Chapter Text
Sprinting through the streets of Queens in the pouring rain with bruised legs and a bleeding bullet wound on his left shoulder, only one cognizant thought circulated through his mind.
Pandora is going to kill me if this bullet doesn’t first.
He was so careful. The moment he received the alert from the bank he got himself ready. First, immobilize the criminals. Then secure all the people in the bank, getting them safely outside as they wait for the police to show up. Sounds easy, right?
“Shit. Shit shit shit,” he breathed, clutching his shoulder which was now distended and inflamed, still actively seeping blood through his suit.
Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan. He had shown up to realize this was not a regular bank robbery. Instead of a small crew with handguns, he had stood in front of twelve men armed with automatic rifles and actually made a joke.
The suit gave him an unusual confidence, it was like he could be free, nothing adding to or taking away from his reputation. After all, he couldn’t tarnish the Black family name by being some sort of “doomed vigilante” as his mother liked to call him. Well, not him, of course, but rather her idea of spiderman. He had become spiderman to help people, truly help people, and get to be himself. It was something that was just his, not his mother's, not his father’s, not anyone’s.
But lately, it had been causing more stress than anything. The news stories, live television reports, and even books written about him.
Regulus had never really liked attention. That’s not to say it wasn’t nice, honestly, to have this appreciation. But it can be a lot of pressure for a seventeen-year-old boy. It’s hard to make the right decision when it feels like the whole world is watching.
Or, rather, the entire city of New York.
The most populated city in the United States.
No big deal.
Needless to say, it’s not what he intended.
His breathing was fast and uneven, his legs still moving somehow, forcing himself to generate energy out of absolutely nothing. He had barely made it out of Harlem. Grimmauld Place was close, only a few blocks away now.
The memory replayed in his head.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He had entered the bank lobby and seen a dozen men with automatic rifles.
“Oh shit, sorry did I interrupt a frat party?”
The men had not laughed.
Instead, they whipped around and instantly started firing.
To be fair, it wasn’t his best line.
He glances over at his arm to see the blood stain has now spread, halfway down his bicep. He applied more pressure and winced.
Almost there, almost there.
Grimmauld Place had never been a place of comfort for Regulus—never a real home. But right now, fuck, he needed shelter. He needed his medical supplies hidden under the floorboard along with the rest of his Spiderman gear.
Finally.
He groaned in pain as he shot a web through his open window and swung himself inside, slamming the window behind him.
Safe. For now.
Safety was not a luxury he was often afforded at home. But of course, this was a unique situation. Outside his window, the rain stopped.
Bien sûr.
He frantically moved his bed with his one working arm and flipped the floorboard before peeling off his soaking-wet suit to reveal the damage.
Well, this isn’t good.
It was worse than expected. The bullet hadn’t gone all the way through, unfortunately for him, but it was close. He felt the bulge of the small metal bullet on the rear side of his arm.
Bien sûr.
He knew what he had to do.
Now, Regulus was not a stranger to pain by any means.
To a normal person, perhaps, the pain from removing a bullet would be excruciating.
For him, it was just another fucking Wednesday.
He quickly shoved a pair of socks in his mouth and bit down. He took the scalpel and turned it over in his hands, staring at the glint of the blade, inhaling deeply.
" Maman, s'il vous plaît. Je comprends! S'il vous plaît, laissez-moi partir, je ne le ferai plus jamais.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and left his body behind.
"Vous devez apprendre votre leçon, Regulus. Pleurer est une faiblesse. Les garçons ne pleurent pas.”
Less than a minute later, the bullet was in his hand and a singular teardrop on his cheek.
When did he get it out?
It was a shiny silver with small engraved numbers. It was beautiful, he thought. It was deadly, he knew.
Regulus wrapped the gauze bandage around his arm tight, taping it incessantly, making sure it wouldn’t rip or fall apart. It took half the roll. He then cleaned the bullet off and dropped it into the small mason jar under the floor containing seven others of its kind.
He figured it was probably weird to collect bullets you’ve been shot with and removed, but then again, there wasn’t much about Regulus that could be considered normal.
Hurried voices downstairs brought him out of his thoughts.
He rushed to put everything away, stowed away under his floor and bed. Separate from this life, but never too far away.
“Regulus!” his mother hissed from somewhere on the second floor.
“J'arrive, mère!”
~~~~
An hour later, he was sitting in his first lecture, physics, watching Professor Flitwick monotonously flick through slides, speaking to the class in the most lusterless voice possible.
It would be so easy to fall asleep. Much too easy.
But he never did. Being unconscious in public was vulnerable.
Instead, he tuned into the conversation beside him. A small group of people had gathered, turned around in their seats, all staring at one laptop. Regulus angled his head slightly to see what the fuss was about.
The screen was filled with a photo of him. Or rather, of Spiderman, standing in front of twelve incapacitated men, lined up in a row and tied up in webs.
Ah. He remembered seeing the flash of a camera behind him before he ran. Before he started showing pain. Even in the photo, the wound is partially visible.
The students beside him were speaking in a hushed tone but not quite whispering.
“Holy shit. It was just him against twelve machine guns. Can you imagine?”
“I mean, it says he got shot.”
“Uh yeah, but he still managed to overtake a dozen criminals all shooting at him!”
This gets Flitwick’s attention, and he starts scolding students left and right, threatening detention if they didn’t quiet down. Regulus takes note to check the news later.
His first two classes floated by, spent dutifully taking notes even though he knew the material already. On his way out of the lecture hall, he spotted Sirius.
Quickly pivoting on his heel, he opted for the long way to the dining hall.
Sirius had been trying to talk to him at school for weeks. He had moved out of Grimmauld Place and in with the Potters the day he turned 18 and Regulus was still in high school. He had written Regulus letters, one of which Regulus read, in which Sirius talked about how great the Potters were and how he wished Regulus were there, as if he hadn't left him. The rest of the letters were confiscated by Walburga, but Regulus didn't mind after that. He wouldn't read them anyway. He didn't see his brother for months that year, up until his first day of college.
They had both talked about NYU since they were young, and of course, neither of them gave up on it. Freaking genetics. The day he got in, he didn't know what to think. It was, of course, a dream come true, to study at such an institution—a dream. That was, until he sat down with a team of lawyers who explained that his parents would fund his education only if he remained living at home. The Blacks needed an heir, one certain to be of good standing, which meant that he was basically a prisoner in his own house. He knew it would happen of course, but hearing it spoken to him was something else entirely.
It was a big school, and the odds of seeing each other at all, let alone the first day were slim, he knew. But then again, odds had never been in Regulus' favour.
As soon as Sirius had spotted Regulus that day, he had practically cornered him into a dead-end corridor and tried to explain why he left, where he went. But it was too late. It wasn't enough.
It would always be too late and never be enough, and Regulus knew it before Sirius even opened his mouth.
Just recalling it gave him a migraine.
“Reg you have to understand, I had to get out of there! And… You can still come with me. The Potters, they can help” Sirius pleaded, putting a hand on his shoulder, willing him to understand.
“No, they can’t! Sirius don’t you get it?!" Regulus hissed, throwing Sirius' arm off of him. "There’s no saving me. I’M the reason you were able to get out." He stared at the cracks in the old brick beside him, wishing the wall would crumble down on him.
He refused to look at his brother directly, but Sirius needed to understand.
"I’m their backup!” he said finally, lowering his voice as students passed by in the corridor.
Sirius took a deep breath. “I…” he faltered. “You saw what they did to me,” he whispered.
At that, Regulus looked up finally, into his brother's eyes for the first time in months.
"And now there’s no one left to see what they do to me,” he said.
He would never forgive Sirius. For leaving him alone in that house.
Determined not to repeat that conversation, he picked up his pace and began walking as fast as possible without downright sprinting away from his brother. He took a shortcut route down the back stairwell and through a small laneway and was soon at the dining hall at Third North.
He opened the door to the building, nearly inside by the time he heard a steady, deep voice behind him call, “Sirius.”
A warning.
How on earth?
And then Sirius was behind him, reaching out to grab his arm.
Luckily for Regulus, he had good reflexes. Thank radioactive spiders for that one.
He turned and jerked his arm away at an incredible speed, the motion so painful on his still-injured arm that it took everything in him not to react.
Instead, he inhaled sharply, squeezing his eyes shut, just for a moment.
“Shit, sorry Reg. I forgot," Sirius was basically panting he was so out of breath, and Regulus realized with a slight amusement that he must have literally run at full speed after him.
And as for the gesture... well. He wasn’t born with his aversion to touch. It was merely something that developed along the way.
Living with Walburga and Orion, every touch was the same. Every touch now felt like pain—like a punishment. He never knew how Sirius was so strong, how he ended up fine after living there for so long. Perhaps he had just reached his breaking point that night.
Regulus on the other hand–well, Regulus was already broken. He was fragments of a once happy little boy, put back together all wrong. Shattered china not even the finest craftsman could repair.
He blinked. He was still in the hallway, facing his brother.
“What do you want?” he replied, his voice a steady timbre. A facade.
Sirius got closer. “What do I want? I want you to talk to me Regulus!” he said, getting a bit too loud.
Regulus stared at him with no emotion. “Why?”
Sirius looked genuinely shocked at his response. “Because I’m your brother, Reggie. You can’t just ignore me forever.”
The nickname was a punch to the gut.
“Don’t call me that,” he hissed. “And I’m not your brother anymore, remember? If you want to sit and talk about your fucking feelings, why don’t you go find James Potter?”
With that, he turned around and strode straight into the dining hall. A small pang of guilt rushed through his head, but he quickly pushed it aside. He’ll deal with that later.
His eyes scanned the room, looking for a certain-
A snap came from behind him.
He spun around to see Pandora balancing two lunch trays on one arm, smiling.
“Yo. I got your lunch because you were late and the line was crazy as usual. Sit?”
“Sit.” Regulus echoed, his mind someplace else.
They sat in the corner of the spacious room, sides to the wall across from each other, Regulus picking at his food while Pandora observed him.
Today, her hair was in two long, complicated-looking braids with different coloured yarn woven in like rainbow streaks. Her hair changed styles every day and it was impossible to predict. He liked that about Pandora, that she never did what was expected of her. Regulus wished he had the freedom to be like that.
His arm ached beneath his jumper, a persistent pain, not letting him focus on anything else.
“Okay, what is it? Sirius try to trap you in the hallway again?” she leaned forward onto the table.
He looked up at her. “No, well, yes but,” Regulus frowned. He had expected her to bring up the incident from that morning.
"What is it?"
He grimaced, “I take it you didn’t see the news this morning.”
Pandora pulled back from the table with worried eyes, “Shit, no, I was nearly late for my first lecture because I overslept. What happened?”
Regulus glanced around the room, estimating if anyone could hear them. Pandora noticed this and lowered her voice.
“Is it about… you know?” she asked, making indistinguishable hand gestures.
He nodded. “Yeah, it was… not great. Stupid, even. I wasn’t prepared for that many-“ his sentence was cut short by a shriek from Pandora.
“OH MY GOD REGULUS” she stared at him horrified, a news article somehow already open on her phone.
“Would you quiet down?!” he hissed, glancing around the room to see a few students looking at them. He lowered his body down in his seat.
Pandora lowered her voice but her fervour remained.
“Spiderman faced off against twelve armed men this morning, rounding them up before police arrived at the scene. Several witnesses testify that he saved the lives of some bank employees, getting himself SHOT in the process.”
She glared at him as she emphasized the word.
“Pandora.”
“Regulus.”
“I’m okay, I swear. I’m just a bit-“
“Just a bit what? Hmm? Closer to death? You absolute idiot. Let me see it.”
Regulus stared back at her in awe. She was the only one who could speak to him like this and remain unscathed. Of course, she cared a lot about him. She was the only one that did, he thought.
“Well I can’t exactly show you here, can I?” he stared at her with wide eyes, begging her to give it up.
But she wasn’t having it. “Bathroom then.”
Regulus groaned. He followed her out of the cafeteria, leaving their full trays behind.
“You know people already think we’re a couple, dragging me into a bathroom certainly won’t help,” Regulus grumbled but went willingly anyway.
“Oh, hush. I couldn’t care less what people think.”
Soon, it was just the two of them in the single bathroom. Regulus leaned his back against the wall and let out a sigh.
“Alright then, let me see it.”
“It’s wrapped in bandages. Dora, I’m pre-med, I know what I’m doing.”
She glared at him. “So am I. Off.”
He rolled his eyes and pulled his sweater over his head, messing his hair in the process. He turned his left arm toward her and they both looked at it.
And... well. Shit.
The bandages were a faded pinkish red, the top layers covering the soiled ones closest to the skin.
“Fuck Regulus, this is bad.” Pandora reached out as if she was going to touch it, before pulling back.
Regulus gave her a small smile. He knew he wasn’t the easiest person to be friends with, not allowing anyone to touch him. But she always remembered.
And she always respected his boundaries.
“These… need to be changed.”
“I have more in my bedroom, I can swing by and get them.”
Pandora laughed, “You aren’t going anywhere spider-boy.” She reached into her deep cardigan pocket and pulled out a box of matches, a mini eight ball, and a roll of bandages sealed in a package and grinned,
“Aha!”
“What the fuck Dora?”
“Listen, when your best friend is a superhero you start being prepared for them to do crazy shit.”
Regulus rolled his eyes. Pandora was very odd, but perhaps that’s why they became friends. Like recognizes like.
He began unwrapping the old bandages and watched as Pandora stared down at the open wound.
“You-YOU CUT THE BULLET OUT?” her volume nearly reaching a holler.
Regulus rested his head in his hands.
“YOU CUT THE BULLET OUT!” she shouted again.
“WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?” he shot back.
“What? Go to the ER like ‘hey so I’ve just been shot with an automatic rifle trying to stop a dozen men from robbing a bank- oh, my spider suit? It’s vintage, thanks.’”
He glared at her.
Her lips quirked into a smile.
“Damn it, Black.”
Then pursing her lips, “Regulus.”
“Hmm?”
“I’m… going to need to touch you. Your arm, to rewrap it.”
He swallowed, staring at her shoes, decorated with rainbow beads and stitched flowers.
They both knew he wouldn’t be able to wrap it well himself with one arm.
“Okay.”
She nodded and began to unwrap his bandages. Regulus stared at her shoes. Studied them. The pressure on his arm tightened. Peony, hyacinth, hydrangea, lotus…
And just like that, she was done.
Regulus cleared his throat. “Thank you.”
She looked at him intensely. “Next time you call me.”
“Got it.”
“No. I mean immediately. I could have helped.”
How? Regulus thinks to himself, and as if reading his mind, Pandora replies quietly, “I at least could’ve been there for you.”
And that was all he needed.
~~~~
His arm was feeling a lot better. As it turns out, Pandora was able to wrap it with a lot more pressure than he could that morning with his one hand.
Crazy, right?
Soon, the bell rang and they left the bathroom separately, a wise decision it seems, as Pandora texted him nearly ten minutes later, updating him on the school gossip as she often did.
Every hour.
Without prompting.
Regulus did enjoy it, though he would never admit it to her.
Pandora
the rumours!! ugh you should have heard it
everyone in the dining hall who saw us leave anyway
they were all like oooo Black and that kooky blonde totally did it in the private bathroom, you should’ve heard how LOUD they were
and I’m just sitting there like wow I really wish Reg were here to shoot a web at their face
but alas, you are not.
Regulus
what did you say????
Pandora
told them to shut up before we find out how loud they are when my bone saw accidentally slips in physiology lab
Regulus
this is why we are friends
Pandora always made him smile when he was having a shitty day.
Luckily, his last classes of the day were chemistry and philosophy. His two favourites. He didn’t think he ever got bored of them, he just kept scribbling notes to the lecture and reading and reading and reading. Something was off though.
He hadn’t yelled at Sirius like that in a while. It felt… Well, it felt familiar. The back and forth. But the things Regulus said… He knew they hurt. He could tell from the look on Sirius’ face that he had hurt him. But wasn’t this just payback? For what Sirius did? It couldn’t be forgiven. But then why did he feel so fucking guilty about it?
Time flew once he started overthinking. At the end of class, he gathered his books and shuffled out of class, head down.
Which, evidently is not a great idea when hundreds, if not thousands, of students are rushing out of every building with newfound freedom.
So when he opened the heavy door and turns the corner, he walked-
Straight. Into. James. Potter.
Of fucking course.
“Oh I’m sorry Regulus,” James said, quickly bending down to help gather his notebooks from the concrete.
They were both crouched, hurriedly stacking strewn about papers.
What was the protocol for this? Was he supposed to thank James? He didn’t even remember requesting help, James had just… done it.
“Bad coordination, I suppose,” James chuckled.
They both knew that wasn’t true. James Potter was the captain of the school's football team with a spotless record. Regulus had been staring down at the ground and walked straight into James, yet he was the one apologizing.
Because of course he just has to be kind on top of everything else.
He extended his hand and offered Regulus the stack of papers and books. Regulus still had not said a word, too wrapped up in the many thoughts that were going through his head.
'
You stole him from me', Regulus couldn’t help but think. It was petulant, he knew. Childish. Whatever.
Regulus hesitantly reached out and grabbed his things, carefully avoiding skin contact. But then.
Then they locked eyes.
His eyes were a deep brown—dark, warm, and gleaming. Now Regulus had seen these eyes hundreds of times before, but only from afar, or in passing. But close-up direct contact was…
Well, it was new.
“Prongs, we’re all waiting by the…” Sirius trailed off, walking up behind James, clearly trying to survey the situation.
Potter cleared his throat, breaking eye contact, him and Regulus standing simultaneously.
“Right, let’s go then,” he walked off with Sirius, but Regulus didn’t miss the small smile James gave him.
All things considered, the eye contact must have only lasted a second or two, no more. But it was enough.
He wasn’t sure he could have beared any more.
Pretty boy James Potter.
Captain of the football team.
Sirius’ new brother.
His chest twisted and writhed with jealousy.
It was all just stupid jealousy.
Nearly an hour later, Regulus sat on his bed, biting his fingernails with headphones on full volume.
I don’t care if it hurts
I’ll pay my weight in blood
To feel my nerves wake up
An alert chimes on his laptop, pulling him out of his daze.
Pandora
Reg you’re going to want to get over here
another transport was hijacked
And just like that, the suit was back on.