“No, of course not,” he scowled, though he downed the rest of his punch a little too quickly. Noah made a face, looking at the offending cup, “Well, you’re a girl. Girls are allowed to be short. It’s cute on girls,” he grumbled, though he hadn’t meant to outright call her cute. It wasn’t like she wasn’t, but he didn’t want to embarrass her at a party. He smirked slightly when she took a drink, and he took her cup, pouring the rest of hers into his, “Easy, killer. It’s supposed to be more fun with alcohol, but everyone in this house is underage, Teddy. If we’re caught drinking, we’re dead for,” he pointed out, despite the fact that there were a few 21 year olds in the building.

“Did you?” he smiled as well, thinking about how much money he’d stashed in his pocket before he’d left the house. Noah had scrounged together something that his father had lying around. “Teds, that’s the point,” he grinned, looking at the punch bowl. “No one knows what’s in it. Apparently it was regular fruit punch at first. Then it turned into add some vodka, a little bit of rum, some sprite. Not sure what else, but it’s…an acquired taste.”

Teddy shrugged her shoulders when he looked back down. “You seem plenty tall to me,” she offered, trying to encourage him a bit. It was a habit she had picked up from the first time he let her try to help him with the tutoring in earnest. “Besides, I can hardly tell the difference in height between you and the rest of them from way down here.” Teddy could feel her cheeks burn red when he said short was cute on girls, because there was, sitting there being short and a girl.

Noah hummed, “I guess it would be. If they weren’t a bunch of dorks who are too tall for their age,” he pointed out, though that must’ve been his bitterness showing. He was somewhat short for his age, anyway. 5′9″ wasn’t exactly big compared to most boys his age. Plenty were around six feet, including half the baseball team. “Yep, basically.” Noah realized how dull it sounded once Teddy voiced it, and he couldn’t help but agree with her. “Normally there’s something going on. I don’t mind talking to people all night, but the dancefloor gets too hot, and someone probably spilled their punch all over it so it’s sticky and honestly? Fuck that. I’d rather sit on the couch.” 

“If you’re not too bored, maybe we’ll leave later and go to Taco Bell. They’re open twenty four hours, you know.”

“Are you saying that because they’re taller than you?” Teddy questioned. She tried not to laugh at Noah for feeling short compared to them, apparently it was a sore subject for him. “Because in that case I would probably have to say fourth graders are too tall for their age.” She didn’t really care much to compare Noah to other boys. Sure, she wished he was clean and that he took her tutoring to heart more so that he could rejoin his peers on the baseball team, but other than that... She thought Noah was cute--potentially too cute for her--just her appraisal of him usually ended there. “Oh,” she said with a nod. “Maybe it’s more fun when you, uh...” She nodded toward her cup meaning when you were drinking. She took another sip, biting her bottom lip when she was done to cover up any grimace. 

“Losers? Psh, please. We are far from losers. The nerds weren’t invited, actually,” he pointed out, though he wasn’t really going to comment on who the nerds were. After all, high school stereotypes weren’t his thing. Was he the athletic super star or the druggie? Perhaps he was somewhere stuck in the middle, though it’s not like anyone would care to figure out the difference. Teddy didn’t seem to mind, though. 

“You can put water in it,” he pointed out, giving her an amused look when she took the solo cup. Noah didn’t want to pressure her into drinking like everyone else, plus the fact that he was on his third drink already might mean she felt like she’d have to keep up. Alcohol had a numbing effect on him, though. His powers still worked but he could still get drunk, it just meant he sobered up a little quicker than most. “Uh – Tyler something. I don’t remember his last name. But he’s on the basketball team. Basketball players are such fucking losers, too, Teds. Like I shit you not. I don’t know who invited them. They sit there and toss paper into the trashcan.”

Teddy almost mentioned that she hadn’t actually been invited to the party by anyone who had invitation powers. Valeria had insisted that Teddy would come, certainly by Valeria’s own designs and no one else’s. She was the nerd that was usually at home--she was almost the nerd who wished she was at home right now. 

No, life is a highway.

Noah tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t help himself. Teddy was hysterical even when he was sure she wasn’t trying to be. “Don’t worry, I’m not laughing at you,” he told her, sure to see that look of horror on her face within seconds. “That was funny. I don’t mind it, trust me. You can call me girl all you want – as long as you don’t abandon me with all these losers.” He motioned to the people at the party, and he offered her his hand. Noah waited for her to take it before he basically dragged her towards the table. He refilled his drink, picking up a cup and looking at Teddy, “It’s spiked,” he warned her, also offering her a water bottle depending on what she wanted to take.

“The food is all the way in the back, but the football team already got to it, so it’s as good as shit, now.” Noah wrinkled his nose at the thought, though Teddy’s words got him smiling again, “Well good think Val has something going for her. I should’ve threatened the same thing, you know. Then we could’ve showed up in style together.” He pushed his mask up to rest on his forehead, “I think I saw one, but he’s not exactly someone I’d call a friend. Looks like it’s just me and Wonder Woman today.”

Teddy is just a baby, she has a bedtime. She cannot drive it all night long. 

Teddy’s head fell to the side slightly when he promised he wasn’t laughing at her, her nose crinkling just slightly in a way that communicated her skepticism. “It feels like you probably are though,” she insisted. Teddy lifted a hand, rubbing her the back of her neck as she peered out at everyone else, all of whom seemed to be dancing, having functional conversations, and looked generally happy. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you this,” she started, looking back at him, “but I’m pretty sure same rules apply here as school and we’re supposed to be the losers.” She shrugged her shoulders as she finished her comment. It took her a moment to notice his hand, but she took it, that awkward, wonderful, dreadful warmth filling her chest as he held onto it. 

The girl felt she sure was getting dragged around a lot tonight, but tried not to let it show on her face. When he held the two offerings out to her, she wasn’t exactly sure what to do. It felt like a test. Water would label her as an even more obviously loser according to her flawed teenage logic. She could take the drink, work at it slowly or potentially not at all. Even holding the cup might have gotten her by based on proximity. Ultimately, she accepted the cup from him. 

Valeria had insisted Teddy was going to be the bell of the ball, or Halloween party to be exact, and before they knew it, they were off to do such high school things.

Noah already had a drink in his hand – someone had spiked the punch before he even got there. That meant the vodka he’d snagged from his father’s liquor cabinet was sitting unused in one of the rooms, somewhere he’d asked Jamie to hide it before anyone found it. He downed his punch, setting it down on the table before he finally saw Teddy. A grin hit his face almost automatically. A part of him was actually nervous to talk to her, something that hardly happened around girls his age. He was full of confidence on and off the field, but impressing Teddy was something new. And he didn’t want to fuck it up. “Hey, girl,” he drawled, jumping into the open spot next to her, “You look good. How long did it take to convince you to come to this thing?”

Teddy would have loved some bonding time with Valeria, but understands that life is a winding road.

Teddy had felt like it was essential to cling onto Valeria for dear life the second they had entered the house party. The entire experience was surreal to her, even if they had only been there for three minutes. It was like the movies, but different too--and even if the movies had been capable of perfectly preparing her for what to expect she would have found a way to flub the entire evening anyway. It’s what she did, perpetually the nerdy outsider. She wondered, pushing past a few of her peers to follow Valeria, why she hadn’t thought to bobbly pin her braid to her costume in order to hide her scars and device. 

“Why not? People will be afraid or better yet – people will think we’re amazing. I wouldn’t have to worry about shitty school, and I can be a superhero that the President calls on in his time of need.” Grinning, he leaned forward, “Imagine that. America being saved by someone like me,” he pointed to his face, snickering before he leaned back into the chair. “People will believe if they see it with their own eyes,” Noah pointed out, looking somewhat smug as he rolled his eyes, “Listen, I feel like…invincible. But somethings wrong; I’m just not sure.”

He stopped talking about his worries, instead looking at her pointedly, “Why? No one is watching. Don’t be a pussy, just do it.”

“Why not? Because we barely know what’s going on or how this happened,” Teddy responded in a hushed voice. She could feel herself becoming worked up and actively tried to real it back in. Noah’s persistence scared her as much as what was going on. “Save it from what? And how? We don’t know if this is temporary or the extent of what we can do. I can’t tell you not to tell or show people about yourself, I get that, but you can’t tell anyone about me. And honestly, I think you should wait and think about it.” She paused for a second knowing better than to think Noah would want to hear what she said. “I mean Superman and Batman never went running off to tell anyone their identity or their abilities. There’s probably a reason for that, right?” She stared back at him when he said he felt like something was wrong wondering if he would elaborate. 

Teddy recoiled at Noah’s harsh look. She was wondering if she could back out of the arrangement and switch Noah out with another tutor. She felt like he knew too much already and wasn’t being shy about exploiting her with it. “No,” she insisted quietly, glancing around the library. She was trying to think of a compromise that she though Noah might go with, but all of them seemed to involve her engaging with these new found powers, and she wanted to avoid that at all costs. It seemed inevitable with Noah dogging her, though. “What if... for however long you work with me tonight I practice my--whatever this is--tonight? And then... I don’t know, tomorrow or next time we study... Whenever there’s no one around at all I’ll show you.”

Noah looked incredibly unimpressed as the papers shot out from her books. Obviously the wind hadn’t done that, and he rolled his eyes as he crossed his arms over his chest. He leaned back in his chair, putting his feet up on the closest desk before he waited for Teddy to gather all of her things. He would’ve helped had she not tried to be the bossy one earlier, but now? He was clinging to the very last tendrils of the drug flowing through his system. “You’re organized, but you have no kinda organization for your life, huh? Trying to keep shit like secrets that something isn’t exactly right or whatever.”

“I don’t know, this stuff,” he pushed the book towards her before stopping the movement, “Use your mind. You were doing it a second ago. Or whatever the fuck you’re doing. Just try it. Or I’ll leave and we’ll both fail this whole mentor-tutor thing.”

If Teddy has been any less shy or had any more of her mother in her, she would have lectured Noah to get his feet off the desk immediately. After the day, or string of days, she as having she really couldn’t be bothered. Teddy looked at Noah when he mentioned secrets, and she wasn’t exactly sure what to make of it. It wasn’t like things were going so great for the pair at the moment, and she couldn’t imagine what benefit he anticipated he’d find if he broadcasted their recently acquired abilities. “What? You want to tell people?” she asked quietly. She honestly didn’t understand the kid across from her. “What do you think is going to happen if we do? Assuming people believe us?”

It actually annoyed Teddy when he said he didn’t know the material. That was pretty much a given to her. What she didn’t know was whether or not the sense of annoyance was genuine, or what he currently felt about her. When the threatened her with failure a strong wave of anger burst off of her like a solar flair, but her external appearance hadn’t shown any strong signs of her angriness. “I’m not doing it here,” she insisted in a harsh whisper. 

Noah spent the rest of his day ignoring his higher ups and staying within his very small circle. Jamie was there, constantly, and Noah wasn’t sure if his friend was still angry at him or not, but it felt like a safe bet to just ignore everything else and go take a hit behind the school instead. It was definitely not his smartest idea, but he had mastered the new hiding spot for between classes. Some people could barely tell the difference now and days, and since he felt wildly alone about the whole thing, Noah’s apathetic mood was stagnant. Jamie just got angry about it all, and his dad had grunted and said “Yes, sir, I’ll take care of it.” Then gone home and forgotten the whole reason Noah was even on probation from baseball. The school couldn’t force him to get help, and with his mother nearly unreachable, it was a lost cause at this point.

“Hey,” Noah set his book down on the table, clearing his throat, “Here I am. Ready to learn.” He slid down into the chair, taking in her disheveled appearance after a moment, “What’d you do all day? Hide in the bathroom?”

Teddy had been so wrapped up her in own thoughts and assured Noah was bailing that she neither saw nor heard him coming. His greeting startled her, and as she gave a small jump a number of loose papers shot out from between the pages of her notebooks and text books before fluttering to the ground. Teddy pushed her hair back from her face with an exasperated expression before leaning down to start collecting them again. Something in her automatic reaction hinted it might not have been the first time such a thing had happened to her that day. 

Once she had collected the papers and sat back up she glanced at him from across the table, her brows pulled together slightly. “No,” she answered as her hands began to sort the papers by subject and date. Nothing in her voice suggested she took the question as anything but genuine. “Only during lunch.” 

Noah gave her another look, “Don’t try and be my mother about this, okay? She mothers me from New Zealand, I don’t need it right here,” he pointed out with a huff, ignoring most of what she said. “I’ll think of one for both of us. Just in case I think yours is lame,” he clarified, picking up his backpack he’d dropped when Teddy had stopped him. 

“I know I’m scarring,” Noah hadn’t noticed, actually. He was just utterly confused. If he healed and his skin literally stitched itself back together, how were scars being left behind? His knee had healed up just fine, but his palm had ideas of its own apparently. “I always do what I normally do. Pay attention everywhere but in Geometry,” he grinned, giving her another look before he turned and walked towards his friends.

“No, I really need a superhero name,” he insisted, giving Teddy a look like she was crazy if she thought he was going to listen to a single thing she said. He wasn’t exactly a rebellious person, but he didn’t like taking orders outside of baseball. “Look, but we are,” he held his palm up, “I cut myself with some scissors and not even a scar to show for it,” he grinned widely, pushing his hands back into his pockets. Noah rolled his eyes slightly, “I know I have to pass Geometry. That’s what I have you for. You’re great, Teddy, really, but low profile? No one will believe me anyway. Better start a rumor about the new superhero in town though.”

Teddy’s eyes widened in exasperation at Noah, but she knew she couldn’t act out or say anything much. In a hushed voice she resigned to his stubbornness, conceding a deal with him. “Fine, I’ll think of one for you during the day,” she agreed, although she thought it was reckless and irresponsible to humor him in this. She gave him another stern, mothering look as she quickly added a condition. “But I won’t tell you until you meet me in the library to do your work.”

Noah continued just to stare at Teddy as she fought for words. He didn’t know how much longer they could stand in the hallway, arguing over things people were most likely eavesdropping on. He glanced around again, his gaze meeting the nosey ones that promptly looked away. Noah cleared his throat, feeling something weird in his chest now, “Maybe they will go away. But I’ve never seen a superhero movie where they just go away overnight. What if this was some fucked up version of like…the Fantastic Four? Accidental powers, but also: accidental heroes?” Noah seemed to like that idea, a smirk suddenly growing on his features, “Yeah. I need a superhero name.”

The fact that Noah was noticing how many odd looks the two of there were attracting made Teddy’s stomach flip. She hadn’t exactly pegged him as an observant guy, but even he seemed to be trying to fight off the prying eyes of their peers. The girl glanced away from him with an anxious exhaustion and rubbed the side of his face when he mentioned Fantastic Four. “If we’re lucky it’s just the two of us,” she whispered back at him. “No.” She cocked her head slightly giving Noah a stern look. “No. No. No. We are not heroes, and this is nothing to mess around with or play with.” Her tone of voice was mothering, though she didn’t even seem to notice it. She simply wanted to squash the idea before it even got rolling. “You don’t need a superhero name, you need to pass Geometry,” she insisted in a hushed voice. She was ready to run like hell from everything going on, and the fact that the bell for first period was about to ring seemed like a good enough excuse to do so. “Meet me in the library after school to study. Go to your classes, keep a low profile, and we’ll meet there after school, okay?”

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” he mocked, trying to keep his voice down as well. It was difficult for him to stay calm when the other was nearly projecting her fear. He couldn’t help the anxiety that took over him, and he played with the hem of his sweater as he listened to her talk, “Why do you care?” he stopped her after her thing about the tetanus shot, giving her an odd look before he just shook his head. “Look, I’m fine. I–” he had nearly told her that his highs were harder and harder to get to, but that wasn’t going to solve anything. He hadn’t even told Jamie that he was shooting up almost double his normal dosage to try and feel anything lately. “You’re not going to be normal, Teddy,” he said finally, putting his hands on her shoulders and squeezing lightly, “but I mean – maybe we could just figure this out together?”

Teddy wasn’t entirely sure why Noah felt it was appropriate to stand across for her and mock her. The situation they were in, whatever it was, was serious. Things like this were not supposed to happen in real life, but there she was standing across from him almost completely convinced that neither of them was dreaming. Cut short from her entire babbling tirade--she was about to go into the symptoms of lockjaw--she paused and looked up at him. It gave her a moment of pause when he asked the question, and she couldn’t think of a good reason so instead she stammered out a lie, “I-I don’t,” she told him. But she did, even if she couldn’t place exactly why. Teddy turned her face away from him catching eyes with a few people passing them in the hall raising their eyebrows at the pair and shooting them odd looks. When she felt his hands on her shoulders her eyes snapped back to his, and she didn’t answer right away. “I don’t know,” she whispered back to him. It made her nervous that if she spoke louder than a whisper she might cry. “I’m scared.” There was a lingering home within her that maybe if they just didn’t use their powers they would simply go away, a hope that radiated from her own mind and tainted the moods of those people close enough for her unchecked powers to reach. 

Noah looked down as she pulled up his shirt, not entirely flinching. He didn’t mind that, since the other insecurity he had about his body was written all over his arms. “Yeah, it’s gone,” he answered quietly, clearing his throat and leaning his hand against the locker so it looked like they were getting cozy instead of arguing, “Look, I won’t say anything if you won’t, okay? We can just…we can just figure this shit out on our own. I cut my hand with scissors yesterday and it healed right in front of my eyes. I don’t– I can’t understand what all this shit means by myself, okay? You and your own weird powers have to be related.”

Teddy pulled her hand back away from the hem of his shirt quickly when she saw the skin beneath it completely healed. In fact, it was as if it was untouched. There was no scar tissue over where she knew she had seen his injury just a day before. A panic started to well in her chest again over the absurdity of the whole thing, but his forced casual pose above the locker distracted her for a second. “What are you--” she began to ask, but trailed off looking up at his frame beside her. Noah wasn’t big by any means, but her practically miniature physique made it feel like he was towering over her. Her face became dead serious in a moment. “You can’t tell anyone,” she whispered, emphasizing the last word. She started to shake her head nervously. “I don’t want to figure it out, I don’t want it at all.” She was scared, clear as day terrified of what she knew she was able to do now, and whatever else she had no idea she was capable of. Her shoulders slumped as she looked at the boy with disbelief. “Why would you do that? What if it hadn’t worked again? You could have really hurt yourself,” she began to lecture. “I mean, if those scissors weren’t clean or they’d rusted you could have--you had a tetanus booster before high school right, because that could still be a threat if you don’t--” She quieted down and chewed on her bottom lip trying to think of how to respond when she heard his voice through her babbling. “They don’t have to be related and we don’t have to understand them, we just... keep them a secret. We have to do your chemistry and lit, can’t we just do that? Please?” She wanted to deny everything that was doing on, and the fear in her expression and tone made it obvious. “I just want to go back to normal.”

Opening his locker, Noah leaned his head against the metal door, wishing he could take back most of the night he’d been out and about in that storm. A feeling of dread prickled at his skin, and he itched idly at his forearm, rubbing the skin raw and red until he felt a touch to his shoulder. Noah pushed his hood down to turn and look, jerking back towards the lockers when he saw Teddy, “What the fuck? After all that, you want to talk about Chemistry?” he hissed quietly, trying not to draw too much attention to them. “We’re both crazy – my skin fucking stitched itself back together and you like used the damn force on me. And then? You ran. What did you do to me?”

“Stop, fuck,” he reached out to grab onto Jamie’s wrist with his free hand, showing his palm to Jamie. However, all that was left was a smear of blood and what used to be there. His cut had been small, but it was gone now, “See? Did you see that?!” he asked animatedly, looking at his palm and tossing the scissors to the side. Noah had an irritated look on his face, rocking back and forth on his heels before he finally sighed, “The storm, Jamie.”

Noah tried to find a place to start, though he was almost certain Jamie was going to think he was high then proceed to kick him out. He decided to take the risk anyway, getting up and pacing back and forth. He rubbed at one of his forearms, “So the storm, right? I was at the park when it hit. I didn’t think about it. But I was outside and there was all this thunder and lightning, right? I don’t know why but I thought it was fucking awesome. I went home eventually, but not after a while, but I felt like shit. Like…” he tried to find a comparison, stopping in his pacing to stand in front of Jamie. “Like I hadn’t had a hit in like…a week or something, that’s how much it sucked,” he looked earnest, shaking his head again.