chapter six
How Remus ends up back in the lab, he doesn’t know. He’s sure Peter led him, maybe even dragged him back, but he was too dazed to remember how.
“And to think I was just about to call for a search party.” Moody mocks as they walk back in.
They had their hands folded innocently in front of them in hopes of inspiring an ounce pity out of him.
“Oh no need sir we wer- “ Peter begins to say, but is cut off by Moody loudly yelling at them.
“Get back to your bench NOW!” his face flushes red with annoyance and his mouth twitches as he speaks. They’d be lucky if they stayed another minute in this building. Running off for almost an hour without returning, how could he be so reckless? And after he’d finally gotten the one thing he’d been dreaming about for years.
They don’t look as innocent as they thought they did, and Remus was afraid Moody would see right through his front. Even worse, he’d see just how badly he wanted to go back and find Sirius again.
He wanted to see what he acted like when he wasn’t around Spider-Man, why he talks about Starcorp like he wants to tear the whole place down, he wants to know what other secrets he’d been keeping from him, even though he knows how hypocritical that is.
They walk back to their seats shamefully, everyone staring them down as they do, and from the corner of his eyes he sees Marlene and Dorcas tsk and give them a thumbs down before giggling between each other. Embarrassing is what it is. He’s managed to ruin everyone’s impression of him on the second day. What a record.
Then the sound of interference makes everyone turn their attention away from him and Peter. They straighten their backs and wait for what seems like an announcement to come, but the only thing they hear is the ringing sound of Sirius’ voice.
“Hey Moody! Come to the window you bitter geezer!” His voice comes out loud and muffled.
Moody marches over to the window, grumbling under his breath, and all of the interns furtively walk over to the windows closest to them to get a good look at the commotion Sirius is causing.
He’s on the floor directly below them, looking up at them from the window with James by his side. He has a megaphone in his hand that looked at least thirty years old, which explains the deafening sound of the interference. They both have the cheesiest smiles on their faces which makes Moody’s annoyance at least a little bit understandable.
“Black, if you interrupt this class one more time, I-”
“Calm down, calm down, and here I thought you’d be glad to see me” he provokes him, and the redness in Moody’s face rushes to his temples, and before he has the chance to continue his threats, the sound of interference buzzes through the air again and everyone’s fingers shoot up to their ear.
“Listen, those two students of yours? Yeah we sort of kidnaped them, threatened to kick them out of the program if they didn’t listen to us, and you know since I kind of run this place, they were just terrified, almost pissed their pants, I’m telling you. So don’t go bothering them about it alright?” Sirius explains and James nods besides him.
Moody is quiet for a second, eyebrows furrowed and clenching his teeth. The interns all looked expectingly at him, waiting for him to blow up, but to their disappointment he relents, most probably just to stop Sirius’s obvious lies and interruptions from going on any further.
“Don’t let me see you back here” he grumbles.
“Thanks Moody! Bisous” Sirius winks up at him and throws an air kiss before disappearing back into the building with James.
“What an absolute pain that one is” Moody mumbles as he walks back to the front of the lab. He pauses then turns to look at the students still huddled around the windows. They all stand frozen unsure what to do next, he glares at them, and they all hurriedly run back to their seats.
When Remus sits back down, he feels like he finally has the chance to breathe again. Coincidences rarely ever end well for him, and out of all of them, this was the most laughable one. There are about eight million people living in the city, and the one he’d wanted to avoid the most in the world was holding his hand only an hour ago.
“So, who were those guys.” Remus clears his throat, trying to act as clueless as possible.
“James and Sirius”
Not the response he was looking for.
“And how do you know them?” he inches closer hoping for some new information.
“Me and James are friends, have been for a few months, and Sirius, Sirius I’ve only met today, he’s James’ childhood friend, but if you knew anything about Starcorp you’d know who Sirius Black is.”
“Yeah you’d think so.” Remus mumbles.
*
The lab goes on for another hour. Marlene and Dorcas win the grant, and Remus wonders bitterly if it’s really because they had a better robot or if it was Moody subconsciously punishing them. He kept them a little later than everyone else after the lab ended to tell them how unacceptable it was for them to disappear for an hour, and how they should’ve fought back against Sirius and James if they really did kidnap them, and when he finally finished his rant about how much of a pest Sirius is, he allowed them to leave.
He decides he wants to forget today even happened, and he’s sure Sirius had done the same. He’s probably forgotten Remus’ name already, probably on the ninetieth floor eating caviar and getting foot rubs or whatever rich people do for fun. It explains why Sirius sometimes comes to the rooftop clad in expensive suits, and how baffling it is for Remus how much he doesn’t care for them.
“So when do you want to start working on it?” Peter says as they walk out of the lab.
“What?”
“The project, when should we start?”
Right. Their next assignment is to make two robots that can play rock paper scissors against each other, and they get to take some of the materials home to work on it outside of the lab, which is great since they have four weeks to finish it.
“Whenever’ s fine.”
“You want to come over to mines? We can start this week”
“Yea sure, sounds good.”
They reach the end of the corridor. It looks emptier than it did a few hours ago when he was skirting through the mounds of employees with Sirius. A shiver run up his spine just thinking of his name. What a day.
They both step into the elevator, and Remus should’ve felt it, but even his senses weren’t being very sensical today. James and Sirius run out from one of the rooms and tumble into the elevator inches before it closes, and Sirius immediately presses the button that leads to the roof.
“We timed that perfectly didn’t we” James says panting, and Sirius nods in agreement.
“Have you guys been waiting for us this whole time?” Peter asks stunned.
“Yup” Sirius replies. He was leaning on the wall of the elevator with his hands crossed looking as smug as ever. He’s a totally different person in this reality.
“Why are we going to the roof?”
“Because I don’t think Moody would forgive me if I let fireworks burn down the floor.”
“Okay I’m getting out of here.” Peter says and starts to repeatedly press the button for the ground floor.
“Peter come on, it’s just a couple of firecrackers.” James urges.
Remus tries to back as far away into the walls as he possibly could, hoping he could suddenly develop the power of camouflage. He thinks he’s participated enough for today, so he’ll just observe them, like a wildlife photographer.
Peter doesn’t respond, which means he’s caved, and it doesn’t even take that much convincing from James.
They reach the roof and still no one acknowledges Remus. He begins to think maybe they were only waiting for Peter in the classroom, and Remus just happened to be taking the elevator as well.
There were five small firecrackers placed neatly in a line, and James and Sirius walk over to them with lighters in their hands.
“Okay since I came up with the idea, it’s only fair I go first.” Sirius bargains, then crouches down and lights the first firecracker. It starts to fizz, then a loud BANG rattles the roof, the flames that shoot out of the firecracker were uncontrollable, which made lining up all five of them next to each other a bad idea.
“SIRIUS GET BACK.” Remus screams seconds before the rest of the firecrackers simultaneously light up.
Sirius stumbles back from the lineup and looks to Remus wide eyed, his eyebrows drawn together. Remus quickly turns away, uneasy with the eye contact.
“Nice going James, I told you we should’ve separated them!” Sirius yells at him from the other side of the roof.
It sounded like guns were being shot repeatedly at the walls. They all bring their fingers to their ears and watch the red sparks shower down over the roof.
“I thought five inches was enough!”
Sirius scoffs and yelps. “Now that’s an embarrassing thing to admit.”
As soon as the roof stops sounding like a shooting range, the boys walk over to the remains of the firecrackers that were now all black and charred.
“Okay that were a little out of hand, but at least we know the next ones will work.” James says, shrugging.
“You have more?” Peter asks appalled.
“Yeah, and they’re even bigger.” Sirius says then runs to the other side of the roof and pulls out four fireworks that were almost as tall as him from behind a corner. He was struggling to hold them all together but was determined not to ask for help.
“One” He says as he hands each of the boys their own firework and lighter, “for the each of us.”
Remus inspects the firework. He holds it the way a knight holds a sword, and he wonders why Sirius would even make him one. He doesn’t know him.
He thought it was weird how quickly Sirius became comfortable with him when he was Spider-Man, how easy he made making friends look. It felt like they’d compressed years’ worth of history into a single week, but now it seems like Sirius is like that with everyone, and that makes him feel disappointed somehow.
“Okay now place your fireworks more than five inches in front of you, and light them up, then back away.” Sirius explains, and they all do as they’re told, even Peter who’d wanted to back out before was putting his firework down.
“Now on the count of three, we all light them up at the same time.” Sirius continues.
“One”
They all crouch down in front of their firework.
“Two”
They flick their lighter on.
“Three”
They set fire to the rope and watch as it fizzes up the length of it. They back away together, watching as the fireworks soar into the sky.
Fireworks in the middle of the day aren’t as bright as they are at night. Remus’ firework was blue, it was made with copper. He watches it zoom up like a rocket then explode into hundreds of tiny little stars. Each of their colors start to blend into each other when they start to burn out, Sirius’ red, James’ orange, and Peter’s green. A flurry of colors at three in the afternoon.
“We should do it at night next time.” James suggests when the show is over, which makes Peter loudly sigh.
*
Getting a hold of Peter is a difficult task. It was days later when Remus finally gives in and texts him for his address (since Peter hadn’t texted it himself), and it was hours later when he finally answers, and even though it was late, Peter still urged him to come over, which is why he was now sitting on the living room floor of James’ apartment fiddling with a bunch of wires.
Remus had walked in to find James sprawled across the couch, legs dangling over the arm rest with a laptop on his chest that was too unnecessarily close to his face. After seeing Remus’ confused expression, Peter explained that the flat was actually for James, and he’d been kind enough to invite Peter to stay with him for the duration of his internship since he lives closer to Starcorp.
The flat was snug and clearly couldn’t house more than two people. It was decorated exclusively with things that screamed James, with hockey influences scattered all around the flat. There was a large duffle bag filled with jerseys and protective pads left open near the entrance, posters of the Rangers hanging rather crookedly over the couch, and hockey sticks leaning on the wall near the television. Remus felt like he’d walked into a boy’s locker room, and it didn’t help that it actually smelled like one too. There were also several old bags of chips and soda cans sitting open on the coffee table, which James innocently told Remus to help himself to.
It was a little after twelve and they all sat together in the living room, Peter and Remus on the floor and James on the couch, each of them doing their own assignments. They started working on the first robot, Peter across from Remus training the sensor to recognize rock paper scissor gestures, which was starting to make Peter’s hands ache. There wasn’t much to talk about with Peter other than their shared interest in the internship, so the only time they both communicated was to roll their eyes at James anytime he mentions his perfect and amazing new tutor.
“Do any of you know how to crochet?” James says, not bothering to look up from his laptop, “don’t you guys think it’d be a cool hobby to start?”
“Yeah for sure, you should take that up.” Peter says indifferently, biting on the eraser of his pencil.
“Yeah I think I will, You know my tutor, she lov-“ James starts to say but is cut short by a curt knock on the door, and Remus and Peter breathe a sigh of relief.
“I got it” James says and leaps from the couch.
“What’s this, you open a nerd convention without telling me?” Sirius says as he walks into the living room, and Remus’ ears spike up.
How many times can someone run into the same person in one single week?
“You’re one to talk.” James scoffs and flops back down onto the couch.
“Hey guys” Sirius says and plops down on the floor next to Remus. “What are you working on?”
“Gamer robot thing” Peter says.
“Right.”
Remus concentrates on connecting the right wires to the right wheels. He notices Sirius watching him work, which makes it really hard to ignore him.
“You should connect the blue wire to the smaller wheel” Sirius says.
“The smaller wheel isn’t for the arm.” Remus says confused.
“It should be. Allows the robot to move quicker,” He grabs the wheel from Remus’ hands “here let me show you.”
He connects the blue wire to the wheel and it quickly starts to spin in between his hands.
“See the wheel is going to be connected to the sensor, and when the sensor sends the signal to the wheel telling it to move, the wheel’s distance will be shorter, letting it process quicker.”
Which makes sense to Remus actually.
“So why doesn’t it say that in the instructions?”
“Because Moody’s been using the same manual for ten years. He wrote that thing once and never looked back at it”
“And you did?”
“Yeah I like to keep up to date with what’s happening inside the labs, even if I have no say in changing anything.”
“Yeah that’s- smart.”.
The more he finds out about him the guiltier he feels.
“Peter’s gonna get a serious case of carpal tunnel” Sirius whispers to Remus, and they both chuckle at the boy who is now sweating, flexing his hand to help the aching.
Sirius scoots closer to Peter. “Just record yourself doing the gestures and play it back on a loop for the sensor. It’s easier on the hands.”
He sits between Peter and Remus, one leg bent upward with his hand resting on his knee. He looks so effortlessly normal, like nothing out of the ordinary is happening, and Remus takes the time to really look at him. The shitty orange lights on the rooftop don’t really brighten him the way the lights in James’ apartment do. He’s seeing shadows and highlights he hadn’t seen before.
For the next half hour he listens to Sirius give them small suggestions and tweaks they can do to improve their robot,
“You guys gotta trust Sirius, he’s programmed this robot a bunch of times. Remember when you made that one interns robot flip Moody off during his presentation.” James giggles and they both burst out laughing, and even Remus couldn’t help but laugh as well.
“Look at Peter he’s starting to sweat again.” Sirius falls back onto the rug clutching his stomach when he sees Peter’s skeptical look.
“Don’t worry I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen his time.” James clears his throat and says to Peter, failing to hide his smile.
“Yeah I don’t think Moody would let it slide for the both of you next time.” Remus chuckles.
It’s almost two. Nobody is tired and Remus doesn’t feel like he’s intruding at all. If it wasn’t for the suit under his clothes making him sweat, Remus probably would’ve stayed longer. It was probably not the best idea to wear it here today, especially since he had to wear long pants and long sleeves to cover everything up.
“I should get going.” Remus says and stands up. “Thanks for having me James.”
“No problem,” He lifts himself up and looks at the table. “you didn’t even eat from the snacks I put out.”
“You feed your guests week old chips?” Sirius asks, raising an eyebrow.
“They aren’t that stale I checked today.”
Peter cringes, “They taste wet James.”
“Fine fine, I’ll throw them away.
“And we’re all safer for it. Anyway I have to go too, wanna walk together Remus?” Sirius says and jumps up.
Fuck fuck fuck.
“Yeah sure, of course” he croaks. This must be some form of punishment. It has to be. Sirius had figured out his identity and was waiting for the right time to get him alone just come out and say it. To say hey, I told you I’d figure you out! And Remus would just stand there and let Sirius roll in the glory of being right.
They head out into the empty street, and they hear nothing but the sound of stray cats and plastic bags rolling across the floor. Which means no distractions, which means Remus is going to have to come up with something to say or this walk would be insanely awkward.
“So which way’s your place?” he attempts to make conversation.
“I’m not going home.” He replies.
“You’re not?”
“I’m going to meet a friend.”
Okay another friend. At two in the morning. Which doesn’t sound weird at all.
“Oh okay well, which way are you going?” Remus asks, eyebrows furrowed.
“I’m going left.” Sirius says, giving him a tight smile.
“Me too.” He says.
They walk together in silence.
He hates this. He hates how hard it is to talk to Sirius, to pretend like he doesn’t know him. He wants to ask him where he’s going, who he’s meeting, why so late at night, but he doesn’t have the right to, not like this.
“I’m sorry about today, I shouldn’t have kept you and Peter like that. I was just being-” a pause “anyway I’m sorry.” Sirius says, almost whispering the words.
“it’s okay.” Remus replies quickly, the words ready on his tongue. “Really, it was kind of fun.”
Sirius laughs “Look at you, rebelling from the first week, even I held out for a couple of years.”
“Bad influences speed up the process I guess.” Remus jokes.
“Stick with me for a few more weeks and we’ll make Moody go gray”
They both laugh and it fills the silence between them. They walk past bars and delis and the street starts to become fuller and more familiar.
From a distance Asad tower comes into view, and he tries not to flinch as they start walking towards it. Sirius starts to slow down the closer they get to the front doors and Remus’ nerves were going haywire.
“This is me.” Sirius says standing in front of the revolving doors. He’s fiddling with something in his pocket he could only assume is his decoder.
A friend. He’s here to see a friend. Which Remus now knows is him. Just like clockwork, Remus and Sirius have met up with each other every day at two o’clock at night, so why would today be any different? As far as Sirius knows, today is just another ordinary day
Sirius left James house to see him. and fuck if that doesn’t sting a little.
“Ok, well, see you” Remus hurriedly says and starts to speed walk away from him.
“Bye!” Sirius yells from behind him but Remus just ignores him.
He searches for an empty place near him, anything close that would give him the privacy of ripping off his stupid hoodie and pants. He skips by alleys filled with junkies and drunks and finds a small slot in between an abandoned building.
He immediately pulls off is hoodie and his pants, his insides burning from the amount of fabric he has on, and he quickly slips on the mask.
Tight and secure. Nobody can see him.
He starts climbing up the wall, leaping like a maniac, gripping the bricks so hard the clay starts to rain down on the ground. He needs to get as high as he can, and when he reaches the top of the building, he shoots for one that’s even taller, until his arms are aching and he’s finally holding onto the glass windows of the highest building far across from Asad, but not too far to where he can’t see Sirius.
Sirius was already sitting on the parapet, fiddling with his fingers and looking up at the sky. The same thing he does anytime Remus is there with him.
He was waiting for him.
Remus curses himself and curses his suit and curses the longing need to be on the Asad rooftop with Sirius. But he can’t. Not today and not anytime soon. He was getting too close to things he knows he couldn’t have.