*nasally voice* what's up, doc?
It was 2:36am when Regulus got the TikTok link via text.
He was hunched over his desk hot-glueing together a molecular DNA model structure, a crinkle between his eyebrows he could feel and running on… well… 0 hours of sleep.
Regulus, after the whole Black Corp revelation, was constantly on high alert. He knew first hand how dangerous and fucked up his family was, and he couldn’t imagine what would happen if they found out about his identity.
So that was why he checked in with his friends every two hours.
annoying prick
***link - TikTok ● @nvrdsx ● ***
65K likes, 2.3K comments.
#SPIDER-MAN | he can web me up, all day all night | #fyp #deadpool #edit #spidermanedit #sexymen
you have edits reggie🤭
What.
The edit was of Regulus in suit a few weeks before, talking to a random reporter who approached him while he was fighting this weird rhino-hybrid dude.
“Spider-Man! Spider-Man!” She had called, chasing after him. “ How many broken bones do you have at this point in the fight?”
“Uh,” he had turned around to see her properly. “Around three, maybe five.” (All insignificant, by the way, usually in his fingers. They would heal in half a day.)
“ Five broken bones? Are you alright?”
He just shrugged. “That just means I have 201 left.”
That, however, was just the opening scene. Then followed by a flashy edit of him swinging around places and grinning at reporters (and Deadpool) with his mask half up while Ransom by Lil Tecca played in the background to the beat of the edit.
holy shit
holy shit indeed, reggie
you’re sexy
shut up evan
Aside from how sexy Regulus was, the prospect of his cousin fifty times removed getting to his friends and shit was enough to make a blackhead appear.
That happened once, actually.
He looked in the mirror, saw a blackhead on his nose from the stress and vile hygiene, and started choking on his toothpaste.
He hadn’t left the house without his mask since.
🕸️🕸️🕸️🕸️🕸️
Regulus inhaled sharply as he burnt his finger for the fifth time on the hot glue gun.
He had put down the project for a few hours, but he had started up around 6:00am.
He leaned back in his chair, stretching his sore back as he regarded the DNA model with distaste.
How long had he been working on that?
A few hours straight, at least.
Pretty lame.
He ran his fingers through his hair, sighing and flopping onto his bed. He checked his phone again, opening his usual array of social media apps.
His eyes widened and he swallowed back a gasp as he saw an article coming from his own place of employment.
Spider-Man, Hero or Menace? Menace or Something More?
A Case Study and Analysis
Published by The Daily Bugle, Written by Rita Skeeter
.....
Spider-Man, once hailed as London’s friendly neighbourhood hero, is fast becoming a public menace. But was he always a threat? His latest escapades have left citizens questioning whether the web-slinger’s so-called “heroism” is worth the destruction he leaves in his wake. What was once a symbol of hope now seems more like an out-of-control force that’s only making matters worse and the public is shocked they haven’t noticed the warning signs since now. Is it too late to call out the ‘vigilante’s ’ alarming behaviour?
Collateral Damage: A Hero or a Hazard?
Spider-Man's “good deeds” often come with a hefty price tag — and we’re not talking about villain and bad guy reparations. Take his recent battle with Venom, which left several city blocks flattened and dozens hospitalised and worried.
The cost of property damage is pushing the billions at this point, with small businesses, homes, and schools routinely caught in the crossfire of his high-flying brawls. After all, when you're fighting a supervillain in the middle of the streets, innocent civilians and their livelihoods are bound to suffer. As one local put it: “I don’t need saving if it means losing everything.”
This isn’t a one-off incident, either. A pattern is emerging where Spider-Man’s “saves” are only creating more problems.
Provoking the Villains: A Self-Inflicted Crisis
But it’s not just the damage to property and lives that raises eyebrows. Spider-Man has become a magnet for villains, and seems to just provoke daily felons to see how much they can push him.
With every criminal he takes down, another one seems to take their place. The question must be asked: is Spider-Man creating the chaos he’s trying to stop? It is known that he has the ability to slowly become the problem.
His recent fights with Venom have resulted in his own Venomisation, and it seems he has no control over the companionship of his superhero partners, with Deadpool also recently being Venomised, which plunged them into a fight that has destroyed millions in property insurance and incredible numbers of citizens’ feelings of safety.
After all, how is one meant to feel reassured when their own city’s protectors can’t keep themselves away from the very danger they have sworn to protect civilians from?
It’s as if every punch he throws fuels a new wave of villains, making New York City more dangerous with every confrontation. The once-heroic figure now appears to be the catalyst for the very problem he claims to solve. With his occasional displays of insane strength and his capacity for dubious activities, how long until he joins the other side?
Is Spider-Man Still a Hero? Insight Suggests Otherwise.
The question at hand is, if Spider-Man was so impartial to the citizens and truly cared about the city, why is he so cagey about his identity, and why does he keep failing? At this point, it's hard to see Spider-Man as anything but a dangerous liabilt-
Regulus stopped reading there, his breath feeling too big for his chest.
Another bad thing was that they used his photo. Sure, if it were any other time in the day he would feel pretty smug that they used a photo of Spider-Man taken by Spider-Man for an article slandering Spider-Man, but it wasn’t any other time in the day.
He knew there were at least a few more pages of this slander, and he also knew there were people who would very soon believe that themselves.
Fuck, he felt himself slowly believe it.
The thing was, he had read enough tabloid gossip about himself - both praising and trying to bring him down. But none of it hit as hard as this. "The question at hand is, if Spider-Man was so impartial to the citizens and truly cared about the city, why is he so cagey about his identity, and why does he keep failing?"
God, he needed some food in his system, it was too early for self-loathing.
At the door of his bedroom, feeling fatigued, Regulus looked down at Barty’s skateboard. He considered it for a second, shrugging and jumping on it.
He skated through his flat, looking for food while using as little steps as possible.
Had he skated before?
Nah.
Shoutout Spidey senses.
He shot out a web to grab a ramen packet and skated to the stove to make it.
Regulus picked up his phone while he waited for the water to boil, looking more at the raised skin on the inside of his wrists where his webbing came out.
Spinnerets.
Maybe.
He didn’t exactly know what to call them, but they shot webs out just like a spider’s ass, and Evan had a field day figuring out where exactly to put the slits in the wrists of the Spider-Man suit so he could still shoot the webbing.
Just to make Evan’s life easier however, Regulus designed his infamous web shooters for the suit, so he could still use his natural webbing (ew) as a last ditch attempt if he ran out of webbing or broke the web shooters.
His gaze shifted from his wrist to the phone in his hand as it rang. Dorcas.
“Yes?” He picked up, turning around and kicking the skateboard to the side, putting the phone on speaker and attending to his ramen.
“Regulus. Did you eat?”
“Yes mum, ” he lied sweetly.
“Good. Was it ramen?”
“...No.”
Technically he didn’t lie the second time - he hadn’t eaten the ramen yet.
“ God, you’re such a stereotypical university student. Have you left the house today?”
“...No.”
“Have you left the house in the last three days?”
“...No.” Not unless you count crime-busting as leaving the house. Which it really should be, but Regulus knew that it wasn’t for a reason.
“Right, this is what you’re going to do, because I love you. You’re going to go outside, come to the shop, I’m on a break right now, I’ll get you coffee, and you can go get the work you need to get done and do it in the cafe. Got it? Good. All systems go.”
Then she hung up.
Regulus sighed, turning the stove off and ditching the half-boiled water in the pot. When he trudged back to his bedroom, he eyed the deserted DNA model which was nearing a foot in height when he left it.
He walked to his bathroom to get changed.
Stupid Dorcas, with her healthy habits and non-self destructive behaviour.
🕸️🕸️🕸️🕸️🕸️
Regulus, thanks to his amazing excuse-making abilities, was able to convince Dorcas that he had to go to the Daily Bugle to turn in some photos and that he simply couldn’t stay at the coffee shop to do his work.
As he walked, holding his coffee in one hand and his infamous backpack slung over one shoulder, he looked down at his phone.
Evan just couldn’t stop annoying him, huh?
annoying prick
wya
i now have liek fifty million edits of you on my fyp
bcuz i sent u that ONE
im walking to the daily bulge
*bulge
*bulge
*bulge
*bulge
*bulge
*BULGE
*BULGE
*BULGE
FUCK
LMAOOOO
youre a funny kid, black
Disgruntledly and embarrassedly, Regulus continued walking.
But then he realised, did he really give a fuck about the Daily Bulge Bugle?
Nah.
So he walked slower, and while he was walking he looked over at a car parked on the curb.
It was a flashy car that either belonged to a nepo-baby or the country’s only cocaine dealer.
He walked up to it, fixing his hair in the reflection of the passenger side window.
You know, as you do.
Moving the front of your hair further in front of your eyes, ruffling the back, all that jazz.
Then the window started winding down.
Regulus’ eyes widened as he looked across the car to see James.
Fucking.
Potter.
Sitting in his car.
Goon-grinning while pressing the button to make the window go down.
“Well well well, look who we have here,” he smirked, big cow eyes glistening with mirth.
Regulus, cheeks hot with embarrassment, muttered. “Shut the fuck up.”
“You like the car?” James raised an eyebrow. “It’s a red Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZO6, if I recall correctly. Search it up, for all the folks at home. You see how me-coded this car is?”
Regulus ruffled his brow at James. Who was he talking to?
“No, I don’t like it. It’s flashy and you’re bound to get mugged if you keep… just… rolling the window down this way and that.”
Then he turned around, ears tinged pink and started to walk away.
“No, wait!” James called after him, leaning across the car console to get closer to Regulus.
And of course, he turned back around, rolling his eyes.
James simply grinned. “Your hair looks good.”
🕸️🕸️🕸️🕸️🕸️
“Oi! Black!”
Regulus winced.
Of course the first thing that happened to him quite literally as soon as he walked into the Daily Bugle was the presence of J. Jonah Jameson breathing down his neck with his over-the-top mouth freshener-mixed-with-last-night’s-leftovers breath.
Icky.
Regulus, feeling ballsy, didn’t reply nor turn around stupidly looking for whoever called his name.
Instead he walked up to Angelica and clocked himself in. (Which was a stupid policy, because photographers clock themselves in and out rapidly)
“Black!”
Regulus waited for her to fully finish clocking him in, which took a while with her seven inch long acrylics (Chrome red french tips with white bow detailing, bordering on Christmas-themed, for all the girls and the gays) before turning around to face him.
“Jameson?’ He regarded him coolly.
“Sir.” He corrected.
“No need to call me Sir, Jameson.” Regulus smirked, before realising what he had done.
Jameson’s mouth flopped like a fish for a few seconds. (Like a blobfish.) (Except he wasn’t a blobfish.) (Blobfish? More like blob bitch.)
Then he collected himself and briskly walked off, seemingly forgetting what he was going to tell Regulus.
Damn, all that staying-home had really fucked up Regulus' filter.
Also, that fucking article warranted a messed up filter.
Regulus, raised eyebrow and all, simply shrugged and walked into the lift, pressing his floor.
“Well, that’s done with then.” He muttered once he was inside the lift.
As soon as Regulus stepped out of the lift at his floor, however, he felt a pang at the back of his head.
Spidey sense.
He winced, the sunlight peering through the floor-to-ceiling windows seemingly far too bright for mid-Winter London.
Regulus, trying to remain as stoic as possible without whimpering in pain at the feeling of someone who rivalled his own strength pushing as hard as they could at both sides of his temples, pulled his hood over his head to try and block as much sun (and sound) as possible.
He argued that it was probably a reaction to being outside and continuing his daily routine and not a sense that something bad was about to happen.
He walked (albeit slowly) to his working station/desk thingy that didn’t really belong to him by name, but more to the photographers in general.
As he sat down, he pulled his computer out of his backpack and barely started it up when he felt his phone buzzing in his pocket.
Bartemius motherfucking Crouch.
“Okay, don’t get mad.” He immediately started with. Not a good sign.
He explained how he fucking burned down his apartment (actually, he ‘charred a part of it’, apparently) by trying to boil water .
Regulus couldn’t believe he let that hoe cook in his own flat.
“Okay Reggie, remember how I told you not to get mad?” Barty said, trying his best at a bedside manner.
“You. Set. Your. Fucking. Bloody. Flat . On. Fire?” He muttered through gritted teeth.
“Why, gee, Reg, I’m fine. Yeah yeah, nobody was hurt. No Avengers had to show up, hardy har har.” Barty drawled from the other line.
“Shut up. So what else did you possibly need to tell me?”
“So…” Regulus took a sharp, impatient breath at the pause. “I’m homeless.”
“You’re what?”
“Uh, unless you graciously let me crash at your place?”
Look, Regulus was a good friend. He would’ve let Barty crash at his place.
Except… thwip.
“...So can I?”
Regulus shifted uncomfortably.
“Okay, Barty, you know how busy I am?”
“Yeah- that’s fine! I don’t need a babysitter, just let me crash on your couch. For a few days, even. I’ll go to Pandora’s and terrorise her boyfriend if you want me gone. Just the first few days.”
“Barty, you know I can’t…”
So there was only one place Barty could go.
“Please, Regulus. You can’t do this to me; don’t make me go there. " Barty pleaded.
“It’s the only place you can go.” Regulus stated matter-of-factly.
“No, I can- I can sleep on the streets. Or I have an elderly neighbour. Haven’t seen him in a while, he might be dead, but then I can get the flat all to myself. Please, Regulus, just not-”
“Call Evan.” Regulus said with an air of finality.
“Reggie,” Barty groaned.
“ Call Evan. And tell him I told you to go to him.”
Evan would know that Barty couldn’t possibly stay at his place, what with the whole Spider-Man gig.
“You know what? Fuck you.” Barty huffed stubbornly, hanging up.
Okay, Regulus had to call Evan because Barty wouldn’t.
He leaned back in his chair desperately trying to ignore the pounding in his head and called Evan.
“Yo yo yo, what’s good lil’ EGG-ulus,” Evan remarked at him.
“Um.” Regulus steeled himself. “You must do something.”
“Whoa, I must? What, am I going to be harbouring a criminal that’s detrimental to the safety of the world?” He snorted.
“Well, close enough.” Regulus winced, explaining everything.
“ No.” Evan stated stubbornly.
God, what was with these gays and being stubborn?
“You have to, because I can’t. Please just take that wet, kicked puppy in. He’s desperate. And, this could be your segue into a wonderful roommate romance-”
Then Evan hung up.
Regulus put his phone down, looking back at his computer. He saw a shadow of a person shading the sun from him. (Thanks, by the way, that helped his headache.)
He rolled his eyes quickly - the kind of eye-roll that makes your irises disappear and your whole eye turn white for a second, which, according to Pandora, was pretty freaky - and dragged his eyes up.
To see Deadpool standing in front of him.
And, in his best Bugs Bunny impression (not that good, to be honest), said,
“What’s up, Doc?”
And for a second, Regulus debated going ‘hey, Deadpool? Buddy? What if you go all mercenary on this random guy, J. Jonah Jameson?’