Chapter Text
James wakes up with a headache. No, that’s an understatement. James wakes up with a vaguely familiar sharp, brain-splitting migraine that only allows him to form one singular thought in his head.
I’m never drinking again.
This thought plays on repeat as he rolls himself out of bed and directly onto the cold floor. “Ow, fuck,” he scrambles to get up, only causing his head to rush more and his vision to distort. He has to sit down on his bed in order to not literally fall over. He takes a moment and just stares up at the dozens of Spiderman posters coating his walls like insulation. It takes him a moment to realize that everything is just a bit, well, blurry. No, scratch that. Very blurry.
He instinctively reaches for his glasses, which he always keeps on his night table next to the bed, but surprise , much like his will to get out of bed this morning, they too are absent. How much did he drink? He tries to remember the previous night, only to remember Sirius dancing to Queen’s greatest hits atop a table in the living room and drinking almost twice what James did. Oh lord.
“Padfoot?” he calls out, towards the wall between their rooms, knowing his voice would carry.
That is… If Sirius is still alive? Oh fuck, Sirius isn’t very big, what if-
“Dying,” a dramatic groan rings through the wall.
“Yeah, sounds about right.” James sighs, letting all of the air out of his lungs and rubbing his eyes as if that will help him see better. It doesn’t. He sits back and stares up at the ceiling.
Regulus.
Where did that thought come from? He faintly recalls them talking... About what, he couldn’t tell you. But he knows he spoke to Regulus at the party, and didn’t do anything too stupid. He smiles a bit at that. That’s a win.
The few times Regulus has been near him, James feels a combination of a rush of heat to his face and nerves. He’s not an idiot. He knows what it means. He’s known since the moment he crashed into him outside of the lecture hall and looked into his eyes. Sharp blue-grey that could pierce your fucking soul and hair, dark and curly, shiny like Sirius’—except that he had never wanted to reach out and run his fingers through his hair and-
Nope. Nope.
He’s had stupid crushes before, and he can handle it.
Probably.
James lets out a low groan and stumbles out of his room and into Sirius’ on muscle memory alone. Inside, he’s curled up in a ball with his fluffy duvet, the quilt Effie knitted for him, and his weighted blanket all piled on top of him like a small animal hibernating in winter. The sight is both funny and comforting, and James has a very strong urge to just crawl into bed with him and not leave or move for the whole day, but his parents would be home soon and he can’t imagine what state the rest of the house is in.
Sirius peeks his head out toward the door when James enters.
“Coffee?”
James chuckles and immediately winces at the intensifying headache.
“If I can make it down the stairs.”
About fifteen minutes later, James and Sirius are in the kitchen, sitting on the countertop with two cups of coffee cradled in their hands like it's their only life source, which at this point, it pretty much is.
With the warmth and aroma of the steam rising up into his face, James can definitively say that it smells fucking amazing, which is the second miracle of the morning since he could barely see anything more than shapes and colours without his glasses and had to estimate pretty much everything.
The first miracle was Sirius just getting out of bed. It’s usually a feat only Effie can pull off, but Sirius’ resolve to stay in bed all day with a hangover was no match for the smell of the coffee rising up through the house. Headaches work hard but caffeine addiction works harder.
“You know, I think this might be the best cup of coffee I’ve had in my entire life,” Sirius says, his usual dramatism replaced with a genuine expression on his face, staring into the dark abyss inside of his mug.
He takes it black, which would be ironic if it didn’t depart from the narrative by containing the most sugar James has ever seen poured into a single cup of coffee. The appearance is a pure facade and Sirius would never admit he sweetens it because sugar in your coffee isn’t ‘punk rock’ or something like that.
The first morning he had spent at the Potters’ house, Effie had asked him how he liked it and he responded “straight black”, before shovelling spoonfuls of sugar into it the moment she looked away. Nobody said anything, but the next morning Effie made his coffee, it was with sugar, and he almost teared up. It’s more of an unspoken rule now.
“Yeah, I think I’m onto something,” James says, leaning his head back on a cupboard and swirling his own light brown liquid around the cup. “I should take my glasses off every time I make it, just operate on natural instinct.”
At this, Sirius looks up at him and breaks into a grin. “Oh hell, I didn’t even notice. How’d you even make it downstairs? Do you know where you are? Do you need me to call someone? ”
James puts down his mug and swats Sirius in a weak attempt to knock him off the counter. “You didn’t take them again, did you?”
Sirius, clearly reinvigorated by his caffeinated syrup, fake gasps and puts a hand to his chest, “James, I am insulted at this accusation. As if I would ever do something so petty, so childish and immature-“
“You literally took them last week and I walked into the sliding glass door.”
At this, Sirius drops his act and outright laughs into his cup, “Yeah that was fucking hilarious.”
“It was not! I could have broken my nose!”
“Hmm, well I remember Monty laughing with me and thanking me for the highlight of his day.”
James opens his mouth in protest, “You two are evil. Heathens.”
They talk a bit about the party last night, or at least, the parts they can remember, and soon finish off their mugs before really looking around. The house is… well, without mincing words, it’s trashed. It’s bad. There are red solo cups pretty much all over the floor, crushed chips, various small puddles of neon-coloured liquids… It really isn’t great.
“Well shit,” Sirius sighs. “On the bright side, maybe we’ll find your glasses in all this… Uh. I don’t even know what to call this.”
“Yeah… Let me know if you see them because honestly- I won’t.”
“Divide and conquer?”
“Deal.”
The two of them begin cleaning the house, mostly in silence, because while the coffee did ease their headaches, they’re still exhausted. In the process, James comes across very sticky cherry cola spills, several half-smoked cigarettes, and what he thinks is vomit on the floor.
It’s honestly disgusting, but his parents are coming home in a few hours, and the house is far from how they left it. It takes probably two hours in total to clean the entirety of the first floor, which is where the party was centred. The two of them end up in the living room and collapse onto the floor with the force of their exhaustion, staring up at the ceiling as if it’s some celestial being that can magically save them from their hangovers.
He wonders if he should tell Sirius about what happened last night. With Regulus. Not that anything happened, per se. Regulus was just sort of sitting in his room. He wasn’t touching anything. Did he get lost? Was he waiting for Sirius? Or, and perhaps the most likely, did he just want to feel closer to his brother? Thoughts come easier to him now that his brain is finally starting to work and he can piece together what happened, picturing the scene with some small clarity.
“Has anyone ever told you how pretty your eyes are?”
“You’re drunk, James.”
Ah. Well, he had certainly not meant to say that out loud, but nevertheless, it had come out of his mouth. And Regulus heard it. Well. Alcohol certainly does lower your inhibitions.
It was the truth, of course, but there was the fact that Sirius would probably murder him if he knew some of the things he thought when Regulus was around him. No, he’d definitely murder him. Regulus is off limits—he knows by the way Sirius talks about him. Like he’s something to be both feared and protected.
Sirius talks about pretty much everything besides the night he left. They don’t discuss that. But he tells him about how they were before, as kids, a lot of it being traumatic things a best friend never wants to hear about happening to their other half, but how they got through it together. They were close once. And now the two of them can’t even talk to one another without fighting, or yelling, or worse.
He remembers the first time Sirius spoke to his brother after he had moved out. Their first day back to school, in a corridor. Sirius had recounted everything, telling him everything Regulus said. While crying. The situation was… Well, it really couldn’t be much worse.
James is just a fucking twat and needs to keep a level head. Except, well, he’s the worst liar in history and Sirius can see through him, so it’s probably best to avoid the subject of Regulus altogether.
But sitting there last night, staring up at him, the soft glow of the light from the hall basking his face in a golden glow….
“Fuck,” he says out loud and then widens his eyes in shock at his own horrible impulse control. Luckily Sirius is still staring at the ceiling and can’t see his face.
“What?”
“Oh. Just… everything,” he winces, hoping the hangover can explain this one.
He knows Sirius would be able to see through him if they were face to face, but his position on the floor really saves him.
“Yeah. I’m so glad we don’t have classes today, I don’t think I’d make it.”
“Mm. Same,” James sighs, before lifting a hand to his face, to check, “no glasses?”
Sirius sits up then and shakes his head. “I didn’t see them. Last I remember, you were… doing a handstand in front of the aquarium and then falling. That’s when I asked you to get my new leather jacket from my room to show Moony.” Sirius frowns, “actually, you never made it back with it.”
“Uh, yeah… Probably forgot.”
A beat, and then:
“Speaking of last night—I saw Regulus,” Sirius rolls over onto his side to face James.
Great. Okay. Normal topic. It’s just his brother, whom Sirius misses, and sort of hates, and has a complicated relationship with. This is about Sirius, not him.
“Yeah, in the kitchen. With that girl, Pandora?”
Sirius snorts, “Yeah, I heard they’re dating. Or hooking up anyway.”
Oh. Well, then.
James bites his tongue and swivels his head to Sirius.
It shouldn’t be a surprise. Of course he’s dating a girl.
“What? You don’t have a crush on her do you?” Sirius grins, “Because if you do—I mean I’m not sure if Regulus cares about her or not—but if he does , he’d probably threaten to kill you or tackle you or something. I swear, he’s small, but that little shit can get violent.”
At this James just has to look away and pretend that the image of Regulus threatening and tackling him is not at all undesirable and very much wanted .
Nope. He’s not doing this today.
“No, I’m not into Pandora. I just… Are you okay? I know he avoided you in the kitchen but did you talk to him after that?”
“No. But I did see him practically sprint out the front door about an hour later. I bet Walburga ordered him to come home or something, he’s always been a mama’s boy,” Sirius says with a trace of contempt in his voice.
He sprinted away? Oh lord. James really is an idiot.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sirius continues, “I’m not chasing him anymore. He hurt me too, the night… The night I left. I just wanted to understand and make him understand and… Well, I’m giving up. He chose to stay.”
James swallows. The situation with them is very delicate and he wants to be there for Sirius, always, but the Black family is so different from what he grew up with that it’s hard for him to know what to say.
“Right. Well… I just want what’s best for you, you know that. I’m sure Regulus still misses you.”
Sirius laughs then. “My brother doesn’t give a shit about me James.”
And James, oh he so badly wants to tell Sirius. He does miss you. He has to, right?
Regulus was looking for him. If not physically, then he was looking for Sirius in the scattered pieces of himself he keeps here. His bedroom. The posters of rock bands on his wall, the clothes thrown haphazardly in his closet, the scraps of song lyrics piled on his dresser, the collection of albums beside it—parts of him that make him who he is.
Regulus probably wouldn’t have found himself in there by accident, but even if he had, he could have just left. He didn’t. He sat on his brother’s bed and took in the room like it was a wonder, a glimpse of a different life.
He wants to tell him. But he can’t. Because how would he explain that interaction?
Before he can respond, Sirius gets up and extends a hand to him, “Time to find your glasses, huh?”
He clears his throat, “Right. I was in front of the aquarium, you said?”
They both walk over to the large fish tank in the living room and Sirius says hello to each individual fish before they’re both leaning down to peer inside and… Oh.
There are his glasses, at the bottom of the fish tank, firmly planted in the rocks like a tower with seaweed floating around it.
Wonderful.
Sirius and James share a look of what the actual hell before bursting into loud, uproarious laughter.
Once James’ glasses are clean, and back on his face where he likes them, he and Sirius circle the house one last time checking for anything out of order. It’s nice to be able to see detail again, and he’s pleasantly surprised that they did a good job of cleaning up. It did take a few hours, sure, but the floors are practically sparkling now. It’s perfect.
“Well, we have about forty-five minutes before they get back.” Sirius flops onto the couch and bounces a little.
“More coffee? We could watch a movie,” James suggests, getting ready to go back to the kitchen when Sirius flicks the television on.
His expression shifts into a look of anxious interest, eyes widening. James knows that look. “Spiderman?” James asks, not waiting for a response before practically crashing into Sirius onto the couch still staring at the screen.
Rita Skeeter, a thin blonde reporter with an annoyingly peppy voice talks to the camera about some new information gathered from an attack yesterday.
She covers most significant incidents in the city and has taken somewhat of a special interest lately in Spiderman. Which would be fine, if she didn’t always downplay the victims of disasters and their families, always spinning the stories to be about the criminals instead, while she sits safe and sound in the studio, far from any real violence or disaster herself.
“The apartment building itself is left in near-ruin along with a few other buildings and establishments nearby that suffered severe fire damage. The building in total was home to 185 residents, but fortunately of these, only two people perished shortly after the second blast. A married couple, 38-year-old Shelby and 42-year-old Christopher Wyddow,” the screen shows the image of two people, a woman with short red hair and a balding man with warmth in his eyes.
Fortunately?
James shakes his head, clenching the pillow beside him as he watches as the two faces on the screen fade and are replaced with Rita’s own smiling one, like she hasn’t a care in the world.
How the hell were any deaths fortunate?
“Is she joking?” Sirius scoffs, gesturing to the television with both of his arms. “She’s fucking heartless! Oh, only two people died? That’s all? Well isn’t that just a fucking marvel!” Sirius mocks, but there’s anger in his eyes.
James just shakes his head, words unable to form. Like always, they’re on the same page, James relates to his anger. A small part of him hopes one day Rita will get what’s coming to her.
She carries on.
“We are receiving multiple reports that state law enforcement was tipped off to this attack beforehand and it was indeed targeted. The whole building was evacuated safely before the initial blast, except for the 8th and highest floor, trapping its twenty-four residents there. If not for Spiderman swooping in and carrying them to safety, it’s very likely many more would have perished.”
The footage cuts to show replayed footage of the previous day’s events.
Spiderman is running and shooting a web to the side of the building, hurling himself through the air and spinning his body to smash into the building through a closed window, feet first, glass shattering everywhere, in a move that is undeniably, really cool.
“Holy shit. Look at him. The guy has no fear,” Sirius leans forward, closer to the screen. James is in a similar predicament, completely enraptured, staring at the screen with reverence.
“That’s what makes him a hero. He doesn’t even think about it, he just… Saves people,” James breathes, staring at the screen in awe, and Sirius laughs beside him and pokes his arm. “Oh, you’re such a fanboy. If Spiderman has one fan, it’s you. If he has no fans, you’d simply be dead.”
James tries to glare at him, but he can’t, honestly. It’s true.
James thinks of all that he’s done lately. Spiderman is usually active, but most times with petty crimes, doing the most insane shit to trick criminals into being caught. Then there was the bank robbery a few days ago. But a terrorist attack? This wasn’t a common occurrence. That he knows of, anyway. And he would know—if the Spiderman paraphernalia in his room is any indication.
Oh, his room. The startling thought strikes James that maybe Regulus had gone in his bedroom last night too in search of… Well, whatever he was doing.
It’s not necessarily that James cares about people going in his room- well no he does care about that, but more so, he cares about the 20 Spiderman posters, 14 sketches, and 58 news articles he has plastered to his walls. It’s, admittedly, a bit… obsessive? Fanboy-ish?
Sirius calls him a fanboy every chance he gets, and it’s absolutely true, but did he want it broadcast to everyone? Not exactly. Especially Regulus, who would most likely make fun of him for his level of obsession. He puts those thoughts on hold for the time being as the footage switches to another angle.
The camera shows Spiderman carrying residents out to the street, practically flying at the speed he’s rushing in and out. He was really giving everything. He almost gets caught on fire once, a fiery metal beam from a terrace landing inches away from his chest where the distinct black spider inside of a star insignia is branded into his suit, but he doesn’t even pay it attention. Doesn’t even notice. He’s so focused on getting the people out.
The star on his suit. Nobody knows what it means. There have been theories, naturally, but it doesn’t have anything to do with his powers like the spider does. Most people think it’s simply a design choice, but it can’t be that simple. Can it?
The video shows him going back into the building moments before the second blast occurs.
That can’t be right.
Rita is still talking in the background, rambling about a pregnant woman on the street he’s shown comforting, and how he seemed to disappear after the second blast. He goes back into the building, and then there’s the sound of a deafening blow. The camera footage cuts out. There was no footage of him leaving the building, yet none of him remains there.
“He made it out, right?” James asks, studying the television like an algebraic equation, trying to look for any glimpse, trying to figure it out. And much like an actual algebraic equation, he cannot. The footage cuts as soon as the second blast happens and the screen goes back to Rita explaining the rest of the story, which is mostly her own half-baked opinions.
“Yeah, I mean he’s Spiderman , he probably climbed out the back window when the camera cut,” Sirius theorizes, frowning.
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”
They both stare at the screen and watch Rita Skeeter’s unwavering smile, even though what just happened was anything but pleasing.
Spiderman survived. He had to, James tells himself. He isn’t exactly human, so he could have found a way out of the blast zone. But that’s the thing. Nobody really knows what he is, or who he is, under the suit. People say he’s a man, because of his appearance or his voice when he spoke to them, but it’s all just theories and assumptions. Nobody really knows, not for sure. Sirius once told James that if anyone were to figure out Spiderman’s identity, it would be him. He seriously doubted that, but appreciated the confidence anyway.
It’s clear when Rita starts to wrap up, since she’s glancing to the side as if someone is clearly telling her to get a move on. Her smile never falters.
“On behalf of the twenty-two surviving residents who have expressed their clear gratitude, thank you, Spiderman, wherever you are, for protecting our city.”
The screen then pans one last time across the building’s wreckage, the whole building crumbled down to the height of maybe three floors. There are dozens of large trucks all over the street clearing the wreckage, and though the fire is out, thin smoke, or perhaps dust, remains in the area, unsettled.
“Wow,” James breathes, unable to take his eyes away from the scene. It's heartbreaking. The building is a complete wreckage, a disaster, truly. He thinks of the couple that perished. Their family. One minute longer before the second blast, and they would have survived. They were so close.
Sirius looks over at James’ pained expression and immediately puts his arm around him.
“It’s awful, I know. But Spiderman… He really tried. Saved twenty-two of them.”
“But not two.”
“But not two,” Sirius echoes, a faraway look in his eyes.
“I know that. It’s just… I mean, we were having a party yesterday. Two people died and we were having a fucking party. We were setting up and everything in the afternoon when it would have happened, and I left my phone upstairs. I mean I heard some people saying something about a fire, but I didn’t think it was this .”
“Yeah,” Sirius swallows. “I know, I did the same thing, remember? I don’t think anyone really had the full story yesterday, I mean they would have had to sort through all of the rubble…” he trails off, no doubt picturing the horrors that remained.
They sit there in silence for a few moments, until James speaks.
“Do you think he thinks about them?”
“Who?”
“Spiderman. I... Do you think he thinks about the people he couldn’t save? Shelby and Christopher. People he almost saved, but couldn’t?”
“I don’t know,” Sirius answers honestly.
~•~
Regulus starts his day by turning on the news and immediately throwing up into the sink. More than once. His throat burns.
Shelby and Christopher Wyddow.
Barely middle-aged. They still had decades of life left to live; to love. He’ll never forget their names.
Is it unrealistic of him to expect to save everyone? Probably. Does it stop him from doing it anyway and starting a cycle of vicious self-hatred for it? Not at all.
If he hadn’t frozen when he first got into the building, if he hadn’t spent so much time talking to Molly, if he had gathered them all in one room, if he had just been faster . If, if, if. There were so many ifs racing through his mind, a constant flow of if statements, each leading to a different outcome. He never had enough time. He was never enough.
While this was one of the most important and dangerous tasks he’s done yet, these thoughts aren’t new.
He’s not perfect, never has been, and he’s just waiting for the public to realize it. To see him. Not as a hero, but for what he truly is. And what is that? Regulus doesn’t even know himself.
He showers, scrubbing every piece of himself, like it will wash away his failures and take his guilt with it down the drain. He sees blood on his hands—blood that isn’t his own, but the water runs clear.
There’s no blood.
There never was.
Regulus goes downstairs and catches a glimpse of his mother in the kitchen. She’s on the phone, talking in clipped sentences. She lets out a harsh laugh, one devoid of any emotion. It’s a sound he’s all too familiar with, but it makes him shiver every time.
“Yes well, what did they expect? Some people are simply too stupid to be saved, even from that sorry excuse of a hero.”
Regulus’ blood runs cold. His nerves ice as he stares at his mother, only just managing to fling himself up on the wall when she turns in his general direction. This isn’t the first time he’s heard his mother express her clear distaste for Spiderman. It’s unsurprising really when he thinks about it, because his mother has never liked him , so why should she like his alter ego? It doesn’t matter that he’s saving people. Selflessness isn’t a concept that exists in the most ancient and noble house of Black. Well, it does exist—they just call it stupidity.
Either way, he doesn’t feel up for a conversation with her and decides to get breakfast in town today.
He packs a small bag of his things and goes out the back door without a word. He’ll get in trouble for that, but that’s a problem for later. These days, he tries to ignore his parents as much as possible.
His father, on one hand, is very easy to ignore. There was a time when he was abusive, yes—much more physical than Walburga ever was. That was until Sirius left. Nowadays, he seems to be constantly busy, either up in his study or conducting business meetings. Sometimes both. Always working, never present. Regulus thinks sometimes he forgets he still has one child, but it’s probably better this way. While Regulus would never provoke him like Sirius did, he doesn’t want to find out what would happen if he did. He knows.
His mother, on the other hand, is very difficult to ignore. She likes to insert herself into every aspect of Regulus’ life, controlling, manipulating, micromanaging, you name it. He’s eighteen years old and his mother is already lining up multitudes of affluent women for him to court and marry. She’s been compiling a list since he was ten. How insane is that? But it goes beyond that. She’s cruel, always has been, and that has in many ways gotten worse since his brother left.
While his father always used his fists, his mother used words, carving them sharp enough to pierce the skin, penetrating every barrier you think you’ve built. Regulus has only learned to build them stronger.
He takes the subway, and it’s no surprise it’s packed. While there are many easier ways for him to get around, he often prefers to do it the conventional way. Most times, when he feels he doesn’t deserve these powers. Like today.
He sits across from a couple who are admiring what appear to be their engagement rings. They look happy. Genuinely happy. One of the women looks like Shelby Wyddow. He swallows the acidic taste of guilt building up in his esophagus.
He gets off two stops early and decides to walk the rest of the way to the coffee shop.
Whenever he needs to think, or just sit thoughtless, he goes here. It’s his favourite in the whole city, and when you can swing from building to building within mere seconds, it’s easy to go everywhere. So, he knows it’s the best coffee in the city.
He opens the door and instantly the aroma of coffee beans fills his lungs, and oh, he feels better. Coffee as a cure-all.
He orders a regular latte and almond croissant. The same thing he gets every single time without fail. He’s a creature of habit. Okay, so, maybe he hasn’t tried anything else in the shop, but why would he, when what he gets is already perfect?
It isn’t until he sits outside at the small wooden table, far away from his mother, sipping liquid perfection, that he lets himself think about the previous night.
He closes his eyes for a moment and remembers.
“Has anyone ever told you how pretty your eyes are?”
Regulus nearly drops the mug in his hands. God damn it.
Potter was wasted and… hitting on him? That can’t be right. Why? Regulus was literally intruding into his house upstairs, sitting on his brother’s bed, with bruises across his face, and James had told him his eyes were pretty ?
He stares across the street and watches a row of ravens hop across a telephone wire, nipping at each other and squawking. Oddly enough, it reminds him of his friends.
His friends whom he completely (albeit accidentally) avoided at the party last night. He knew Pandora would back him because of the… incident, but Dorcas and Barty would probably be pissed at him. He’ll check his messages later.
He stares into the mug in his hands, to the swirl of caramel brown at the bottom and stupidly, thinks of James’ eyes. He was looking into his eyes when he said it. For fuck’s sake.
It was a compliment made by a drunk man, it had no meaning, why the hell was he thinking about it so much?
Regulus gulps down the rest of his latte, for no other reason than to not see James’ eyes in his freaking mug and sets it aside. He goes back into the shop to ask for a takeaway bag for his croissant and puts it in his bag along with a newspaper he swipes from a stack with his (Spiderman’s) face plastered on the front.
Fantastic.
He pulls out his phone and sends a message to Pandora before checking the group chat, where his friends are (predictably) being idiots again. Hell, if it isn’t entertaining though.
This time when he heads to the campus, it’s not to study.
~•~
Pandora wakes up to the sound of distant yelling and the smell of burnt toast. The first thought that enters her mind is:
If I die because my mother tried to make toast again, I’m going to be so pissed .
Without hesitation, she flings on a robe and steps into the kitchen where she finds her mother frantically waving a towel in the air and repeating some calming mantra. Yeah, that checks out.
The smoke alarm, thankfully, has been ‘broken’ since the first time her mother attempted to make toast. As in, Pandora had woken up one morning to it screeching at a volume that can only be described as torturous to the human ears, and decided that that tiny machine’s life was up.
Luckily, there’s no fire this time either, just a woman in her mid-fifties who has two PhDs and yet not a singular clue how to use simple household appliances.
“Mamma, how many times have I told you not to use the toaster?” She sweeps across the kitchen past her mother to pop the four charred bricks from the toaster and into the trash can.
“Oh my Panda , what would I do without you?”
“Probably set the kitchen on fire?”
Her mother blinks. “Yes. That.”
Pandora moves with ease around the kitchen (after opening a window) to remake the toast and scavenge for fruit in the depths of the refrigerator. It’s a small space but she makes do.
Pandora really enjoys cooking and baking, honestly, but would never admit it for the silly reason that she refuses to fall victim to antiquated stereotypes . But it isn’t like she’s home to do it often anyway. She’s either in classes, studying on campus, or with Regulus, helping him improve the design of his suit so he can do the actual spider-hero-save-the-city stuff.
To this day, she still refuses to call him Spiderman to his face, finding new creative words each time just to piss him off. And it works. She laughs aloud at the memory.
Her mother watches her in the kitchen with delight, enjoying the help, and the company. Weekends are some of the only days they get together and are usually spent with them doing small projects at home.
“I really thought I could do it this time,” her mother muses, gesturing vaguely toward the toaster, which is still… Cooling off. At least the smoke is gone.
“I told you I can make the toast, you don’t have to worry about it, mamma.”
“I know, I know a stóirín , but I also know you had a late night and I thought you’d like to sleep in for once.”
Pandora is about to respond when her mother perks up and immediately begins, “Oh, your party, dear! First college party, how was it?”
The party.
Really, only one thing stands out.
The girl in the green dress. Pandora sinks into the memory.
She’s in the living room, looking around for Dorcas who promised her a purple cocktail but has yet to deliver. The lights are flashing different colours and it’s hard to find people in the crowd.
She feels a light brush against her arm and turns to see a girl with brilliant green eyes and a dress to match them moving past her.
“You look ethereal,” the girl says to her, maneuvering around Pandora into the living room. There isn’t much room so they’re standing close together, nearly touching.
The girl’s hair is long and crimson red. It’s wavy and softly flows over her bare shoulders like a volcanic stream. Her satin green dress hugs her waist in a truly unlawful way and sparkles under the light, much like her eyes, which are fixed directly on Pandora.
Brain. Work. Please work.
‘Aphrodite?’ She thinks, and stupidly almost says, all intelligible thoughts evacuating her no longer functioning brain. And this was her completely sober.
Words.
“Wow. I- You- That’s… A really lovely compliment. Thank you. I mean your dress and your eyes too, like, you know .”
Well that was a train wreck.
Pandora squeezes her eyes shut, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she’s in some sort of mystic lucid dream, and can start that over.
But the girl actually smiles and it lights up her eyes in a way Pandora didn’t even know was possible.
“I don’t know. Tell me?”
Pandora’s heart nearly stops at that moment. Her mind a mess of ‘shit what do I say what do I say what do I say what do I-‘
“I…” She shakes her head, gazing up at the girl’s eyes, glimmering with something Pandora can’t quite place.
A jewel.
She looks like a precious jewel, the kind archeologists spend their lives studying, trying to find, only to search the entire world and come up empty. This is why. She’s right here.
Pandora swallows and lightly shakes her head. “All the emeralds in the world couldn’t compare.”
The girl’s eyebrows twitch and she looks at her with a new… interest? God, it’s really hard to see in here. Then someone yells something from the other end of the room and Pandora turns toward it.
When she turns back around the girl is gone.
Fuck. Did she scare her away? True, she probably should have thought more about her words first. She never did. Was it corny? Too much? It really was the truth. Maybe even a watered-down version of the truth, because there were much too many thoughts in her head when she looked at her.
But the girl hadn’t seemed spooked or overwhelmed. That was… new. Pandora is used to being too much for people, so when she spoke honestly to the girl and she didn’t immediately turn away, well. And she had flirted back.
Didn’t she?
Pandora has to find her. Because no one gets to be that captivating and just disappear.
Right?
They hadn’t even touched, not really, other than the light brush as the girl passed by her, but even that she remembered. She could feel it, still.
Pandora turns to her mother who is leaning over the counter in the most genuine interest, a spark in her eyes. She tilts her head suggestively, urging her to tell.
Pandora’s face heats up. She always tells her mother everything—except of course the fact that her best friend is Spiderman. Which is a big deal, really, but not at all hers to tell. Her mother is always urging her to find someone, but she had never really connected with someone like that before. Romantically, anyway.
But her mother had a knack for intuition, much like hers.
She stops cutting the fruit and looks at her mother.
“Okay, there was this one girl,” she says and doesn’t even try to hide the grin on her face.
Her mother leans back and clasps her hands together, “Tell me everything!”
So she does. Leaving out the specifics of their conversation, or, more accurately, flirting, of course—but translating the general gist.
“And her name? You didn’t mention it.” Her mother enters the kitchen or something
Her name.
Oh for goodness sake. She hadn’t gotten the girl’s name or phone number or any information that would allow her to find her again. Shit.
Her mother must have seen the scared, vacant expression of oh I fucked up on her face, because she moves closer to examine her.
“Oh Panda , you didn’t get her name? You kids nowadays, it’s flirt first, make introductions later. Crazy, I tell you. When I was a teenager it was ‘Hello, dia dhuit, my name is blank, nice to meet you.’”
She shakes her head and covers her face with her hands. “Oh I know. I wasn’t thinking. But I’ll fix this. I’ll find her, mom.”
“I know you will, dear.”
And she will. She will find the girl no matter how long it takes her. She must go to NYU, so if Pandora has to wait in front of every building for the rest of the school year she will.
Her mother pats her on the shoulder, “I wish you luck. Use the day well, I’ll just be here in the greenhouse,” her mother presses a quick kiss to her cheek and heads out of the kitchen with a watering can.
The toaster finally pops.
“Mom you- Oh forget it.” Pandora makes up a plate of the toast including orange slices and pomegranate and puts it in the fridge with a small note.
It’s a Saturday and she has the whole day to do anything. Usually she journals, helps her mother in the greenhouse, designs with Reg- Oh. She hasn’t even told Regulus about the girl last night. Oh he would be thrilled. He likes to pretend he doesn’t enjoy gossip and romance, but she knows he’s a huge liar. How he’ll pretend to be busy doing something so he’s unable to protest and she can continue talking… Yeah, she’s got that kid all figured out.
What she doesn’t know, is where he disappeared off to after she checked him out in the bathroom at the party. She knows he stayed, because about an hour later she, and many others, saw him practically fleeing out the front door, but didn’t stop him. His hour was up anyway, and he did keep his word. He always did.
After grabbing a piece of toast for herself, Pandora grabs her phone from her bedroom, seeing 20 unread messages from her friends. There’s one from her private with Regulus but she decides to open the group chat first and the mass of messages from last night.
Barty
doraAAAAAAAA
Dorcas
She didn’t bring her phone to the party
What do you want barty
Barty
:(
I’m lonely
Evan
I’m literally standing right beside you
Barty
ok but pandora does this analysis thing where she tells me who at the party is single
Evan
I’m single
Barty
yea I know she can help you too if we find her
Dorcas
First of all, you’re both idiots.
Second, I saw her in the room with the aquarium flirting with a redhead near the door, try there
Barty
FLIRTING?
good for her
&thx cas
Pandora smiles reading these. Her friends are really… Something. Barty had indeed found her shortly after and she helped him hook up with a blonde boy named Xeno who looks a small bit like Evan. Interesting, isn’t it?
Below last night’s messages are ones from this morning.
Barty
if alcohol good why feel bad
Dorcas
I feel like someone is beating me in the head with a baseball bat
genuinely
Evan
seconded
Regulus
I feel fantastic.
Pandora
same reg
the nondrinkers are winning<3
Dorcas
die<3
Evan
die<3
Barty
die.
Evan
barty
Barty
fine
die<3
Pandora bursts out laughing on her bed with nobody around.
Next was to her and Reg’s private messaging. They text in the group chat mostly, except for times when they need to discuss Spiderman stuff or when they’re fighting. They really don’t get into fights a lot, so it’s mostly for spider stuff. He made sure she knows to clear their conversation history daily, just in case.
Only one message from Regulus.
Can you meet me at the lab?
A second later:
on my way!
Pandora grabs what she likes to call her spider aid bag and heads toward the door.
Pandora and her mother live alone in a small to mid-sized apartment with a living room that has been converted into a greenhouse. It has the biggest windows in the apartment and since they’re on the 22nd floor, the air quality actually isn’t too bad.
They don’t have a television, not because they can’t afford it, but rather because her mother doesn’t like to see disaster in the news, and Pandora never really watched it to begin with. She gets her news from her phone, and her spiderman news firsthand from the man himself, which is probably better since he’s certainly more reliable than that darned reporter.
Her mother, Iridessa Lovegood, is a botanist and so naturally their greenhouse is her pride and joy, home to over ninety different species, and growing in number day by day as she brings home new seeds and samples from her work.
She always talks about moving out to the countryside after Pandora is done with school, where she could have a real greenhouse: outdoors with thousands of plants, aerial fountains with timers, an electronic classification system, and multiple levels. It probably sounded a bit crazy to anyone else, but Pandora loved the idea, still does. She really wants that someday.
She gazes into the clear glass enclosure to find her mother humming a Beatles song to one of her favourite plants.
“I’m going out with Regulus, I’ll be back for dinner!”
“Be safe, Panda!”
“You too momma—please stay away from the toaster.”
She gives her mother a serious look, as if to say, please do not burn this place down while I’m gone, and heads out the door.
It takes her thirty-five minutes to get to the lab. She really doesn’t know why Regulus chooses to travel regularly when he can literally… swing from buildings, and it annoys her to no end. Okay, she gets that he might not want to waste his webs, and that he doesn’t want to be seen, doesn’t want the hassle of changing, yada yada, but I mean he’s a spider . Or spider-esque.
She remembers the day they tested his DNA and found out it was still human. The way he was disappointed . Even now, they still don’t know everything about his powers, but they try their best.
The lab they use is an old graduate chemistry lab from back in the 80s they think, but it’s in the back corner of a basement of one of the oldest buildings, and seemingly completely forgotten about. It may not be the most glamorous but it serves their purpose well.
Anonymity.
They don’t keep anything personal or recognizable there, other than some large technical equipment, but they did change the lock on the only door just to be safe, and only made two key copies.
Pandora descends the decrepit leaf-covered steps and nearly trips on some fallen twigs. They never clear the steps since, you know, this place is supposed to be abandoned. Definitely still is. That is, until you unlock th door and step inside.
The lab is spacious, designed to fit about a hundred students she thinks, but it took a lot of work to get it to what it is today. Regulus is inside, sitting at the far corner of the room, peering into a microscope with a fixed scowl on his face. Some things never change.
Pandora had found the place in her second week of school after searching the city and campus areas for the best study spots. Regulus had brought most of the newer equipment and never mentioned where he got it, but she was 99% sure he stole it from the biotech company he worked at, and promptly quit soon after the spider incident.
She was going to share the lab with the rest of her friends until she found out her best friend of four years was Spiderman. He had been for a few months at that point. Her intuition was strong, but she never could have expected that one.
Sure, he had been more distant than usual towards the end of senior year, but she chalked that up to busyness. They had exams to study for, the results of which would determine their futures, and on top of that, Regulus was working all the time as an intern at a big biotechnology lab, and was spread pretty thin. So when he met her for coffee one day, with his hair dishevelled (very unlike him) and a small black device fell from his bag, she reached down to pick it up only to see the engraving of a spider inside of a star. She looked at him then, blank expression turned defeated, and she knew.
Everyone in the city knew that symbol. She was the only one that really knew what it meant.
He told her everything and she had helped him improve the design of his web shooters. He had made them pretty brilliantly, he explained the physics to her, but a second opinion was always helpful.
She mostly helped with perfecting the details, and adding versatility for different situations. He had already waterproofed everything but she helped make everything fireproof, and crush-proof (to a certain extent), the only element they couldn’t exactly protect against was electricity. They had secured the suit and web shooters against low voltages such as that from a taser, but it couldn’t take much more than that. It’s unlikely that would come up in combat anyway.
They tested the suit and web-shooters over and over for weeks in the summer, going from an original horizontal shooting range of 40 metres to its maximum now at 163 metres. They were pretty damn close to flawless in efficiency.
Durability was the only issue they kept facing.
Pandora locks the door behind her and moves to the back of the room where Regulus still hasn’t looked up from the microscope where a small device sits under a low magnification lens.
He curses under his breath and dramatically flicks the microscope light off before leaning back with a loud thump into the cabinet behind him.
“I think I’m going to retire.”
Pandora places her bag down on the bench and looks at Regulus to find his eyes closed with no trace of humour on his face.
“Retire. You’re going to retire?” She asks incredulously, doing her very best not to laugh as she stares at him.
“You really need to watch the news, Dora.” He doesn’t move an inch.
“I prefer to get my news directly from the source. What happened?”
He opens his eyes then, and instantly she notices they’re different. Their usual grayish coldness is replaced with something more vulnerable, something hurt. He looks away, eyes fixating on the device under the microscope. He takes a deep breath.
“There was a fire.”
She nods.
“Or, I thought it was a fire, but it wasn’t. It was an explosion. The police knew, so the building was evacuated but everyone on the eighth floor, the top floor, was trapped. The stairs… They were destroyed in the first explosion. There was no way out. I brought the people to the street, went back in, and there was a second blast. I couldn’t… I was crushed. Literally, I mean. I couldn’t move my legs but firefighters or bomb squad or something showed up and I just ran. I sat on a roof nearby for a few hours and just watched. There were 24 residents on that floor. I saved 22… Or 23… But not two.”
Pandora swallows, taking in everything he told her. Some of it didn’t make sense. Why were there 2 explosions? Was the first one not enough? How did the police know to evacuate the building? He saved 23 people. He’s alive.
“I’m glad you’re okay.”
At this, he whips his head to her, and she sees a flicker of anger in his eyes.
“You’re glad I’m okay? I killed two people, Dora.”
Admittedly, that takes her by surprise.
After all this time, it really shouldn’t. When something goes wrong, Regulus blames himself. It’s his first instinct, every time. Given the situation, it’s an understandable internal struggle, but it doesn’t make Pandora want to strangle his parents any less for no-doubt contributing to this thinking, based on the other dozens of times he’s felt similarly.
“Regulus… You didn’t kill those people. Failing to save them isn’t murder. It’s being human. It’s awful, what happened to them. But in no way is that on you. You know that, right? There are twenty-three people who probably wouldn’t be alive if not for you. You helped them. The only people to blame for the deaths are the ones that chose to attack that building.”
“It’s not… No. I saw her. I was so close. Failing to save them isn’t murder, but it’s just that. It’s failing. So that’s it. I’m retiring.”
Pandora gives that some thought for a few moments. She doesn’t want to push him, but he has to realize the reality of it.
“I won’t stop you. It’s dangerous, what you do, but… If you blame yourself for this, you think you won’t blame yourself for all the people that get hurt after you’re gone?”
His face twists and he looks at his hands, slowly and instinctively flexing his two middle fingers even without the suit on.
“I… No. I’m just sick of it not being enough. People still die, people still get hurt, no matter what I do.”
Pandora hums, nodding, “I think you told me because you wanted me to convince you to keep going. Keep saving people. Because that’s what you’re doing Reg, you’re saving people. Helping . So if you stopped, that wouldn’t be retiring—it’d be quitting.
He lets her words hang in the air for a few moments before looking up.
“I don’t quit things.”
“No, you don’t.”
His mouth twitches into what she’s come to know as a soft smile.
“Thanks, Dora. For, you know-” he clears his throat and gets up, returning to the bench.
“Saving you from your pity party?” She offers jokingly.
“Fuck you,” he says, shoving the small black web shooter into her hands, “and please help me fix this.”
She turns the device over in her own hands. It’s sustained quite a bit of damage from impact he tells her from the second blast when the roof collapsed. The devices were designed to be unbreakable in combat not to bear the load of a roof and structural beams crushing him. They designed them from titanium alloy, lightweight enough for him not to notice the weight, but strong enough to stop a bullet.
Everyone else just sees him curl his middle and ring fingers and boom— web , but the inner workings are much more complicated than that. And Pandora knows them.
She flicks the bulb light back on, still on a low magnification just to see the damage up close. The inner webbing mechanism is completely intact, it’s just the outside shell and the small metal alloy screws that are fractured.
“Pass me the soldering iron,” she says, and he turns from the table to hand it to her. He leans over and studies the device for a few moments.
“If you join it between the upper hinges…”
“...You can reconnect screws.” She smiles.
They always work in sync, the two of them. It helps that they’re both very good at science and math, tying on the SATs and both majoring in STEM to get into medical school.
Regulus’ situation is very different from hers though. His parents had wanted him to do pre-law, go to law school and become a lawyer to carry on the family business, but he told them he would literally rather die than go anywhere near law, and so they told him it was either law or medicine. Clearly, he had chosen medicine.
It wasn’t something he would have picked for himself, she thinks, but she gets the reason. At the end of the day, they both want to save lives. It’s what motivates Regulus to be Spiderman. It’s what motivates Pandora to help him.
The devices take a while to fix, but they aren’t beyond repair. They replace the small screws with the same high carbon steel just altered to be a quarter-millimetre larger in diameter, making it exceptionally tight. She can’t imagine them ever breaking again.
They work in silence at first, but Pandora knows not to leave Regulus with his thoughts for too long.
“So,” she starts, “Where’d you go after I went downstairs? I didn’t see you after that, until you ran out the front door. I don’t think anyone missed that.”
He huffs. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Alright. Well, you don’t have to. Let me tell you about this girl. Oh good lord, Regulus, her voice ...”
Pandora and Reg talk as they work, which is basically just Pandora ranting about the particular way the neon light hit the girl’s long red hair and how her eyes lit up when she complimented her. How she then disappeared before Pandora could even get her name.
“I’m sorry-” he interrupts, “you rant for twenty five minutes about the specific shade of the spark in her eyes, and you don’t know the girl’s name?”
“I… Yeah.”
He shakes his head with a trace of humour, “You should ask Dorcas. She hangs out with some popular people close to Potter. She probably knows her, or at least… knows her name.”
“Oh, I will. Thanks.” Her face gets warm at the mere thought of seeing the girl again. Her name. She doesn’t care what her name is, not really. It could be the worst sounding thing and she wouldn’t care, but she can only hope it’s something that reflects her beauty—like the name of a gemstone, or a season, or a flower, or-
“I sort of… Well,” Regulus clears his throat, putting the finishing touches on the web device and pointedly avoiding eye contact. Pandora only waits.
“I spoke to James, upstairs at the party,” he says, and glances over to see her eyes widen, by their own volition.
“A very drunk James, I mean. He was… I don’t know.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“Irritating.”
“Irritating?”
“ Yes ,” he says harshly, glaring at her before grabbing a polishing cloth.
He starts to scrub the black metal surface of the shooter in small circles, keeping his hands busy. Avoidance. Pandora really doesn’t get enough credit for her perception, she did ace AP Psychology. She wasn’t about to push him though, especially given the complicated situation with Sirius and the Potters and the fact that Regulus runs at the mere glimpse of feeling.
“And what did he do that was so irritating?”
“He complimented me,” Regulus says immediately, like it was sitting on the tip of his tongue for the last few hours.
“He…” Regulus continues with a frown on his face, like he’s trying to convince himself of something. “I mean, alcohol makes people do all sorts of things they wouldn’t normally do. It’s not the truth, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe,” she tries to look at him suggestively but his gaze doesn’t rise from his hands polishing the metal. The polishing isn’t new—Regulus likes things to be clean and perfect, which is sort of hilarious, because the suit gets dirty almost every time he uses it, and he has to do it all over again, but the intensity he’s scrubbing the metal with the cloth in the moment is kind of hilarious and Pandora has to bite her tongue.
“Tell me about the girl again,” Regulus suggests, and Pandora happily complies.
Oh she could go on and on . She only hopes that the attraction is two-sided and not a spur-of-the-moment meaningless-flirting-at-a-party thing she’s heard some girls do.
She talks about missing her chance, how she should have asked her name immediately, asked more personal questions, gone somewhere more private where they could actually hear each other over the music and voices.
“I should have kissed her,” Pandora sighs dramatically, like it’s one of the greatest modern tragedies. “I wanted to.”
Now, Regulus can deny all he wants about his own situation, but Pandora doesn’t miss the way he flinches when she says that.