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Mark is the first one to arrive at the scene of the crime, because, well—he’s typically the first person to arrive anywhere. That happens when even your light jog is a cool 200,000 kilometers per second. Officer Lee follows closely behind him, having (literally) sniffed out the disturbance. He surveys the damage with an indifference Mark knows he doesn’t feel.
Jeno is a soft person by just about every definition of the word, except for maybe the build of his body and the hardened nature of the occupation he’s chosen. “I’m going to coordinate with EMS,” he says quietly. Mark steals a glance at the man bleeding out on the street and winces. In a world full of superpowers, it’s almost funny—in an ironic way—that he ended up dying from a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Simple, clean, efficient. “Would you mind talking to our witness?”
“Witness,” Mark echoes. “There’s a witness?”
Jeno, grimacing, nods in the direction of the sidewalk. And then Mark sees it—a girl, no older than five or six—with her face buried in her mother’s stomach, her whole body shaking. His gut churns. “She didn’t see it happen,” he says. Somehow, knowing that still doesn’t bring Mark any relief. “But we know she saw the suspect. I tried talking to her, but I couldn’t get anything.”
“Her mom didn’t see anything?”
“She was on the phone. Only looked away for a second, she said, but it happened so quickly.”
One second is all it takes. Sometimes less.
Mark isn’t sure what he’ll be able to do if Jeno couldn’t get her to talk. But Renjun has always said he’s good with children. You have a trustworthy kind of demeanor, he told Mark, after their first date. It was at an amusement park. Some poor lost boy latched onto Mark’s sleeve and refused to let go until they found his father, waiting by the ferris wheel, a few minutes later. The face of a true hero, I guess. Even kids can see it.
“I’ll give it a try,” Mark says, and Jeno claps him on the shoulder in thanks.
The girl’s mother straightens her back as Mark approaches, and he attempts to soften his own stance in return. “Hyerin-ah,” she whispers. “Look—you know who this is, don’t you?”
Hyerin glances up just long enough for Mark to catch a glimpse of her blotchy cheeks and red-rimmed eyes. “...I saw him on TV,” she mumbles, her expression guarded.
“That’s right.” Mark kneels down, fishes around in his pocket until he comes up with a handful of lemon candies. Some of the apprehension leaves Hyerin’s face. It’s not funny, there’s nothing funny about the situation—but Mark can’t help but smile a little. The methods to mollify small children aren’t so different from the methods Mark uses to appease his own sulking boyfriend. “I’m on TV a lot, because I help catch bad people. You know what that makes me?”
“A good guy?” she guesses, reaching for a piece of candy.
“That’s right. And I think you might have seen a bad person, here,” Mark says, gesturing out towards the gathering crowd.
Her lower lip trembles, and suddenly she twists around to tug at the hem of her mother’s skirt. “No,” she insists, voice shaking. “I didn’t. I didn’t see him.”
Mark frowns. “So it was a man?” It doesn’t feel good to pull a gotcha moment on a kid who’s so clearly shaken. But he has to at least try to get her to say more.
She shakes her head. “I didn’t see anyone.”
“Hey,” Mark says, quieting his voice. “I know it must’ve been scary. I’m really, really sorry about that. But whoever you saw—he did a bad thing, you know.” Hyerin stiffens, gnawing on her lower lip, and Mark pauses. He’s sure she’s going to start crying. She reaches for another piece of candy instead. He continues. “He did a really bad thing. And we don’t want him to do anything bad again, so if you could tell us about him, that would be really helpful.”
They stand there in silence for a few agonizingly slow seconds. Her small hands clench into fists around silk. Fat, silent tears roll down her cheeks. “Daddy,” she whispers, almost inaudible. “It was daddy. You said he was a bad man, and that he did a bad thing, but my daddy isn’t a bad man.”
Mark stills. He’s not sure what to say. Hyerin’s mother taps in. “Hyerin-ah,” she says, and she sounds close to crying too. “Daddy is—Daddy is gone. You know that, baby. Why would you say that?”
Mark’s blood runs cold. “Gone, as in…”
Dead, the grim frown on her mother’s face answers. Gone as in dead, capital-D-Dead.
“Because it was him,” Hyerin wails. “I know it was him! He smiled at me, and he said not to look, and he covered my eyes, and then—and then—”
And then he was gone.
“Are you sure it was him?” Mark asks quietly, because he has to. He has to ask.
Hyerin’s entire face crumples as she nods. Her mother’s face crumples, too. “It was him,” she says again, hiccuping. “I know what he looks like.”
Mark pauses as she reaches out a third time. There are no candies left. He holds her hand in his instead.
“Did I help?” she asks.
“Yes,” Mark whispers, squeezing her hand gently. “Yes, you did.”
Being a hero is tough work.
It’s not like Mark went into this job expecting it to be easy, but like—it’s one thing to know something is tough, and another thing entirely to experience it firsthand, okay? It’s not the type of thing that gets easier with time either.
Today was long—and out of the ordinary. Yesterday was long, and the day before that was long, too, even if they weren’t very eventful. Contrary to popular belief, their city isn’t the crime-infested mess it was just a few years ago, when Mark first got on the job. Which is a good thing! Really good, even, but it’s all the same after a while. Rescuing kittens stuck in trees, helping elementary school kids across the street, carrying groceries for well-meaning old ladies and nodding politely as they tell him they’d love to set him up with their granddaughters.
Not like Mark could tell them, thanks, but I’m really gay, and I have an extremely beautiful boyfriend who I’m obsessed with, so I’ll pass. Instead he offers them a smile and makes no promises and arrives home with his spandex suit stuffed full of crumpled up phone numbers.
But speaking of his boyfriend—speaking of his lovely, perfect, wonderful boyfriend—all Mark wants to do is crawl into bed and curl up on Renjun’s chest. Renjun has a way of making all the exhaustion disappear from his body, with his gentle hands and gentler voice, and he always says that’s not technically a superpower and also that Mark is biased, but to Mark, it’s the most important power of all. Sure, maybe he’s biased. It’s not a crime to love your boyfriend, no matter how much Chenle tries to tell him otherwise.
His superpower is useful for a lot of reasons. Mark has never been late to a meeting in his entire life. He can dodge or outrun a bullet without breaking a sweat. He’s always the first in line for anything. He doesn’t have to deal with traffic, or crowded trains, or inefficient bus routes. He can answer a call for help on the opposite side of town and swing by the store for groceries and still make it to the office to pick Renjun up before rush hour hits, all within minutes. But by far, the best use of his abilities is being able to rush home to see his boyfriend at the end of a very long day.
Which is why he’s disappointed to come home to silence instead of the usual sounds of domesticity he’s gotten used to over the past few years. Usually, he finds Renjun humming over the stove (he’s a terrible cook, but Mark is worse, so they make do), or laughing to himself as he watches some terrible reality tv show Mark can’t ever remember the name of, or otherwise busying himself around their home.
“Babe?” he calls out. His voice echoes through their presumably empty apartment. Maybe Renjun is just taking a nap? “Babe, you home?”
He wanders into the living room first. Empty. Renjun’s wallet is on the coffee table, so he definitely hasn’t run out for an errand or anything. This absence wasn’t planned. Suddenly, Mark breathes in deep, and—is that the smell of something burning?
The kitchen unearths two more clues: two pieces of bread in the toaster so burnt they probably can’t even legally be called food anymore. Mark lets them fall into the garbage can with a sigh. Their window is cracked and left wide-open. This can only mean one thing. He turns to the fridge, next, and sure enough, there’s a note stuck to the front with the Eiffel Tower souvenir magnet Renjun bought on their first trip to Paris.
We’re out of milk, the note reads, in Renjun’s perfectly neat handwriting. And also, I got kidnapped again.
And underneath that, in Insight’s chicken-scratch scrawl: Plz bring laundry detergent. I ran out. ☹
Insight’s lair is really less of a lair and more just an empty office building that hasn’t been able to find a tenant in the last two years or so (hey—times are tough), which is also conveniently the amount of time Mark has been, well… acquainted with Donghyuck. He’s not sure he could even call Donghyuck an acquaintance. More like a nuisance. A not-so-friendly neighborhood pest. Like a stray cat who keeps coming back to your doorstep no matter how many times you try to take it to the shelter.
You should have chosen a different archnemesis, Renjun said once, half-jokingly.
You’re implying I had any choice in the matter, Mark replied. I didn’t choose Insight. He didn’t even choose me. He chose you.
Mark thinks about these choices as he barrels shoulder-first into an already worn door, tearing it off its hinges (seriously, why does Donghyuck keep nailing it back up when they know Mark is just going to destroy it every time). He screeches to a halt, winces as the wooden door makes an audible crash behind him. It’s not like he enjoys ruining Donghyuck’s property like this, but he wouldn’t have to do it at all if it weren’t for the fact that Donghyuck keeps kidnapping his fucking boyfriend.
His eyes scan the room, frantic, and—Donghyuck and Renjun are sitting around a coffee table. They’re playing cards. Neither of them are even looking in his direction. If facepalming was a thing real people did, Mark would be doing it right now.
Every single time. It’s always like this.
“Insight,” he hisses.
Donghyuck glances up, almost lazy. “Oh,” he says. “Wildcat in the house. Could you ring the doorbell next time, or do they not teach that at East High School?”
“You don’t have a doorbell,” Mark reminds him. Two years. Two years of Donghyuck tormenting Mark and kidnapping Renjun and making incessant High School Musical jokes at Mark’s expense. He’s even considered changing his superhero moniker at this point, but that would mean letting Donghyuck win.
Mark can’t let Donghyuck win. Heroes do not negotiate with villains. This is the way of the world.
“Got any twos?” Renjun asks, then looks over his shoulder to smile up at Mark. Perfectly calm, even amused. “Hi, baby. Did you see my note about the milk?”
“Go fish,” Donghyuck tells him. “Did you see my note about the detergent?”
“I’m not here to bring you detergent. I’m here to take my boyfriend home, since you’ve kidnapped him. Again. For what must be at least the tenth week in a row.”
“Nine,” Renjun says. “It’s been nine weeks in a row. He missed a week in March.”
“Aw, babe, you’ve been keeping track,” Donghyuck says, making a kissy face in Renjun’s direction. “You actually got here pretty quick today, Wildcat. I’m almost impressed.”
Mark’s literal power is super speed. Of course he got here quickly. “Of course I did,” he retorts. “I’m quick about everything.” He realizes his mistake too late.
Donghyuck throws down his cards. “Quick in bed, too?” he asks. “One-pump chump, maybe?” He turns to Renjun with doleful eyes as Mark fumes quietly. “I could treat you better than that, baby. Not like the five-minute-man over here.”
“Hey,” Mark whines. “I always last longer than five minutes. Baby, tell him.”
“Well,” Renjun says thoughtfully. “There was that one time—”
“Baby,” Mark says again, pleading. He only realizes he’s been pouting once Renjun is back in his arms and pressing a kiss to the pushed-out swell of his lower lip.
It’s impossible to be upset with Renjun like this, not when Mark is finally holding him again after an entirely too long day. “I’m kidding, you know that,” he coos. “Don’t be pouty. Donghyuck, I appreciate the offer, but I’m alright.”
“The more you turn me down, the more I want you.” Donghyuck says from across the room. “Carnally.”
“I know,” Renjun replies flatly. “You should probably re-evaluate that about yourself.”
Mark whines. “Baby,” he protests. “Could you please stop flirting with my archnemesis?”
“It’s not my fault he gets off on being turned down.” Renjun huffs. “This is the best I can do.”
Donghyuck grins wide enough that Mark can see the white gleam of his teeth, even from across the room. “One of these days, you’ll give me a chance.”
“Probably not.”
“Don’t bother denying it—I can see everything that goes on in your pretty little head, you know that.” Donghyuck pauses, likely for dramatic effect, before his grin widens into a leer. “You’re thinking about it right now, aren’t you? In front of your boyfriend, too, you’re so filthy.”
Donghyuck’s lying. Mark knows Donghyuck is lying, just to get under his skin, because it’s what he does best. It’s what he’s always done, ever since the first time they clashed and Donghyuck realized no amount of reading Mark’s mind could prevent his defeat.
Whoever said mind over matter never met Mark and his light speed.
“I’m gonna show him what we did last night,” Renjun says, nonplussed, and glances up at Mark. “Hey, Donghyuck. Read this.”
“Hey—” A flush rises to Mark’s cheeks as he thinks to protest—what they’d done last night was private—and honestly, sort of filthy. But a matching blush paints Donghyuck’s face all over within seconds, and Mark realizes with dismay he’s too late.
Donghyuck coughs and splutters. “I—” he says, his voice cracking halfway through the monosyllable. “You—”
“Yeah. Me,” Renjun says, pointing up to Mark. “And him, too.”
That’s the thing about Donghyuck. He’s all talk, no action. He calls himself a villain, but he really does little more than kidnap Renjun, and mostly they just hang out until Mark shows up. Maybe that’s why Mark has let it go on so long. He knows Donghyuck is harmless deep down. The worst crime he’s committed is that of being a shameless flirt.
“...I’ll see you next week, Renjunnie.”
“Don’t come on Friday. I have to go into the office that day, so I can’t just mute my Zoom call when you decide to crash through my window.”
“Just leave it open for me,” Donghyuck simpers with some of his usual shamelessness, having recovered slightly from his impromptu sex tape viewing.
“Just don’t come at all,” Mark says.
Donghyuck waves at them both on their way out. “Same time next week,” he says. “It’s a date, guys!”
They order takeout when they get home. Neither of them has the energy to even attempt cooking, not that either of them is particularly inclined towards cooking to begin with. Or even competent at it.
(Mark’s parents try to send them cooked meals every few weeks, packed away in Tupperware containers, because they know how hopeless they both are. But Renjun’s parents want him to learn to cook, so occasionally they try to walk him through recipes over the phone instead, to very little success. Mark still eats all his food, no matter how botched, not because he lacks taste buds but because he loves his boyfriend.)
Renjun sits on the couch between Mark’s legs and carefully, methodically, picks the tiny pieces of cilantro out of Mark’s noodles because Mark had forgotten to add a note in the app requesting it be taken out.
“It’s not a big deal,” Mark mumbles into his hair. “I don’t mind, baby, I can just eat it as is—”
“You had a long day, didn’t you?” Renjun asks, twisting around in his arms to give him a look. “I know you don’t mind. I still want to do it for you.”
Mark’s insides flutter. He presses his face into Renjun’s neck and mouths at the skin there. Sometimes he wonders if it’s normal to love one person this much. “How’d I get so lucky?”
“Not by being so cheesy, I can tell you that much,” Renjun retorts, but his skin is warm and flushed, and Mark knows he’s blushing.
A warm breeze blows in through the gap in their window they hadn’t managed to cover with one of Mark’s old t-shirts, and with it, carries the scent of geraniums they planted in the window box outside two summers ago. There were no flowers in that window box before Renjun moved in, just handfuls of dirt and a few stray rocks. There were a lot of things Mark didn’t have in his home before Renjun moved in. Like fitted sheets. Or a bed frame. Or non-secondhand furniture. Or matching utensils.
Love had him blowing an entire paycheck and then some at the department store on Renjun’s first day in the apartment.
“You had a long day too,” Mark says, like that’s only suddenly just occurred to him. “You know, with the getting kidnapped and all?”
“That’s not a long day. That’s just a regular Tuesday for me.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that Donghyuck does this every week? Like—really, every week. Because if it does, I can—”
Renjun snorts. “He’s harmless. Kind of cute, you know?” No. Mark does not know. Not even a little bit, not even when Donghyuck pouts up at the two of them and his hair falls into his eyes like an overgrown puppy. “Like a little puppydog. He even carries my grocery bags for me when you’re busy saving the entire town from ruin and such. I really like him, not that I’ll ever tell him that.”
Grocery bags. “Fuck,” Mark says, more to himself than to Renjun. “I forgot the milk.”
Renjun sets the noodles aside and purses his lips. “You know he likes you, right?”
“He’s my archnemesis,” Mark points out. “Remember? Babe, I know we’re getting older now, but you’re still younger than me so your memory shouldn’t be so—ow!”
“I remember,” Renjun says, rubbing the spot on Mark’s arm he just pinched (ow, ow, ow) with a confusing tenderness. “You guys aren’t really enemies, though. I mean, I’m really more of a pacifist, but your fights don’t seem like fights, they seem like. I don’t know. Foreplay?”
Mark chokes on his spit. “Foreplay? Why would I— Babe, what?”
“I know you’re into him—I still remember that first time you met him, you came home and told me you nearly got your ass kicked by the second-most beautiful man you’d ever seen.”
“I just—I mean, he’s pretty, and I can admit that, because I have eyes.” Mark quickly follows up with, “But you’re still the prettiest person in the world to me!”
“I’m not jealous, dummy,” Renjun snorts. “I’m just saying that maybe the feeling is mutual, and he’s just pulling your pigtails at this point. Because you’re so cute to tease. I would know.”
Mark pulls back just enough for Renjun to see his frown. “I don’t like that he exploits my only weakness,” he mumbles, and then realizes how it must sound. “I mean—not that loving you is a weakness, or that you’re weak, I—”
“Mark,” Renjun says softly. “I know you didn’t mean it like that. But I like knowing I’m your one weakness. And I’m fully capable of protecting myself too, even without superpowers. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know,” Mark says, because he does. “But what kind of hero am I if I can’t even protect my own boyfriend?” What good is it to save an entire city if it means he can’t help the one person who means the most to him?
Mark and Renjun. Renjun and Mark. This is the way it’s been for two years now, and Mark has no room for anything else.
“A good hero,” Renjun replies without hesitation, and the palm of his hand is warm as he ghosts over Mark’s cheek. “My hero.”
Saturday is a day off. Or—Mark doesn’t really get days off in his line of work. But Renjun does, being a civilian and all, so Mark wakes up early, and deigns to let Renjun sleep in a few extra hours while he goes to the grocery store. To get the milk. As a good boyfriend does.
The cashier at the front greets him by name—Mark helped find his dog last week—and a passing grandmother in the produce section flags him down to give him another phone number he very much does not need. He spends a frankly embarrassing amount of time in the dairy aisle trying to remember what type and brand of milk Renjun usually buys.
It’s really not his fault. There are like, a million options for milk now. Mark doesn’t have any idea why anyone would need such an extensive range of choices for milk. He’s about to reach for a vaguely familiar looking carton when an annoyed voice suddenly cuts through his thoughts.
“Move it, minute man,” Donghyuck says, dressed down in sweats and a tee rather than his usual all-black latex villainwear. “I’m trying to get to the oat milk.”
Mark’s hackles rise at that. It’s the first time he’s run into Donghyuck outside of—well—his job. Seems a little odd to call hero work his job given that it doesn't lend itself well to the whole coworker, 9-to-5, office building type of deal, but whatever. He can’t say he’s particularly thrilled about it either way. Donghyuck takes advantage of his momentary pause to push past him for the carton of Oatly.
“What are you doing here?” Mark demands when he finally finds his voice again.
“Buying groceries, duh. And detergent, since you wouldn’t get it for me.” Donghyuck eyes Mark’s basket judgmentally. “A bottle of red wine and condoms, huh? You guys gonna have a crazy night? Missionary sex at nine, lights out at ten? You should really think about spicing things up, you know.” His own basket hosts a container of strawberries and some Tide Pods and a small brightly-colored bottle Mark suspects might be lube, so he’s really in no place to judge.
“There’s nothing wrong with missionary!” Mark splutters. So what if he prefers to hold Renjun’s hand and look into his eyes when they have sex? And what’s wrong with going to bed early, anyway? They’re both early risers, and— “And it’s none of your business how we have sex—or when!”
“Mm, agree to disagree,” Donghyuck says, and what the fuck does that mean? He seems amused by Mark’s confusion. In the fluorescent light of the supermarket the lean lines of his face suddenly look soft, almost boyish. Mark shakes himself out of his own stupor. “Everything that has to do with Renjun is my business.”
Mark rubs at his temples. Talking to Donghyuck always gives him a tension headache. “Just leave him out of whatever—I don’t know—rivalry we have going on. Leave him alone.”
Donghyuck doesn’t even have the decency to pretend he’s entertaining the thought. “Why would I leave him alone?” he asks. “Have you ever thought that maybe your boyfriend likes being around me?”
“If he likes being around you, then why do you have to kidnap him?” Mark volleys back in the same breath.
Donghyuck purses his lips together. They stare at each other for what feels like minutes but can’t possibly be longer than a few seconds. “Because it’s more fun that way, why else?” he replies, voice plasticked and sickly sweet. “But enough of that. There’s a guy running down the street with someone else’s purse in three, two—”
“Help!” a woman’s voice calls from outside, just as Donghyuck finishes his countdown. “Someone—that guy took my bag, someone stop him—”
“I’d love to continue this conversation, but you can’t not help her, right?” Donghyuck asks.
Mark pauses.
Someone outside screams.
“You can’t not help her,” Donghyuck repeats, more smugly. “Right?”
Damn it. Mark’s dropping his basket and running for the door before Donghyuck can even finish the sentence.
Mark saves the day, as he does. The woman thanks him before she goes on her way, and Mark stays around just long enough to help Officer Lee file an official report. “Any word on that incident from last week?” he asks. “With the little girl.”
Jeno shakes his head. “We put out an APB for a suspect matching her father’s description, but nothing yet.”
Things like that have been happening pretty often lately—people claiming loved ones from their past have reappeared, acting strangely—but Mark’s always figured it was more of an oddity than anything else. This is the first time it’s resulted in a murder, and Mark knows it’s weighing heavy on Jeno. Even if it’s difficult for him to conjure much sympathy at all for the victim, who’d been notorious among police and heroes alike for a laundry list of crimes Mark didn’t care to recall and his frequent (often violent) run-ins with the law.
That didn’t mean he needed to die for it, though.
“It’s weird,” Jeno continues, frowning. “She described him as having pink hair, but her mother said her father never dyed his hair for as long as she knew him.”
Huh. Yeah, weird. “We’ll get him,” Mark promises, and some of the tension bleeds from Jeno’s shoulders. “I’ll keep looking, too, whenever I can.”
“Thanks,” Jeno sighs. “I’m just glad you were here today. It could’ve gotten messy since that guy was armed. Disaster averted this time, I guess.”
At least one disaster averted, Mark thinks, even though Donghyuck has long since gotten away. There’s no use in even checking for him at this point. He goes home with a heavy heart and empty hands and lets Renjun tug him back underneath the covers for an afternoon nap and kiss away the worst of his worries.
The real disaster strikes that night at 9:30 PM, on the dot.
“Baby,” Renjun pants, his chest flushed and sticky with sweat. His hips jolt when Mark curls his fingers up, quivering for a millisecond in mid-air as they rise and drop back down to the sheets. “Move your—Yeah, like that—A little to the side—”
God, he’s beautiful like this. Every time. But Mark’s wrist is starting to get a little sore, and he’s so hard it’s almost painful, so he lets his eyes drift to the nightstand, where there should be—
“Oh no,” he says, suddenly stilling. “I forgot the milk again.” And the condoms. And the wine. All abandoned in a basket in the dairy aisle. He’s a terrible boyfriend. A terrible, boring boyfriend. This is all Donghyuck’s fault.
Underneath him, Renjun lets out a whimper. “What—” he asks, squirming on Mark’s hand, trying to get him to move again. “That doesn’t matter right now, you can go back tomorrow, can you just—” He drags an arm around the back of Mark’s neck and tugs him down to seal their mouths together, messy and quick. “C’mon, I need you.”
“I forgot the condoms, too,” Mark says, his breath hitching.
Renjun rolls his eyes, and it sort of does more for Mark than it should. He likes it when Renjun lets himself get a little bratty, a little bitchy. “We’ve been dating for two years, Mark. It’s fine. We don’t even remember to use one half the time by now.”
Fuck. Mark whines low in his chest and ruts down against Renjun’s hip, already withdrawing his fingers. “You’re sure? Like, absolutely positive, babe, because I don’t want to pr—”
“I’m sure,” Renjun says, and Mark takes a moment—just a moment—to admire him. He’s so, so pretty—rosy-cheeked and dewy-eyed, his back curving off the mattress like every centimeter of skin where he’s not pressed against Mark is somehow a physical affront. “I’m ready, baby, please?”
Mark has never been in the business of saying no to Renjun. Not since the first time they met, when they were in college and Renjun tapped on his shoulder in the library and asked, very politely, if Mark could help him grab a textbook off the top shelf. It was a ploy, of course, because there was a stool clear in sight and Renjun later admitted he didn’t even need textbooks as an art student, but Mark said yes, because there was never any other option.
(Yes, of course, while I’m up there, should I get you the moon? The stars? Maybe the sun too, just while I’m at it?—he didn’t say any of that, of course, but he definitely thought it.)
Back then, Mark was still accidentally running into walls because he couldn’t quite get a grasp on his power yet, and extremely head over heels for the boy with the ink-stained fingers in his too-big sweater. And he’s just as head over heels now as he was then. People used to say that would fade. They were wrong.
“Okay,” Mark breathes out. “Yeah, of course.”
The next few seconds unfold in a familiar way—Renjun fluffs the pillow behind his head, presses his lips to Mark’s, then fastens his thighs around his hips. He tastes like sunshine and warmth and a little bit like his mother’s homemade chili oil, and Mark loves him.
Mark loves him, so why is he thinking about his conversation with Donghyuck from earlier today?
“Not like that,” he blurts out. “I want you on, um—” Renjun gives him a questioning look. “On your, uh—” God, he can’t even say it. “G-Get on your knees.”
Renjun’s expression grows puzzled. “Okay…” he says, rolling over onto his stomach. Something in Mark’s gut clenches at the sight, the heavy weight of arousal building fast. Renjun looks over his shoulder, a blush set high on his cheeks, and mumbles, “Like this?” His skin is smooth and pale and unblemished except for where Mark laid his lips the day before, his hair spilling over his shoulder like sunlight.
“Yeah,” Mark croaks, then clears his throat. Frog voice isn’t sexy. “I mean, yeah, that’s good, that’s great, you’re perfect—” He suddenly feels like a bumbling virgin all over again as he lines himself up. His hands fumble for purchase on Renjun’s waist, and then he decides it might be easier to hold him at the hips, and then he’s wondering if it’s possible he’s overthinking all of this entirely.
And of course it all fades away once he’s actually inside Renjun. Because sex with Renjun is always perfect, and it always feels good, and it always makes Mark just dick-stupid enough that he can’t second guess anything the way he normally would. Renjun shivers and cries out with every movement of Mark’s hips, however slight, works himself back with the limited range of motion he still has. Mark can’t even fully appreciate the pretty little noises falling from his lips because he’s busy pressing open-mouthed kisses down the delicate curve of his spine and wishing he was swallowing his whimpers with his mouth instead.
Mark fucks him like that, shallow and slow, until Renjun turns his head to the side, flushed and glossy-eyed. The writhing of his hips is almost mesmerizing to watch. “More,” he insists, clearly embarrassed about it, as if Mark wouldn’t just give him the world if he asked. “Please, I’m so close, I—”
His sentence cuts off halfway through as Mark drives forward, and the strangled moan he lets out has Mark thinking they’ll definitely be getting a complaint from the neighbors tomorrow, but it doesn’t matter. None of it matters, because Renjun rarely ever begs in bed. He’s too prideful for it except in the most dire of circumstances, and Mark loves that about him but he loves this too. When proud, independent Renjun forgets himself for just long enough to let his tightly-wound self control slip, Mark is always determined to make it worth his while.
He braces himself more firmly against the bed as he spreads his knees, angles his hips upwards. And it’s a wonderful sight to see—Renjun unravels all at once, all high-pitched whimpers and soft gasps. Mark drinks them in, commits each one to memory like something precious to be remembered later. Renjun’s body quivers like a leaf underneath Mark’s hands, not that Mark is faring much better; his own movements feel near-animalistic, driven by a force that feels larger than himself. The scent of sweat mingles with the lavender musk of Renjun’s perfume and whatever brand of dryer sheets he favors—Mark can’t remember right now.
The force of his thrusts pushes Renjun’s pliant body further and further into the bed. He shifts forward, little by little, with every thrust. Mark wants so many things. Wants everything when it comes to Renjun, and then some, and maybe that makes him selfish, but most of all, he wants to make Renjun feel good. He shifts, manages to get a hand underneath their bodies to wrap his fingers around Renjun’s cock where it’s already been leaking against the sheets. “Jun,” he mumbles, half-delirious with lust, his voice on the verge of trembling. His stomach is already pulling taut. “Junnie, I’m gonna—”
Renjun’s back arches against him as he reaches back, nails digging into the thin skin at Mark’s hip. His spine is slick with sweat; his body is a furnace. Mark wants to burn. When he swallows, his throat is dry as the desert. “Yeah,” he breathes out, and when he presses back against him Mark feels like he’s lost all coherence. “Yeah, me too.”
It takes Mark’s muddled mind a moment to grasp the reply, but when it does, he manages to pull Renjun flush against his hips and keep him there, the grip of his hand bruise-tight. His climax is torn from him too suddenly for him to do anything except let it overtake him. He presses the full weight of his body into Renjun, groaning against his dampened skin, and he must be mumbling something because he can hear his voice reverberating through his own skull, but he’s barely conscious of it.
I love you, he thinks, as Renjun shudders and comes undone beneath him, and hopes his mouth is forming the words properly. I love you, I love you, I love you.
For a moment, they lay there, breathing in sync. Mark’s heartbeat shudders against his ribcage as he fights to catch his breath. Then Renjun turns his head, angling himself awkwardly in a wordless plea, and Mark presses their lips together to swallow his whine as he pulls out. “Wow,” Renjun says. “That was—”
Mark waits patiently for Renjun to finish his sentence. Renjun seems to struggle a bit with his words, and he pushes at Mark’s shoulder to get him on his side before he settles on, “What’s gotten into you?”
Mark goes momentarily cross-eyed as Renjun crowds into his space. “Um,” he says. “Nothing? Did you not like that? I’m sorry, I—”
“No,” Renjun says. “Of course I liked it, are you kidding?” He drags a soft hand down the length of Mark’s spine, the gesture warm and tender. “It’s just not… That was a little out of character for you.”
Even with Renjun’s most gentle reassurance, the words sit uncomfortably in Mark’s stomach. So Donghyuck was right.
“Baby?” Renjun asks, prompting him when Mark’s gone silent for too long. He sounds genuinely concerned. “Is everything okay?”
“Donghyuck said—” Mark starts, and then thinks better of it. He really doesn’t want to talk about Donghyuck right now, not in bed like this. “Never mind.”
Renjun’s eyes narrow. “No, now you have to tell me. What did Donghyuck say?”
Mark shifts uncomfortably. “He said I should… spice things up. In our sex life. Among other things.”
“That idiot,” Renjun mutters. He seems to be talking more to himself than to Mark. “Listen, Donghyuck is just being dumb. He didn’t mean it like that, but either way, it’s none of his business what we do together. Okay?”
“Okay,” Mark says quietly, reaching out to take Renjun’s hands. “I know, I just—” Want you to be happy, and maybe I can’t give that to you. Maybe you really do need someone like Donghyuck, who’s fun, and spontaneous, and beautiful, and—
Wait, what?
Renjun leans in, presses their foreheads together. “Don’t do that,” he chides. He always knows when Mark’s getting too deep in his own head. “I love you. I enjoy everything we do together, and I mean that. Everything.” Mark flushes, but Renjun barrels onward. “I know he likes to tease, but if he’s bothering you that much, I can talk to him next time. Tell him to stop with the interference.”
That doesn’t quite seem like the right solution, but Mark doesn’t know what else to do. “Yeah,” he says, though he’s unsure. “Maybe that’s for the best.”
Tuesday—Donghyuck day—comes around. The apartment is empty when Mark gets back from doing his rounds. That’s to be expected. Disappointing, but expected. Nothing but the sound of rain meeting glass greets him as he walks through into the living room. Renjun’s taken his phone and wallet with him this time too, so Donghyuck must’ve been kind enough to at least let him gather some meager belongings this time before he whisked him away.
Huh, Mark thinks. Maybe he’s finally learning some manners. And then, no—wait. It’s Donghyuck we’re talking about. That’s probably impossible.
There’s no note in the kitchen. No note, no nothing, no trace of Renjun or where he might have gone.
Discomfort churns in Mark’s stomach. Renjun always leaves a note. He’s trying not to jump to conclusions—Renjun could walk right through their front door in the next five minutes the same way he always does, and smile that same earth-shattering smile at Mark, and say something like, you worry too much, baby, have a little faith in me. But Mark doesn’t think that’s what’s going to happen. Something doesn’t feel entirely right about this, but for once, he isn’t sure what to do.
An urgent knock at the door pulls him out of his stupor right as he’s starting to consider a brisk 1-minute jog around the city. And Mark knows it’s not Renjun—if it were him, he’d use the key—but he flies to the door anyway. What if it’s Jeno, coming to him with information about the case? What if it’s someone else, having found Renjun’s body a few blocks away? What if it’s—
All his thoughts go blank at the sight in front of him.
His supposed archnemesis, bruised and soaked to the bone, is leaning heavily against the door frame like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. There’s a scrape at the side of his mouth, already scabbed over all ugly and reddened. Whoever did this really did a number on him.
“I’m sorry,” he says, before Mark can ask him something like what the hell are you doing here, swaying to the side with a slightly dazed look in his eye. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
Mark’s still reeling, but he leans forward to break Donghyuck’s fall right as he tips forward. “What—” he starts, then stops. “Hyuck, what happened, where’s Renjun, are you—”
Donghyuck’s eyes cloud over. “You called me Hyuck,” he says haltingly. “You’ve never called me by my name before.” Then he laughs, even though this is really no laughing matter at all. Mark is about to call him out for it, but Donghyuck abruptly goes limp in his arms, his entire body seizing up as he goes still.
“Hyuck,” Mark says again, the panic in his voice growing clearer even to his own ears. He shakes him by the shoulders once. Donghyuck remains unmoving. “Hyuck, please wake up? Please?”
One more shake. “Hyuck—”
He feels Donghyuck’s smile against his shoulder before he sees it. “Haha, just kidding,” Donghyuck says. “I’m fine, just a little roughed up. But who knew you cared so much about me, huh? I always—”
Anger flares through Mark, white-hot and bursting in his veins. Just as abruptly as Donghyuck had feigned passing out, Mark pushes him back, as if burned. “What the fuck, Insight,” he spits, watching as Donghyuck stumbles back, grins up at him with a calmness that feels misplaced. “That wasn’t funny. And this is no situation to be kidding around.”
“Aw,” Donghyuck says. “Back to Insight already? No more pet names, Wildcat?”
“Where is Renjun,” Mark seethes. “What did you do?”
At the mention of Renjun’s name, Donghyuck’s face falls for a second. “Can I come in?” he asks. “I don’t really think the hallway is a good place to have this conversation. Renjun is—probably alright. But he needs you. He needs us.”
Probably is not the word Mark was looking for. He’s my boyfriend, he wants to protest. He only needs me. Not you.
But whether he likes it or not, Donghyuck is the closest clue he has to finding his boyfriend right now. Whatever resentment Mark holds for him shouldn’t get in the way of that ultimate goal. Maybe they can be civil, work together just for long enough to find Renjun. That’d probably make Renjun happy, and if there’s anything Mark wants in this world, it’s to make him happy. If Donghyuck can stop antagonizing him for long enough to get anything done, that is.
Mark knows how to tell a bad idea from a good one, and teaming up with Donghyuck—even just temporarily—is a good idea. It doesn’t mean he likes Donghyuck. It doesn’t mean he forgives him for letting anything happen to Renjun at all.
Against his better judgment, Mark opens the door and turns on his heel back towards the living room. “Fine,” he says. “You can come in.” He waits for Donghyuck to follow.
And waits.
And waits some more.
“Well? You coming or not?”
“...I actually do need your help getting there. He kinda went for my knees. Cheap shot, if you ask me.”
Mark grits his teeth, kneeling down to lift one of Donghyuck’s arms over his shoulder. “I’m only doing this for Renjun,” he says, guiding him to the couch step by step. “I want that to be clear.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Donghyuck says, infuriatingly dismissive. He inhales sharply as he sits back, his hands curled into Mark’s shirt with a vice grip that could rival Renjun’s. “I knew that much, don’t worry.” He looks so small, sitting there on their threadbare couch and shivering in his clothes.
Mark is still angry—pissed, even—and terribly worried, but he’s not heartless. “You wanna borrow some dry clothes?” he asks.
If anyone told Mark yesterday his archnemesis would be sitting in his apartment, wearing borrowed clothes from his and Renjun’s wardrobe, and eating their food, Mark would have called them a liar. Maybe a little delusional to boot.
But there Donghyuck is, clad in one of Renjun’s larger sweaters and a pair of Mark’s smaller sweatpants, looking perfectly at home and leaving water marks on their wooden coffee table.
“There are coasters right there,” Mark says, pointing to the side table. He’s fussing in the kitchen for—he’s not really sure why. He’s not hungry. But maybe Donghyuck is? Their fridge is basically empty, but he scavenges a half-empty tupperware of stir fry and, as an afterthought, some strawberries past their prime.
Donghyuck’s mouth quirks up in a half-smile. “You remembered I like strawberries?” he asks, like that’s significant. He sets his glass of water down, coasterless, and watches Mark take a seat across from him. “I just hope the stir fry is edible.” He’s sort of looking at it like Mark may have personally poisoned it himself.
“Coaster, please,” Mark says. “And Renjun’s mother made it, so of course it’s edible.”
“Ah, my mother-in-law,” Donghyuck replies very seriously. “I guess I have no choice but to take your word for it.”
Mark crosses his arms. “So you’re feeling well enough to joke?” That makes one of them, at least. “You’re feeling well enough to tell me what happened, then.”
Donghyuck fills him in between careful bites of his food. He’s not sure how Renjun was taken to begin with, but Donghyuck had caught them about a block away, just around the corner. Mark tries resolutely not to think about how close he’d been when it happened, and how he’d failed to stop it. “His name is Mirage,” he says quietly, setting his chopsticks down. “Well—that’s his villain name. I don’t know his actual name.”
“What’s his power?” Mark asks, even though he has a sinking feeling already.
“Shapeshifting,” Donghyuck replies grimly. “But only in the face. He relies on psychological manipulation more than anything. That was true before, at least. Now, he’s gone unhinged.”
The pieces click into place. The girl’s father. All the incidents where people insisted their loved ones were acting up out of nowhere, only for those people to come up with rock-solid alibis. “Why,” Mark croaks. “What does he want with Renjun?”
“Beats me,” Donghyuck says. “I couldn’t read him.” Which—huh, doesn’t make sense. Isn’t reading minds supposed to be his entire thing?
“He likes to take the form of whoever he thinks might be most important to you. Really fucks with your mind, even if you know it’s not real—not entirely real, at least. But from what I know of him, he doesn’t hurt civilians. I don’t think he’d do anything to Renjun, but—”
“Hold on,” Mark blurts out. “What do you mean?” Donghyuck must be messing with him. He always tries to get a rise out of Mark—and it usually works. Always in that same smug tone, like he knows something Mark doesn’t, like he sees clear through him right to the bottom of a lake. “You mean, you can’t read everyone—”
“Nope.” Donghyuck pops the ‘p.’ “Probably shouldn’t be telling you this, huh? But it’s not like reading minds is a foolproof thing. With some people, I can see everything. With some people, I can barely see anything at all, unless I dig deep, and even then I can only get a read on their general thoughts, not any specific images. With some people, it can also depend on how much they want me to see their thoughts.” His eyes shift to Mark. “Except you.”
“Except me?” Mark echoes.
Donghyuck blinks, and then smiles wryly. “Up until today, you were the only person I’ve met who I can’t read at all. Not like that, anyway. Thankfully, you’re pretty transparent.”
Mark’s head spins. It’s a lot of information to process in a short amount of time, and he’s not exactly in the best frame of mind right now. Even though Donghyuck says Mirage doesn’t hurt civilians, it’s not like he’s a particularly morally upstanding or trustworthy type of guy. There’s a first time for everything. Up until last month, he’d never killed anyone before, so who’s to say what he’ll do with Renjun? Mark doesn’t even know what the guy looks like, but his mind can’t help but conjure the worst case scenarios—he squeezes his eyes shut, tries to will the thoughts away.
It’s hard. He loves Renjun more than he’s ever loved anyone or anything. It feels suffocating, sometimes. The thought of anything at all happening to him—
“Like right now. You have everything written all over your face.” He’s interrupted by a hand resting on his knee. Mark opens his eyes, and Donghyuck is leaning forward. He’s wearing an uncharacteristically serious expression. “Don’t think about what might be happening to him. That’s not gonna do anyone any good. Keep it together.”
“...I really am transparent, aren’t I?” Mark laughs, a little self-deprecating. “God. I can’t believe I never realized.”
“It’s not a bad thing,” Donghyuck says. “Renjun is the opposite—I can hear everything. That’s why I like you two. You let everything show so openly, but in different ways. It’s interesting.”
Mark gnaws on his lower lip. “...That’s not good, though, in this line of work.” The irony catches him halfway through the sentence. “But I guess I’m probably not that great at my job either way. What kind of hero am I if I can’t even protect my own boyfriend?”
“A good one,” Donghyuck says, and the words are so familiar they nearly bring Mark to his knees. For a split-second, he hears Renjun’s voice in Donghyuck’s. “Now get it together. He needs us, remember? Don’t do it for me. Let’s do it for him.”
Us. A unit. Mark never thought he’d see the day where he’d team up with a villain, but that’s hardly the most surprising part of today. A villain comforting the hero. It’s a little ironic. He huffs a dismissive laugh under his breath.
“You don’t have to comfort me,” he says. “We both know you only really care about Renjun. I’ll pull it together, I promise.” When he glances at Donghyuck, he finds him with an unreadable expression on his face.
“Do you really think that?” Donghyuck asks, genuinely curious. “That I only care about Renjun?”
Mark opens his mouth to answer. Then closes it. The words are already on the tip of his tongue—yeah, of course I do—but he can’t force them out. He’s not sure. He’s never had any reason to question it before. The only thing they really have in common is Renjun.
Donghyuck grins. “Just kidding,” he says again, but something about his tone seems off. “Now let’s make a plan to get our boy back, yeah?”
Our boy. The words suddenly don’t bother Mark as much as he thinks they should. “Yeah,” he replies. “Let’s do it.”
“You know,” Donghyuck says. “This is sort of like the end of High School Musical, where the lame ass nerds and the jocks all team up so that Troy and Gabriella can sing their stupid little song.”
“I don’t think—”
“Well, I’d probably be Troy. Renjun is Gabriella, obviously.”
Against his better judgment, Mark asks, “Well, who am I?”
Donghyuck smiles. “One of the lame ass nerds, obviously.”
“Never mind,” Mark says. “I think I’m going to do this alone.”
“Get your head in the game, Mark. We're doing this together.”
Donghyuck’s plan is really just to storm into Mirage's hideout, guns-a-blazing. Mark kind of wants to argue on principle, because it’s a shitty plan, and it’s not really strategic for them to be confronting Mirage without being on the same page, but he’s in a hurry to get to Renjun and he’s got nothing better, so he figures they’ll make do. Worse comes to worse, he’ll call in Jeno as backup, though he’d prefer to keep the police out of it.
“So I’ll go in first,” Mark says. “And you’ll follow, okay?”
Donghyuck hums noncommittally. “Uh-huh.”
Mark sighs. “Please stop staring at my ass.”
“You just wear so much spandex. It’s distracting,” Donghyuck says, as if his own wardrobe doesn’t usually consist of skintight latex. “Like, I think I could bounce a quarter off your ass. Has Renjun ever tried that?”
“I don’t think this is the right moment to objectify me,” Mark replies. Not that there’s really a right moment to objectify anyone, but he’ll have to pick his battles with Donghyuck. Literally. “I have a boyfriend to save.”
“Our boyfriend,” Donghyuck says, smiling.
“My boyfriend.”
“Agree to disagree. Are you ready to head out?”
Mark hesitates. “Almost,” he says. “I have a question first. Who did he show you? I need to know what to expect from him in the worst case scenario.”
“What do you mean, who did he show me?” Donghyuck must be playing dumb, but Mark isn’t sure why.
“When you fought Mirage,” Mark says. “You said he likes to take the form of whoever he thinks might be most important to you. But Renjun was right there, so who did he show you?”
Donghyuck doesn’t answer. He just looks at Mark, that same odd expression on his face.
“Who did he show you?” Mark asks again, for the third time.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Donghyuck says. “Maybe I’ll tell you another time.” He’s always unreadable, now more than ever. Maybe it’s got something to do with his superpower. Maybe he thinks he has something to hide from Mark.
One of these days, Mark will figure him out, but not today. Today, they have a boyfriend to save.
Mark’s boyfriend. Not Donghyuck’s.
Whatever.
If Mark thought Donghyuck’s lair was run-down, Mirage’s is somehow worse. The floor beneath them is rotted—Mark can see all the way through to the basement if he squints hard enough. The paint on the walls has all either faded or flaked, replaced by rust stains from long-leaking pipes, and has clearly seen better days.
“I feel like I can hear your judgment right now,” Donghyuck says, and he’s really not doing a good job at convincing Mark he can’t actually read his mind. Maybe he was lying? “I wasn’t lying, I really can’t read your mind.”
How did he kn—
Donghyuck laughs sharply. ”Like I said, you’re just really transparent. That’s how I know.”
“Stop doing that,” Mark huffs, his grip tightening on Donghyuck’s thighs as they zip through the corridors. (Donghyuck is on his back, because Mark was obviously their quickest means of getting here. Obviously.) “What’s with you villains and locating yourselves out of rundown office buildings?”
“Don’t say you villains, that sounds derogatory.” It is derogatory, Mark tries to say. “And what’s more evil than the corporate race to the bottom?”
“I dunno, I can think of a few things,” Mark says dryly.
“Enough talking,” Donghyuck replies. “More moving.”
Only one room, on the highest floor, remains unsearched. The top half of the building has been left unfinished, only half-enclosed by walls, abandoned construction gear left by the wayside. The exposed ceiling beams do very little to shield either of them from the rain, and the wind is even worse, and wet spandex is not the most comfortable material to be running around in, but Mark’s endured worse.
Mark’s first instinct is to knock, because he’s polite. Mark’s second instinct is to think that his first instinct was stupid, because his hands are otherwise occupied, and any villain who has kidnapped his boyfriend isn’t deserving of his politeness. Except for the villain on his back, in a few limited situations. There are exceptions to every rule.
“Renjun,” Donghyuck yells out, right as Mark’s foot makes contact with the door. He squirms until Mark lets him go, then rushes in behind him. “Renjun, we’re here to save you—”
Mark would like to say something too, but the words sort of die in his throat. He’s not sure what he’d been expecting to see. Donghyuck told him not to think about what might be happening to Renjun, so he tried his best not to. But this was not in the realm of any possibilities Mark could’ve come up with.
The room is barren, except for one chair in the very middle, which is currently being occupied by a man with Renjun’s face. Though maybe occupied isn’t the right word for someone who’s been tied down in place with what looks like an excessive amount of rope. He’s too tall, too broad, too pink-haired to actually be Renjun, which of course makes sense, because the Real Renjun—Mark’s gentle, pacifist, very civilian boyfriend—is in Fake Renjun’s (Mirage’s?) lap, holding him down.
“Oh,” Renjun says, turning his head the tiniest bit to give them a sideways glance over his shoulder. There isn’t a single scratch, bump, or scrape on him, and Mark is relieved, but also a little terrified. How did his boyfriend manage to subdue Neo City’s most wanted criminal? His voice is perfectly even—no sign of fear or strain or panic at all. He’s perfectly relaxed. Mark wishes he could say the same for himself. “Hi, guys. Took you a while to find me, didn’t it?”
Is it a hallucination? Mark blinks. Rubs his eyes. Blinks again. Nope, still there. Renjun really wasn’t kidding when he said he was capable of protecting himself.
Renjun’s got one hand on the end of the rope, pulling it taut. His other hand is clasped over Mirage’s mouth to prevent him from speaking. Mirage tries to say something, but it only comes out muffled. Renjun’s face goes dark as he turns his attention back to him. “Shut up,” he hisses, pulling the rope tighter. “No, I’m not going to let you talk to them, don’t even try.”
It is, regrettably, kind of hot. He feels sort of bad for thinking so, until Donghyuck opens his mouth, and says, “Wow. This is kind of hot. You look good tied up.”
Mirage makes another muffled noise that sounds suspiciously like thanks!
“Don’t say that when you have my face on,” Renjun groans.
“Focus,” Mark tells Donghyuck, like he wasn’t just thinking the same thing.
Donghyuck shakes his head. The look on his face is deadly serious. “No, really, imagine the possibilities of two Renj—”
He’s cut off by a yelp as Renjun’s hand flies away from Mirage’s face. “You licked me,” he says, the accusation clear in his voice. “You licked me, Jaemin, that’s gross!”
Mirage—Jaemin?—grins up at him, wide and sunny, and just this side of obnoxious. Mark has personally never seen Renjun make such an expression, and it seems almost misplaced on his features. “You never minded when I did that before,” he says, to Mark’s annoyance. “You’ve changed, Injunnie.”
“Am I missing something here?” Mark asks. “Renjun, do you know him?”
“Oh, they definitely know each other,” Donghyuck says, which only further drives the point home that Mark is the only one here who has no clue what the fuck is going on.
Renjun grimaces, like his next words are going to be painful. “Mark,” he says, then, “Donghyuck. Meet my ex-boyfriend. Jaemin.”
Mark’s jaw drops. Renjun had spoken of an ex-boyfriend before, sure, but he somehow neglected to mention the fact that he was possibly a worse villain than Donghyuck. The only thing Mark really knew about him was that they’d dated for around a year before Renjun broke it off, citing irreconcilable differences.
“So he kidnapped you because he wanted you back?” Donghyuck says, brow furrowing. “Sorry, but Renjun’s only got room in his heart for one supervillain boyfriend, and that’s me, so—”
“No!” Jaemin says, and in an instant, his face is dissolving, rippling into perfect blankness before his actual face (Mark can only assume) takes its place. It’s more than a little disturbing. Mark swallows back his disgust. He’s… a little unfairly good looking, but that’s neither here nor there. “I mean, kind of, I wasn’t trying to kidnap him, I was trying to kidnap his boyfriend. I didn’t know he had two—”
“He doesn’t,” Mark says, before Donghyuck can claim otherwise. “It’s me. Just me. What did you even think you’d get out of kidnapping me?”
Jaemin gives him a once-over, his mouth pressed into a thin line. It’s more judgmental than any man tied to a chair should have any right to be. “I wanted to see who my ex replaced me with,” he says, squinting. “Test him for myself. And—really, Renjun? This goody-two shoes? What does he have that I don’t?”
“Morals,” Renjun says, without any hesitation. “And an ass.” Jaemin cranes his neck, and Mark covers his backside protectively. “Now do you have anything else to say for yourself before I leave you tied up here and call the cops on you?”
“What, you don’t wanna play anymore?” Jaemin tsks. If Renjun meant to threaten him, it doesn’t seem to be working very well. “No fun. Well, if you guys are ever looking for a third—”
Donghyuck’s shoulders tighten defensively. “Already got that one covered, thanks.”
“Okay, then a fourth—”
There is something incredibly surreal about this entire situation, but being propositioned for a foursome definitely takes the cake. “We’re not looking,” Mark says immediately. Next to him, Donghyuck goes still. “For anyone. Not a third, and definitely not a fourth.”
“Your loss,” Jaemin replies, and makes use of his limited movement to shrug. “The shapeshifting makes for a lot of fun in b—”
Renjun tugs on the rope until Jaemin’s face goes white and his sentence cuts off in a wheeze. “Baby,” he says sweetly, smiling at Mark like he isn’t currently cutting off a wanted criminal’s air supply with his bare hands. “Why don’t you give Officer Lee a call?”
“So this is the guy that’s been terrorizing the city?” Jeno asks, looking down at Jaemin with barely-concealed doubt. “Really? Him?'“
Mark nods, though the action is made difficult by the fact that he’s resting his chin on the crown of Renjun’s head. Once things calmed down a bit, Renjun had accepted Mark’s embrace with minimal fuss even though he wasn’t normally one for PDA. “That’s him.”
Jaemin blinks up at all four of them with wide, glimmering eyes. “Oh, thank god you’re here, officer,” he says, his lower lip pushed out exaggeratedly. The very picture of innocence, if the picture of innocence also had all the teeth in the world and a smile that didn’t seem to fit on his face quite right. “I was just trying to ask for directions, and then suddenly these monsters were tying me up and trying to steal my wallet. They took everything from me. Especially that guy with the dumptruck ass.”
“Hey!” Mark frowns.
“Asking for directions,” Jeno echoes. He crosses his arms in front of his chest. “On the top floor of an abandoned office building?”
“Well of course they brought me here after the attempted mugging,” Jaemin replies smoothly, without hesitation. He’s not the best liar, but his delivery is undoubtedly flawless. Mark has to give credit where credit is due.
“Uh-huh. They do anything else?”
“Now that you mention it, there was a basket of puppies right around the corner. Dumptruck over here kicked it right over. Just awful. Tiny little dogs everywhere. I tried to save them, I did, but—”
Renjun sighs. “Lock him up,” he says, and Mark squeezes him a little tighter. “Please.”
The trip back to their apartment is mostly silent. Renjun doesn’t like being carried by Mark—he always says that it makes him nauseous, that he prefers to do things slowly but surely—so they walk, instead. Although the rain has stopped, the sky is still a dreary gray, and it does nothing to improve Mark’s already-foul mood. Mark is holding onto his hand so tightly he’s afraid Renjun’s circulation might be cut off, but Renjun doesn’t protest, only squeezes his hand back in silent comfort.
Funny that the person who he was supposed to be saving is the one saving him instead, but that’s nothing new. Renjun’s been saving Mark since the first day they met. He’d say so out loud, but it would probably embarrass Renjun.
Also, Donghyuck.
Donghyuck is still here.
“You do realize that even if they manage to bring him into the station, he’ll probably manage to find a way out within the hour, right?” he asks, annoyance lacing his words. There’s an edge to his voice that Mark can’t quite place, a sullen downturn to his mouth as he stares down at their intertwined fingers.
“And what would you have suggested we do?” Mark counters, stopping dead in his tracks. They’re not far from home now, but he’s not exactly keen on bringing Donghyuck back with them. “Maim the guy? It’s better to just let the law handle these things sometimes.”
Donghyuck looks at him like Mark has lost his mind. “I don’t know, but I would have done something other than stand there and let him make a fucking idiot out of me—”
“Guys,” Renjun tries, glancing worriedly at Donghyuck’s rapidly-souring face. “Not here. I’m fine, alright, look at me, all in one piece—”
“No,” Mark says to him, for maybe the first time in his life. “No, let him finish. I would love to hear the rest of his sentence, given that he’s the entire reason you got taken to begin with.”
Renjun frowns. “I don’t think that’s fair. You haven’t even gone head-to-head with Jaemin, you don’t know what he’s capable of.”
I don’t think that’s fair. Did Mark say anything at all unfair, or untrue? Is Renjun taking Donghyuck’s side? The familiar voice at the back of Mark’s head rears its ugly head again—whispers to him that Renjun must find something about him lacking as a person or a boyfriend, and that’s why he’s defending Donghyuck. Something that feels an awful lot like jealousy chokes him up. A thought, half-formed and unclear, lingers somewhere in the dark recesses of Mark’s mind, but it keeps slipping through his fingers every time he attempts to grasp it, drowned out by that same ugly, irrational voice.
No wonder your own boyfriend is drawn to him. Prefers him over you, even. No wonder he blushes and giggles and flusters at the bat of one perfect eyelash, smiles at Donghyuck like a flower turns towards the sun.
The worst part is that maybe Mark gets it, a little bit. He understands how easy it is to get drawn into Donghyuck’s orbit—easy to be attracted to his self-assuredness and the way he carries himself with so much easy confidence.
Look at him, and then look at yourself. You’re supposed to be a hero, but you don’t feel like one, do you?
“I didn’t—” Donghyuck says, reeling back as if slapped. “At least I fought, didn’t I? That’s more than you can say.”
Maybe a few weeks ago, it would’ve felt good to get under Donghyuck’s skin the way Donghyuck always gets under his. But there’s no satisfaction in this—just an empty, hollow bitterness, because Mark knows he’s only blaming Donghyuck because it’s easier than blaming himself. Mark should have been the one to be there. Mark should have been there to protect Renjun, but instead it was Donghyuck.
Frustration taking the better of him, Mark barks out a laugh, sharp and uncharacteristically mean. “Right. Some fight you put up—you couldn’t even stand when you got here. I knew you were a useless villain, but I didn’t know you were that useless. What could Mirage have possibly shown you that allowed him to do such a number on you?”
“That’s none of your business,” Dongyuck snaps. “I’m just saying, we—”
Mark is patient—this is a fact. Renjun says it’s one of his best qualities. Unfortunately, it’s also a fact that once his patience wears thin, his hair-trigger temper often gets the best of him. “There is no we, Donghyuck,” he interjects. Renjun tugs at his sleeve, like he’s trying to physically reel Mark’s words back in. Normally, it’d be enough to bring Mark back to earth, to calm him at least long enough to apologize.
Not today. Not after everything that’s happened.
“Do I have to spell it out for you? You’re a pain to deal with—that’s all. I put up with you because I have no other choice, but if you’re under the impression that means you’re part of this relationship, you’re sorely mistaken.” His words are careless, thoughtless, and Mark doesn’t mean them, not at all—but not even that self-awareness does anything to stop him.
“Mark,” Renjun hisses. Mark can barely hear him above the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears.
Donghyuck’s expression is so genuinely hurt that Mark can’t help but feel a pang of guilt. As soon as the words leave him, an apology settles itself on the tip of his tongue. Mark bites it back, waits for the snarky response he knows is coming. Waits for him to say something equally mean and maybe a little biting, too, something that would remind him of the Donghyuck that lives to inconvenience him, to rile him up as much as physically possible.
Instead, Donghyuck presses his lips into a thin line, and turns to avoid Mark’s gaze. “You really think that?” he asks.
Mark can’t answer him. I do. I don’t. I don’t know. He swallows around his own tongue with difficulty.
“Of course he doesn’t,” Renjun says quickly, dropping Mark’s hand to reach for Donghyuck’s instead. He drops his voice to a whisper. “Just—why don’t you give us some time, okay? You both need time to cool down. It’s been a long day.”
Great. Now Mark’s the one staring at their intertwined fingers. Now he’s the bad guy. Mark is never supposed to be the bad guy, especially in relation to an actual villain.
Donghyuck huffs a humorless laugh, a tinge of disappointment marking the sound. “Yeah, okay. I’m sure time will fix this. I’ll just leave you two be, then.”
A lot can happen within the span of a minute. Mark knows this better than anyone else, and maybe experiences it more than they do, if the only thing that rivals his own speed is light itself. He could reach out for Donghyuck, maybe, the same way Renjun has. He could tell him that he didn’t mean it, tell him that he’s sorry, tell him that he stopped being just a pain a long time ago.
A lot can happen within the span of a minute, but all that happens is that Donghyuck’s figure as he walks away from them gets smaller, and smaller, until he’s barely a fleck of darkness in the distance.
Mark and Renjun. Renjun and Mark. This is the way it’s been for two years now, and standing there on the concrete the space between their hands suddenly feels very empty.
The thing about Renjun is that he can be stubborn when he wants to be. Really stubborn. He gives Mark the cold shoulder for the entire way home, then the rest of the night, too, just because he can. Doesn’t speak, not even when Mark asks him what he wants for dinner or if he wants to pick a movie to watch. After the day they’ve just been through, Mark really just wants to hold his boyfriend, but he knows if Renjun isn’t even willing to talk to him he’s likely not willing to let Mark touch him either. Of all the torture Mark has ever known, this is the worst, but it’s not like he can say he doesn’t deserve it. Because he does, one million times over.
Mark doesn’t attempt conversation again until it comes time for them to settle in for the night. “Do you want me to sleep on the couch tonight?” he asks, standing awkwardly in the doorway to their bedroom. “Cause I can just grab a pillow, and—”
Renjun heaves a sigh right as Mark lets himself trail off. “Get over here,” he says, face softening. “You idiot.”
Mark’s feet are moving before he can even think twice about it. He does that a lot—acts before he thinks. This time, it’s gotten him into a bit of trouble, but at least his boyfriend isn’t pretending like he doesn’t exist anymore. Renjun exhales in a soft puff of air as Mark finally, finally gets his arms around him, squeezing tightly enough to burst.
“I’m sorry,” Mark mumbles, burying his face into the soft cotton of Renjun’s shirt. He smells like Mark’s body wash, and those dryer sheets Mark still doesn’t know the brand of. “Like, so sorry, I should’ve been there, I should have—”
“Mark,” Renjun says, quietly but firmly. Mark’s mouth snaps shut. “I’m not mad at you for not being there, and you shouldn’t be mad at yourself either. There’s no way you could have known that would happen. And I told you I didn’t need saving, right?”
Mark nods.
“You know I’m not the one who needs to hear an apology, right?”
Mark nods again, guilt churning in his stomach.
“...And you know it’s okay to want things too, right? For yourself.” Renjun frames Mark’s face with his hands, angling him up gently so there’s no way for him to hide. “You don’t have to feel guilty for that. I think it’s sweet that you’re always thinking of me, but even heroes are allowed to be a little selfish sometimes.”
“That’s not—” Mark thinks to protest, but he deflates almost immediately at the incredulous look Renjun gives him in response. “You’re the only one I need.”
“Sometimes the things you want are different from the things you need,” Renjun replies, voice soft. “And sometimes—you find that they’re the same. I love you. I want you to be happy, because I want us to be happy.”
Mark’s mouth twists. The message is clear—they could be happy together, just the two of them. They are happy together. That doesn’t mean there’s no space to bring more happiness into their lives, into their relationship. “I love you,” he says, because he never tires of saying it. “You know that, right?”
“Of course.” Renjun smiles, soft and sweet as honey, and Mark leans up for just a second to taste it for himself. “As if I could ever doubt that.”
It’s not going to be easy—Mark isn’t sure how he’s going to learn to share Renjun with someone else, or how to share these moments with another person, even if that person is someone he might love, too. He’s not prone to jealousy, but—as today aptly demonstrated—he’s not not prone to it either.
Some things are worth learning for, though. “I’ll apologize the next time he comes around,” he promises. He reaches for Renjun’s hand, traces the faint blue veins twining up the inside of his wrist, then the line of indents in his palms, then the empty gaps between his fingers where Donghyuck’s lay just hours ago. “I mean—if he wants anything to do with me at all anymore.”
“You will,” Renjun says simply, pressing his lips to the furrow between Mark’s brow. “He does.”
Wednesday comes around, but Donghyuck does not. Renjun kisses the worst of his worries away, tells him not to read into it too much. Mark’s not so good at that, but he does his best if only because he can tell Renjun is secretly a little worried too.
Another Wednesday comes around, and this time Mark leaves the window open for him just in case, but still nothing. At that point there’s no use trying to conceal his distress. “Has he ever missed two weeks in a row?” he asks, face pressed into the smooth marble of their kitchen countertops. It hits him right then that he misses Donghyuck, really, stupid smug grin and dumb High School Musical Jokes and all. Fuck.
Renjun worries his lower lip between his teeth as he turns to the fridge, where the last note from Donghyuck is still up. “I don’t think so,” he says. “Have you tried his lair?”
Multiple times over the last week, yeah, though Mark would never admit it to anyone else. “Empty,” he says. “Every single time.” If Donghyuck wanted them to come to him—if he wanted to be found, or if he wanted to talk to them at all—there would’ve been some sort of sign.
“There’s nothing we can do about it then,” Renjun says. “It’ll just take a little more time. We can give him that much, at least. We owe it to him.”
It’s nice that Renjun always says we, even when Mark is the one at fault. “Yeah. You’re right.”
Renjun hums as he reaches for the fridge door. “Always am.”
Mark straightens his back as Renjun scans the empty shelves. “Oh— Wait—”
“Really? You forgot to get milk again?” Renjun asks, and Mark can only offer him a sheepish grin in response. “Well, can you run out to the store and grab some?”
“I—” Mark really doesn’t feel like going anywhere right now. But it’ll only take a second—maybe more, if he gets sidetracked. “Okay, sure. I’ll be back soon.”
“I know you will,” Renjun says, kissing the corner of his mouth quickly and shooing him out the door. “Now go already.”
The cashier at the front greets him enthusiastically—Mark helped find his dog again last week. “Hi, Mark!” he says. “Notice anything different about me today?”
Mark squints. “Um,” he says. “You changed your hair? It wasn’t pink before, was it?”
“Nope,” the cashier replies, grin stretching wide. “Just dyed it. You like it?”
“Uh, sure. It looks nice.” Mark offers a weak thumbs up, and then turns quickly. Huh. Weird. He carefully avoids another grandmother in the produce section who’s been trying to set Mark up for ages. And then he’s right where he was just a few weeks ago, standing smack dab in the middle of the dairy aisle trying to remember what type and brand of milk Renjun usually buys. He should really start writing this down.
Without really meaning to, his eyes drift to the Oatly. Everything reminds me of him, he thinks miserably.
“Do you mind moving?” A familiar voice cuts through the haze in his mind, each word laced with annoyance. “Some of us are—” Mark turns around so quickly he nearly drops his still-empty basket. “—Oh.” Donghyuck’s face falls. Mark tries to tell himself it doesn’t hurt.
“Hi,” he says, and suddenly all the words he’s been thinking of saying to Donghyuck for the past two weeks dissipate into nothingness. “I—um. We—uh. It’s been a while, yeah?”
“Yeah, sure has,” Donghyuck replies, stepping off to the side. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m just gonna get my oat milk and leave—”
Mark steps in front of him, blocking the way deliberately this time. “Don’t try to run,” he says. “I mean—you can—but I’d just catch up, anyway, and I really don’t want to chase you, and like—can you just hear me out? Please? Not that I deserve the chance, but—”
“Really?” Donghyuck smiles, strained, washed out in the white-fluorescent light of the grocery store and still as pretty as Mark remembers him being. “You want to do this here?”
“You’ve sort of been avoiding us, so I didn’t think I had a choice,” Mark says quietly. “Is there anywhere else you’d rather talk?”
Donghyuck scoffs. “Renjun said you needed time. I gave you time, and now you’re complaining that I was avoiding you?”
“It’s not like tha—”
“Whatever. Just say whatever you want to say.”
Mark swallows around nothing. “I’m sorry,” he says, his fingers curling into the hem of his own shirt. “For everything. I really shouldn’t have said any of that. I didn’t mean it at all, I was just so frustrated with myself, and I wasn’t thinking straight, and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. It was wrong, and I regret it. I’m thankful you were there for Renjun when I couldn’t be, and I’m glad you came to me for help.”
That was the easy part. Now comes the difficult stuff.
“Apology accepted. Is that all?” Donghyuck asks. His lips are set in a smile, but his eyes are dark.
“No,” Mark continues, voice hoarse. “There’s one more thing. I just wanted to say—I’m sorry for all that stuff I said about our relationship too. You’re so much more than a pain to deal with—”
“But I’m that too, right?”
“—sometimes. When you want to be.” Mark says, laughing a little despite himself and the absolute ridiculousness of the entire situation. “I’m trying to tell you there’s room in this relationship if you want there to be. I know Renjun would really like that.”
Donghyuck tilts his head to the side, gaze searching. “And you?” he asks.
Mark blinks. “And me? I mean, yeah, of course I’m okay with it, that’s why I’m bringing it up, like—Renjun has two hands, you know?”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Donghyuck snorts. “Like, wow. Seriously. You’re lucky you’re hot.”
“You think I’m hot?” Mark asks, trying not to sound dumb. He’s probably failing. “What am I not getting? What’s going on?”
Donghyuck’s gaze softens, soft like molten sunshine, a sight as unfamiliar as it is welcome. "You said I only care about Renjun." He shifts, his fidgeting body language revealing the extent of his nerves. It feels wrong. Mark has never seen Donghyuck nervous about anything. But he manages to hold firm, doesn’t look away. His eyes are shining golden when he says, “I do care about him. A lot. But if you think he’s the only one I want, you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought you were.”
Mark’s jaw drops. The words are almost refusing to process in his head. He rolls them over again, and then again, and then one more time to be sure. Just to make sure he hasn’t somehow misheard him. “You—” he starts. “I—”
“You wanted to know what face Jaemin showed me,” Donghyuck says, and for the first time his voice wavers. “It was yours. He showed me your face, and that’s the only reason I let my guard down, because trust me—I would’ve kicked his ass otherwise.”
“Why didn’t you—”
“Why didn’t I tell you? Yeah, you sure made it really easy for me.”
Mark wipes the palm of his free hand on his jeans. Fuck. He was always a nervous sweater. “I thought you said I was transparent?”
“Of course this was the one thing you refused to be transparent about,” Donghyuck says, but Mark can see the beginnings of a blush starting to color his cheeks.
Suddenly, Mark remembers their conversation back in the apartment. With some people, it can also depend on how much they want me to see their thoughts, too. He has no idea how this works. If it’ll even work at all.
He lets his walls come down.
Can you hear this? he tries thinking. Hello?
Donghyuck frowns. “Why are you looking at me like that? Why wouldn’t I be able to—” Realization dawns on him right as the embarrassment starts to settle into Mark, bone-deep. “Oh. Oh.”
If you can hear this, Mark thinks, squeezing his eyes shut. I think you should know that I care about you, like, in a certain sort of way, and I’ve been thinking about you nonstop for the last two weeks, and I had no idea you felt that way about me but I might feel the same, too.
“Christ,” Donghyuck says, but underneath his surface-level exasperation Mark thinks he can hear some sort of fondness. His cheeks are fully flushed now. It suits him. “You talk so fucking much in your head. I almost preferred the silence.”
It’s too late now. Mark tries to fight a matching blush, and forces himself to blink. But if you can still hear this, there’s a pretty effective way to shut me up.
Donghyuck throws his head back as he laughs, loud and bright, and it’s so unlike the soft laughter Mark has grown used to hearing from Renjun, but no less beautiful. “You’re an idiot,” he says, again, and Mark can’t help but grin at him all goofy. “That line doesn’t work when you’re not speaking out loud.”
Try me.
Donghyuck rolls his eyes at that, but he still leans in and kisses Mark anyway, sweet and chaste. The supermarket is not an ideal place to have a first kiss, but Mark sort of doesn’t mind it. It’s hard to mind, when he finally has Donghyuck right where he wants him.
“You’re hopeless,” he mumbles against Mark’s lips. “You know that?”
Yeah. Guess it’s a good thing I have two boyfriends looking out for me then. Mark settles a hand at the nape of his neck to pull him in, and counts it as a win.
“That took forever,” Renjun whines from the kitchen when he finally hears the door open. “Where’d you go for the milk? Antarctica? Do they even have milk there? Or did you just go for a quick cross-country detour?”
Mark turns to Donghyuck, brings his index finger to his mouth. Shh, he mouths. Donghyuck nods in understanding. “Sorry, babe. Can you come here for a sec, though? I brought you something.”
“What? Bring it here, I’m busy.”
“No, I think you’re gonna want to see this.”
Renjun groans just to make his displeasure even clearer than it was before. “Okay, fine, but this better be good.” His footsteps are hurried as he makes his way into the living room. Mark can hardly hold still—but he does, and it’s worth it for the way Renjun’s entire face lights up. Surprise, delight, then surprise again as his gaze drifts to their linked hands.
“Wait,” he says, careful, like he’s afraid to let himself hope. “Does this mean…”
Donghyuck grins, brighter than anything Mark has ever seen, and opens his arms wide. “Hi, baby,” he says, and Renjun’s smile stretches to match his own. Mark’s cheeks hurt from grinning like an idiot, too. “I’m home.”
Being a hero is tough work.
True to Donghyuck’s word, Jaemin did manage to escape almost immediately, though he made sure to bide his time for a day or two. Officer Lee’s recently put together a task force to try and find him again, but Renjun didn’t seem hopeful about the prospects.
He’ll be caught only if and when he wants to be found, he said, when Mark pressed him for the details. That’s just how Jaemin is.
At any rate, Neo City’s gone back to mostly being the sleepy, unremarkable place it used to be. If Jaemin is out there, he’s laying low, and as long as it stays that way, Mark has made his peace with the situation. Mostly. Or—not entirely, but most days Mark doesn’t think about him at all.
Really.
Out in the distance, the city lights flicker to life as the sky grows dark above them. Mark leans against the front door with his hip, fumbles with his keys to unlock it. It’s dark when he makes his way inside, lit only by one or two flickering street lamps through the window. He flips the light switch; as the hallway floods with light he calls out— “Donghyuck?” and then, “Renjun?”
No response. Mark wrinkles his nose and makes his way through the apartment. In the kitchen, a cloth-covered table is set for three, and a handful of candles Mark recognizes from Renjun’s room sitting scattered around the room. On the stove sits a pot of soup, covered to keep it warm. Mark doesn’t even think they owned a pot before Donghyuck moved in, just empty takeout containers and a single non-stick fry pan that turned out not to be non-stick at all after Mark tried making fried eggs in it.
There were a lot of things Mark and Renjun didn’t have in their home before Donghyuck moved in. Like actual groceries, non-frozen meals. Pictures hanging on the wall alongside Renjun’s paintings. And they have other things now, too. Like watermelon-flavored lube, for one. That’d been a big improvement.
The traces of Donghyuck are everywhere now, popping out like sunspots amongst the monochrome palette previously preferred by Renjun. And Renjun had fought him like hell on it, because Renjun fights him like hell on almost everything, but Donghyuck had gotten his way in the end, because Donghyuck always gets his way in the end.
Mark has a feeling they just like to bicker so they can justify make up sex, but Renjun denies this vehemently.
We’re out of eggs, a note stuck to the refrigerator reads, in Donghyuck’s chicken-scratch scrawl.
And underneath that, in Renjun’s perfectly neat handwriting: And also, I got kidnapped again. Please help.
Where are you guys, Mark thinks, and if the words had been spoken aloud they might’ve been inflected with a whine.
A loud giggle and then a series of hushed noises comes from the direction of their bedroom, and Mark thinks—yeah, okay, of course, I don’t know why I didn’t check there first.
The door is slightly ajar, and when Mark pushes it open finally, he’s unsurprised at the sight in front of him. Donghyuck’s got their boyfriend caged in against the sheets, Renjun barely visible underneath his slightly-larger frame. They’re going at it like Mark’s not even there, Renjun rutting against the soft plush of Donghyuck’s thigh as Donghyuck holds him in place, but Mark knows from the way Donghyuck made sure to angle Renjun towards the door that they’d meant for him to catch them like this all along.
“You guys started without me?” Mark really does whine this time, and is only a little humiliated by the snigger Donghyuck lets out. Renjun’s too busy pressing spit-slick lips to the column of Donghyuck’s throat to react at all. “Really?”
Donghyuck smiles all smug, like he knows exactly what kind of damage it does to Mark’s insides. “Get here faster next time,” he says, like Mark’s literal superpower isn’t staring them in the face.
“C’mere,” Renjun says, finally detaching himself from Donghyuck for long enough to reach a hand towards Mark. His eyes are dark, blown-wide, lips bitten red and glossy. “You really kept us waiting.”
Reds and purples bloom across his skin—they almost tell a story, with how many of them there are. Mark can see the larger imprint of his own hands around Renjun’s waist, the shape of Donghyuck’s mouth trailing from his collarbones all the way down to his thighs. Renjun has always bruised too easily, like a peach, and Mark would feel bad about it if he didn’t already know Renjun liked wearing their marks so much.
Mark rids himself of his shirt as he crosses the threshold to their bed, kneels and presses himself to the freckled curve of Donghyuck’s back. “I saw the note,” he mumbles into the salt-sweet dampness of his skin, and reaches down to take Renjun’s hand in his. “What is this, some kind of roleplay?”
“Yeah. You know—like, the big strong hero has to stop the sexy, morally gray villain from deflowering the pure maiden.”
“I was deflowered a long time ago,” Renjun says, rolling his eyes. “And I’m definitely not a maiden.”
Donghyuck nips at his lower lip. “Just play along, babe.”
“You know,” Mark says. “You’re a pretty terrible villain for letting yourself get caught this often.”
“Maybe I just like being caught,” Donghyuck retorts.
“That would make you a terrible villain,” Renjun says, trying and failing to fight back the utterly besotted expression threatening to overtake his face. Mark leans down, and he only means to kiss him for a few seconds but Renjun has a way of making him forget himself, so it’s anyone’s guess how long it actually is before Donghyuck slips a hand into Mark’s hair and tugs him back.
“Wait your turn,” he says, teasing. “First come, first serve.”
“There’s enough of him to go around,” Mark replies.
“Not by the time I’m done with him,” Donghyuck says, but it’s somewhat dampened by the way he cuts off in a moan as Renjun drags his hips back down against him. “See? He’s begging for it, Mark.”
Renjun scowls. “You’re terrible,” he says, his tone a mix of amused and exasperated and smitten.
“You love it,” Donghyuck says, kneading at his hip.
Renjun’s expression goes from besotted to playfully irritated in one second flat, and Mark watches as the two people he loves most in the world bicker between kisses, not caring enough about keeping up the appearance of a fight enough to take their hands or mouths off each other for even a second.
Heroes do not negotiate with villains. This is supposed to be the way of the world, but lately Mark is starting to believe the ways of the world and all the rules that come along with them aren’t so clear cut as he once thought. He negotiates with Donghyuck about what they should have for dinner, and what color to paint the bathroom wall, and who gets to be on top for the night, and the world hasn’t ended—yet.
Heroes do not negotiate with villains, but maybe they can still fall in love with them, anyway.
Yeah, Mark thinks, and doesn’t miss the way the tips of Donghyuck’s ears go strawberry-red. I kind of do love it.