Taeil first met Jiho on a warm, breezy Saturday in autumn, on an afternoon where bright red leaves fluttered delicately off of shriveled oak branches and rays of soft sunlight filtered beatifically through gaps in the foliage.

Taeil remembers every detail fondly, from the feel of the wind buffeting headily against his wings to the fifty caliber sniper bullets whizzing past his head, aiming to kill.

Jiho had been holding the rifle, his blazing eyes trained on Taeil’s soaring form from the open door off the cargo bay of the helicopter sent to capture him.

Taeil had dodged every bullet and laughed at every threat, never losing his grip on the canvas sack of priceless jewels he held against his chest.

He’d let himself get caught after another hour of flying in circles around Seoul’s skyline. His wing joints had gotten achy and the high altitude had given him a serious headache. Jiho had been the one to cuff him, his anger making him careless and impulsive. Flames had sprung up in his palms and heated the metal of the titanium handcuffs, weakening them.

Later that night, as Taeil flew silently back to his lair after breaking out of the ‘maximum security’ prison they’d stuck him in, he could think of nothing but the intoxicating heat of the man called Pyro.

Shaking himself out his memory, Taeil looked over at the superhero sleeping next to him. Jiho’s face was slack, skin shiny and smooth and baby soft. Drool slipped down his chin from the corner of his mouth, and Taeil smiled as he reached out to wipe it away.

How they’d gotten here he would never understand.

But he sure would enjoy it while it lasted.

~~~

The next morning Taeil woke up to the sweet aroma of sugary coffee and an annoying tapping against the tip his nose.

He blinked awake with an agitated grumble, wiping the sleep from his eyes to be met with Jiho’s broadly smiling face. The tapping on his nose stopped, the source being the handle of Taeil’s favorite ‘Villians Do It Better’ mug.

Jiho waited patiently for Taeil to become fully aware, used to the arduous process after four years of dealing with it day in and day out.

He watched in fond amusement as Taeil sat up, rubbing the palms of his charmingly small hands into his eyes. The taut muscles in his shoulders bunched and flexed as he leaned forward and extended his rumpled wings to their fullest length, nearly sixteen feet in all. From the three-foot-long primaries to the downy fluff lining the topmost ridge where wing met back, every feather was separated by tiny individual muscles to work out the kinks and snags.

Taeil reached out semi-blindly for the coffee mug, and Jiho handed it to him with an indulgent chuckle. Taeil took a sip, and his face immediately twisted into a grimace.

He extended the cup towards Jiho, sticking his tongue out childishly.

"Cold," He griped.

Jiho nodded in understanding and smiled, his soft spot for Taeil’s early morning monosyllabic tendencies obvious. He stuck his finger in the coffee, furrowing his eyebrows, and Taeil grinned unabashedly as the cup started to heat in his hands. He waited until the heat started to become uncomfortable before shooing Jiho away, his next sip much more pleasurable than the last.

"So," Taeil started after half the cup was gone and Jiho was sat on the bed beside him, playing with a jelly-like sphere of flame in his hands. "Who gets to win today?"

Jiho pouted as he extinguished the flame.

"Can I? I let you win the last three times."

Taeil snorted at the choice of words but nodded in acquiescence anyways. Jiho was quite nice about the whole letting Taeil get away with crime thing. As long as no one was hurt or emotionally or financially scarred after the fact, Jiho let Taeil get away with nearly everything.

In turn, Taeil made himself easy to catch on some days, flying slow and low to the ground. It worked for them.

Any signs of affection were kept under strict lock and key, of course. The public would go mad if they ever found out that Pyro and the Harpy were super boyfriends.

"So what’s the plan?" Jiho asked, fiddling with an old feather he’d saved from Taeil’s last molting. 

"I break into the bank, get everyone on the ground with some flapping, some yelling. Then you bust in through a window in all your hot-headed glory, hold me at gunpoint and force my surrender, call in the swat team and all that jazz. I go to jail only to bust out miraculously a day later, repeat cycle."

Jiho laughed at Taeil’s feigned bitterness, snuggling up to him while batting his eyelashes.

"You know I only do it for the fame, don’t you hyung?"

Taeil laughed and slung an arm around him, a broad wing following.

"Wait a second-" Taeil cut himself off, and Jiho followed his eyes to see the very tip of the first few primaries, the soft mottled brown feathers scorched black around the edge, smoking faintly.

The marks were in the shapes of fingers.

Jiho was up and out of the room before Taeil could grab him, cackling as he sprinted down the hallway, his bare feet leaving black prints burned into the hardwood floor.

"Jiho!"