When he was 18, Donghyuck had thought that the thing that he loved about Mark- about Spider-Man was that he redrew the world in that corny, yellow, red, and blue style of the superhero comics Donghyuck loved when he was 10 years younger.
Every thwip invoked the KABOOM and BAM of the 2D Batman, his archenemy, his boy wonder.
Sometimes on quiet nights, when even perpetually alight Queens dimmed for a few silent hours, he would drop on Donghyuck's balcony, hold him to his waist and off they'd go. They'd swing to the rooves of skyscrapers, eat junk, ice cream and waste the night away.
These were just silly stories he'd read about sticky hot summer afternoons, when he was 'sick', away from school, when there wasn't anything else to do. With Mark they became true.
When they both dragged themselves to 25, Donghyuck was ready to move on, and let the new heroes, the younger ones, take Spider-Man's place.
Here the scary thing about Mark was that he was all too real. Mark was real, in a thrillingly terrifying way. And so was the blood through the band aids, the twisted ankle, the broken fingers.
Selfishly, Donghyuck wanted him to quit and told him they weren't suited for this. No one in this city, full of ungrateful jerks, deserved his sacrifice.
"Soon." Spiderman had replied. "Maybe when I turn 30." Mark had said.
Spiderman was always more trustworthy than Mark, giving speeches for the mayor, kissing babies through his mask, posing for photos despite a bullet wound.
30 turned to 40 on Mark's 29th birthday.
"I'll be fine," he'd told Donghyuck, with a kiss to his cheeks, zipping up his suit next to a plate of half finished cake.
"Save my slice, ok?" Then the mask was on and Spiderman swung out the apartment window.
Donghyuck pulled down the banners. 'Happy Birthday Spider-Mark!', the biggest one said in red and blue bubble writing, because Donghyuck thought it would be funny.
Mark didn't point it out. He gave Donghyuck a hug, and kissed his cheeks, and then lay resting nibbling cake in front of the news channel on TV.
Donghyuck knew then that Mark wouldn't stop. Not in the next year, at least.
40 turned to soon after a blue-gray, rhino man, twisted and turned and broke half of Spiderman's bones.
"They need me," Spiderman said from the balcony of their apartment, the same one from a decade prior. "Who else can protect them?". Then he swung away.
Donghyuck remembers the comics he used to read, they never thought to include retirement, resentment or hospital visits.
Spiderman's chances of dying every time he bellyflops off the railing of their balcony, only to save him self with a web, increases with every year, every new gray hair, and wrinkle.
And Donghyuck can't leave because be loved Mark, and now must also love Spiderman. Donghyuck can't leave because it isn't his bones being broken, it isn't his life risked.
Donghyuck told him he missed him the last time they kissed, whispering it like a secret against spandex lips.
A sick part of him doesn't want Spiderman to come back tonight. Wants to wake up tomorrow morning, to news channels with the bright red alarms, blaring 'NYC's beloved protector killed after last night's battle'.
Donghyuck begins to cry, as soon as the thought springs into his mind, wishing that Mark would comeback. Not the not-spiderman Mark, wearing injuries that weren't his, limping on limbs he didn't break.
Donghyuck wanted his Mark, the one that wasn't a human shaped plaster cast Spiderman.
The sobs grow, and Donghyuck heaves dryly.
A few hours later, Donghyuck leaves, his side of the wardrobe empty. He leaves Spiderman a note that he doesn't think will be noticed. He walks out the flat, and throws his keys in the bin.