Chapter Text
Donghyuck’s morning didn’t start with coffee; it started with the realization that the world is a fucking joke.
The first thing he heard was silence. A dead, ringing silence instead of his usual moronic ringtone. Frantically slapping his palm against the nightstand, he fumbled for his phone. The black screen met him with cold indifference. Dead. Dammit.
"Fuck!" Donghyuck croaked, bolting out of bed as if the mattress had caught fire beneath him.
One look at the wall clock and his stomach dropped. He had overslept by forty minutes. A second catastrophe awaited him in the bathroom: his favorite school blazer, which he’d washed last night hoping to look like a normal human being, was hanging on the drying rack completely damp.
There was no time. Donghyuck pulled on the clammy, cold piece of fabric, wincing at how the material clung unpleasantly to his skin. He could forget about breakfast. He flew out of his room, trying to rake a comb through his hair on the go—it felt more like he was tearing out clumps than actually brushing it.
The kitchen was suspiciously cozy. His mother stood by the stove, stirring something fragrant. Noticing his frantic state, she broke into the sunniest smile imaginable.
"Mom, why the hell didn't you wake me up?!" he started, his voice shifting into a pathetic, almost childish tone on the verge of a breakdown. "I'm late, it's a total disaster!"
"Oh, you were sleeping so sweetly, sunshine," she said, calmly turning off the stove. "Besides, you still have time. I can give you a ride, stop shouting."
Donghyuck exhaled, but he didn't feel any calmer. The whole way there, he sat with his arms crossed, glaring at the road while the damp shoulders of his blazer slowly soaked through his T-shirt.
He burst into the school at the exact second the bell began its shrill scream. Racing down the hallway, he practically tumbled into the classroom, catching the weary gaze of the history teacher.
"Haechan, so you’ve graced us with your presence?" the teacher dryly remarked.
Donghyuck ignored the jab and slumped into his desk, nearly clipping his neighbor.
"Hey, dude," came a toxic whisper from behind. Renjun gripped his shoulder with a death stare, right where the blazer was still wet. "Why weren't you picking up? I thought you got hit by a fucking car. Honestly, I wish you had, because why the hell weren't you answering my calls?!"
Renjun looked ready to deck him right then and there. An angry Renjun was a nightmare, but Donghyuck had reached his own limit of patience today.
"Man, sorry, my phone died and I overslept," Donghyuck snapped back. Noticing the history teacher opening his mouth to scold them, he quickly straightened his back, putting on his best "diligent student" face. "Now, piss off," he added, roughly shoving his friend's hand off his shoulder.
The lesson dragged on like cheap gum. The teacher was droning on about Ancient Rome, Gladiators, and other bullshit that Donghyuck didn't give a single flying fuck about. But the main problem wasn't Julius Caesar. The problem was his bladder. The morning bathroom trip he’d skipped in his rush was now making itself known with a sharp ache.
Donghyuck couldn't take it. He snapped his hand up, interrupting the monologue about the Senate.
"Teacher, can I go out? Please. It’s an emergency."
The old man looked at him over his glasses, clearly thinking Donghyuck was an absolute hopeless case.
"Go on, Haechan. It’s not like you’re gaining anything here anyway..."
Donghyuck didn't stick around for the end of the sentence. He shot out of the classroom like a bullet. The hallways were empty, the sound of his sneakers echoing off the walls. Diving into the restroom, he nearly took the stall door off its hinges.
He scrambled inside, reaching for his belt on the fly, but before he could even slide the latch shut, he felt a powerful shove to his back.
"Hey! What the—" he yelped.
Someone had followed him in, brazenly squeezing into the cramped space. Donghyuck began to struggle, trying to shove the intruder out.
"Listen, are you fucking crazy? There's no room!"
But the guy opposite him was surprisingly strong. He simply forced Donghyuck to sit down on the toilet lid, blocking the exit with his body.
Donghyuck froze. His level of shock had surpassed all measurable limits. He looked up and saw a guy in round glasses. The face was unfamiliar. He looked like a typical nerd-overachiever, but what he was doing right now defied all common sense. Donghyuck had reached "God Level" of confusion. If it had been Renjun or Jeno, he would have just laughed and punched them in the gut. But this was a total stranger who had violated his personal space at the most intimate moment of preparation for relief.
The guy stayed silent for about three seconds, feverishly fumbling through his jacket pockets. Finally, he pulled his hand out and, looking Donghyuck straight in the eye, blurted out:
"Got a lighter?"
The silence in the stall became palpable. Donghyuck felt his eye twitch. So, he ruined my moment of glorious urination just to ask if I have a lighter? Is he a dumbass?
"Are you fucking insane?" Donghyuck’s voice trembled with a mix of rage and disbelief.
"Excuse me, but who the fuck bursts into a stranger's stall with a question like that?! Especially in a men’s room when I’m about to piss myself! Do you even realize what you're doing, you dumbass?"
The four-eyed guy seemed to only just register reality. His eyes widened behind his lenses until they were the size of saucers. He looked at Donghyuck, then at the closed door, then at his own hands.
At that moment, the bell for the break rang in the distance. Loud and life-saving.
The guy didn't say a word. He just bolted out of the stall, nearly ripping the door off its hinges.
Donghyuck was left sitting on the toilet in total silence, still clutching his fly.
"What the fuck was that?.." he whispered looking at the closed door.
A week had passed since that batshit incident in the bathroom. Donghyuck had honestly tried to find that four-eyed dipshit in the hallways, just to look him in the eye and ask: “Dude, what were you on?” but the guy seemed to have vanished into thin air. High school is a massive anthill, and if you aren’t the football captain or a local freak, it’s easier to get lost than it is to pass a history exam with that senile old teacher.
Donghyuck lived his usual life. Mornings were a struggle with his pillow; days were spent trying not to die of boredom during lessons to the accompaniment of Renjun’s roasting; evenings were for gaming until his eyes started to bleed. The stall incident gradually faded from his memory, turning into just another funny story he’d tell the guys over lunch.
“I’m telling you, he seriously burst in and asked for a lighter while I was practically holding it in!” Donghyuck laughed, shoving a piece of pizza that tasted like cardboard into his mouth.
“Have you even seen him since?” Renjun squinted mockingly. “What are you gonna do when you meet him? What if you freeze up again?”
“Fuck off, Jun. Just wait until we see him, and I’ll show you what happens when people pull that shit,” Donghyuck retorted, acting like he had a master plan.
A typical Tuesday. The sun was blazing as if it had decided to fry the city to a crisp. After school, Donghyuck was waiting for his mom in the parking lot as usual. She’d promised to pick him up so they could hit the mall for new sneakers—his old ones looked like they’d survived the vietnam war.
When his mom’s car—an old but clean Honda—pulled up to the gates, Donghyuck hopped into the passenger seat, tossing his backpack on the floor.
“Hey, Mom. Ready?”
“Hey, honey. Tired? You look like you got run over by a truck full of textbooks,” she smiled, pulling onto the main road.
“Yeah, something like that. I just want to eat really bad.”
They pulled onto the large bridge connecting their district to the city center. It was a typical traffic jam: hundreds of cars, honking, heat haze over the asphalt, and bored drivers picking their noses. Donghyuck plugged in his headphones, turned on some aggressive hip-hop, and closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cool glass.
He had no idea that in five minutes, his life would turn into a fucking Michael Bay movie.
The first sign that everything was going south wasn't a sound. It was a vibration.
At first, Donghyuck thought something was wrong with the Honda’s engine, but a second later he realized the entire bridge was shaking. The massive concrete pillars groaned with a hollow thud. Donghyuck ripped his headphones out.
“Mom? What the hell is that?”
She didn't have time to answer. Fifty meters ahead, the asphalt suddenly buckled as if a giant mole was crawling underneath. The cars in front were tossed into the air like toys. A deafening explosion followed. The sound hit his ears so hard that his head felt like it hit a vacuum for a moment.
“Holy shit!” Donghyuck screamed, bracing himself against the seat.
Right in the middle of the bridge, a figure emerged from a cloud of dust and smoke. It was something huge, metallic, with a bunch of mechanical tentacles or whatever the hell they were, crushing everything in its path. The creature—either a robot or a mutant in armor—simply hurled a sedan toward the river like it was an empty Coke can.
“Get out! Donghyuck, get out of the car, fast!” his mother yelled, her voice trembling with terror.
They scrambled out. Chaos reigned. People were screaming, abandoning their cars, running back, tripping and shoving one another. The smell of burning, scorched rubber, and gasoline instantly filled his lungs.
Donghyuck grabbed his mother’s hand, trying to navigate through the labyrinth of abandoned vehicles. Something exploded again behind them. A massive chunk of concrete flew over their heads, crushing the roof of a car nearby.
“Faster, Mom, don't look back!” he yelled, feeling his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
At that moment, the bridge shuddered again. That monster in the center—some techno-maniac in a green exoskeleton—struck a support pillar with a massive mechanical hammer. A section of the bridge began to tilt. Donghyuck’s mother tripped, her leg catching in a crack in the asphalt. She fell, crying out in pain.
“Mom!” Donghyuck lunged toward her, trying to pull her leg free. His mind was a frantic loop of fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
The villain turned around. The lenses on his helmet glowed red. He noticed them. To him, they were just debris in his path to destroying the city. He swung his mechanical claw, preparing to bring a nearby pole down on them.
Donghyuck looked around in a panic. His hand landed on an iron rod that had snapped off the railing. He gripped it until his knuckles turned white. The fear was paralyzing, but an animalistic rage woke up inside him.
“Come on then, you asshole!” he spat, shielding his mother with his body. “Just try and touch her!”
And just as the steel claw began its downward arc, something white and sticky flew in out of nowhere.
The claw froze in mid-air, encased in thick webbing. The villain jerked in confusion, but the web held fast.
“Hey, Iron-butt! Didn't anyone tell you that attacking women and kids is seriously not cool?” a bright, slightly muffled voice rang out.
Donghyuck looked up. Hanging from a surviving lamppost above them was Spider-Man. The real deal. He looked unreal: the red and blue suit glistened in the sun, and the white lenses of his eyes narrowed as he locked onto the target.
Spidey dropped down, landing right in front of them.
“Okay, you’re gonna want to hold on tight.”
Before Donghyuck could utter a word, Spider-Man scooped them both up. He wrapped one arm around Donghyuck and the other around his mother.
Donghyuck felt his stomach drop into his shoes. They took flight. This wasn't like flying in a plane—it was a sharp, daring acceleration that took his breath away. The wind whipped his face as wrecked cars and the river blurred below. A few seconds later, Spider-Man gently set them down on a safe stretch of road behind a police cordon, where cops and ambulances were already gathering.
“Stay here. It’s safe,” Spidey tossed over his shoulder.
“Now, let’s deal with you,” Spider-Man said, soaring back toward the epicenter of the chaos.
What followed next was cooler than any blockbuster. The villain, whom someone called Scorpion or something like that, roared and fired a stream of acid from his tail. Spider-Man did an impossible mid-air flip, dodging the stream which instantly melted a hole in the asphalt.
“Missed me!” Spidey taunted.
He moved like mercury. Fast, elusive, he coated the robot's sensors in webbing, blinding him. Scorpion went berserk, smashing everything in sight, but Spider-Man was everywhere and nowhere at once.
He slid under the giant’s legs, stuck a web to his tail, and yanked. The metal construct clanged, and the villain lost his balance. Spidey didn't waste a second: he soared up, anchored himself to two different bridge supports, and, using himself as a slingshot, slammed both feet into the enemy’s chest plate.
The impact was so strong the armor cracked. Sparks flew in every direction. The finale was epic. Spidey bound the villain's legs with thick web cables, attached the other end to a falling truck, and used the leverage to force the Scorpion's rig to collapse into an awkward heap. A few more hits, a series of precise web shots into the armor's joints—and the metal monster went silent, turning into a pile of useless scrap.
A relative silence settled over the bridge, broken only by the wail of sirens. Paramedics had already reached Donghyuck’s mother and began administering first aid. Donghyuck made sure she was going to be okay, but his gaze was locked on the figure in the middle of the bridge.
Spider-Man stood on top of a wrecked truck, breathing heavily. His suit was covered in dust and torn in places. Immediately, reporters with cameras swarmed like vultures. Fans ran up from below, screaming his name.
“Hey, Spidey! Over here!”
“Any comment on the attack?”
“Can we get a selfie?!”
The hero clearly felt out of his element under the camera lights. He started to back away, preparing to bail. Donghyuck, not knowing why, broke into a run. He scrambled over the wreckage, jumping over chunks of concrete.
“Hey! Wait!” he shouted, out of breath.
Spider-Man had already fired a web at a high arch of the bridge and was about to pull himself up. Hearing the shout, he froze for a second and turned around.
Donghyuck stopped ten meters away. He looked a mess: his blazer was torn (the same one that had been wet), his face was dirty, and his hair was a disaster.
“Wait... uh... thanks a lot. Seriously. For my mom... and everything. You’re cool, dude.”
Spider-Man tilted his head to the side, as if he recognized him. In the corner of his mask, where his mouth should be, a slight smile was visible by the way the fabric stretched. He gave Donghyuck a short nod, a playful two-finger salute, and gave the web a sharp tug.
“Take care of yourself, kid!” drifted back to Donghyuck as the red-and-blue figure vanished from sight.
After the hell on the bridge, Donghyuck’s life turned into a strange, blurry mess. But reality quickly grounded him back into the school routine, where the main problem wasn't a monster's steel claw, but an upcoming test and a party at the house of a dude named Lucas.
Actually, Donghyuck hadn't planned on going anywhere. His ideal Saturday night consisted of his console, a bag of chips, and zero contact with the outside world. But Renjun and Jeno had other plans.
"Come on, Hyuck," Renjun whined, practically hanging off his friend’s shoulder. "Your mom will let you go if we tell her we’ll look after you."
In the end, these two "angels" stood before his mother with such honest faces that Donghyuck felt sick to his stomach. They promised to bring him home in one piece, safe, sound, and "totally sober." Doubtful? Doubtful as fuck. But his mother gave in, and now they were standing in front of Lucas’s house, where the music was thumping so hard the foundation looked like it was about to crack.
Not even two hours had passed before Renjun and Jeno’s promises went up in the blue flames of cheap punch and tequila.
"So, where are the saints now?" Donghyuck muttered, pushing through a crowd of sweaty bodies.
He found them on the second floor in a half-empty room. Renjun was face-down on the carpet, hugging someone’s sneaker, and Jeno was stretched out on the bed, drooling and clearly dreaming of greatness.
"God, you guys are heavy," Donghyuck panted, dragging one hundred-kilogram body onto the bed, then hauling the second. "I’m going to make you pay for this, you fucking alcoholics."
Exhausted like a dog after this unplanned crossfit session, Donghyuck felt his throat go bone-dry. He needed something cold and preferably non-alcoholic, because driving these two home sober was already a quest—doing it drunk would be straight-up suicide.
He started heading downstairs. The staircase was packed with kissing couples he just wanted to boot out of the way. Donghyuck turned toward the kitchen, hoping to find at least some ice or water.
Boom!
He slammed into someone at full speed. Before Donghyuck could even yelp, he felt something sticky, ice-cold, and clearly staining pour all over his chest. He winced, feeling the moisture soak into the fabric of his brand-new white T-shirt—the one his mom just bought him, and the one she would definitely kill him for if she saw a stain.
Opening his eyes, he saw a catastrophe. A massive, bright-red cherry juice (or punch, who the fuck knows) stain was front and center. The shirt was toast.
Donghyuck looked up, taking a deep breath to unleash a torrent of choice curse words, and... froze. Right in front of him were those same goddamn round glasses. That familiar nerd-pervert face.
"Hey, what the—! You're that... that bathroom pervert!" Donghyuck yelled, pointing a finger as if he’d just seen the devil himself.
The music was blaring too loud, so his shout was only heard by those within a two-meter radius. A few people turned their heads, looking at them like a pair of freaks. The guy in the glasses flinched; his face was a mix of horror and a strange, intense focus.
Before Donghyuck could say another word about the bathroom incident, he felt his hand being grabbed. Hard. And he was being dragged.
"Whoa, easy! You're gonna break my arm, asshole!" Donghyuck tried to break free, but the four-eyed kid was pulling him with some kind of superhuman strength toward a closet or a utility room under the stairs. He managed to rip his hand away, but the guy was already shoving him into the dark room—ugh, flashbacks.
The door shut. The music immediately dimmed, muffled by the thick walls. That awkward silence set in—the kind that made Donghyuck’s teeth ache.
"What the hell is your problem?" Donghyuck squared his shoulders, trying to look intimidating even though his wet shirt was clinging to his skin, a constant reminder of the stain. "Are you completely out of your mind? First off, what the hell was that in the bathroom? Are you a maniac? A stalker? Second, you fucking owe me a T-shirt now! Do you have any idea how much this costs? My mom is gonna kill me!"
Four-eyes (Donghyuck still didn't know his name) stood there like a statue. He was staring at the floor as if trying to find a survival manual down there.
"Say something, weirdo! Who am I talking to?" Donghyuck started poking him in the chest, pressing harder with every jab. "Are you mute? Or is your brain stuck in your glasses?"
"Sorry," the guy finally croaked. His voice was quiet, but unexpectedly firm. "My bad. Really. The shirt... I’ll... I’ll handle it. And about the bathroom..."
He looked up at Donghyuck.
"That day, you were walking down the hall with your hand in your pocket. I just thought you were cutting class to go have a smoke. I didn't have a lighter, and I wanted a cigarette so bad my teeth were hurting."
Donghyuck froze. His finger stayed stuck in mid-air.
"Are you shitting me? Are you serious right now? You think everyone who goes to the bathroom during class is going there to light up? I actually, fucking really had to go!"
"Well, damn," the guy awkwardly adjusted his glasses. "You looked suspicious as hell. And you were walking so fast... I just figured we were on the same wave. Anyway, sorry. And I have a name. It’s Mark."
"I don't give a fuck who you are, Mark," Donghyuck grumbled, though his aggression began to simmer down into regular irritation.
"You owe me a shirt and moral compensation for my interrupted urination process."
Mark opened his mouth to respond, but suddenly his expression shifted violently. He froze, staring right through Donghyuck. His pupils constricted, and his head tilted slightly to the side, as if he were listening to something Donghyuck couldn't hear.
"Huh? Why'd you freeze up?" Donghyuck poked his shoulder again.
But Mark didn't answer. He just bolted out of the room like a bullet, nearly knocking Donghyuck off his feet with the door.
"Goddammit! What the hell?!" Donghyuck screamed after him, staring at the once-again closed door.