James winced as he sprinted to the edge of the building, leaping over the rail and into the open air, the city lights glowing under his feet and blurring as he flipped into a dive, the wind rushing around him and stealing his breath. He shot his arm out, catching the corner of the next building with a web and using the momentum to swing himself upward, launching himself in the air, his stomach swooping as he went into freefall for a moment before shooting the next web. The gash in his shoulder burned with searing, white-hot pain as the skin tried and failed to knit itself back together again, prevented by a sharp piece of metal that had broken off into the wound when the criminal he'd caught carjacking had swung the crowbar so hard it lodged itself into the back of his shoulder. The uncomfortable feeling of warm blood slid down his back, stuck between his skin and his suit, the rusted bit of metal shifting with every pull on his webs.
He sighed in relief when he finally reached the fire escape of Grimmauld Place, yanking off his mask and carding a hand through his sweaty hair, perched just outside the window. He peered into the bedroom, illuminated by a single lamp, and found Regulus at his desk, cheek resting on his fist as his other hand skated across the paper, fingertips stained in charcoal.
While James' identity was a secret to nearly everyone, two people knew. Sirius, who was there when James got bit by the spider, and witnessed him go through the change with intense fascination and disgust, and Regulus because James fell through his window instead of Sirius' the first time he got so injured he couldn't heal himself.
They hadn't been dating then, Regulus swung wildly between shy and downright mean when it came to James, and James, who always loved a challenge, took it upon himself to endear Regulus to him, tripping his way into falling in love somewhere down the line. Regulus would deny having any feelings for him at all, but he kept his window unlatched each night, and never turned James away when he was hurt, patching him up and lecturing him for being stupid, but had the gentlest hands where his words were sharp.
On one particular night, James had caught more than a few bad injuries, and it was over a first aid kit and bloodied gauze that Regulus had blurted that he needed James to be more careful, because he couldn't stand to lose him. James had kissed him, both of their hands stained and dirty, grasping at each other desperately. So, Regulus had become his amateur healer and boyfriend, always leaving his window unlocked for the next time James fell through.
James watched him for a moment, enjoying the expression of peace on his boyfriend's face for a while longer, Regulus' cheek slightly indented and red where he'd leaned his head on his fist for too long, the impatient way he brushed the same curl off his face with a charcoal smudged hand before it inevitably fell back into the same place.
James tapped on the window lightly, smiling when Regulus jumped in his chair, the pencil falling from his fingers and rolling somewhere under the desk as he whipped his head toward the window to where James was waiting. His smile widened when Regulus immediately scowled like he knew he would, sharp eyes scanning James' body for injuries and his shoulders loosening a little when he didn't immediately find any. Regulus slid open the window slowly, leaning with his hands on the sill, knees resting on the cushions of the window seat.
"I was in the middle of something, you know."
"Does that mean you don't have any time for your charming boyfriend?" James pretended to pout, already feeling better now that he was with Regulus.
"My boyfriend or Spider-Man?" Regulus asked, pointedly looking down at his suit.
"Both, maybe? Your charming boyfriend and the amazing Spider-Man, lucky you!"
Regulus rolled his eyes, hiding his smile in the corner of his mouth, "I don't find you particularly charming or amazing, especially not when you have a tendency to bleed all over my floor."
"Maybe you've forgotten just how charming I can be," James murmured, leaning on the other side of the window sill so that their faces were inches apart, suppressing a wince and tilting forward to kiss the scowl off Regulus' face, but Regulus, catching the wince, sighed heavily and turned away from the window before he could, leaving James to faceplant on the window seat instead. "Ouch."
Regulus ignored him, grabbing the first aid kit from under his bed and retreating to the adjoined bathroom to wash his hands. James righted himself with a groan, crawling the rest of the way through the window and sliding it shut behind him.
"What did the amazing Spider-Man do to himself this time?" Regulus called from the bathroom, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Surprise crowbar attack, crowbar broke because of my ridiculously toned shoulders, so I'm not healing," He summarized, doing an awkward jig around the room as he tried to get off his suit onehandedly. James knocked a book off of Regulus' desk as he fought with the skin-tight suit, unable to reach the seam at the back of his neck that would loosen the rest.
"Aren't you not supposed to be able to be surprised with your spider thing? What kind of superhero are you?" Regulus teased as he reentered the room, offering him no help.
"Oi! I'm a cool one, a really cool one!" James lashed, shuffling in a circle and grasping at the suit while Regulus watched, more than a little amused, if the minute uptick on one side of his mouth was anything to go by. "Anyway, I thought he was down for a while, and I was helping the poor lady whose car was broken into when he got up and lodged the damn thing into my back!
"Alright, stop stomping around, you'll wake the whole house," Regulus finally walked over to him and turned him by the arm, reaching up to pull down the suit and pausing when he saw the injury, the red and blue suit torn around the hunk of rusted metal shiny with blood, and sticking out of his back by a few inches. "You swung all the way over here like this?"
James hissed as Regulus began to slide the suit off his shoulders slowly, stretching the hole around the crowbar piece so it didn't pull at the injury too badly. "Had to get to my handsome healer somehow, didn't I?"
"Oh, stuff it. Proper stupid that was, you probably just made it worse, it could be embedded deeper now," Regulus chided, pushing James to sit down on the window seat, suit pooling at his waist and muscled back exposed to the open air. He grabbed the alcohol wipes, balancing one hand on James' back while swiping around the edges of the wound as he squirmed uncomfortably with the sting, "Hold still, you numpty."
"You know I thought you'd be nicer to me by now," James muttered petulantly, yelping loudly in surprise when Regulus tried to pry the broken piece out of his shoulder without warning. The crowbar piece tugged at the raw flesh and muscle, caught on the curve of the metal, making James choke out a groan.
Regulus clapped a hand over his mouth to muffle his cries of pain, "Shit, James, I thought it'd come more easily, it didn't look that deep. You have to be quiet, if my parents wake up, it won't be the tetanus that'll off you first."
A slight creak outside the bedroom door made both of them tense, Regulus' fervent words halting abruptly as they whipped their heads toward the door.
"Reg, are you-,"
The door swung open before either of them could move, revealing Sirius clad in Spider-Man pajamas, which he insisted on buying as he was technically Spider-Man's #1 fan, being James' best friend. He was only spurred on by James' humiliation, buying other Spider-Man merch just for the irony. His gaze widened comically as it bounced between James' half-nakedness and Regulus knelt behind him, hand still clamped over James' mouth, both frozen in shock.
Sirius clapped a hand over his eyes, exclaiming loudly, "Oh my god! My eyes!"
Before Sirius could make any more noise, James shot a web at his mouth, effectively muffling his exclamations of disgust and horror while Regulus flew toward the door, throwing Sirius inside before closing it behind them again, careful not to slam it. Sirius flailed around like a headless chicken, fruitlessly trying to yank the webs off of his mouth, undoubtedly cursing them both colorfully, though all that came out was a series of groans and indignant sounds emphasized by his waving arms.
Regulus pushed off the door and walked up to him, whacking his brother upside the head none too gently, "We weren't doing anything, you absolute knob! I was trying to help James heal so he wouldn't bleed to death, but thanks to your hysterics, our parents are probably going to bleed all of us to death."
Sirius waved his arms furiously, still protesting with angry, muffled sounds. James shakily reached forward amidst the chaos to rip the webs off his mouth with one hand, a bit harsher than he usually would before collapsing back in the window seat exhaustedly.
"Ow! I think you ripped my mustache off," Sirius whined, rubbing the sore spot over his upper lip.
"Thank god for that. Honestly, it was an eyesore," James muttered grumpily, a fresh sheen of sweat layering his usually tan face.
"Oi, Remus liked it, he thought it was sexy," Sirius retorted, crossing his arms.
James opened his mouth to respond, but Regulus interjected before he could, anxiously eyeing the door every few seconds, "Sirius, you need to go out there and cause a distraction so I can heal James without our parents finding out. We've made enough noise that it's only a matter of time before they come looking."
"They're not even here tonight, Reg, did you forget about the conference in the city?"
"What? Why didn't you tell me sooner?!"
"When would I have told you? As soon as I opened the door, your barmy boyfriend webbed my mouth shut!" Sirius turned briefly to address James, who barely acknowledged him, "Which is disgusting by the way, between that and insulting my mustache, you're on thin ice, buddy."
James tried to speak but was cut off by Regulus again, "He only did that because you were shouting your head off like a mad man and we thought we were about to get skinned by our parents!"
"I thought I walked in on something kinky! Neither of you was particularly innocent looking!" Sirius shot back, making Regulus' cheeks flush red. The two brothers faced off in the middle of the room, bickering practically second nature to them, exhausting and confusing to everyone else.
"Shut it!" James yelled hoarsely, both brothers snapped their mouths shut as they finally noticed him, dark brown hair flattened with sweat, eyelids heavier than they were before. "If you don't mind, could somebody please get this godforsaken thing out of my shoulder? Thanks," He added, voice strained thin with pain, before promptly slumping forward without warning like a marionnette with cut strings.
Sirius and Regulus moved with one mind, rushing to catch his shoulders before he collapsed to the floor, settling James back into the window seat, leaning most of his weight into Sirius while Regulus maneuvered behind to check on the wound again. He found it just as inflamed as before, the crowbar piece now at an awkward angle where Regulus had tried to pull it out the first time, blood running down the length of the bar and dripping down his back.
"Jamie? You with us? Jamie?" Sirius lifted James' head off his chest, scanning his face for any sign of awareness. James grunted but did not open his eyes, brows furrowed in pain even unconscious. Sirius glanced at his brother worriedly, James' face still cupped in his hands, "How's it look, Reg?"
Regulus bit his lip, working to staunch the fresh blood as it bubbled around the metal piece without pushing it further in. He didn't know the proper procedure for this, not that he really knew the proper procedure for most medical things, but he'd learned some things over time. He'd done lots of stitches, even dug a bullet out of James' calf before, and splinted fingers, but that was much cleaner than a shattered bit of rusted metal. What if he tried to dig the metal out and it broke into even smaller pieces? What if it'd already gotten infected from being in there for so long? Does he disinfect first? Stop the bleeding first?
"Regulus," Sirius said, panicked voice interrupting his thought spiral, "What are you going to do?"
"I don't know, I'm not a real healer, James is just stupid enough to keep asking me to help!" He burst out, frantically rummaging through the first aid kit onehandedly, "I don't know if I should prioritize getting the piece out, or worry about all the blood he's lost, or if I should disinfect everything first because it's been in him for so long and he's probably already infected-"
"Alright, alright, one thing at a time," Sirius cut into his rambling, both fighting for calm as they looked at each other, James unconscious between them. Sirius needed Regulus to be calm, he was their best option to help James. "His healing will take care of a lot, right? It's the metal pieces we need to focus on since that's what was preventing him from healing, maybe we just have to get them out and his powers will do the rest."
Sirius was grasping at straws, he wasn't an expert on regular medical stuff, let alone what to do when your best friend who was bitten by a radioactive spider is having a medical emergency.
Regulus nodded quickly, eager to have some logical direction to follow, and pulled on plastic gloves from the kit, fingers shaking slightly. "I'll disinfect as I go too, maybe that and his accelerated healing will be enough to prevent infection. Just hold him still, I should be able to pull it out with my hands."
Sirius pulled James closer to him, wrapping his arms around his friend in a kind of hug to hold him up and in place if he woke up and started moving.
"Okay, Jamie, I've got you, just stay still so Reggie can fix you up," He murmured, even though he was sure James couldn't hear him, head buried in Sirius' neck, utterly limp against him. He nodded at his brother when he had James settled, injecting as much confidence as he could muster into his expression, hoping it'd calm Regulus to see it.
Regulus flushed out the wound with disinfectant first, using a towel to catch the pinkish runoff as it streamed down James' back. The raw skin around the metal pulsed and stretched, pushed back continuously as it tried to close over the gaping wound. Regulus grasped the jagged edge of the metal, trying to avoid the sharp bits to keep from slicing his hand open, partially grateful that James was passed out for this part, sure it would be near excruciating otherwise.
He took a deep breath and tugged carefully, this time moving at an upwards angle because of the curve, scared to put too much pressure and tear through muscle, but the rough edges seemed embedded too deeply to come out easily. Fresh blood bubbled and slid down James' back, and his muscles spasmed as Regulus worked the metal, jumping under the skin of his back as they protested the movement. James groaned and mumbled under his breath, but he did not wake. Once Regulus had a straighter angle after easing most of the curved part out, he gave another tug, harder than the first time, and felt the little resistance he met before giving way, a long piece of crowbar dipped in crimson now resting in Regulus' hand.
"Nice, Reg!" Sirius commended, before paling a little after catching a glimpse of how large the bit of crowbar actually was. "Oh, that's disgusting."
Regulus exhaled in relief, holding the towel to the wound to slow the rest of the bleeding. "You're hopeless, Sirius. Imagine if he fell through your window instead of mine that night, you would've passed out with him." James twitched, eyes moving beneath closed lids, and Regulus smoothed his free hand down his back, hoping to soothe him. "Almost done, Jamie."
Sirius adjusted his hold on James, "If he fell through my window that night, you'd be dealing with two medical emergencies, he would've given me a right heart attack. I don't know how you kept it together enough to help him."
Regulus threaded a needle, the shake in his fingers subsided a bit, stitches he was comfortable with, he'd had to do them often enough. He got lost in the rhythmic movement of the stitches, weaving the needle in and out of James' skin, thread crisscrossing over the wound like spider webs.
"I don't know, he needed someone, needed me. I was terrified, but it didn't matter. I'm always scared when he comes through that window, but I don't know, knowing that he needs me gives me the strength to do it."
Sirius smirked when Regulus glanced up and he rolled his eyes, cheeks heating up with embarrassment, "Shut up, Sirius," He finished the stitches swiftly, disinfecting once more and taping a large bandage over the wound, smoothing it over James' skin. "Help me get him to my bed."
They hoisted him up with matching groans, staggering to the bed and lowering him onto his stomach carefully. Regulus brushed James' hair out of his face, adjusting the pillow underneath his head.
"He'll be okay?" Sirius asked, watching his brother and best friend with fondness.
"Yeah, his powers should do the rest."
"You're pretty incredible, Reg," Regulus looked up in surprise at the gentleness in his voice, speechless for a moment, "But if I ever catch you and my best friend doing some kinky shit, I'm throwing him out of that beloved window of yours, and then bleaching my eyeballs." Regulus launched a pillow at Sirius with a shriek, while his brother cackled and fled the room.