saving superheroes
saving superheroes
woohyun/dongwoo, pg-13, crack, fluff
woohyun's your average superhero. dongwoo's... not quite. (superhero au)
In superhero land, it’s not actually a bed of roses. Flying really tenses all your muscles so you get incredible aches all over after, and that outfit is tight as hell. Plus flying while you’re in that outfit is doubly difficult.
Woohyun collapses on his bed (why don’t superheroes get a nicer bed, he wonders only slightly indignantly) after extricating himself from the damn superhero outfit and balls it up to throw it at the foot of the bed. Dongwoo laughs from the other bed in the room.
“You must be getting old,” Dongwoo comments, flipping a page of his One Piece manga. Woohyun rolls over and plants his face into his pillow, wondering again why superheroes had to share a flat, let alone a room with someone else.
“That’s a really nice thing to hear from your flatmate,” Dongwoo replies, and Woohyun realises he’d wondered out loud and groans.
“I’m sorry,” Woohyun mumbles, and flops back on the pillow with his cheek down so he’s looking at Dongwoo. “That’s not what I meant.”
Dongwoo chuckles and chucks a pain-relieving patch at Woohyun. “It gets better,” he offers, and Woohyun buries his face in his hands. He hadn’t signed up for all this superhero business. He’d just been a regular person with a regular job in a regular company, when Dongwoo sat down opposite him a month ago in the restaurant near his office building where he was eating lunch and slid a pile of spandex material across the table.
If Woohyun hadn’t gotten his new superhero powers then, he’d have thought Dongwoo was trying to hit on him - it was Dongwoo who had brought up this entire living together thing. Dongwoo’s sort of a Senior Superhero, just like how he’s also a Senior Manager in Woohyun’s company, and he had explained in that restaurant booth that new superheroes get mentored by senior ones in superhero land, so they have a bit of time to learn the ropes. Being a superhero isn’t all that intuitive.
No, really, though. Who asks to live with someone you barely know? Woohyun had spluttered an incredulous “why” and gotten a shrug in return. He thinks he should raise this entire business to the superhero union or something - he hadn’t gotten a full contract explaining what he’d be getting himself into when he’d agreed to do this. Including falling in love with your mentor superhero - but that’s not really something Woohyun likes to think about.
Anyway, he decides that their flat is way too small for two superheroes, and in the event that both of them are on duty, it gets difficult because there is only one toilet. So this means Woohyun has to brush his teeth (gotta maintain his image) while Dongwoo’s changing and peeing and whatever else in the toilet and he’d really rather not have an inconvenient boner making his superhero outfit even tighter. The flat is, however, a five minute walk from the office building, and in a building which roof is conducive for superhero flight takeoff and landing. (And fantastic acoustics, so they don’t get countless complaints when their alarms ring in the middle of the night.) Woohyun doesn’t have much other choice; his bank account is paltry for an apartment in the area.
His stomach suddenly grumbles loudly, and he folds his arms over it. He’s not going to get up just to satisfy his stomach; why should superheroes be at mercy of a mere organ? But his stomach grumbles again, insistently, and Dongwoo laughs, gets up from his bed and tells Woohyun he’ll make a cup of ramyeon for him.
Woohyun finds an irrational annoyance inside him, over the warm fuzziness spreading from his chest, because it’s really not fair how Dongwoo goes and does things like that to steal Woohyun’s unsuspecting heart. Weren’t superheroes supposed to be chivalrous, upstanding citizens?
---
Woohyun fucks up a little on his first major superhero task alone. A fire breaks out in a huge building at 3 AM in the morning and there are dozens of people to be saved - his superhero tablet alarm flashes “Code Red” repeatedly on its screen while simultaneously screeching, and Woohyun gets into his superhero outfit in record time to shut the alarm up. Dongwoo stirs before he manages to, unfortunately, and Woohyun curses inwardly.
“Sorry,” Woohyun says, “go back to sleep.”
Dongwoo mumbles something Woohyun can’t make out and rolls over. Because Woohyun’s feelings for Dongwoo are absolutely platonic, he spends the entirety of his superhero saving task thinking about what Dongwoo might have said. Good luck? You’re an asshole for waking me up? I’m really fucking tired so get the fuck out?
There is just one last little girl left in the burning building to save and there are loads of cheers outside as the fire brigade hoses the building down with foam and water, but Woohyun is distracted because he thinks Dongwoo’s mumbles may have sounded like “good luck”. Or “get out”. Either option seems equally plausible. Why don’t his superhero powers include mumble-deciphering, again?
This is where he fucks up, because as he flies out of the window of the building with the little girl in his arms a lick of fire grazes past him and he’s flustered for a moment. Flying requires loads of concentration, and between a singed hole in his outfit near the vicinity of his ass, Dongwoo’s good luck wish/hurtful request, and trying to save a girl from a burning building, Woohyun loses focus and suddenly he’s falling the many feet, and the girl is screaming -
His feet are on the ground when he opens his eyes, the little girl still snug in his grasp, and Dongwoo’s arm is around his torso, hand on his side. Um.
The little girl looks up at Dongwoo, sniffling. “Who’re you? Did you save us?”
“We’re partners,” Dongwoo says, clapping his hand on Woohyun’s shoulder, “and you can just remember us as your friendly neighbourhood superheroes.”
Woohyun attempts a smile as he puts the little girl down. Dongwoo’s smiling enough for the both of them, in any case.
Dongwoo grabs Woohyun again, his hand now round Woohyun’s waist, and in an instant they’re back on the rooftop of their building.
“How - where - why -“ Woohyun manages, as they make their way down the stairs to their flat, and Dongwoo just smiles as he throws the lock open.
“You didn’t think I’d let you manage your first major task alone, did you?”
It’s only until later, when he’s brushing his teeth listening to Dongwoo’s snores through the pretty thin walls in the flat, that he realises Dongwoo’s just saved his superhero ass. Damn.
---
“Hey,” Dongwoo grins as he sidles up to Woohyun in the pantry. Woohyun almost drops his scalding cup of brown dishwater.
“Um, hey,” Woohyun replies, taking a furtive glance behind them to make sure that no one else is in the pantry. The first thing he’d been taught in Being a Superhero 101 was that you did not tell anyone your real identity, ever. It would probably be suspicious to a colleague that he knew Dongwoo; they weren’t even in the same department. It… would.
“Are you doing anything later?” Dongwoo grins, sticking a cup under the coffee machine dispenser. A gulp of scalding dishwater makes its painful way down Woohyun’s throat.
“No…. why?” Woohyun clears his throat.
“Nothing - I just… would like to eat out. Some steaming, cheesy pizza and real Coke. Beer. Nachos and dip. Wanna come pig out together?” Dongwoo grins, his eyebrows raised in question and Woohyun says yes before he regains enough cognitive function to realise that this is sort of -
Not a date, he tells himself. Don’t be silly. This is a - meal. With a flatmate. Flatmates have meals together all the time. He cooks for two sometimes and they eat together at home, anyway. They’ve done this before. It’s just their first… meal out. There’s not much of a difference, really, between the four walls of a restaurant and the four walls of their studio flat.
A meal, Woohyun nods to himself as he watches Dongwoo stride out in those slacks which he finds very attractive on Dongwoo’s legs.
---
Alright, so it does feel like a date to Woohyun. He’s not really sure if it’s because he wants this to happen, but Dongwoo laughing at the jokes he’s making and letting him have the last slice of pizza is something a date would do, right?
Shut up, Woohyun, he tells himself, Dongwoo probably doesn’t even like guys. And Woohyun’s not really ready to deal with rejection right now. He stuffs the slice of pizza in his mouth and leans back against the sofa booth, rubbing his tummy.
“Ugh,” Woohyun says, “I’m so full. I can’t even move.”
“You’re not allowed to fly home,” Dongwoo reminds him laughingly, taking a sip of his beer.
Woohyun gives him a look of indignance. “But I’m a superhero!”
“And I’m your boss. You aren’t on duty, so don’t think about it. Get your pretty little ass home on foot.”
There’s a pause, an awkward one in which Woohyun almost chokes on the cheese on the pizza and he thinks something’s shifted in Dongwoo’s eyes, but then Dongwoo takes another sip of his beer and Woohyun’s definitely, definitely imagining the red tinge on Dongwoo’s cheeks. He probably misheard - he’s nearly drunk. Dongwoo too, possibly.
So he forces the pizza down his throat and laughs, “ha, ha, ha, right, I’m a little tired. Wanna head back?”
Dongwoo shrugs and nods. “Sure.” And proceeds to grab the bill and head to the counter immediately after, stopping Woohyun with a sort of I’ll-get-this-I-know-you-need-to-send-more-money-back-this-month pat on the shoulder. Fuck this guy, Woohyun thinks.
---
Woohyun goes to his mother’s the next night - takes the insanely long commute and falls asleep on the train to reach there way past dinnertime, because he wants to sort out his feelings.
He didn’t manage to sleep at all the previous night with the prospect of Dongwoo - possibly - liking him back - right? Breaking down every single syllable of Dongwoo’s “pretty little ass” yesterday night yielded fruitful results - Woohyun’s about 79% sure that’s exactly what Dongwoo said. Pieced together the “pre” from the “prefer” and the “tty” from “kitty”, and all. Soundbyte waveform analysis, check.
No, really, though. And he doesn’t think he’d imagined the tinge of pink on Dongwoo’s cheeks, now, though that may have been inebriation. In any case, he’s pretty sure Dongwoo likes him - or, is, at least, attracted to him - and Woohyun’s smiling to himself like a true fifteen year-old schoolgirl before he manages to stop himself. Woohyun is pretty confident when he’s sure of winning the battle, and clearly this is one to be won.
His phone rings, then - it’s Dongwoo. Woohyun picks up and is surprised to hear a bit of worry through the line.
“Woohyun?” Dongwoo asks when the line connects.
“S’up, Dongwoo,” Woohyun says, telling himself to rein it in. He’ll start his Charismatic Potential Partner campaign tomorrow.
“Oh - am - I disturbing you or anything?” Dongwoo is hesitant, and Woohyun’s confused. “You aren’t home… I just wanted to make sure you were safe.”
The last two words fade off in a whisper and hit Woohyun in the stomach, winding him. He grapples to find his voice in response.
“Don’t worry about it, I’m at my mom’s. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Oh…. Right. Right. Okay. See you tomorrow.” Dongwoo replies, and the line’s gone, but Woohyun almost drops his phone in a mix of surprise, fuzziness and glee.
Score, he thinks, and goes to sleep prepping for his campaign to sweep Dongwoo off his feet tomorrow.
---
When Woohyun arrives back home (way too) early in the morning to take a shower and change before he leaves for work, Dongwoo’s already gone. This is abnormal, because they usually leave for work together, but Woohyun’s too gleeful to pursue this. He takes a long shower, fantasizing about the different ways he was going to ask Dongwoo out later, and ends up late at work. He sends Dongwoo a text.
meet at the pantry?
He’s already at the pantry, readying a cup of dishwater - should he go grab some Starbucks? Because office coffee isn’t all that suitable for asking someone out… but Starbucks would probably be pushing it - before he gets a reply.
k
He waits.
Dongwoo walks in with the same attractive pair of slacks and Woohyun forces his hand still. Calm, Nam Woohyun, he tells himself. Smooth and charismatic.
“Hey,” Woohyun says, holding out the paper cup.
Dongwoo takes it smilingly, arching his eyebrows up. “S’up?”
Woohyun grins. “Come get drinks with me after work.”
“What?” Dongwoo spills a bit of the coffee on himself, and Woohyun’s a little surprised. He hadn’t even been turning the charisma on that much, yet.
“I said, come get drinks with me after work. Samgyupsal first, then soju? I’ll treat,” Woohyun says, and he hopes this is big enough of a hint. Woohyun never treats. He waits for the whale-sized hint to hit Dongwoo.
“Oh…” Dongwoo says, and Woohyun can’t quite make out the expression on his face. “oh… that’s okay, I - you know. You can’t treat me this month.” Woohyun’s pretty sure he’s got the sappiest look on his face now, but he can’t help it.
“No, it’s - “
“I have a meeting after work, anyway, and it’ll probably end late. Sorry.”
“Oh.” This isn’t one of the scenarios Woohyun had prepared for. Um. “I’ll wait -“
“No, really, I - sorry, I gotta get back to work. Need to get a proposal done before the meeting later.”
“….right. Right. Sure. Good luck for the meeting,” Woohyun says, and Dongwoo gives him a curt little smile and walks off and Woohyun feels like he’s just been hit in the face.
---
Woohyun goes home after work alone, after a long day of dissecting Dongwoo’s every facial expression. Sometimes he wonders if the superhero powers include videocamera-graphic memory, because all of Dongwoo’s expressions, Dongwoo’s words play in his head instantaneously. He must really check the confidentiality contract he signed on the whole superhero business.
But he’s stumped, because he’s pretty sure Dongwoo does like him, so - that can’t be reluctance he saw in Dongwoo’s face. Right? Besides, Dongwoo did that thing again, the utterly considerate potential boyfriend thing. He really wishes superheroes had cool equipment, like those facial/body structure analysis computer thingies in the movies, all graphical contours and digital new age font. But nope, superheroes get spandex material outfits and lousy old alarms that he can’t even turn off himself. It’s the twenty-first century, Woohyun thinks indignantly, they should get with the times. Regular people have toasters more advanced than the stuff they use.
In any case, he decides to stop worrying and maybe spring one on Dongwoo again later when he’s back. Ask him out for a movie, and all. The new Batman’s out, they could probably go catch it and laugh at - themselves, really, how much less glamorous their lives are in comparison.
But Dongwoo barrels in a while later, his superhero tablet alarm ringing fit to burst, and Woohyun is distracted by the speed at which Dongwoo is able to remove all articles of his clothing (and put the superhero outfit on again) to ready what he was about to say on the tip of his tongue. Dongwoo’s out the door again in two minutes, and Woohyun is left cursing the fucking alarm that ruins everything. He didn’t even get to say good luck, he thinks, and his lips arrange into a pout.
He tries staying up to wait for Dongwoo to get back, playing Angry Birds and Temple Run and whatever he can think of, but he hadn’t managed to get much sleep last night nor on the train ride home this morning due to his joy and he’s honestly getting old, however much he’d like to deny it. His eyelids flutter shut and the next morning when he wakes up, Dongwoo’s not there.
He gets ready for work in a daze, feeling very, very confused. Dongwoo had been home last night, because his superhero outfit is at the foot of his bed, and his toothbrush is wet, which means he’s only just left the house. It’s barely seven, and Woohyun can’t think of a reason why Dongwoo would leave the house exceptionally early. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought Dongwoo was avoiding him.
That couldn’t be. Right? Dongwoo called his ass pretty, that must mean something. And Dongwoo keeps doing that considerate thing, the one that leaves Woohyun weak in the knees and fuzzy in the chest. You don’t do that to someone you would avoid, do you? Woohyun wouldn’t.
Dongwoo isn’t anything like Woohyun, though, and - damn, Woohyun’s getting so many mixed signals, which, with his second-guessing everything, becomes even more complicated. This shouldn’t be that difficult, he thinks, superheroes should have the most enviable love lives. Wasn’t that how it all happened in the movies? Save people, look absolutely charismatic in the eyes of a highly attractive individual, fall in love and have amazing sex.
Maybe two superheroes throw the equation off a little, Woohyun thinks as he trudges to the office in his mismatched socks, but he’s determined to ask Dongwoo about this. He isn’t going to let this go - potential partner or not, awkwardness just isn’t going to fit in their already overcrowded studio flat.
---
“Hey,” Woohyun knocks on the door and slides into the chair opposite Dongwoo’s desk, “you get your own room!” Woohyun just gets his own cubicle and his seatmate colleagues look at him look at news articles on Dongwoo saving people all the time. It gets embarrassing.
Dongwoo looks up, surprised, but he manages to rein it in a second later. “Hey. Weren’t you the one who said we’d get found out by the people here by meeting up?”
Woohyun continues as though he hasn’t heard Dongwoo. “You have nothing on after work, right? I’m cooking tonight,” he tells Dongwoo.
He sees Dongwoo open his mouth, and the teeniest bit of a furrow between his eyebrows makes Woohyun blabber on again. “Okay, see you at home later,” he tells Dongwoo, and scurries off before Dongwoo has a chance to say no, or yes, whatever it was. He slips off in the middle of the afternoon to grab some groceries - he’ll deal with his unexplained absence tomorrow. Securing potential partner is way higher on his priorities. Many more other individuals are just waiting to fall in love with superhero Dongwoo, he’s got a hunch. He saw this particular dude with exceptionally sharp canine teeth get Dongwoo coffee the other day.
So he makes his best dish - folded eggs, which he supposes is rather unromantic, but he’ll probably fuck steaks up, and no one wants to chew on a large slab of gum. The flat has no candles, nothing suitable for a confession dinner - he should’ve gotten some… balloons at the supermarket, maybe - so he just places the eggs on the table and waits.
Dongwoo turns the lock ten minutes later, and comes in slowly, his eyes guarded. Woohyun springs up and smiles as widely as he can, and Dongwoo looks at him as though he’s crazy. He probably is.
“Look! I made eggs!”
Dongwoo looks at the eggs, and then back at Woohyun. “Uh… yeah. Cool. Eggs. Bet they’re yummy.”
“They are! You can have all of them.” Woohyun grins, and he mentally smacks himself because that wasn’t under the list of options for his confession. He was probably supposed to say “hey, look, I like you,” or something equally cheesy.
“Right. Look, Woohyun, can - I need to tell you something.”
“Oh. Right. Right - sure! I need to tell you something too!” Woohyun’s grinning so wide his cheeks hurt - it’s coming, he thinks. Dongwoo does like him after all, forget all those confusing mixed signals, and he’s going to confess, and they’re going to kiss, and -
“…move out.”
Wait. What? He didn’t catch the first part of Dongwoo’s sentence. That - Dongwoo wasn’t talking about… moving out, was he?
“What?”
“I said… you just started your second month as a superhero, so you don’t need a mentor anymore, and - I can move out if you want. I know this place is tiny.”
“No - wait, what? Dongwoo - what - why would you move out?”
“…I just told you, Woohyun.”
“No - what? You aren’t moving!”
“Uh… okay?” Dongwoo takes a deep breath. “Look - I just - I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“No - what the fuck are you talking about? You don’t make me uncomfortable! I mean, besides the part where you do that considerate potential partner thing and then I get all melty inside. I mean - yeah… you know…” Woohyun trails off. You need to shut up, his brain yells. Shut. Up.
Dongwoo blinks twice, thrice in succession, looking at Woohyun like he just spoke Penguin-ese. “What?”
Woohyun groans. “Um, I - just. I don’t know! You keep giving me mixed signals, what the fuck do you want me to do?”
“What?” Dongwoo looks incredulous. “You - I thought you were uncomfortable, so I backed off?”
Oh.
Oh. Right. Dongwoo’s whale-sized hint smacks Woohyun in the face.
“Oh.”
Dongwoo’s face suddenly flares scarlet and he cards his fingers through his hair, making strangled sounds in frustration. “Fuck, forget I said anything, just -“
Woohyun yanks Dongwoo’s hands out of his hair. “Did - did you just - but - but you’ve been avoiding me!”
“Yeah, well.” Dongwoo looks down. “You went to your mom’s after that ass comment, what else was I supposed to think.”
“I - I thought I misheard! I thought I was drunk! Or you were drunk!” Woohyun splutters. “Oh my god, Dongwoo. I asked you out, what do you think that meant.”
“I don’t know! I thought you wanted to tell me to stop or something.” Dongwoo picks at his nails, head still hung.
“You are such an idiot, goddamn.” Woohyun rolls his eyes. Dongwoo whips his head up, protesting, “hey, you too, you -“, but Woohyun grabs his hands.
“You also need to shut up now.” Woohyun takes a deep breath. “Look. I like you. I like your stupid face and you aren’t moving out in approximately the next millennium.”
“Your face is stupider.”
Woohyun is consumed by an urge to punch Dongwoo. “Shut up, god. Way to ruin the romantic moment.”
This would be where Woohyun leans in, but, as all laws in superhero land dictate, both their superhero tablet alarms ring simultaneously.
“One day I’m really going to smash that fucking alarm to bits.” Woohyun grits his teeth, but he knows he could never. He tried it the other day, but the superhero ministry is smarter than that. The alarms are probably made out of steel from the core of the earth or something. Dongwoo’s already halfway out of his shirt.
“What?” Dongwoo looks at him as Woohyun stares. “Your alarm’s ringing too, in case you haven’t noticed. Hurry the fuck up, my eardrums are ready to burst.” Dongwoo tosses his alarm at him, and Woohyun complies highly reluctantly.
“I like you too,” Dongwoo says just before they take off on the roof, so Woohyun stumbles and nearly falls off the edge, “and don’t fuck up, boyfriend.”
Woohyun fucks up, but who cares.
woohyun/dongwoo, pg-13, crack, fluff
woohyun's your average superhero. dongwoo's... not quite. (superhero au)
In superhero land, it’s not actually a bed of roses. Flying really tenses all your muscles so you get incredible aches all over after, and that outfit is tight as hell. Plus flying while you’re in that outfit is doubly difficult.
Woohyun collapses on his bed (why don’t superheroes get a nicer bed, he wonders only slightly indignantly) after extricating himself from the damn superhero outfit and balls it up to throw it at the foot of the bed. Dongwoo laughs from the other bed in the room.
“You must be getting old,” Dongwoo comments, flipping a page of his One Piece manga. Woohyun rolls over and plants his face into his pillow, wondering again why superheroes had to share a flat, let alone a room with someone else.
“That’s a really nice thing to hear from your flatmate,” Dongwoo replies, and Woohyun realises he’d wondered out loud and groans.
“I’m sorry,” Woohyun mumbles, and flops back on the pillow with his cheek down so he’s looking at Dongwoo. “That’s not what I meant.”
Dongwoo chuckles and chucks a pain-relieving patch at Woohyun. “It gets better,” he offers, and Woohyun buries his face in his hands. He hadn’t signed up for all this superhero business. He’d just been a regular person with a regular job in a regular company, when Dongwoo sat down opposite him a month ago in the restaurant near his office building where he was eating lunch and slid a pile of spandex material across the table.
If Woohyun hadn’t gotten his new superhero powers then, he’d have thought Dongwoo was trying to hit on him - it was Dongwoo who had brought up this entire living together thing. Dongwoo’s sort of a Senior Superhero, just like how he’s also a Senior Manager in Woohyun’s company, and he had explained in that restaurant booth that new superheroes get mentored by senior ones in superhero land, so they have a bit of time to learn the ropes. Being a superhero isn’t all that intuitive.
No, really, though. Who asks to live with someone you barely know? Woohyun had spluttered an incredulous “why” and gotten a shrug in return. He thinks he should raise this entire business to the superhero union or something - he hadn’t gotten a full contract explaining what he’d be getting himself into when he’d agreed to do this. Including falling in love with your mentor superhero - but that’s not really something Woohyun likes to think about.
Anyway, he decides that their flat is way too small for two superheroes, and in the event that both of them are on duty, it gets difficult because there is only one toilet. So this means Woohyun has to brush his teeth (gotta maintain his image) while Dongwoo’s changing and peeing and whatever else in the toilet and he’d really rather not have an inconvenient boner making his superhero outfit even tighter. The flat is, however, a five minute walk from the office building, and in a building which roof is conducive for superhero flight takeoff and landing. (And fantastic acoustics, so they don’t get countless complaints when their alarms ring in the middle of the night.) Woohyun doesn’t have much other choice; his bank account is paltry for an apartment in the area.
His stomach suddenly grumbles loudly, and he folds his arms over it. He’s not going to get up just to satisfy his stomach; why should superheroes be at mercy of a mere organ? But his stomach grumbles again, insistently, and Dongwoo laughs, gets up from his bed and tells Woohyun he’ll make a cup of ramyeon for him.
Woohyun finds an irrational annoyance inside him, over the warm fuzziness spreading from his chest, because it’s really not fair how Dongwoo goes and does things like that to steal Woohyun’s unsuspecting heart. Weren’t superheroes supposed to be chivalrous, upstanding citizens?
---
Woohyun fucks up a little on his first major superhero task alone. A fire breaks out in a huge building at 3 AM in the morning and there are dozens of people to be saved - his superhero tablet alarm flashes “Code Red” repeatedly on its screen while simultaneously screeching, and Woohyun gets into his superhero outfit in record time to shut the alarm up. Dongwoo stirs before he manages to, unfortunately, and Woohyun curses inwardly.
“Sorry,” Woohyun says, “go back to sleep.”
Dongwoo mumbles something Woohyun can’t make out and rolls over. Because Woohyun’s feelings for Dongwoo are absolutely platonic, he spends the entirety of his superhero saving task thinking about what Dongwoo might have said. Good luck? You’re an asshole for waking me up? I’m really fucking tired so get the fuck out?
There is just one last little girl left in the burning building to save and there are loads of cheers outside as the fire brigade hoses the building down with foam and water, but Woohyun is distracted because he thinks Dongwoo’s mumbles may have sounded like “good luck”. Or “get out”. Either option seems equally plausible. Why don’t his superhero powers include mumble-deciphering, again?
This is where he fucks up, because as he flies out of the window of the building with the little girl in his arms a lick of fire grazes past him and he’s flustered for a moment. Flying requires loads of concentration, and between a singed hole in his outfit near the vicinity of his ass, Dongwoo’s good luck wish/hurtful request, and trying to save a girl from a burning building, Woohyun loses focus and suddenly he’s falling the many feet, and the girl is screaming -
His feet are on the ground when he opens his eyes, the little girl still snug in his grasp, and Dongwoo’s arm is around his torso, hand on his side. Um.
The little girl looks up at Dongwoo, sniffling. “Who’re you? Did you save us?”
“We’re partners,” Dongwoo says, clapping his hand on Woohyun’s shoulder, “and you can just remember us as your friendly neighbourhood superheroes.”
Woohyun attempts a smile as he puts the little girl down. Dongwoo’s smiling enough for the both of them, in any case.
Dongwoo grabs Woohyun again, his hand now round Woohyun’s waist, and in an instant they’re back on the rooftop of their building.
“How - where - why -“ Woohyun manages, as they make their way down the stairs to their flat, and Dongwoo just smiles as he throws the lock open.
“You didn’t think I’d let you manage your first major task alone, did you?”
It’s only until later, when he’s brushing his teeth listening to Dongwoo’s snores through the pretty thin walls in the flat, that he realises Dongwoo’s just saved his superhero ass. Damn.
---
“Hey,” Dongwoo grins as he sidles up to Woohyun in the pantry. Woohyun almost drops his scalding cup of brown dishwater.
“Um, hey,” Woohyun replies, taking a furtive glance behind them to make sure that no one else is in the pantry. The first thing he’d been taught in Being a Superhero 101 was that you did not tell anyone your real identity, ever. It would probably be suspicious to a colleague that he knew Dongwoo; they weren’t even in the same department. It… would.
“Are you doing anything later?” Dongwoo grins, sticking a cup under the coffee machine dispenser. A gulp of scalding dishwater makes its painful way down Woohyun’s throat.
“No…. why?” Woohyun clears his throat.
“Nothing - I just… would like to eat out. Some steaming, cheesy pizza and real Coke. Beer. Nachos and dip. Wanna come pig out together?” Dongwoo grins, his eyebrows raised in question and Woohyun says yes before he regains enough cognitive function to realise that this is sort of -
Not a date, he tells himself. Don’t be silly. This is a - meal. With a flatmate. Flatmates have meals together all the time. He cooks for two sometimes and they eat together at home, anyway. They’ve done this before. It’s just their first… meal out. There’s not much of a difference, really, between the four walls of a restaurant and the four walls of their studio flat.
A meal, Woohyun nods to himself as he watches Dongwoo stride out in those slacks which he finds very attractive on Dongwoo’s legs.
---
Alright, so it does feel like a date to Woohyun. He’s not really sure if it’s because he wants this to happen, but Dongwoo laughing at the jokes he’s making and letting him have the last slice of pizza is something a date would do, right?
Shut up, Woohyun, he tells himself, Dongwoo probably doesn’t even like guys. And Woohyun’s not really ready to deal with rejection right now. He stuffs the slice of pizza in his mouth and leans back against the sofa booth, rubbing his tummy.
“Ugh,” Woohyun says, “I’m so full. I can’t even move.”
“You’re not allowed to fly home,” Dongwoo reminds him laughingly, taking a sip of his beer.
Woohyun gives him a look of indignance. “But I’m a superhero!”
“And I’m your boss. You aren’t on duty, so don’t think about it. Get your pretty little ass home on foot.”
There’s a pause, an awkward one in which Woohyun almost chokes on the cheese on the pizza and he thinks something’s shifted in Dongwoo’s eyes, but then Dongwoo takes another sip of his beer and Woohyun’s definitely, definitely imagining the red tinge on Dongwoo’s cheeks. He probably misheard - he’s nearly drunk. Dongwoo too, possibly.
So he forces the pizza down his throat and laughs, “ha, ha, ha, right, I’m a little tired. Wanna head back?”
Dongwoo shrugs and nods. “Sure.” And proceeds to grab the bill and head to the counter immediately after, stopping Woohyun with a sort of I’ll-get-this-I-know-you-need-to-send-more-money-back-this-month pat on the shoulder. Fuck this guy, Woohyun thinks.
---
Woohyun goes to his mother’s the next night - takes the insanely long commute and falls asleep on the train to reach there way past dinnertime, because he wants to sort out his feelings.
He didn’t manage to sleep at all the previous night with the prospect of Dongwoo - possibly - liking him back - right? Breaking down every single syllable of Dongwoo’s “pretty little ass” yesterday night yielded fruitful results - Woohyun’s about 79% sure that’s exactly what Dongwoo said. Pieced together the “pre” from the “prefer” and the “tty” from “kitty”, and all. Soundbyte waveform analysis, check.
No, really, though. And he doesn’t think he’d imagined the tinge of pink on Dongwoo’s cheeks, now, though that may have been inebriation. In any case, he’s pretty sure Dongwoo likes him - or, is, at least, attracted to him - and Woohyun’s smiling to himself like a true fifteen year-old schoolgirl before he manages to stop himself. Woohyun is pretty confident when he’s sure of winning the battle, and clearly this is one to be won.
His phone rings, then - it’s Dongwoo. Woohyun picks up and is surprised to hear a bit of worry through the line.
“Woohyun?” Dongwoo asks when the line connects.
“S’up, Dongwoo,” Woohyun says, telling himself to rein it in. He’ll start his Charismatic Potential Partner campaign tomorrow.
“Oh - am - I disturbing you or anything?” Dongwoo is hesitant, and Woohyun’s confused. “You aren’t home… I just wanted to make sure you were safe.”
The last two words fade off in a whisper and hit Woohyun in the stomach, winding him. He grapples to find his voice in response.
“Don’t worry about it, I’m at my mom’s. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Oh…. Right. Right. Okay. See you tomorrow.” Dongwoo replies, and the line’s gone, but Woohyun almost drops his phone in a mix of surprise, fuzziness and glee.
Score, he thinks, and goes to sleep prepping for his campaign to sweep Dongwoo off his feet tomorrow.
---
When Woohyun arrives back home (way too) early in the morning to take a shower and change before he leaves for work, Dongwoo’s already gone. This is abnormal, because they usually leave for work together, but Woohyun’s too gleeful to pursue this. He takes a long shower, fantasizing about the different ways he was going to ask Dongwoo out later, and ends up late at work. He sends Dongwoo a text.
meet at the pantry?
He’s already at the pantry, readying a cup of dishwater - should he go grab some Starbucks? Because office coffee isn’t all that suitable for asking someone out… but Starbucks would probably be pushing it - before he gets a reply.
k
He waits.
Dongwoo walks in with the same attractive pair of slacks and Woohyun forces his hand still. Calm, Nam Woohyun, he tells himself. Smooth and charismatic.
“Hey,” Woohyun says, holding out the paper cup.
Dongwoo takes it smilingly, arching his eyebrows up. “S’up?”
Woohyun grins. “Come get drinks with me after work.”
“What?” Dongwoo spills a bit of the coffee on himself, and Woohyun’s a little surprised. He hadn’t even been turning the charisma on that much, yet.
“I said, come get drinks with me after work. Samgyupsal first, then soju? I’ll treat,” Woohyun says, and he hopes this is big enough of a hint. Woohyun never treats. He waits for the whale-sized hint to hit Dongwoo.
“Oh…” Dongwoo says, and Woohyun can’t quite make out the expression on his face. “oh… that’s okay, I - you know. You can’t treat me this month.” Woohyun’s pretty sure he’s got the sappiest look on his face now, but he can’t help it.
“No, it’s - “
“I have a meeting after work, anyway, and it’ll probably end late. Sorry.”
“Oh.” This isn’t one of the scenarios Woohyun had prepared for. Um. “I’ll wait -“
“No, really, I - sorry, I gotta get back to work. Need to get a proposal done before the meeting later.”
“….right. Right. Sure. Good luck for the meeting,” Woohyun says, and Dongwoo gives him a curt little smile and walks off and Woohyun feels like he’s just been hit in the face.
---
Woohyun goes home after work alone, after a long day of dissecting Dongwoo’s every facial expression. Sometimes he wonders if the superhero powers include videocamera-graphic memory, because all of Dongwoo’s expressions, Dongwoo’s words play in his head instantaneously. He must really check the confidentiality contract he signed on the whole superhero business.
But he’s stumped, because he’s pretty sure Dongwoo does like him, so - that can’t be reluctance he saw in Dongwoo’s face. Right? Besides, Dongwoo did that thing again, the utterly considerate potential boyfriend thing. He really wishes superheroes had cool equipment, like those facial/body structure analysis computer thingies in the movies, all graphical contours and digital new age font. But nope, superheroes get spandex material outfits and lousy old alarms that he can’t even turn off himself. It’s the twenty-first century, Woohyun thinks indignantly, they should get with the times. Regular people have toasters more advanced than the stuff they use.
In any case, he decides to stop worrying and maybe spring one on Dongwoo again later when he’s back. Ask him out for a movie, and all. The new Batman’s out, they could probably go catch it and laugh at - themselves, really, how much less glamorous their lives are in comparison.
But Dongwoo barrels in a while later, his superhero tablet alarm ringing fit to burst, and Woohyun is distracted by the speed at which Dongwoo is able to remove all articles of his clothing (and put the superhero outfit on again) to ready what he was about to say on the tip of his tongue. Dongwoo’s out the door again in two minutes, and Woohyun is left cursing the fucking alarm that ruins everything. He didn’t even get to say good luck, he thinks, and his lips arrange into a pout.
He tries staying up to wait for Dongwoo to get back, playing Angry Birds and Temple Run and whatever he can think of, but he hadn’t managed to get much sleep last night nor on the train ride home this morning due to his joy and he’s honestly getting old, however much he’d like to deny it. His eyelids flutter shut and the next morning when he wakes up, Dongwoo’s not there.
He gets ready for work in a daze, feeling very, very confused. Dongwoo had been home last night, because his superhero outfit is at the foot of his bed, and his toothbrush is wet, which means he’s only just left the house. It’s barely seven, and Woohyun can’t think of a reason why Dongwoo would leave the house exceptionally early. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought Dongwoo was avoiding him.
That couldn’t be. Right? Dongwoo called his ass pretty, that must mean something. And Dongwoo keeps doing that considerate thing, the one that leaves Woohyun weak in the knees and fuzzy in the chest. You don’t do that to someone you would avoid, do you? Woohyun wouldn’t.
Dongwoo isn’t anything like Woohyun, though, and - damn, Woohyun’s getting so many mixed signals, which, with his second-guessing everything, becomes even more complicated. This shouldn’t be that difficult, he thinks, superheroes should have the most enviable love lives. Wasn’t that how it all happened in the movies? Save people, look absolutely charismatic in the eyes of a highly attractive individual, fall in love and have amazing sex.
Maybe two superheroes throw the equation off a little, Woohyun thinks as he trudges to the office in his mismatched socks, but he’s determined to ask Dongwoo about this. He isn’t going to let this go - potential partner or not, awkwardness just isn’t going to fit in their already overcrowded studio flat.
---
“Hey,” Woohyun knocks on the door and slides into the chair opposite Dongwoo’s desk, “you get your own room!” Woohyun just gets his own cubicle and his seatmate colleagues look at him look at news articles on Dongwoo saving people all the time. It gets embarrassing.
Dongwoo looks up, surprised, but he manages to rein it in a second later. “Hey. Weren’t you the one who said we’d get found out by the people here by meeting up?”
Woohyun continues as though he hasn’t heard Dongwoo. “You have nothing on after work, right? I’m cooking tonight,” he tells Dongwoo.
He sees Dongwoo open his mouth, and the teeniest bit of a furrow between his eyebrows makes Woohyun blabber on again. “Okay, see you at home later,” he tells Dongwoo, and scurries off before Dongwoo has a chance to say no, or yes, whatever it was. He slips off in the middle of the afternoon to grab some groceries - he’ll deal with his unexplained absence tomorrow. Securing potential partner is way higher on his priorities. Many more other individuals are just waiting to fall in love with superhero Dongwoo, he’s got a hunch. He saw this particular dude with exceptionally sharp canine teeth get Dongwoo coffee the other day.
So he makes his best dish - folded eggs, which he supposes is rather unromantic, but he’ll probably fuck steaks up, and no one wants to chew on a large slab of gum. The flat has no candles, nothing suitable for a confession dinner - he should’ve gotten some… balloons at the supermarket, maybe - so he just places the eggs on the table and waits.
Dongwoo turns the lock ten minutes later, and comes in slowly, his eyes guarded. Woohyun springs up and smiles as widely as he can, and Dongwoo looks at him as though he’s crazy. He probably is.
“Look! I made eggs!”
Dongwoo looks at the eggs, and then back at Woohyun. “Uh… yeah. Cool. Eggs. Bet they’re yummy.”
“They are! You can have all of them.” Woohyun grins, and he mentally smacks himself because that wasn’t under the list of options for his confession. He was probably supposed to say “hey, look, I like you,” or something equally cheesy.
“Right. Look, Woohyun, can - I need to tell you something.”
“Oh. Right. Right - sure! I need to tell you something too!” Woohyun’s grinning so wide his cheeks hurt - it’s coming, he thinks. Dongwoo does like him after all, forget all those confusing mixed signals, and he’s going to confess, and they’re going to kiss, and -
“…move out.”
Wait. What? He didn’t catch the first part of Dongwoo’s sentence. That - Dongwoo wasn’t talking about… moving out, was he?
“What?”
“I said… you just started your second month as a superhero, so you don’t need a mentor anymore, and - I can move out if you want. I know this place is tiny.”
“No - wait, what? Dongwoo - what - why would you move out?”
“…I just told you, Woohyun.”
“No - what? You aren’t moving!”
“Uh… okay?” Dongwoo takes a deep breath. “Look - I just - I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“No - what the fuck are you talking about? You don’t make me uncomfortable! I mean, besides the part where you do that considerate potential partner thing and then I get all melty inside. I mean - yeah… you know…” Woohyun trails off. You need to shut up, his brain yells. Shut. Up.
Dongwoo blinks twice, thrice in succession, looking at Woohyun like he just spoke Penguin-ese. “What?”
Woohyun groans. “Um, I - just. I don’t know! You keep giving me mixed signals, what the fuck do you want me to do?”
“What?” Dongwoo looks incredulous. “You - I thought you were uncomfortable, so I backed off?”
Oh.
Oh. Right. Dongwoo’s whale-sized hint smacks Woohyun in the face.
“Oh.”
Dongwoo’s face suddenly flares scarlet and he cards his fingers through his hair, making strangled sounds in frustration. “Fuck, forget I said anything, just -“
Woohyun yanks Dongwoo’s hands out of his hair. “Did - did you just - but - but you’ve been avoiding me!”
“Yeah, well.” Dongwoo looks down. “You went to your mom’s after that ass comment, what else was I supposed to think.”
“I - I thought I misheard! I thought I was drunk! Or you were drunk!” Woohyun splutters. “Oh my god, Dongwoo. I asked you out, what do you think that meant.”
“I don’t know! I thought you wanted to tell me to stop or something.” Dongwoo picks at his nails, head still hung.
“You are such an idiot, goddamn.” Woohyun rolls his eyes. Dongwoo whips his head up, protesting, “hey, you too, you -“, but Woohyun grabs his hands.
“You also need to shut up now.” Woohyun takes a deep breath. “Look. I like you. I like your stupid face and you aren’t moving out in approximately the next millennium.”
“Your face is stupider.”
Woohyun is consumed by an urge to punch Dongwoo. “Shut up, god. Way to ruin the romantic moment.”
This would be where Woohyun leans in, but, as all laws in superhero land dictate, both their superhero tablet alarms ring simultaneously.
“One day I’m really going to smash that fucking alarm to bits.” Woohyun grits his teeth, but he knows he could never. He tried it the other day, but the superhero ministry is smarter than that. The alarms are probably made out of steel from the core of the earth or something. Dongwoo’s already halfway out of his shirt.
“What?” Dongwoo looks at him as Woohyun stares. “Your alarm’s ringing too, in case you haven’t noticed. Hurry the fuck up, my eardrums are ready to burst.” Dongwoo tosses his alarm at him, and Woohyun complies highly reluctantly.
“I like you too,” Dongwoo says just before they take off on the roof, so Woohyun stumbles and nearly falls off the edge, “and don’t fuck up, boyfriend.”
Woohyun fucks up, but who cares.