Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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“well ah okay another miscalculation that one's on me. where.. where am i now… ?”

“Have You Come To Set Me Free?”

“what no i i'm just passing through dude” 

“Then Die.”

“whoa whoa coming from somebody who took a  hippocratic oath listen it's a routine checkup doctor said it's not normal that i have  knees  the size of most babies heads-”

The knight’s giant sword thumped mere inches from him, which should be seriously concerning, because if he didn’t make an escape and soon he’ll either die or get seriously hurt which is not on his plate today-

“okay listen,” he wheezed. “if you're gonna hit me like that i'm gonna need some of this for the deductible”

Not the response he was looking for. The Knight turned on him, raising his sword back up

“listen i'm leaving look uh-” 

“come on come on come on–” god why wasn’t his teleporter working?! It had been fine up til now.. Unless it lost its charge already- shite thats not GOOD he was going to get killed and

 And he was too tangled up in his thoughts to notice the Knight approaching 

and

 slamming 

  the sword 

    deadset through his chest. 

Not really. I mean he watched the Knight rear up and he saw it and he can feel the blood seeping through his sweater and feel the teleporter crackling with broken wires and he stares up into the soulless ‘face’ of the Knight, can almost feel its smirk beneath its helmet, but he wasn’t really in-the-moment. He’s been here before [have you ever been in a disc-] he thinks. can see his body from an outside perspective . wants to close his eyes and stop feeling numb and not worry about everything and nothing . god everything feels muffled. its probably only been a few seconds but

he feels a ripple in reality . near him . to the east.

why in Hell he can name the direction is a mystery, but it’s significant enough for the Knight to change its focus to whatever disrupted the dimension. speaking of—

“NOAH jesus CHriST are you alright-!?” ah. sunny. how’d they find him? should’ve just left him . not worth their time anyway! left him to die.bleed out onto the coins.never actually get to that appointment. 

Actually now that he’s dying he thinks hey, this would be an instance where i’d actually really need a doctor! 

He doesn’t have a half clue how Sunny found him nor why they came for him, but won’t question their motivations. Maybe later when there aren’t black spots creeping up in the corners of his vision.

There’s a metallic clang and he can just barely make out the Knight getting bitchslapped but OH he can DEFINITELY feel that sword getting yanked out of his chest and wielded against the godlike magical HOLY SHIT THATS WHY THEIR NAME IS CUMULUS THEY HAVE FUCKING THUNDERSTOM POWERS W

and then he blacked out

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Chapter Text

Okay. been a hot few since Noah’s been back. Updated him. Other than the probably-a-mistake jumble of letters and numbers they received a few minutes back, but they’re not going to count that for the sake of Noah’s reputation. Whats left of it. 

They think back to the facts. What they know. They enjoy staying sane and doing math and not worrying over a hyperchaotic blue alien that enjoys dragging everyone to hell with him. 

1: he’s using a probably-dangerous homemade invention thing to presumably get him to a doctor’s appointment. when cars are less time-consuming, safer, and definitely something he’s rode in before.

2: he would be late anyway. why? because Cumulus actually got up and rooted through Noah’s papers and planner to find that no matter what measures were taken, he’d be late either way. lesson: big man noah needs better time management.

3: they’ve seen previous inventions. They Know that this will go either horribly wrong or miraculously right. Probably badly. 

Wait- they forgot something. Didn’t Noah show them around their apartment? There was a power charger and a spare teleporter somewhere. He’d told him that if he took the main one and left the other and the main was damaged somehow- if it were damaged then he must be in trouble, probably, and where is that beeping coming from- that the spare would flicker and the charger would beep incessantly.

Theres their answer. Curse their brain for not connecting the dots faster.

• i got lazy and also tired of writing so i’m juuuuuuuuuuuuust going to skip a part and stick you right heeeeeere. heres good.

Found it. Shoved under the bed and covered in dust and ew cloud is not going to investigate that substance and it is beeping indignantly at them. They kick it, and it shuts up. surprisingly. They also dig out the spare, and it has [presumably] Noah’s location. They like the word presumable, presume, presumably. Has a nice ring and sounds better than being an ass about assuming stuff about people as their father so kindly pointed out one night. Right they’re on a MISSION to save NOAH they don’t need to be thinking about a homophobic and abusive guy that kicked them out THEY DONT LIVE WITH HIM ANYMORE its superhero time. 

The teleporter is very much a lot heavier than they expected, though it faithfully does its job and whirrs at them befriendingly. Friendship accepted. 

they don't have a half-wit about what is going on on the other side of the portal, is their next thought. To hell with it though, canonically they've been through worse, headcanonically they have rain/thunderstorm powers and nothing can stop them. Except the IRS but they can shove away the taxes if Noah’s been doing for god-knows-how-long. 

This time, the portal is glowing a very pretty red, instead of the white-cyan noah’s was. 

They step through.

and OH GOD, that is a lot of blood. Way more than they’ve never seen before. 

okay. Back to math. Even though seeing their best friend sprawled on a heap of coins- and past experience means that that will take a lot of peroxide to clean up- makes them a tad sick, they can feel the rage building at the base of their being. They ready their pose for battle, and watch Noah’s head fall back. He’s unconscious. 

..which means he won’t be able to watch what’s about to go down! Thats probably a good thing, cloud may not hear the end of it.

They feel their wings quite literally fly out through premade holes in their cloak, casting a menacing shadow over the dimly-lit ground. They summon another pair for good measure, hearing the Knight creak their way. 

Okay, taking a step back, they are severely underprepared for this situation. This they realize after the Knight tearing its sword out of Noah with a sickening shtiiiick sound and swiping at Cumulus with it, actually forcing them a step back. This they respond with twisting a sort of ‘arm’ in the general direction of its head, sparking with electricity. It connects, and they are momentarily proud of themselves before ducking by another attempted blow. The Knight’s head is lopsided. One point for Cumulus. They dive for its legs, catch it offguard with strength that they didn’t even know about, forcing it to the ground and springing back up to slam it back into the stone after Knight tries to push itself up. 

They start tearing at its armour, peeling off a decent chunk and electrocuting its core once or twice. This leaves it immobilized enough for them to climb over to Noah who, by the way, is leaking blood in serious quantities and doesn’ respond when Cumulus touches him. Which is super weird because he’s always kept a big dislike for touch. 

They stick the teleporter close by, starts shoveling coins into their pockets and a walmart bag they brought along, and manage to tie Noah to them with a rope (that they also brought along.) next thing is pushing a couple buttons, flipping that switch and oh god now they’re falling back through a portal. Fun times!

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After spending an embarrassingly long time trying to haul Noah back to their apartment, dropping a few coins in the elevator and on the hallway, they’ve made it. Back to the pristinely clean and orderly dorm-room-lookin’ home. They love it here. Better than sitting on an unmade bed of the guy who they’re metaphorically holding with a magical arm. Or going through the most stressful 15-minutes of his life. 

Step one: get to the bathroom

Where the first aid kit is and where they have the unexplainable joy of a tiled floor. Where it won’t take more than a few swipes of a damp dishcloth to clean up the aftermath of whatever appointment Noah most definitely is late to. Wait til the landlord hears about this. 

They’ve temporarily bundled him up into a mass of ‘flurries’, held carefully with their magical girl powered arm, and they can already see the blood staining the makeshift bandages. Good god what happened ?

They maneuver him into the bathtub, de-summon the flurries and their wings while they’re at it, plug the drain, and turn on the water. Adjust it to room-temperature, just a blink colder than actual room-temp air. Now go wash themselves off and scream in a pillow for the foreseeable future. 

They don’t do that, really, only go and gather actual bandages, tissues, painkillers, and a little box of injectives that ‘will put anyone out in a second’, according to their best friend. Actually they're not sure how old they are and if they even work but they kept them anyway ‘for emergencies’ and will be testing their effectiveness shortly. Cumulus also dug out the softest set of towels they owned.

“Best to be prepared for anything” had always been their life motto! No it isnt they just wanted to tell themselves that for the time being.  

They paused. One moment. Took a deep breath, and walked into the bathroom.

And proceed to shakily walk right back out and call Jr., same friend that gave them those damned injectives.

He picks up on the first ring. 

“Hey dude! Didn’t expect you to call! What’s up, anything new?”

They tell him everything.

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Mostly everything. They leave out some parts, stuff that would make him worry more and potentially quit Donovan Robotics and come home to comfort them and that would make everything and them feel subjectively worse. So some things are left out. 

They keep him on the call as he walks through how to clean somebody that has been stabbed clean through bone and flesh. He walks them through applying Fucking Neosporin and how to wrap bandages that specific way. It walks them through peroxide-ing the fuck out of their carpet until you can’t tell that they ever dragged their crush friend through a portal and through their flat. Then he walks them through re-moving Noah onto the spare bed, and then convinces them to take a rest. Go to sleep. 

He hangs up. 

Cumulus makes tea and has an existential crisis. 

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An hour, maybe more, later; Noah wakes up. Barely. Entire body feels like somebody took a crowbar and a knife to him then somebody slapped a bandaid on. He appreciates the effort but by god - 

Cumulus notices. Senses the immediate discomfort from across the room. They’re up and across and hovering by the bed until Noah gathers the energy to open his eyes. Just a crack. He whines at them and they hum and croon back at him. He whimpers [though he’ll never ever admit to it] and they whisper soft things at him, including but not limited to ‘your insurance is fucked and i’m taking you to my doctor tomorrow’.  He appreciates them. Adores the sheer work and effort that could have been put elsewhere put into him .

More than they’ll ever know.

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