Run Boy Run
Sirius
If any of the others had been in his position, they surely would’ve been blown to ashes. But not Sirius. Sirius was smarter than that. Before the explosion could knock him off his feet, he had launched himself through a window out to the balcony.
As the smoke clears and everything grows back into focus, Sirius finds the other three boys. They’re knocked down to the ground and are all grunting and groaning, but they’re alive. Sirius looks over to Reg and he’s never been so grateful to see him in one piece.
Before he can ask any of them what they saw, he hears crumbling behind him. He turns around and watches as half of the balcony they’re standing on falls onto the streets below in a cloud of dust and blue light. Instinctively, Sirius steps in front of Reg. The bit they’re on stays intact, but as Sirius leans over the edge he sees the falling rubble only narrowly miss the aurors guarding the streets.
Once the aurors get their bearings, they look back up to see what caused the damage, and when they look up all their eyes land on Sirius. He realises his mistake immediately, they were meant to get in and out without being seen, and now he’s gone and made eye contact with the fucking guards.
“Shit.” Sirius curses under his breath. A train horn blares in the distance, causing Sirius to snap his head up. No, not a train horn, an alarm. They set off the fucking alarms.
Sirius turns around to look at the other three, hoping his expression displays how serious he is. “We need to go, now.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Barty quips, before hopping over what remains of the balcony rail and sliding down a pipe to the ground.
The rest of them follow suit and before they know it, they’re running and the aurors are chasing them. As they race down the street, they pass families and shoppers going about their business, all of whom are frazzled by the sudden appearance of four boys bolting past them. But Sirius doesn’t have time to think about them. He’s mapping out the little knowledge he has of topside in his head. He’s hardly ever come up here, but he knows the general direction towards the bridge, so he takes charge ahead of Barty and leads them to the right.
Behind them the aurors are throwing all sorts of traps and gadgets at them. In his peripheral vision he sees Evan yelp as his legs are nearly wound up in black rope that was shot out by a spherical device.
The aurors are calling out but Sirius doesn’t know whether they’re talking to each other or the passersby. Things like “get them!” and “don’t let them get away!” Which in all honestly Sirius thinks is kind of a waste of energy as that’s probably self-explanatory to anyone that could help.
They run and run and run and soon enough, the bridge to leave topside is in sight. Sirius pushes past a stranger in his way and somehow manages to speed up even more when he realises that the bridge is opening up for a ship to pass through.
The other three notice his acceleration and copy it so that by the time they’re hopping over the gap in the bridge, it’s no wider than a meter. The aurors behind them aren’t so lucky, while some of them are right on their tails and can jump over the gap without a hitch, some of them don’t quite make it, and Sirius winces as he hears the sound of splashing below the bridge.
“This way!” Sirius shouts back at the others, taking a sharp left into an alley and crashing into a wall to propel his body’s change in direction. He hears three more thumps as the other three echo his actions.
They swerve through the side streets and when Sirius passes a pipe on the wall, he punches it out of place, causing the alleyway they’re standing in to fill up with a hot grey gas. While the boys are used to gases like this and are able to run through it, the gas chokes the aurors and blurs their vision. By the time they’ve recovered from their coughing fit, the boys are already out of sight.
But they haven’t lost them yet. They turn three more corners until Sirius is leaning over a sewer hole and twisting the opening.
“Not again” Barty complains as he comes to crouch beside it. “My clothes only just got the stench out from last tim-”
Sirius kicks him down the pipe before he can finish.
They follow one by one, sliding down the sewage pipes and completely drenching themselves in muck. They come out the other end on a pile of junk and Evan immediately topples on Barty, sending them both rolling down the pile and landing on the ground with a thunk.
When Sirius, the last of them, comes out Barty starts complaining again. Honestly does he ever stop. “I thought last time was the last time we were gonna do this” He whines while peeling a piece of plastic off his hair.
“Well then this time’s the last time.” Sirius grunts, standing up and dusting himself off.
Now that they’re out of danger from aurors, Sirius gives them time to breathe. Time that is soon interrupted by Evan’s voice. Always the worrier.
“Guys what was that?” He’s addressing the group but he’s staring right at Reg. “What the hell happened back there?”
They all turn to look at Reg who immediately starts to defend himself. “I don’t know. I didn’t do anything!”
“You could fill a damn library with all the things you ‘didn’t do’” Barty throws back.
Sirius can already see where this is going. Barty and Evan didn’t even want Reg to come along on this job in the first place. They’re always looking for something to drag on him for. He knows that they will take the first chance they get to blame this on Reg. And Sirius won’t let them.
“Hey, we just emptied a Piltover penthouse right under the auror’s noses.” He reminds them. “So, if you’re done beating yourselves up about it, let’s get home.”
✵✵✵
They appear above the ground in an alley far enough away from where they went down that they know they won’t get caught, but far enough away from home so that no one else will see them sneaking back.
At least that’s what they think.
There are a few people around, most of whom seem to be minding their business. But not everyone.
“Nice haul” A bulky boy with buzzed hair leaning against the alley wall calls when they pass by. He looks a bit older than Sirius, way older than Reg. He gives a lazy gesture towards the sack on Sirius’ back.
“You could say that” Barty responds with a smirk.
Sirius shoots him a glare. Barty should know better than to engage in these kinds of conversations. He’s been around just as long as Sirius, but you could never tell from how often he pulls stupid stunts like this.
“I heard there was some action across the river” The rough boy continues, flicking a coin between his fingers. “Someone must’ve really stirred the aurors up.”
“Is that so?” Sirius replies passively, trying to continue ahead but finding his path blocked by two more boys.
“Hey, I’m all for a bit of fun,” He taunts, “But now, you’re dragging this mess of yours through my streets”
The fucking nerve.
“Your streets?” Sirius scoffs, because as much as he drags on Barty for it, he doesn’t know when to step down either. “What makes you think you can-”
“Listen we don’t want any trouble” Evan cuts him off, saving Sirius from the argument he so desperately wants to start. He steps forward with his hands out in front of him, a gesture of peace.
“Hear that Mulciber?” Another one of the thugs says with a smirk. “They don’t want any trouble.”
“Is that so Avery?” Mulciber shares a look with his friend before turning back to the four boys. “Well in my experience, it’s not you who wants trouble, it’s trouble that wants you.”
He steps closer, the nasty grin on his face inching higher. “There’s no reason this has to get ugly, just give us a taste of that stash, and we’ll let you go, untouched.”
“No way” Barty argues. “We worked too damn hard-” But Sirius’ hand on his shoulder silences him. Sirius steps forward with the bag, until he’s within spitting distance of Mulciber.
“Just a taste?” Sirius asks, widening his grey eyes into his most innocent expression.
Mulciber grins, victorious. “Just a-”
Sirius’ swings the bag right across his face and he’s on the ground before he can finish his sentence.
Reg
It’s horrible.
One hit from Sirius and all hell breaks loose. Sirius chucks their bag at Reg and he has to flail his arms to stop it from landing on the ground. From there, one punch turns into a full on brawl. He watches as Barty and Evan each take on their own set of thugs as they dodge and throw punches.
Growing up in the undercity, Reg has seen his fair share of violence. More than a kid his age probably should have seen. He’s seen blood and broken bones before. And still the feeling in his gut as he watches Sirius beating and being beat makes him sick. He backs himself into a wall, shying away from the fight, helpless to do anything as the three people most important to him are fighting and fighting.
Sirius is a good fighter. A great fighter. Reg feels bad for any opponent who faces him. But he has one weakness. He blocks with his face. Just now Reg sees as his head is knocked to the side as Avery lands a hit on his nose.
It makes his stomach churn. His legs go weak, and he feels himself sliding down the wall, clutching Sirius’ bag to his chest, as though it can protect him like Sirius does. He just watches, as his friends take hit after hit. His eyes dart between the two parties, locking on his friends. But while they’re still fighting, the majority of Mulciber’s crew are on the ground now.
One of them is left without an opponent. The thug - Reg remembers the other boy called him Avery -looks over Barty, Evan and Sirius before his eyes spot Reg. A smirk crawls across his face as he steps towards Reg. From there it’s fight or flight, and throwing punches has never been Reggie’s strong suit.
And so he runs.
He runs down the alleyway that had been blocked before, taking twists and turns, trying desperately to lose his pursuer, but the sound of heavy steps following him doesn’t die out.
Alley after alley, turn after turn, he finds himself on the edge of a wooden path overlooking a lake. By now Avery is getting further away. Reg thinks it’ll only take three more turns for him to lose him completely. This idea is made redundant when the next turn he takes find his path blocked by wooden crates.
Shoot. All he can do now is hope that his last turn was quick enough that Avery didn’t see him. He presses himself up against the wall, hoping and hoping that he’s in the clear. And he almost is, until he bumps into a wooden plank and it falls down into the thug’s eyeline with a loud clank. There’s no way he missed that.
Reg frantically grabs at his pockets, hands shaking as he struggles to find what he’s looking for. What he pulls out is a painted tin can and some bolts. He starts pushing them together, fingers pushing nails into place and loading the can with powder. What he’s holding is a bomb, of sorts. Reg is no good at throwing a punch, and he’s not really interested in fighting that way. No, if Reg is going to win a fight, he wants it to be with something of his own invention. He likes inventing, finding out what pieces work together and what pieces don’t. The science behind it intrigues him and so, one day, he and Sirius had gone to a junkyard, and Reg had set out to make his very first bomb. That’s what he’s setting up now, he gives himself one last look at the can, at the whiskers painted on its side. “C’mon mouser” he mutters, before throwing the can out into the thug’s path.
There’s a tick where all Reg can do is peak around the corner.
Another tick, Reg watches in anticipation his pursuer nears the bomb.
The final tick. The can explodes in a little cloud of pink dust, no higher than the thug’s hip.
Shoot. Shoot. Shoot.
Avery chuckles at his pathetic attempt at defence, before striding towards Reg, eyes locked on the bag Sirius had thrown him. He’s getting closer and closer and Reg knows that as much as Sirius doesn’t want to lose their findings, he wants Mulciber and his goons to have them even less.
And so he does the first thing he can think over. The first thing, probably a very stupid thing, to stop Avery from getting his hands on the bag.
He chucks the bag into the lake.
Avery’s hands reach out in an attempt to catch it, but by then all that’s left is the splash in the water and the ripples it leaves behind. Reg takes his distraction as an opportunity to run, and he manages to escape before Avery notices.
Well, Reg thinks to himself, the others are going to kill him.