envelope him in a hug that he didn’t return. His body felt hard beneath yours, and when you stepped back to look at him, he was staring right back at you.

“You— you’re okay,” you said softly, something still gnawing at you. He didn’t reply. Only when you frowned, and asked, “Baby? What’s wrong?” did he say,

“You lied.”

You froze. “What? No, I— I was trying to pro—”

“You’ve been lying to me,” he interrupted, “for nearly half a year.”

“Martin, I just saved your life!”

“From someone who wanted you dead.” He shook his head. “I… I was about to be nothing more than collateral damage.”

“No, come on, that’s not true,” you argued, reaching for his hand. He yanked it away as if you were made of fire. “It doesn’t matter anymore, okay? You’re fine now. I saved you. We’re fine. We can go— we can go back to the way we were, before.”

Silence.

“I can’t believe you would lie to me like that.”

And for the second time that week, he turned and left, leaving you in darkness and silence. Except this time, there was a weight on your heart heavier than before.

You’d officially lost your Martin.

TO BE CONTINUED…

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