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The thing is he’s trying to be normal.
Trying being the keyword here.
Easier said than done when you were bitten by a radioactive spider as a teenager, and then thrust into superhero-hood in order to save the world from destruction multiple times. But Mark’s got a plan.
Sort of.
More like the general illusion of a plan.
One year of studying abroad to get in touch with his culture, or maybe just getting far enough away from the Avengers that he can have an attempt at being normal to finish his engineering degree program at a school in a normal city, halfway across the world from the dangers of NYC, so that he could live the life of a normal college student, doing normal college student things like eating in the dining commons and making friends (or frenemies) with his roommate and accidentally sleeping through his early morning classes.
Sure, the spider suit and web blasters are in a box under his dorm bed, but that’s for emergencies only.
And okay, maybe his roommate never was home so the whole ‘making normal friends’ thing was put on hold for a bit, but well…
It could be worse?
Right?
Though he’s pretty sure this qualifies as worse.
“I’m sorry, I’m not interested,” Mark says, waving away the flier that is being thrust into his hand.
He’s used to the drill by now, dodging pamphlets and invites to various clubs and organizations on campus, but this girl is adamantly pushing the pamphlet into his hand while ignoring every other person attempting to pass through the quad.
It’s his own damn fault.
That Canadian upbringing stops him, despite the fact that he really just wants to get back to his dorm room and take a nap, putting on a fake smile and accepting the pamphlet.
The girl smiles widely at having finally caught his attention, and Mark braces himself for the usual - listening to some club’s whole practiced speech before politely declining and insisting that his course load was too heavy - except before he can, a chill runs through him. His spidey sense finally properly registering the girl in front of him as something more than just an innocent college student.
“We have an internship offer for you, Mark Lee,” she says.
“What - Who are you,” Mark says, crumpling the pamphlet in his hand.
Her fingers are cold when they touch hand to hand, unfurling his fingers to smooth out the pamphlet that he had crumpled. Once done she says, “Please, read the pamphlet, Baekhyun-ssi will be awaiting your call.”
Finally, he brings himself to look down at what she had handed him.
It seems innocent enough.
The basic flier for an engineering company looking for interns.
Or it would be, if his spider sense wasn’t currently ringing the alarms inside of his head, and if the company in question hadn’t been named W.E.B. .
Things like this are rarely actual coincidences.
“Look, I don’t know what you think you know but,” Mark starts, turning to look back up at the girl, stopping suddenly once he realizes that she is no longer there in front of him. “Where’d she go?”
*
The W.E.B. Lab pamphlet weighs heavy in his pocket the entire way back to his dorm room, and for the first time in his college career Mark is actually happy for the fact that his roommate is never in their shared room because at least that means that nobody is here to see him completely freak out.
It’s not a coincidence.
And despite the pamphlet insisting that it’s for an internship to the ‘ WorldWide Engineering Brigade’ there’s something unnerving about it all.
Something he can’t just shake.
His spidey sense has never been wrong before.
And seeing as the only writing on the inside of the pamphlet is a phone number and the words ‘ We’ll be awaiting your call’ , he’s pretty sure he’s not wrong about this one.
The logical thing to do would be to call the Avengers, but they’re all the way back in America, and Mark’s good enough at math to calculate that the current time difference would not make it an ideal time to be calling anyone over there.
Plus what would they even say? Probably just to throw the pamphlet away and go back to pretending to be normal.
Which is what he should do, but instead…
“Oh please don’t let this be some Squid Game scenario,” Mark says, punching in the number on his phone against his better judgement.
It takes only one ring before the call connects, and a voice says, “Well, that was quicker than I expected.”
Blurting out “What” in response is probably not his coolest move.
The man on the other end of the line lets out a small noise like a laugh, “Your impulse control must be lower in this universe, I’m used to at least a few hours of waiting before I get a response, but you have,” there’s a pause, the other person must be shuffling their phone around and putting Mark on speaker phone, because when he speaks again it is with a small echo, “Yeri texted me seventeen minutes ago that she successfully delivered our invitation, That’s a new record.”
Repeating ‘ What’ again probably won’t get Mark any actual answers, so instead he tells the man on the phone what he had intended to tell the girl - Yeri (?) - earlier, “Look, I don’t know who you are, or who you think I am but-”
“I’m Byun Baekhyun,” the man says - which, right, pamphlet-girl had definitely said that a ‘ Baekhyun-ssi ’ would be awaiting his call. “And you’re Mark Lee.”
“I mean, yeah, okay, but-”
“You’re also Spiderman,” Baekhyun continues. “Or is it Spider-boy in this universe, hold on let me check my notes.”
Mark freezes.
He kind of expected this, but the idea that someone halfway across the world would know who he is, despite all of his efforts to put his superhero work on hold and just in general keep his identity a secret is… Unnerving.
“Ah, no,” Baekhyun continues, unaware of Mark’s current crisis, “It is Spider man in this universe.”
Denying would be the logical answer.
So, of course he does the opposite of that.
There was that lack of survival instincts that Captain America was always lecturing him about.
“How do you know that,” Mark asks instead.
“Here at W.E.B. we know a lot of things,” he answers. “Our recruitment team is uniquely suited to find like minded people to work here, and you fit the bill perfectly.”
“But why now?” Mark asks, when he really wants to ask, Why me?
“I mean we could have recruited you back when you were in NYC, but where’s the fun in that?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not interested,” Mark says. “I just want a normal college experience. I’m on an earlier retirement or hiatus, or something, whatever you’ve heard about me is outdated information. I’m not doing that anymore.”
“Oh no, Yeri was being honest when she spoke to you, I’m not looking for a ‘superhero’ to add to my staff. I have enough of those,” Baekhyun says quickly. “We’d like you as an engineering intern.”
“Am I supposed to believe that?”
The laugh that comes through the phone is startling.
“I like you,” he says once he’s stopped laughing. “I don’t suppose there’s anything I can say to convince you to change your mind?”
Mark shakes his head, before realizing that the man on the other end of the phone can’t see him. “No, sorry.”
“Ah, well, I suppose it’s not a new recruitment record after all. A shame. If you change your mind, just call again, okay?”
“I won’t, but-”
A dial tone greets him before he can finish the sentence.
For a moment, Mark sits there staring at his phone, at the phone number in his call history, before he moves to slide his finger across the screen and delete the record of the conversation.
And then he does what he should have done in the beginning, and calls the Avengers.
*
The Avengers are looking into it.
At least, that’s what the SHIELD liaison had assured him when he called back for updates a week later and received nothing in return.
Mark had done some googling of his own, researching the mysterious W.E.B. Lab instead of paying attention to his lectures, but his search had come up mostly empty.
From his research Mark had learned that the WorldWide Engineering Brigade is a registered company with the Seoul Business Bureau. They apparently had an office in the Yongsan District, though Mark had been unable to find any photos of the inside of the office, and their website was a barebones site with broken links and testimonials that seemed fake.
The number on the website was different from the one in his pamphlet, and when he called it a receptionist named Sooyoung offered to take a message for him, but could not redirect his call to anyone else or even explain what exactly W.E.B. Labs does.
It’s suspicious.
Suspicious enough that he really should just let the SHIELD team that the Avengers had put onto the task of investigating this deal with it, but well…. SHIELD is all the way back in the States and Mark is right here and it’s not like he was going to do his homework anyways.
*
It’s Murphy's Law.
Or maybe the universe is just trying to stop him from investigating W.E.B. Labs, but getting robbed at the bus stop is definitely not how he expected his evening to go. This is what he gets for taking the bus instead of just putting on his suit and using his webs to cross Seoul in a fraction of the time.
But being normal means taking the bus.
And apparently ‘normal’ means getting robbed at knifepoint.
“Look, I know you’re probably thinking I’m an easy target, but this is actually a really bad idea,” Mark says, trying to give the guy mugging him an out. “I promise nothing in my backpack is worth all this trouble.”
He braces himself for the struggle, ready to put his enhanced reflexes to use, and if necessary his web shooters that he thankfully had the foresight to wear.
Though he needn’t have done all that, because before Mark can even move, his potential mugger is jerked backwards. As if someone, or some thing had pulled him from behind, and when the mugger falls to the ground Mark can see exactly who did it.
Except what he’s seeing doesn’t make any sense.
Because the person that had saved him is Spiderman .
Or some version.
His suit looks similar enough to the one under Mark’s bed with the same spider emblem across the chest, except instead of being red and blue, it’s black and blue.
But none of that makes any sense because Mark is Spiderman.
He feels like he’s going into shock as he watches the other Spiderman take out the mugger, trapping him against a wall in a mess of webs, before taking the man’s knife away. The other Spiderman flips the butterfly knife closed, before slipping in into a nearly invisible crease along the leg of his suit.
Since when did they make spidey suits with pockets?
Also since when did anyone other than Mark even have a spidey suit?
“Aren’t you going to say thank you,” the other Spiderman asks, once he’s done. “I did just save your life. Normally people say thank you after I save them.”
“I - what - I mean, thank you, but what,” Mark rambles, “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“I’m Spiderman, obviously.”
“Yeah, but-” But I’m Spiderman , “-That doesn’t make any sense.”
The other Spiderman lets out a noise that sounds like a snicker, and somehow is able to figure out exactly what Mark meant even if he hadn’t spoken the words out loud - “What? You really thought you were the only Spiderman? You’re so full of yourself, Milk Lee.”
“It’s Mark,” he corrects reflexively, before, “Wait, how do you know who I am?”
The other Spiderman shrugs.
An illusion of casualness.
And instead of answering, returns with a question of his own - “What are you doing in the Yongsan District?”
“I just…” Mark’s cheeks burn with embarrassment. Knowing that he’s been found out. He’s not sure what gives it away, but he’s pretty sure the Spiderman in front of him is somehow related to that W.E.B. Labs pamphlet that has been burning a hole in his pocket.
“I would say sorry about this, but I don’t actually feel that bad.”
“Sorry about what?”
Mark gets his answer an instant later. The feeling of a tranquilizer dart is not an unfamiliar one, though it never gets easier.
Not when the world suddenly goes sideways.
*
Mark wakes with a jolt, fully expecting to be locked up in some secret lab somewhere minutes away from being dissected or interrogated for Avengers secrets.
But instead, when he opens his eyes it is just to the familiar space of his college dorm room.
He’s still wearing what he had worn on the bus earlier that day, the only difference is that his web shooters are no longer attached to his wrists, but instead sitting on his desk. For the second time in recent memory he is actually thankful that his roommate is never around, as he hurries to retrieve the web shooters and return them under his bed to the box with his spidey suit.
The suit is still there thankfully.
And after a quick check of his dorm room nothing seems to be missing or have moved at all.
Why would that other Spiderman just have put him back in his dorm?
Also why is there even another Spiderman in the first place?
Mark can already feel the inevitable headache coming on, none of this makes any sense.
Googling ‘Spider People’ doesn’t exactly seem like the most logical answer, but it’s a starting point. And surprisingly it doesn’t take nearly as long as he would like to discover that not only is there an entire subreddit dedicated to him (or well, Spiderman) but that one of the most popular threads is one dedicated to sightings of various Spiders functioning under the idea that the mantle of Spiderman may not be held by just one singular person.
The photos of himself are generally unnerving.
But there’s other photos.
Blurry ones, mostly.
But there’s someone claiming to have been rescued by a Spider that spoke with a female voice but wore the same suit as Mark during a trip to Paris. While another claimed to have also seen a Spider-Girl in Shanghai with a suit that was white and pink.
None of the photos are particularly good quality, and some could just be other powered individuals without any connection to spiders at all, but it’s on page three that he finds what he is looking for.
That black and red suit from earlier today.
Last spotted a month ago here in Seoul.
“What the fuck,” Mark says to himself.
Which figures that, with the way his luck has been going lately, his absentee roommate would finally appear in the middle of Mark’s crisis over apparently not being the only ‘Spiderman’ to exist.
The sound of a key being inserted into the door is sudden enough that Mark jolts up, briefly sticking to the wall beside his dorm bed in a panic and only just managing to extract himself and settle down into the appearance of normality when the door opens to reveal his roommate, Donghyuck.
“Hey, I didn’t know you’d be back,” Mark says, aiming for casualness and missing by a long shot.
The look Donghyuck shoots at him kinda makes him feel like a dick, great job Mark Lee, way to butcher the only conversation that he’s ever had with his roommate.
“I mean,” Mark quickly starts to ramble to diffuse the tension, “You live here too so obviously you’d be back! I just hadn’t… You moved in before I did, so I don’t think we met other than that one time, and you never really sleep here so… You have a girlfriend or boyfriend or something right? Yeah, cause I figure you must normally be at their dorm, which is why you’re never - but it’s cool that you’re here now! Because you also live here!”
“I’m going to put you out of your misery,” Donghyuck says, cutting him off.
Mark stills.
That voice - his roommate’s voice - sounds unnervingly familiar.
Though the second he says as much out loud, he feels like an idiot, because Donghyuck just arches an eyebrow in his direction - “Probably because we’re roommates, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Mark agrees, even though he knows he only met his roommate once before in passing, and definitely had not registered his voice at all.
It’s not like Mark is even sure where he’s heard it before.
But he has, he’s sure of it.
“That reminds me,” Donghyuck says, shrugging off his backpack and settling down on his usually empty bed, “Ran into this girl waiting outside our dorm building, and she told me to give you this?”
It’s a pamphlet.
The front cover is the same one that he already has tucked into his backpack.
Advertising the W.E.B. Labs internships.
Mark snatches it out from Donghyuck’s hand. “Was she short and with the hair that fades to blonde at the ends?”
Donghyuck shrugs. “You expect me to register what people look like?”
“I… You know what, nevermind, it doesn’t matter,” Mark says.
Had today not been the day that it was he would have rejoiced at finally getting to have a proper conversation with his roommate. Maybe even tried that ten step plan of making friends. But instead he turns away from the other boy to open up the pamphlet, expecting the same message as before.
The number is still there.
But this time the message reads: ‘If you’re so curious, why don’t you schedule a tour?’
He ducks out into the hallway, ignoring his roommates lingering gaze and opens up his phone to call the number that he’s called once before.
Baekhyun picks up before the first ring can even finish, “I had a feeling you’d come around.”
*
This time when he gets to the Yongsan district, he doesn’t get mugged. Though he’s got his suit on underneath his hoodie and his web blasters ready to go at the first sign of danger. He makes it all the way up to the office in question without any issues at all.
The only issue is W.E.B. Labs itself is nothing more than a single floor in a tall office building filled with legal offices and insurance companies and other general businesses. Not the sort of place that he’d expect a scientific lab to be operated out of.
When he exits the elevator onto the correct floor, there’s not much there. Just a receptionist with two women chatting at the desk in the middle of the room, with two doors behind them and a row of uncomfortable looking waiting room chairs across from them along the sides of the elevator door.
“Welcome to W.E.B. Labs,” the receptionist, Sooyoung greets, “Do you have an appointment, or-”
“You,” Mark blurts out, pointing an accusing finger at the girl standing next to her.
She’s wearing the same red hoodie that she had been wearing when she forced that pamphlet into his hands, though this time her hair is pulled up into a ponytail.
The pamphlet girl - Yeri, that’s what Baekhyun had called her on the phone - frowns at him. “I was so close to breaking my recruitment record with you and then you had to go and get cold feet and ruin everything.”
It’s probably the Canadian upbringing that has him apologizing with a quick, “Sorry,” even though he’s currently a mix of confused and frustrated.
“It’s okay,” she replies, quickly, “Baekhyun-ssi is in a meeting though, so he told me to give you a tour, even though that’s technically below my pay grade.”
“I-”
“Follow me, Mark Lee,” Yeri says, hopping down from where she had been sitting on Sooyoung’s desk.
She isn’t dressed very professionally, nor like a scientist, with her oversized red hoodie and shorts. Which doesn’t exactly lend a lot of credibility to W.E.B Labs, but he still follows her as she opens one of the doors.
He can’t imagine that the tour will take long. He’d scoped out the registered floorplan online, with a single floor office building, he can’t imagine it will be much more than a lab and maybe this Baekhyun's office.
But as one door closes behind them and Yeri moves to open the next door down the narrow hallway, it opens to something far larger than what he had been expecting.
Portals.
It’s a portal.
The kind that Dr Strange uses, except not quite because the doctor isn’t here, and instead it’s just Mark and Yeri and the lobby of a brand new building with a spider shaped fountain in the middle of the room and what must be at least twenty different people milling around, moving around the space in a casual way.
“Holy shit.”
“Ah, did you get a little motion sick,” Yeri asks, “I’ve been here so long I forget sometimes that happens to newbies.”
Mark shakes his head.
He’s not motion sick,
But he’s not ruling out being concussed or something.
That this all isn’t a mass hallucination.
“How did that,” Mark starts, turning over his shoulder and freezing at the sight of a wall of just doors, at least thirty different doors line the wall behind him, ones with a similar generic make and structure to the one that they had just exited from. “What just happened?”
“We came in through door 27,” Yeri says, her tone carrying a note that seems to say obviously , “Actually, you should probably remember that if you want to return back to your universe later.”
“My universe ?!”
“Baekhyun-ssi said he explained that,” Yeri sighs. “Look, I’m just here to do the tour, you can ask him all your dumb questions when he’s ready for you.”
And with that Yeri takes off in the direction of the elevator in the center of the room, Mark quickly follows not to lose sight of her.
As far as a tour guide goes, Yeri is not the best.
She talks too quickly, and doesn’t really bother to explain much, but she does show Mark the essentials.
She shows him where the HR Department is (“Though hopefully you’ll never have to meet with Johnny-ssi”), where the gym is (“You know if you’re into that sort of thing’), and where the cafeteria is (“Honestly you’re better off just picking one of the doors downstairs atrandom and going to the first restaurant you see in any other universe, the food here sucks”).
Then heads over to where the various laboratories are. There’s warning signs plastering some of them like ‘Caution Radiation Warning’ or ‘Caution Flesh Eating Plants’ or ‘Caution Symbiote Testing In Progress’ or-
“This is where you’ll be,” Yeri says, pointing at a non-descriptive lab entrance.
“I haven’t agreed to anything yet,” Mark pointedly reminds her.
Though Yeri doesn’t seem bothered by that in the slightest.
“The engineering lab is run by Kim Doyoung, he has two interns,” Yeri starts, then pauses, “Or no, not anymore. Well I guess he has one intern and then you’ll make two.”
“What happened to the last intern,” Mark asks against his better judgement.
Yeri shrugs. “I think he’s currently stuck in a time loop? I don’t know, I usually find it better not to ask.”
“Stuck in a time loop!?”
“Let’s see if they’re inside, you can introduce yourself,” Yeri says, sliding her hand across a scanner and opening the door to reveal what seems to be a normal engineering lab.
There’s proto-types of something in pieces across one of the tables. Engineering plans taped up around the room. A whiteboard with a complicated equation written on it. And file cabinets that stretch up towards the ceiling.
After a quick scan Mark notes that there are three people in the room.
A girl with red hair texting from a swirly chair, her legs propped up on an incredibly messy desk, a lab coat draped over the back of her chair
A man with lab goggles on top of his head, and glasses on his face, his lab coat in much better condition than the girl’s coat - this must be Kim Doyoung - is currently in the middle of lecturing the room’s third inhabitant.
Who is - “Hey, aren’t you my roommate?”
The third person in the room turns far too quickly, but the second he does there’s no need to have asked the question. He may have only really had the one conversation with Donghyuck, but it was last night, and Mark wouldn’t be an honorary Avenger if he couldn’t remember a face.
Donghyuck’s response is quick, “No,” he lies.
“But you literally are,” Mark replies.
“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” Donghyuck says.
He’s obviously not a very good liar.
The lab goggles man lets out a long, suffering sigh, “Do you have any clue how to be discreet?”
“I am an innocent ,” Donghyuck insists.
“I see you’re already equated with the pest,” Doyoung says, casting a pointed glance in Yeri’s direction. “Though last I checked he wasn’t on recruitment duty…”
“Oh, look, at the time, I suddenly have somewhere to be, urgently,” Donghyuck says, dodging the other man’s grasp and slipping past where Mark and Yeri are.
There’s a moment of silence that follows Donghyuck’s departure.
Mark awkwardly shifts from foot to foot, unsure whether to introduce himself or-
“Is this the new Renjun,” the girl asks without looking up from her phone.
“He calls himself Mark,” Yeri offers.
“Yeah, that’s me, I’m Mark! Mark Lee,” he says, wincing at how loud his voice comes out. Way to make a first impression. “And I’m not, I mean, I haven’t accepted the internship yet? I don’t even actually know what it is, so I… Yeah…?”
Cell phone girl hums noncommittally, “If I don’t like this one, can we just get Renjun back?”
“If you can find a way to get him out of the replication chamber, then sure,” Doyoung tells her, before turning to give Mark a look that is only slightly reassuring, “Don’t mind Ningning, she doesn’t like change.”
The girl in question - Ningning - puts down her phone and shakes a magic eight ball that had been resting on her messy desk and frowns, tilting the ball in Mark and Yeri’s direction to read where it says ‘Better Not Tell You Now’.
When Doyoung glances at it he shrugs, “Could have been worse.”
“Apologies for my language,” Mark says, “But what the fuck is going on here?”
“Did they not explain,” Doyoung starts then stops. “No, of course not, nobody explains anything around here. Long story short, I need a new intern. We carefully went through every universe to find someone with the right experience to suit this project, and that’s you.”
Sure, maybe Mark doesn’t exactly understand this universe thing.
Or what this lab is doing.
Or why his roommate, who might actually be the Spiderman from the bus stop, is here.
But the idea of being picked special out of a multiverse's worth of options kind of feels like an honor.
“I’m not committing to anything, but if I was interested, what exactly is the project that you’re working on?”
*
By the time Mark is finally retrieved from the lab - Yeri having returned after disappearing at some point during the last few hours to get him - to meet with the head of W.E.B., Mark’s pretty sure he already knows what his decision is going to be.
A lot of it is still confusing.
Like the existence of a place that exists somewhere in the multiverse but also nowhere at the same time and connects everyone together.
And the whole Donghyuck situation.
But a lot of it is also super cool and after two hours tinkering with Doyoung’s failed Spider-Bot prototypes, he wants nothing more than to get back into the lab and figure out what keeps going wrong with their bots.
The only thing that doesn’t make sense is -
“How did you know that I was Spiderman,” Mark asks Baekhyun. “And how is there more than one Spiderman or Spider People? Like are those in my universe or others? Because I found this Reddit thread last night that was people talking about having spotted other Spider People.”
“And you believe everything you read on the internet,” Baekhyun prompts.
“Well no, but still.”
“I’m not sure, you were the only one in your universe that the recruitment team flagged for potentially recruiting to work at W.E.B,” Baekhyun tells him. “Technically I could have recruited you back when you were in New York but we didn’t have an opening in engineering then, and Doctor Strange and I aren’t on the best of terms right now.”
“Wait, you know Doctor Strange?”
“I’m sure you’ve noticed that everyone who works at W.E.B. has a similar skill set to you.”
A similar skill set....
Spider powers?
“Everyone working at W.E.B. has spider powers!?”
“Did you not notice,” Baekhyun asks. “I thought you’d be smart enough to notice that, let me grab your file, they said your IQ was-”
“No, I mean, I did notice, I guess I just didn’t put two and two together,” Mark trails off.
It makes sense.
Obviously Donghyuck was the Spiderman that had ‘saved’ Mark at the bus stop.
And Doyoung’s file cabinets had stretched too high up for a normal person to be able to reach anything if they didn’t climb up the walls.
But even the receptionist?
And all those people in the lobby and the other labs and the cafeteria and-
“That’s just so many people,” Mark says. “So many spider people.”
“Spiders give birth to thousands of young from just one egg sac. We’re all just one of those many hatchlings.”
“What?”
“Welcome to the team, Mark Lee.”
“Wait, can we go back to the egg thing?”
*
to: allstaff-listserv@WEB
from: [email protected]
subject: Discretion Policy
When visiting universes other than your own, for recruitment purposes or for pleasure, discretion is vital. We here at the recruitment team know that everyone is eager to break Taemin’s record for fastest recruitment while he is on hiatus. We wish you the best of luck in your attempts as long as you continue to remain discrete. :)
Kim Taeyeon
Chairwoman of Recruitment and Acquisitions
W.E.B.
*
For the second time in the entire history of Mark’s college career, his roommate is actually in their shared dorm room.
Donghyuck was wearing the same thing that he was wearing in Doyoung’s lab earlier, playing some game on his phone, and under normal circumstances he would look like a normal college kid, but now Mark knows better.
“So what are you and Yeri like from some powered up recruitment team,” Mark asks in lieu of an actual greeting.
“I owed her a favor,” Donghyuck says, “But you didn’t come in quick enough so she still didn’t beat Taemin-hyung’s record. So now I technically owe her another favor.”
Donghyuck’s game makes a noise signaling that his character has died and Donghyuck drops the phone facedown on his chest to look at Mark.
“You got me in trouble earlier,” Donghyuck pouts. “You’ll have to owe me a favor to make up for it.”
Mark may not know much about Donghyuck, but he’s pretty sure that he does not want to owe Donghyuck a favor.
“How did you know I was Spiderman,” Mark asks.
“You’re Spiderman, this is brand new information,” Donghyuck replies sarcastically.
“And how are you also Spiderman,” Mark continues to question him. “Wait, does that make us the same person?”
Donghyuck fake gags dramatically, “Ew, no.”
“Uh, okay then.”
“That would be terrible! Disgusting,” Donghyuck continues. “Even the mere idea of being American,” another fake gag, “I’d have to erase myself from the timeline for the better of society.”
“Actually, I’m Canadian.”
“No,” Donghyuck drawls. “I watched Ningning hack your school records, you’re from New York.”
He’s going to have to unpack the ‘Ningning hacking his school records later’.
For now - “My family moved to New York City when I was in high school and that’s when I got bit by the spider, but I’m actually from Vancouver!”
Donghyuck fake gags again. “Even worse, the audacity of being Canadian, horrifying, I would never be that polite. And then there’s the hockey! And the Mounties! Horrifying!”
“Okay, but if you’re not from my universe and you’re not me, then who are you?”
“I’m Spiderman.”
Yeah, he really should’ve predicted that that would be the answer.
*
“Okay, so the issue with the Spider-Bots is the replication program,” Mark says after skimming through the incident report of what happened to the previous intern.
He’s still not sure about this internship thing, since he was supposed to be taking a break from being a superhero to focus on school. But this isn’t really being super at all, it’s like any other tech company internship. It even apparently counts for college credit.
“Among other things,” Ningning replies. “The replication program is just where we lost Renjun. May his memory last forever.”
“Stop telling people he’s dead,” Doyoung says, shooing her away from the workbench.
“He’s not dead?”
Doyoung shakes his head, “Did you take this job even after assuming that the previous intern died?”
“I mean…” Mark shrugs.
There’s those shitty self preservation skills again.
“He’s not dead,” Doyoung repeats. “He’s just stuck in a time loop in the replicator room and we can’t get him out.”
“Like a ghost!”
“Not like a ghost.”
“Ghost-Spider!”
“He’s very much alive,” Doyoung reassures Mark. “I think. Probably. You know what, maybe, I’d ask Ten, time travel is more his specialty, but I’d rather not put myself through that hot mess of a conversation.”
“Who is Ten?”
“Speaking of messes,” Doyoung says, turning towards the door, instead of answering Mark.
It’s not like Mark is surprised to see Donghyuck, because Donghyuck has a habit of turning up suddenly wherever Mark tends to be (after months of seeming to not even exist), but he’s pretty sure Donghyuck doesn’t actually work in this department.
He’s not actually sure where Donghyuck works since it’s apparently not in recruitment with Yeri.
“Don’t you have somewhere you belong?”
“I’m Baekhyun-hyung’s favorite,” Donghyuck replies. “I can go wherever I want! I can do whatever I want!”
“Then why’d you have a company-wide shaming email and an HR meeting this morning,” Doyoung asks.
Donghyuck waves her off, “Johnny-hyung likes me too much to actually lecture me.”
“That seems to be a trend around here,” Mark muses. “Does everyone like you?”
“Yes,” Ningning answers.
At the same time as Doyoung replies, “No.”
And Donghyuck says, “This may surprise you Milk Lee, but I am incredibly likeable. I win awards for like-ability. And I - oh, new robot!”
The prototype on their work table isn’t actually functional. Not in any way that Donghyuck poking at it could cause something to happen, but before Donghyuck can even touch the pieces of the Spider-Bot prototype his fingers are covered in a sticky web that glows neon green, gluing his hands down to the edge of the table.
“Hey! No fair!”
“How many times have I told you not to come into my lab and touch things Lee Donghyuck?”
“Yeah, but consider-“
“Your webs are green,” Mark says in wonder, cutting off the lively discussion between Doyoung and Donghyuck.
“Ah, yes,” Doyoung pauses, turning over his shoulder to look at Mark. “Is that different in your universe? It’s formed with radioactive material.”
“Yeah, I mean, mine are white, but that’s because I built the web blasters to be that way. I guess I could use dyes to change the colors but… Wait, do your webs come from like, your body?”
“Ah, you’re so cute, so innocent and naive,” Donghyuck teases. “So unaware of the different types of spiders.”
“It’s okay, Mark, I don’t make webs either,” Ningning offers.
“Do they offer a basic arachnidology class at your university,” Doyoung suggests. “That might be the best place to start, and then once you have the foundation we can go from there. Ningning can you hack his school again and enroll our new intern in an arachnidology course?”
“On it!”
“Hey, don’t, like don’t hack my school. I’m pretty sure that’s not a subject offered like anywhere in my universe.”
“Your universe sounds lame,” Ningning says.
“It is,” Donghyuck confirms.
“I just, I think it’s cool is all,” Mark says, ignoring the two of them to focus back on Doyoung. “Like all the different spider people working together as like, engineers.”
“We’re not all engineering nerds,” Donghyuck scoffs.
“Donghyuck’s right, some people aren’t engineers, instead they’re safety hazards that don’t belong in my lab.”
“But I thought web stood for WorldWide Engineering Brigade,” Mark questions.
“They just put that on your recruitment pamphlet because that’s the department we needed you for,” Doyoung explains.
“Then what does it actually stand for?”
“Nobody knows for sure,” Doyoung answers. “Recruitment has a variety of acronyms depending on the circumstances and who they’re looking to recruit, but the general consensus is-“
“We Everybody Be Spiders,” Donghyuck cuts in.
“That’s not what it stands for.”
“It is!”
“No, it’s not.”
“Let’s ask the voice of the Naevis,” Ningning says, picking up the magic eight ball from her desk.
For some reason this manages to shut both Doyoung and Donghyuck up. They both turn to watch as she shakes the magic eight ball and then reads out it’s verdict, “Signs Point To Yes.”
“Huh. I guess it is We Everybody Be Spiders after all.”
*
to: allstaff-listserv@WEB
from: [email protected]
subject: Favoritism in your workplace? More likely than you think
PSA: Lee Donghyuck is my favorite and can do no wrong.
Thank you for your time.
Byun Baekhyun
CEO and Founder
We Everybody Be Spiders
*
to: allstaff-listserv@WEB
from: [email protected]
subject: RE: Favoritism in your workplace? More likely than you think
Whoever has been helping Donghyuck hack my email to send company wide messages. Please cease.
(Though the previous email is not wrong.)
XO
Byun Baekhyun
CEO and Founder
W.E.B.
*
to: allstaff-listserv@WEB
from: [email protected]
subject: RE: RE: Favoritism in your workplace? More likely than you think
This is your friendly reminder from HR that the company wide listserv is only to be used for professional purposes.
John Suh
HR Department
W.E.B.
*
“You’re like a tech genius or something right?”
They’re technically supposed to be working on the Spider-Bot programming while Doyoung is out of the office for the day.
They being more of a loose suggestion in this case, because Mark had typed one line of code before Ningning was kicking him out of the chair to do it herself, her fingers flying at the speed of light across the keys, faster than any normal person should be able to type.
“Or something,” Ningning agrees.
“So what exactly are your superpowers?”
Her fingers still against the keys, “Enhanced senses and reflexes mostly.”
“Right, that’s why your typing is so fast.”
She nods. “I also built and programmed my own giant spider robot in my universe, that I control from back at our base.”
“Gotcha, cool, cool.”
Ningning turns away from him and goes back to coding.
It’s weird to think about how her and every other person in this pocket dimension had at one point been bitten by a radioactive spider.
Donghyuck had given him no useful information when they talked about it last week, but Mark got the general gist of it. That the multiverse was actually a lot larger than Doctor Strange had led the Avengers to believe and that apparently radioactive spiders aren’t always developed (and then misplaced) in the same location, and thus account for the differences in people and powers from spider person to spider person.
It kind of makes sense.
In theory.
Though there’s still a lot that doesn’t make sense.
“Mark, my spidey sense is going off like crazy with whatever you’re obsessing over, just ask your question,” Ningning says.
Right, that's the other thing he has to get used to, everyone having spidey sense, and thus his ability to keep secrets being basically non-existent.
“Can I ask another question?”
“I literally just told you to.”
“Yeah, but I mean, you might have just been saying that.”
“I was,” Ningning tells him, before suddenly spinning her chair around and knocking their knees together. “But now I’m actually paying attention to you.”
“I don’t get this multiverse thing, like how so many universes can exist and how we can all safely interact here.”
“Ah,” Ningning nods. “Okay, well let me see if I can break it down.”
She takes a moment where she appears to be collecting her thoughts. Scrutinizing Mark as she does so.
Before finally she says. “What do you know about the Kwangya and the sacrifices that the Naevis made for us all?”
“Uh, the what?”
“Nevermind, it’s too complicated,” Ningning says. “Do you know what a door is?”
“Yeah…?”
“It’s like a door.”
*
The next day when he comes in after his classes there’s a book on his desk with a bright yellow cover that reads ‘ Kwangya For Dummies ’ with chapter three bookmarked by a pamphlet that reads ‘ The Naevis and What She’s Done For You’.
When Doyoung sees him with the books earlier all he does is shake his head and say, “I see you’ve been talking to Ningning,” before moving onto working on their project.
He takes the book with him on his coffee break, heading down to the cafeteria for a well deserved caffeine recharge.
Yeri may have been right about the food in the cafeteria being indigestible, but at least the coffee was drinkable.
Mark wasn’t normally a coffee person but beggars can’t be choosers.
Usually the cafeteria is empty when he takes his break, but this time when he comes in there’s a group gathered at one of the tables. Two people that he’s never seen before in his life before, Yeri, and Donghyuck.
Mark grabs his coffee before glancing over in their direction. He makes eye contact with Donghyuck first, but Donghyuck breaks it to turn back to his other friends.
In the end it’s Yeri that waves him over, turning to introduce Mark to the gathered group as - “My latest acquisition! The new Renjun!”
“I’m Mark,” he says, because this is not the first and probably not the last time he has been introduced as the new Renjun.
“Jeno and Jaemin,” Yeri quickly gestures to the two mystery boys.
Though she doesn’t actually label which is which.
Before he gets a chance to jump in and ask for clarification, Donghyuck interrupts - “Wait, you don’t actually drink the coffee here, do you?”
“I mean, yeah, why not,” Mark asks.
Donghyuck just fakes a gag.
While Yeri explains, “The food replicator can make anything a drinkable liquid, so most people try more interesting things.”
“Really? What are you guys drinking then?”
The others answer quickly.
“Mountain Dew Baja Blast.”
“Grass and protein powder!”
“Liquid oxygen.”
“12 shots of espresso with light ice.”
“Wait, twelve shots? Dude, that cannot be healthy,” Mark says.
“Really,” Donghyuck teases. “That’s the one you choose to focus on?”
*
to: allstaff-listserv@WEB
from: [email protected]
subject: Workplace Reminders
This is your friendly reminder from HR not to ask Vivian Ning about the Naevis. Also as a reminder the pamphlet copier in supply closet S-14 is for senior staff use only and not for personal use.
John Suh
HR Department
W.E.B.
*
to: allstaff-listserv@WEB
from: [email protected]
subject: RE: Workplace Reminders
The people deserve to know about her sacrifice!
Ningning
Engineering Intern
We Everybody Be Spiders
*
He’s pretty sure gets delegated the task of going down to the replicator room through a rigged game of ‘draw the shortest stick’. He can’t confirm it was rigged, but both Doyoung and Ningning had acted way too relaxed about picking their sticks and leaving him with the shortest one.
And the warning of “Good luck, and don’t let the ghostie get you,” did nothing to convince him otherwise.
He’s pretty sure this Renjun that he's heard about isn’t actually a vengeful ghost.
But Mark did, kind of, steal his job, and nobody around here really explains anything properly, so Mark is bracing himself for the worst when he goes in there to get the replication fluid.
Though he supposes he shouldn’t brace himself for - “What are you doing here?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? Why is it you’re always around?”
“It’s because I’m Baekhyun-hyung’s-”
“Favorite, I know,” Mark finishes for him.
Donghyuck is sitting in the middle of the replicator room, splitting a box of take out with a boy that Mark has never seen before wearing a lab coat much like the one Mark is currently wearing.
That must be Renjun - he doesn't look much like a ghost, or someone stuck in a time loop, or whatever the story was - in fact, he looks pretty normal. Though he does seem to take a moment to look Mark over and pass judgement.
“And who might you be?”
“This is the new-”
“I’m Mark,” he cuts Donghyuck off, before the inevitable introduction of ‘the new Renjun’ which feels like a highly inappropriate way to be introduced to the actual Renjun.
“Ah, I’ve heard all about you.”
“You have? From who?”
“Who else comes to visit me while I’m stuck down here?”
The question’s answer is an obvious one, especially as Donghyuck pointedly avoids Mark’s gaze.
“Now, what is it they sent you down here for? If you’re quick you can get out of here before my loop resets.”
*
to: allstaff-listserv@WEB
from: [email protected]
subject: I will find you :)
Whoever took my leftovers from the break room fridge, despite my name being written on the containers MULTIPLE times, just know that I will find you and end your career.
Thank you for your time,
Kim Doyoung
Engineering Department
W.E.B.
*
to: allstaff-listserv@WEB
from: [email protected]
subject: RE: I will find you :)
whoever did it is probably not sorry because food is delicious
Lee Donghyuck
[REDACTED]
We Everybody Be Spiders
*
“So did you fix it?”
“Uh, working on it.”
Donghyuck is once again in the lab. Mark’s pretty sure he doesn’t actually have a place in the W.E.B. building where he belongs, that or whoever is in charge of Donghyuck simply doesn’t care what he does or when he takes his absurdly long breaks.
Though Mark’s slowly come to enjoy the company.
Especially as the words that Renjun had said to him in the replication room, after Donghyuck had come up with some thin excuse to leave them be, loop in his brain - “He was right, you are cute” - like some sort of traitorous echo chamber.
Mark turns on the Spider-Bot on the table just to show off, not watching as it scampers across the surface, but instead focusing on the way Donghyuck’s eyes light up in amazement.
His equally traitorous heart beating just a little too fast at the way Donghyuck turns to him with a smile.
“I’ve got a trip to the moon on my schedule for this afternoon.”
“You’re going to the moon?
“Well, not your moon,” Donghyuck says. “A different moon.”
“Ah right, of course, the multiverse.”
“You think I can take one of these bad boys with me for a test run?”
“Sure, I don’t see why-”
“No,” Doyoung, who had previously been ignoring them and typing angrily on his phone, jumps into the conversation just to cut them off. “Absolutely not.”
Donghyuck pouts dramatically, “But hyung, I’ll be really careful.”
“Maybe if someone hadn’t stolen my lunch-”
“I didn’t! Honest! I just thought it would be fun to reply to the email,” Donghyuck says, voice growing louder with each word and not helping his case at all.
“It was kind of funny,” Ningning agrees from her side of the lab.
“See!”
“Wait, what emails,” Mark asks.
“The company wide one that I sent out because someone-”
“Not me!”
“-Ate my lunch. And not for the first time either!”
Mark pulls his phone out from his pocket, checking to see if there’s anything new in his inbox, “Uh, I don’t think I got those?”
“Did you check your spam folder,” Doyoung asks.
“Let’s ask the Naevis,” Ningning says, grabbing her magic eight ball off her desk and shaking it. Before reading off the answer of, “It is certain.”
“Ha, I knew it!”
*
to: allstaff-listserv@WEB
from: [email protected]
subject: RE: RE: I will find you :)
rip to your noodles
XO
Byun Baekhyun
CEO and Founder
W.E.B.
*
“Got the alien goo you wanted, hyung!”
“Did you get-”
“All three canisters, direct from Sector Gamma-3,” Donghyuck cuts him off. “You wouldn’t believe what I had to fight to get this shit. You know, maybe, if I had a spider-bot with me.”
“They’re still a work in progress,” Doyoung cuts him off. “Stop bugging me and stop trying to convince the interns to let you use them early.”
“Aw, but the interns like me,” Donghyuck teases.
Despite having been doing his best to ignore Donghyuck’s appearance and focus on what he’s working on, Mark gives into the urge to glance up at that comment and is greeted by a less than ideal view.
Donghyuck’s spider suit, the black and blue one that somehow mysteriously has pockets as a cut across one of his arms like something with claws, had taken a swipe at him. Multiple swipes judging from the series of cuts across his suit, and the fractured eye plates of the mask in his hand.
“Oh my god, are you okay?”
“See,” Donghyuck teases, as if that proves his point. Instead of answering Mark’s question.
Mark drops what he had been working on to cross over to the other boy. “What exactly is in Gamma-3 to get you that beat up?”
“You want to come with me next time,” Donghyuck offers.
“Uh, I…”
“We could do some saving the world together, wouldn’t that be fun, Markie?”
“Stop trying to steal my second best intern away, Donghyuck-ah.”
“I’m not trying, hyung, I’m gonna steal him, just like I stole your noodles,” Donghyuck says with a wink in Mark’s direction, right before he is promptly kicked out of the lab.
*
“Why do you never come back to the dorm anymore?”
He’d waited up last night, after worrying that Donghyuck got his injuries looked at once Doyoung had kicked him out of the lab. But Donghyuck hadn’t come back to the dorm to sleep. And because somehow they’ve never exchanged phone numbers (if that even works across the multiverse) Mark had no way of knowing if Donghyuck was okay until Mark ran into him in the cafeteria.
It’s back to how things were in the beginning.
Except, now Mark knows that it isn’t because his roommate has a significant other in another dorm.
But that doesn’t really explain exactly where Donghyuck goes at night.
That is unless he sleeps in the W.E.B. building.
“Do you want me to,” Donghyuck asks. “I figured you’d be thankful to have a dorm all to yourself.”
“I mean, I don’t - I wouldn’t mind the company, I like talking to you,” Mark explains, “I just - where do you sleep?”
“In my own universe,” Donghyuck says with a shrug.
“Right, of course, that makes sense.”
Why didn’t he think of that on his own?
Of course, Donghyuck would have a universe to go back to.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret, Doyoung-hyung and I are actually from the same universe,” Donghyuck continues. “And Baekhyun-hyung too, that’s why they let me get away with so much. I’m their precious baby spider that can do no wrong.”
“That actually explains… a lot.” Mark says, suddenly putting so many things that happen around W.E.B. into perspective. “But then why are you my roommate? If you’re not from my universe then how does that even work out.”
“Obviously I killed your universe’s Lee Donghyuck and stole his life.”
“You what!?”
“I’m kidding,” Donghyuck says laughing. “Ningning just hacked your school’s records and enrolled me.”
“Ah, that makes a lot of sense,” Mark replies. “To help Yeri recruit me?”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I gave you the second pamphlet to help Yeri,” Donghyuck says. “But it was Baekhyun-hyung who insisted I watch over you like months before that.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Donghyuck shrugs. “Something about destiny, he says some really weird cryptic things sometimes.”
Mark definitely knows all about that. “Dude, the first time I met him he gave me this whole speech that ended in ‘spiders give birth to thousands of babies’ like what even was that?”
“Are you hitting on me, Mark Lee?”
“What? No? What?”
“So you’re not saying that our destiny is to have thousands of spider babies,” Donghyuck asks with a mischievous grin.
“How did we even get here?”
“I mean, I potentially accept, but this is all so sudden,” Donghyuck says, a mischievous grin crossing his face.”
“Dude, what!?”
*
to: allstaff-listserv@WEB
from: [email protected]
subject: ATTENTION EVERYONE
MARK LEE HAS ASKED ME TO CARRY HIS SPIDER YOUNG WHAT DO I DO PLEASE GIVE ADVICE URGENTLY
Lee Donghyuck
[REDACTED]
We Everybody Be Spiders
*
to: allstaff-listserv@WEB
from: [email protected]
subject: RE: ATTENTION EVERYONE
Congratulations!
XO
Byun Baekhyun
CEO and Founder
W.E.B.
*
to: [email protected] , [email protected]
from: [email protected]
subject: Your Upcoming HR Meeting
This is an automated notice that you, LEE DONGHYUCK and MARK LEE , have been scheduled for a meeting with the HR DEPARTMENT at 16:00 with JOHN SUH. Your prompt attendance is mandatory.
John Suh
HR Department
W.E.B.
*
As far as the worst greeting to his evening of working at W.E.B. goes the one that starts with Ningning greeting him with - “I have dibs on planning the baby shower” - isn’t technically the worst, but it is pretty far up there.
Especially when Doyoung pulls him aside ten minutes into their latest engineering disaster to give Mark some bastardized version of shovel talk and add on - “You know it’s not the top of my priority list but I could make something to help with that.”
By the time he finally manages to locate Donghyuck and demand why everyone is giving them weird looks the answer he gets is just a pout and, “I can’t believe you missed our HR meeting.”
“Our what?”
“Didn’t you get the email,” Donghyuck asks. “Or any of the emails at all?”
A quick check of his spam folder finally adds context to the day.
And shows a rescheduled HR meeting for, ten minutes from now - “Oh fuck me.”
“I’ve been trying !”
“So, sorry, I mean - the HR meeting not - Wait, what?”
“Hurry, hurry, don’t keep Johnny-hyung waiting!”
*
“Wait, are we in Chicago, right now?”
Mark had pictured HR as a bleak little office where he would get scolded for whatever mess Donghyuck had gotten them both into, but instead when he stepped into the door labeled John Suh it had opened to a place he’s pretty sure he visited once with his family as a child.
“Baekhyun said I could have my office wherever I wanted,” he gestures around them. “And I’m from Chicago. Well, the suburbs. Close enough.”
At the tourists mingling about all taking pictures with the massive art installation behind them, Chicago’s famous Bean.
“So are we at your universe’s Bean? Or mine? Or Baekhyun’s?
“All Beans exist at the same point in time.”
“That doesn’t seem right?”
“Who has the office here me or you, buddy?”
*
“Johnny-hyung wasn’t too harsh on you was he?”
“Uh, no, he found out I had never had a Chicago hotdog before and forgot all about lecturing me and bought me lunch instead,” Mark replies. “He’s a pretty cool dude.”
“Oh good,” Donghyuck says, “Because if he had I would have had to fight him on your behalf and that would have been so much effort.”
“Fight him?”
“I mean, I am an incredibly good fighter,” Donghyuck says, “Top of my class at Spider School.”
“Sometimes I don’t know if you’re joking when you say shit like that,” Mark says with a laugh. “It’s like earlier when you said…” Mark trails off awkwardly.
He’s pretty sure Donghyuck had been joking about that.
And joking with the whole email thing, but well, the way Donghyuck was currently sitting on Mark’s lab table, swinging his legs back and forth while they talk is slightly distracting and Mark’s not sure what to think.
He doesn’t really understand Baekhyun’s whole destiny thing or thousands of spider-babies thing, but he does like having Donghyuck around a lot more than he originally expected to.
“When I said what?”
“Nevermind,” Mark says quickly, his cheeks heating up as he turns back to his lab table, “You want to see the Spider-Bot in action?”
“Is it finally done?”
“Not exactly… But what’s the worst that could happen?”
Famous last words, and all that aside, Mark turns on the Spider-Bot desperate for the distraction.
It’s a pretty cute little piece of tech.
Small and robotic, like a little-
“Hey, Mark, is it supposed to be doing that?”
“Doing, what - oh shit!”
And this is what exactly had ruined the first Spider-Bots, the one that had gotten their former intern stuck in an eternal time loop in the replicator room. The fact that the Spider-Bots were supposed to be able to break down matter around them to create more and more copies of themselves as needed when presented with an enemy.
Mark had done the calculations right with the replicator fluid.
But clearly something had gone wrong because in the span of five minutes the Spider-Bot had consumed his entire lab table in it’s process of recreating ten more copies of itself.
With no sign of stopping.
“Ningning,” Mark shouts across the lab. “Can you shut them down?”
Ningning just holds the magic eight ball up in his direction, “The Naevis said ‘Ask Again Later’.”
“Okay, but seriously, why are we listening to the advice of a magic eight ball?”
“You didn’t read the pamphlet did you,” Donghyuck says, shaking his head. “She’s going to be no help now.”
“I should call Doyoung-hyung,” Mark says, reaching for his phone in his pocket.
“No, no! Don’t! It’s his day off! He’ll never let me back in here if we call him,” Donghyuck says.
“But he could stop them!”
“It’ll be fine as long as they don’t eat the alien goo I brought hyung,” Donghyuck says. “We got this.”
They do not, in fact, ‘got this’.
Because the multiverse is actually conspiring against them.
That’s exactly what the Spider-Bots do.
Which makes their replication process not only speed up, but their consumption of everything around them as well.
“Hey, maybe these were the thousands of spider-babies that Baekhyun-hyung was talking about,” Donghyuck says once looking out at the collection of Spider-Bots scattered around them actively making a wreckage of the lab.
“I mean…”
“Congrats we’re parents!”
“Hyuck, what?”
“Also, we should call Doyoung-hyung now.”
*
“I’m sorry I got you fired from W.E.B.”
“It’s okay. I don’t think I’m actually fired, just on probation until Doyoung-hyung stops being mad at me.”
“Still,” Donghyuck says, climbing into Mark’s dorm room bed to lay down beside him.
Despite the fact that he has a bed of his own.
And a universe of his own.
Not that Mark minds the company.
“And anyway, it’s kind of my fault, I should have just asked you what was on my mind instead of turning on the Spider-Bot prototype as a distraction?”
There’s a long pause, in which Mark forgets how to breathe, until Donghyuck says, “Oh, and what was that?”
“The thing you said before I went to my HR meeting,” Mark starts, feeling his face heat up in embarrassment as he does so. “Was that a joke or… Not… A joke?”
“I mean,” Donghyuck turns onto his side so he is looking at Mark, and when Mark mirrors the movement he can’t help but notice how close together their faces are, “It’s probably moving a bit fast to just jump straight there, but you could take me out to dinner first and we could go from there?”
“Out to dinner like…”
“Yeah, hyung, like a date,” Donghyuck says, “I mean, only if you’d be interested in something like that?”
“Yeah - uh, yeah, I’d like that a lot.”
“Great,” Donghyuck says, before leaning across the space between them and pressing the lightest of kisses to Mark’s lips, before pulling back. “Because I’m starving!”
“Wait, like right now?”
“No time like the present Spider-Boy!”
“It’s Spiderman.”
“No, I’m Spiderman!”