Chapter Text
It was not a very ideal day.
Jongho had thought it was over already. He had already spent the first half of his day looking over useless papers and files that would be archived and never used again. The other half had also been spent to the fullest, teaching the office's elders very important things, like how to print a PDF or take a screenshot. There had even been some Hero interactions in between, as much as he hated it. Surely, he could just go home and relax after everything. Right?
But alas, staying at KQ Corp was only possible by working your life off, or being extremely lucky. Jongho was not lucky. This was why he had been left for overtime, and why he was the only one left in the building that could do anything.
He sighed deeply as he walked out of the elevator. Thank god, he had pestered the maintenance team long enough to get it fixed yesterday. It was too hard on the older members of their office to walk all the way to the fifth floor, as he had heard from multiple coworkers on multiple instances. With an unconscious, bleeding body on his back, he now knew how true that could be.
He heaved as he pushed the body upward on his back, taking all the support he could get from his arms. He knew he should've kept up with the gym membership. He would be blaming his past self for canceling it when he got the chance. Past Jongho should've known he would come upon an injured person sooner or later to carry some day...
Just a few heavy steps along the corridor, and he was free to throw the body onto the big sofa in the break room. He knew it'd get stained by the blood, but so what? It wasn't him doing this now. This was the work of a hero.
A hero by the name of Duke.
He looked at the hero's gaudy clothing once again while he caught his breath. It was just a suit, really. A very gaudy, very old-fashioned black suit over a flowy white shirt. He even had his well-known, purple-lined black cape on him, with his signature purple masquerade mask. Jongho definitely preferred his old vigilante outfit to this. At least it had been original, and didn't look like it was stolen from a local theater's rendition of Zorro…
But the Duke wasn't a vigilante anymore. He was a hero now. A hero who was on the verge of dying... Well, better get to work then, Jongho!
He walked quickly through the empty hallways to the healing room. The workday had ended an hour ago, and their resident Healer had gone out of the office the moment the hour rang five. He would have to carry the Duke to the hospital wing five minutes away if he wanted an actual healer to take over. Jongho was not going to be doing that.
The daring, perfect, ever-so-amazing Duke would have to settle for Jongho instead.
The healing room didn't have much that could help him. It was called a 'Healing Room' and not an 'Infirmary' for a reason. Real healers had no need for such things like medicine, sterile instruments, or band-aids. Still, it was the only room that held a working first-aid kit, so it was the room to be in. Thankfully, it wasn't locked this time.
It took a while to get through the multiple cases of files to find the dusted first-aid kit on the shelves, taking even more of his precious time. This was going to be the worst healing process Duke would go through, but a dying hero wasn't a choosing hero.
He went back to the break room in hasty steps, already opening the kit to look inside. Bandages and tapes would be useful. So would the tweezers. He'd definitely be using up the antiseptic and the hydrogen peroxide for this one. No need to give our perfect hero an inflammation now, is there?
He entered the break room as he considered the steps to take, and stopped in his place. The room was completely empty.
The Duke was gone, leaving a deep, bloody stain on the sofa. The stain had followed him behind, visible in the small drops of life on the floor.
He looked left and right around the room, taking cautious steps inside. The blood drops seemed to be going in every direction, yet nothing could be found for an end. Every single stain was a dead-end, except perhaps the one going behind him under his feet.
He slowly turned back, following the drops with his eyes to find the end. He didn't find the missing hero. What he found instead was the night sky stretching before him.
He suddenly found himself on the rooftop of a modest skyscraper, just a few steps away from the edge in the middle of the night. The lights of the city were alive as ever. But the most alive thing was the giant, imposing main building of the corporation right opposite of where he stood.
He took the few steps needed to reach the edge, looking at the ground quite a few meters away. A drop from this height was sure to kill him instantly, or at worst, make him severely disabled for the rest of his life. It was a little tempting, honestly. He had lived a short, but hefty life. Just a single drop, and he would be over everything.
But that drop wouldn't kill him. It wouldn't do anything at all. The Duke was not powerful enough to change reality. Not yet.
Why was he named the 'Duke' again? Why not a name about dreams, or nightmares, or something close? Morpheus? The Sandman? Nightmare King?
No, he was the Duke instead, named by his teammates, so he could be the 'cold Northern Duke of your dreams.' How corny…
"Please stop this, Mr. Duke," he calmly called out while he looked around. The Duke was nowhere to be seen, as usual for his powers. It was quite a convenient set of powers, Jongho had to admit. Too bad they were being wasted on him.
"You're severely injured, I'm sure you can already tell." He turned around in his place. "Wouldn't it be better to let me help you and deal with me afterwards?"
Complete silence was what answered him. It wasn't a very long answer.
He heard the flutter of wings first, impossible to miss in the vast silence of the high rooftop. Soon enough, a murder of crows was wailing through the air, cooing and cawing at him as they came closer. Their talons didn't hurt him as they swallowed him inside the flock.
Just like every other being conjured in the nightmares, they were incapable of hurting him. He couldn't say the same thing about the dying 'hero' hiding in wait.
"Wow." Jongho clapped his hands slowly with a visible lack of enthusiasm. "You can even use the power of your teammate to conjure up an exclusive nightmare now. How cool. Are we done yet?"
He sighed loudly when the only answer came in the form of the tickly talons and fluttering wings. The neutral, lackluster look on his face turned into an angry frown.
The sound of fluttering followed close behind while he quickly walked towards a random spot on the empty rooftop. He put his arm up, pushing his hand out to the vast emptiness, but the warmth of living flesh met his palm.
"Listen to me, asshole," he spoke to the empty air before him, "You have a knife wound bigger than your head, three bullets lodged inside your gut, and approximately thirty minutes left to live. So either stop this and let me help you, or I'll make sure they won't even have a body left for the funeral."
In a blink, the image of the conjured rooftop got lost inside the empty break room, and the warm flesh under him showed itself as the shoulder of the dying hero standing in front of the wall. He was quick to take his hand to the hero's neck for a quick pulse check. A glazed-over and lifeless pair of eyes watched his every move with a lazy caution under the deep purple mask.
The Duke slowly fell to sit on the ground, his blood seeping out from his open wounds at every movement. Jongho decided the first-aid kit was long useless. He would have to take the risk he was trying to avoid in the first place.
He put his hands around the bullet wounds first. Three bullets to the gut wouldn't kill him, but the following lack of blood sure as hell would. No matter what happened because of this, he was not going to be risking a dead hero on his watch.
The power leaked out of his hands like a flood waiting to happen, seeping into the wounds with a reddish glow. He had been holding off on healing the guy for so long that even his power was listless. The Duke would've already been perfectly healthy and ready to go if the decision had been left to his powers from the start.
The bullets came out of their holes one by one as the organ tissue kept healing behind them. Jongho didn't bother to catch any as they bounced and rolled on the marble flooring of the office.
"You're lucky I was here, idiot," he couldn't stop himself from nagging as the wounds closed further. "Which stupid fucking hero would leave himself to die in the office building reception instead of the hospital building? Fucking loser."
The Duke was silently looking at his face while Jongho was working to save his life. He seemed to be watching Jongho's every move intently, like he was trying to carve his face deep into his mind.
"Do I know you?" The Duke had a sweet and calm voice, tired from the lost blood.
"You must've seen me around the office." Jongho didn't elaborate. It was definitely possible.
"No," A slight smirk appeared on the Duke's face, "I haven't."
Okay, now he was conscious enough to remember things? So he must've been conscious enough to gracefully walk himself to a proper healer.
"This will be enough to walk yourself back to the hospital building." Jongho stopped the flow of power, taking his hands away, but the glowing light on the wounds didn't stop. His powers were working overtime, just like him. They were more willing to overwork than he'd ever be.
"You remind me of someone," the Duke continued the conversation with a much livelier voice. "Someone I knew long ago."
"I have a very common face."
"No, you don't." Another smirk was thrown his way.
Jongho took the antiseptic from the first-aid kit next to him, opening it and pouring the liquid generously onto his hands, then wiping it off with a bit of bandage. He couldn't be bothered to find a sink under the staring eyes. That would take care of the blood left on his hands well enough as he went back home. As long as he started going home now.
"Where are you going?" The hero called after him as he walked outside the break room. He was already back on his feet, now that he had been healed enough.
"Home," was answer enough for Jongho.
"Name."
That wasn't a question, what he heard. It was an order. An order from a Hero, which meant that according to the company policy, he was supposed to answer. There wasn't anything in the policy for telling the truth.
"Yook Sungjae."
This wouldn't gain him enough time to save himself out of this, but it would surely annoy the hell out of senior Sungjae. He would surely be panicked out of his mind when he'd get called in for questioning in the morning. The aftermath of his deception would be worth that confused look.
He turned back to the door and kept walking when no other orders came. He was followed to his desk, watched intently as he collected his stuff, then walked all the way to the elevator.
"I'll see you soon, Yook Sungjae," the Duke spoke with a lively voice. The red glow of the healing had left his body now, and his wounds were nowhere to be seen. If only the blood stains and the holes in the fabric weren't there, he could've passed for a completely healthy person with no bullets ever inside his body.
"Please take your time," was the last thing Jongho said as the elevator doors closed.
He let go of a breath he wasn't holding when the purple mask and the gaudy suit were out of his sight completely. This wasn't an ideal day indeed. But he didn't have to worry at all.
The Duke would never realize the truth even if he learned Jongho's name. He wouldn't recognize the powers or the glow that came with them, or the way Jongho moved like he was being watched at every moment.
But, even if he did, it wouldn't matter. The Duke was a vigilante before. He would always be a vigilante first, and hero second. And once you were a vigilante, you lived by the vigilante rules for the rest of your life. Vigilantes did not snitch on each other. No matter what happened between them, no matter how much time had passed. Even if one of them was a hero now.
Even if the other had retired long before that, wounded and hurt out of his mind, hiding to never be seen again. Even if that retiree turned up in KQ Corp one day, one of the biggest hero associations, as a useless intern in a useless department. Even then.
And if he did snitch, then he would be a fucking loser by all standards, and Jongho would make sure everyone knows.
Retiring didn't mean he had to give up on the fun of vigilante gossip.