chapter five
June 4th
It was a morning earlier than usual for both of them, and Remus and Sirius were sitting on the ledge of the rooftop with their backs against each other, both of their faces uncovered and soaking in the fresh morning sun.
They were sipping on coffee that Sirius had bought from the cart in front of the building. They both drink their coffee the same, Black with a teaspoon of sugar.
They find different ways each time for Remus to eat without Sirius seeing him, and Sirius doesn’t mind. He doesn’t care to know what Remus looks like under the mask; he’d said multiple times since they’d met that it’s the least of his concerns. He’s not interested in his identity as much as he’s interested in knowing what he’d had for lunch that day, or what his favorite movie is. Things so insignificant and boring it makes Remus feel so human and so…Remus.
And he doesn’t mind it so much anymore, Sirius’ constant questions, because he has questions of his own now. He was just as curious about Sirius as he was about him.
“Does anyone in your life know about your powers?” Sirius asks.
“Yeah, my friend, my closest friend.” He answers fondly.
“How did you tell them?” he asks.
“I didn’t, they figured it out themselves.” he replies.
“My younger brother Regulus, I couldn’t hide a single thing from him when we were younger.” He shifts his back a little at the mention of his brother. A movement so small it almost feels trivial to mention.
“You have a brother?” Remus asks curiously, and a picture of a younger shorter Sirius forms inside his head. “And his name is Regulus?” he grins, astonished.
“You can laugh, my family has a cult like obsession with astronomical names.” Sirius chuckles lightly.
He muffles his laugh “It’s definitely unique.”
They’re both quiet for a second, Remus thinking about a younger Sirius and his even younger brother, but not imagining much else. He doesn’t know enough about Sirius to be able to.
“Does he look like you?” Remus asks curiously.
“He does, maybe a little more innocent looking, and-” He shakes his hair viciously against Remus’ back, “He doesn’t have all this hair”
“I bet a little less annoying too.” Remus jokes, and Sirius extends his arm behind his back and angles it right in front of Remus and flips him off.
They’re quiet again, but their silence means comfort. They sit in silence more often than they talk, it gives them time to breathe, because that’s really what they’re both here for. Remus can feel the air going in and out of Sirius’ lungs, and he mimics the pattern himself.
“Hey Mars.” Sirius says a second later.
“Yeah”
“Do you think it’s weird that I’m here so much.” He asks.
He shakes his head so Sirius can feel it. “No,” he replies honestly, “Do you think it’s weird that I am?”
“No,” he pauses for a second. “Even though I cant picture you anywhere else.”
And Remus felt the need to defend himself. To let Sirius know that he isn’t this weird recluse who just spends time hiding away on roofs all day.
“I’m not this—inhuman person when I’m not Spider-Man, I don’t live in a cave or have eight secret arms or whatever people think.” Remus bitterly says.
“I never said you were, I’m here too. And if other people think that it’s because they don’t know you.”
“You don’t know me either.” Remus replies, a little more harshly than he intended to.
“I know enough to know you’re not inhuman,” he replies, completely brushing off Remus’ small outburst. “But some people just can’t comprehend that someone they see as extraordinary is able to live a life just like theirs, and sometimes that’s okay. You don’t need their approval.”
And maybe it’s because they were so high up, but Remus suddenly felt like everything was silent, and he wanted to cry, or scream, or do anything that would help him come to terms with the words, you don’t need their approval, but he just breathes and puts his face in his gloved hands, feeling like the wind has become too harsh on his face, and he shoves those words in the back of his mind until the day he decides to anatomize them.
Sirius continues when he realizes Remus isn’t going to say anything, with his voice sounding more somber, like he’s talking from experience. “But I think no matter how hard you want to fit in when you’re not Spider-Man, people will notice something’s different about you, even if they don’t make the connection. People notice special people.”
Special.
Remus clears his throat “You’re the only one who thinks that.” he mutters, trying hard not to let the words affect him.
Special.
“I don’t think I am you just have to start noticing other people too.”
Remus likes his bubble. He likes the comfort it gives him. letting people in, going out of his way to get to know them. It’s too much, it can cause too much damage. Being around Remus is a risk, and everyone who’s ever been close to him has been exposed to some sort of danger at one point, and he just doesn’t think it’s worth it.
“Do you think I’d be able to recognize you” Sirius asks earnestly “if we’d met in real life.”
The words real life sting a little, because this isn’t real life for the both of them. Being up here, it’s like getting sucked into a wormhole for a few hours each day; Away from everything; Away from their responsibilities. An echo chamber, where the only sounds Remus hears are the wind and Sirius’ voice.
He thinks about his question. He hasn’t given away too much information about himself. His voice is muffled, his face is covered, and the probability of being in the same social circle as Sirius is definitely below zero. But Sirius is different. He’d be looking for him in everyone he meets, wondering if the next person he runs into would be him. That’s something he knows for sure.
“I think if anyone could, it’d be you.” Remus struggles to say it, but he knows it’s the truth.
He has the sudden urge to turn around and look at him. To see his face again. He couldn’t picture his expression, and it was making him feel too distant. It’s hard to know what Sirius is thinking when you can’t see his face. His face was descriptive. So descriptive. Every emotion so accurately drawn onto his face, and Remus wanted to be able to read him right this second, and it was hard to do that with his back to him.
He lowers his mask and turns around. He taps Sirius’ shoulder to let him know that he can turn around too.
Sirius spins around and looks at Remus, with crossed legs and hands tucked inside the space between them. His face looks different. Softer. And Remus has no idea what it could mean, how he can translate it. He was having a hard time focusing on just one feature to be able to read his whole expression.
His cheeks pink from the cold
The goosebumps on his arms
The freckles on his nose
It was all too much for him. He was seeing too much. But he needed more.
The mole on his neck.
The wind in his hair.
The bruise over his eye.
He can feel his senses overwhelming him, which is strange since there doesn’t seem to be any possible threats of danger. His heart rate was increasing, and his heart was pumping heavily in his chest. His senses have always been accurate, ever since he was bitten. But not today, not right now, and it was making him sweat.
He was malfunctioning, and Sirius was noticing.
“Are you ok?” he asks, his face transforming into a familiar expression. Worry. And Remus can finally read him. His face recognizable again, a look he’s seen before, and Remus calms down. The sound of his buzzing mind subsides.
“Yeah I’m okay.” Remus says, trying to control his labored breathing. Everything is fine now.
“I’d be able to recognize you. Maybe not at first, but I’d get there.” Sirius says, and Remus is not sure if that should scare him or reassure him, but he smiles under his mask, which he thinks answers his question, and Sirius notices the way the fabric crinkles around his mouth, so he smiles too.
He looks down at his watch, the one Lily built into his suit. He was supposed to be leaving for his internship soon. They were going to finish the robot today and present it at the end of the lab, and Remus was feeling confident. The interns who Moody (with all his good graces) decides would win get to receive a grant, which made him immediately lock in. He wanted it. badly. Remus loves competition.
“I should go.” Remus says lowly, feeling, for some unknown reason, a little guilty.
“Okay.” Sirius replies, a reassuring smile playing on his lips.
He felt like he needed to say more, but nothing would come out. There were letters and words just swarming around his mind, too panicked to come together. So he leaves the roof, and Sirius peers down at him.
familiar, comfortable. Just the way he always does.
*
Remus and Peter were hunched over their bench, too stressed out to sit. It’s nearing the end of their lab, and they were going over the final details of their project, rereading the program, checking the sensors. Making sure everything was perfect. The lab is more somber than yesterday, everyone absorbed in their work, and it was like soundproof shields formed around each bench. The nerves in the air were static, and it was incredibly noticeable. They all wanted the grant.
The girls to their left were working equally as hard but just a little more secretive. He’d tried to get a glimpse of their design, but Dorcas’ makeshift paper divider ruined his attempt.
There was a tap on the board, and everyone lifted their heads to look to the front of the room.
“In a few minutes we’ll be starting presentations, so prepare your robots and bring them to the front of the lab.” Professor Moody says.
Peter pales, “Oh fuck Remus, we’re dead, we’re so dead” he frets, biting his nails anxiously.
“Would you calm down” Remus whispers. “You were so confident five minutes ago.”
“Yeah but what if it malfunctions in the middle of the presentation,” he says, then lowers his voice so that only Remus can hear, and nods his head towards Dorcas and Marlene. “What if those two have a better design than us?”
“Then they’ll get the grant. Hey just relax alright we did good, everything looks good, we just have to wait and see what Moody decides. come on.” Remus reassures him. He picks up their robot and walks to the front of the lab where a table with a large maze was placed. It was bigger than the maze they practiced on, and he just hopes it would be an obstacle their robot could overcome. They were both standing looking down at it nervously, and Remus was even tempted to give the robot a pep talk, but that was just Peter’s influence creeping through.
“Do you think Robobby will make it?” Peter asks. Robobby was the name Peter decided to call their little project, because of course making him conscious and giving him a personality was Peter’s only way to “connect with the robot”, which is slightly insane since it’s a hunk of metal that’s going to be disassembled right after the presentation, but Remus just went along with it. Anything to pacify Peter and help him do his best, even if it meant making the robot a twenty six year old who is a little too interested in gambling.
“You named your robot Robobby?” Dorcas snickers as she and Marlene walk up to them. The rest of the interns start placing their robots on the side of the table and he tries really hard not to judge some of their design choices.
“Yes he’ll make it,” Remus firmly says to Peter, and turns to Dorcas, “and yes his name is Robobby.” His face cringes as soon as the words tumble out of his mouth. He has no idea why he’s still playing along.
“Well Botilda has been training for this since we put batteries in her, so she’s not losing to your virgin robot.” Marlene crosses her arms as she defends her project, her inanimate piece of metal. Remus looks down at his own robot and fuck if it doesn’t look a little bit like a virgin.
This is ridiculous.
They place their robots on the table and walk back to their benches. Moody starts calling partners one by one to present their robots. Some of them failed to finish the maze and some of them didn’t even get past the starting line, and the ones who did manage to finish didn’t seem to impress Moody, or maybe it was just that his face always looks so bored and uninterested. It was hard reading that man.
When it came time for Marlene and Dorcas to present, their robot flew straight to the finish line, no malfunctions or trip ups. He even saw the beginning of a smile form on Moody’s face, which is a major feat. They walked back to their table looking smug, and Marlene even stuck her tongue out at them. Peter looked just about ready to explode.
“Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, you’re up” Moody calls, looking up from his clipboard jadedly. They were the last to present, and everyone’s eyes were on them now. They walked steadily to the table. If they managed to get Moody to give them even the slightest sign of approval, he’d be satisfied.
He places the robot at the starting line and turns it on, and Robobby starts to glow. Red on the sides and orange near the head. Then he starts moving. Rolling through the maze on his four wheels. Remus and Peter eyeing him sharply, watching him smoothly round each corner, like parents at their child’s football game. Perfectly going through the maze, just like they practiced. It was too early for it yes, but Remus’ pride begins to swell, and by the time Robobby reached the finish line, even Peter looked smug. Nothing went wrong, Robobby was perfect.
He looks up at Moody, gauging his reaction. His eyebrows were raised in a thinking manner, and he hopes its because he’s impressed. They linger around the table waiting for his instruction. He was pacing around the maze, jotting down notes on his clip board, looking at the details of their design. This was the scariest part. The only thing he was assessing now was their creativity.
“Hey, we did good” Remus leans down and whispers to Peter. He needed to say it out loud, for himself mostly.
“Yeah we did” Peter replies back, the rush of the presentation making his cheeks pink.
“Most of you did an okay job,” Moody announces to the class when he finishes his assessment. He looks disappointedly at the two interns who’s robot was missing its sensors and emphasizes the word “Most” again.
He looks back over to them “Remus, Peter get back to your benches, The winners will be announced in a few minutes.”
They start walking back to their seats, a sigh of relief still yet to leave his lips before he freezes in his spot. His legs lock in place and a shiver runs up his spine. He can sense it before he sees it. Before he hears it. There was something coming. His eyes widen in anticipation, but there was nothing he could do, he was virtually powerless here. He could only wait and be on guard.
The patter of feet walk up to the door and the vibrations rush to his legs. Two pairs tiptoeing towards them. The door to the lab opens up a tiny crack, and Remus is the only one who feels the gust of wind blow in. He slowly turns his head to the door but before he can catch a glimpse, the whole room becomes engulfed in smoke.
“Peter!” Remus shouts, trying to feel for him through the fog. His first instinct was to reach for him, the person nearest. He doesn’t know what kind of threat this is, but the least he could do was try to help someone out of it.
“What’s happening!” He hears a girl shout. The lab was getting louder, people were confused and panicking, disoriented by the smoke.
“Everyone calm down,” Moody yells through the haze. “Black, you little shit!”
After breathing in the smoke, he realizes it wasn’t actually doing anything. It didn’t seem to be dangerous. Its only purpose was to obstruct everyone’s view.
Either a distraction or someone’s idea of a joke.
The room was their own maze now, and trying to find Peter was getting extremely difficult. There was no one around him, and seeing through fog is even more difficult than seeing in the dark. There was nothing guiding him but his feet and their senses. But he felt nothing, no skin or seats or walls. So he keeps walking until his fingers brush against something smooth. Finally. Skin. It feels so familiar, so he grabs onto the hand, and it holds him right back.
And then someone opens a window and the smoke slowly starts to disperse, and the room is only slightly more visible. He can see the outlines of the benches and floor. He looks down at the arm. The arm that he realizes isn’t Peter’s. The arm that is so familiar, so comfortable in his grasp.
Something was off. He needed to focus, but he could feel his senses malfunctioning for the second time today.
And yet he still felt the need to hold onto the arm. To keep it close.
The room was getting slightly more visible, and Remus was getting clearer glimpses of the man. Black hair, white skin.
Familiar familiar familiar.
A familiarity that isn’t supposed to exist in this part of his life.
Then Moody turns on the exhaust fan, and the fog clears almost instantly, and he wishes it hadn’t. He wishes he could stay in the fog for just a few more seconds.
His heart sinks into the deepest pits of his stomach. His eyes wide, fingers twitching.
He was staring directly into Sirius’ eyes.
He was holding his hand, looking at his bare face, and just like before, he was frozen in place once again. Nothing could have prepared him for this, he feels naked, looking at him with no mask and no cover, yet he couldn’t stop staring. He was looking at him with new eyes, unobstructed eyes.
And everything became sharper. Everyone was busy trying to reorient themselves after the smoke cleared, but not Remus, Remus was razor focused. The remnants of the fog wafted around Sirius like a halo, and it felt like he was looking at a walking, breathing star.
“You’re not James.” Sirius looks at him in confusion, and pulls him out of his daze. They were standing in the middle of the lab, still holding hands securely.
“I- “the words get stuck in his throat. How can he be looking at him right now, how is this possible, and what is Sirius doing here? This doesn’t make sense. Had he figured out his identity and found out where he interns? There’s no possible way.
“James let’s go!” Sirius turns around and shouts at the boy behind him. Remus doesn’t look, too scared to let him out of his sight. Sirius runs for the door, and it seems as if he’d forgotten he was holding Remus’ hands, because he drags him along too.
“Black, Potter, get your asses back here!” Moody yells. He doesn’t sound shocked; he sounds annoyed, like he’s done this before. He could hear Moody’s footsteps growing closer. He was running after them, stomping towards them with heat in his steps, and Remus feels utterly horrified.
“Fuck we gotta go come on.” Sirius quickens his pace and heads out the door of the lab and down the hall. They come to a halt when they turn a corner and find people in lab coats crowding the floor with clip boards and trolleys in their hands.
“Ready?” Sirius looks up at him and asks. He gives his hand a firm squeeze and pulls him through the hall.
“Hey, watch it.” one person says, skirting around the two of them. The technicians sneer as they push their way through, and Remus has the urge to sneer right back.
He was squeezing through the spaces trying to catch up with Sirius, and at this point, he wasn’t sure why he was still holding on. They turned a few corners and Remus realizes he has no idea how to get back to the lab. He was lost and confused with only Sirius to lead, but they seem to have lost Moody, which was both relieving and terrifying.
“There it is.” Sirius pants. He stops running and stands in front of the door at the end of the hall, the only part of the floor that was empty. He finally lets go of his arm to take out take out the decryption device in his pocket, and Remus feels like he’s in an alternate realty. And maybe he is. The decryption device isn’t supposed to exist here. This isn’t their wormhole.
Sirius places it on the keypad and opens the door. He pushes them both inside frantically, making sure the door is locked. It was a tight supply closet, one that barely even fits them. Sirius sits himself down on the floor and Remus stays standing, too afraid to make any sudden movements that would expose him to Sirius.
Fuck it’s really him. That’s his face, his hair, his eyes. Not a doppelganger or a clone, but him, Sirius. He looks brighter without the mask’s cover, but this was the Sirius he saw this morning.
They were both panting, trying to stabilize their breathing after the marathon they’d both just run.
“Sorry about all that, I’m Sirius” he extends his hand for Remus to shake. The hand that wrapped his wound a week ago, a hand he’s felt before. I know you; he wishes he could say, I know who you are. and you know me. He wants to reach for his hand, to shake it, to act like everything was normal, but this is the one thing he wasn’t sure how to fake.
A loud rattling sounds outside the door, and they both jump before Remus has the chance to decide what to do.
“Sirius open the door!” a voice hisses. Possibly James. Sirius has mentioned him before, multiple times, and he doesn’t need to see him to make sure, because Sirius had described in detail just who James Potter is.
Sirius talked about him more than he talked about anyone else. Inseparable since middle school, but unlike Remus and Lily, James and Sirius met in the most elite private school in the city, and while their experiences differed greatly from his and Lily's, the love he described was just as profound. They were only twelve when they started to play hockey together and eighteen when Sirius stopped (for reasons he wouldn't tell Remus), but still he could tell from the way his eyes lit up while talking about James just how cosmically unbreakable their bond was.
Sirius twists the knob from where he’s seated, and in walks James, brown skin tickled with sweat and glasses that sat crookedly on his nose, and behind him trailed an utterly terrified looking Peter.
“Who’s that?” Sirius asks after they shut the door.
“This is Peter.” James squeezes himself on the floor next to Sirius, and Remus and Peter stand against the door, glued together like hostages.
“That’s Peter? Then who the hell is this?” Sirius asks bewildered and points at Remus, and they both stare warily at him.
He feels for sensation in his hands. They were hanging beside his thighs, which is a normal position for hands to be in. He flexes them and then balls them into a fist and hides them behind his back. They were too exposed. His skin color, the scars on his palms. He feels naked again, even under the dim light of the closet. He’s itching to be in his suit right now, to cover his face and hands, but Sirius has seen him, and it’s too late for it all.
“James what the hell are you doing?” Peter shifts the conversation away from him and Remus silently thanks him.
James glances at Sirius and his eyes widen in a way only Sirius could understand, then he looks back at Peter. “Well, we just wanted to say hi.” He shrugs. It sounded like a complete lie.
“So you drag me away from my internship? I could get kicked out for this!” Peter hisses, face turning red from annoyance.
Sirius was the only one still looking at him, and Remus’ eyes darted everywhere except at him.
“Guys who is this?” Sirius interrupts James and Peter to ask again but they both ignore him.
“Look calm down Pete, Sirius won’t let that happen” James reassures him.
Peter raises his hands in fake surrender and scoffs. “Oh right I forgot we were in the presence of Sirius Black; it’s been a wonderful first impression by the way.”
And the pieces of the puzzle crumble into place right in front of him.
Sirius Black.
Sirius Black.
Black Black Black.
The Starcorp Industries Blacks
How could he be so stupid? His device, his first name, he should’ve made the connection. Fuck. He’d been talking and eating and laughing with Sirius Black for more than a week, how could he not have noticed? How could Sirius not tell him?
It hits him like a truck when he realizes he wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.
He’s going to be sick.
“James is right, Moody wouldn’t do anything to you, I’m the one who should be worried, you’ll be fine.” Sirius says dismissing him. He shifts his body to look at James. “So, did you get it?”
James pulls out a bag from each of his pockets and lifts them to show Sirius. They both smile menacingly, and Remus and Peter fight the urge to call out to each other for help.
“Wait, is that- “Peter asks wide eyed.
“Yup aluminum powder and potassium perchlorate.” James cuts him off, smiling like a kid who just won a prize at the fair. So the fog was a distraction.
“What exactly are you going to use that for?” Peter continues.
“Why you wanna help us?” Sirius beams.
“No! We’re going back to the lab right now.” Peter insists.
The words tumble out of his mouth before he has the chance to stop them. “You’re going to make fireworks.” He says, and it almost sounds like a whisper. They all turn to look at him, Peter stunned and confused, and he can’t blame him, he has no idea why he’s indulging this conversation, but Sirius is here, in real life, and Remus wants to know more. A can of worms has opened, and Remus is diving in.
Sirius tilts his head, a look of pure intrigue on his face, “What’s your name?” he asks him.
He bites the inside of his cheek, his name trapped behind his lips and forcing its way out of his mouth, until he can’t hold it back anymore and he just blurts it out.
“I’m Remus” he breathes, fidgeting with his fingers behind his back, and the weight he’d been carrying on his shoulders for a week finally shatters to the floor.