Chapter Text
“Are ya ready, Kid?” Ray shouted over the sound of the Man Copter’s engine, grinning widely at his sidekick.
Henry grinned back. “Heck yeah, dude.” And he was ready. Ready to be back on the ground. Ready to not need to skydive with one of the most irresponsible and lovable people he knew. Ready to be done with what Ray and Schwoz insisted was ‘basic’ training.
Sure, he’d jumped out of planes before, and it was fun. But, he’d always jumped before he could think about it. Leaping out of Minyak’s plane with Ray, somehow figuring out how to share the parachute before Henry went splat on the ground, was exhilarating. Now, looking down at the ground from 13,000 feet in the air from the Man Copter, having Ray grinning at him all excitedly and hopeful, being expected to consciously jump, Henry was just nervous.
Ray seemed to sense a bit of Henry’s apprehension. His voice softened a bit, although his tone was still jovial. “Hey, if anything happens, you can just land on the safety net.”
Henry rolled his eyes. “Oh, you mean the safety net that was put there as a joke to keep you from claiming your parachute didn’t work so you could see how big of a crater you could make? That safety net?”
“I will never forgive you for ratting my plan out to Charlotte.” Despite his tone, Ray made it clear he was being playful.
“She could already tell you were planning something. I just,” Henry shrugged, “filled in the blanks.”
“Traitor.”
“Are you guys almost ready to jump? We’re burning daylight here.” Charlotte’s voice rang through the intercom system.
“Yeah, Char. Be down in a sec.” Henry pulled off his headphones and unbuckled his seatbelt. He double and triple checked his harness, making sure everything was secure. Ray stood up behind him, ready to jump.
Upon Ray getting a closer look at Henry, he could tell something was a bit off. “Hey, Kid, are you okay? You seem a bit... I don’t know. Nervous?”
“What?!” Henry laughed, trying to deflect. “Nervous? Me? No. I’m just... ready to get down there. That’s all.”
“You’re totally nervous! What’s there to be nervous about? What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
Henry replied without thinking. “My parachute breaks, I miss the net, I splat, you have to tell my parents that I’m now a pancake in the middle of the Swellview Desert.” He regretted speaking almost instantly as he watched Ray’s demeanor shift from playful to concerned.
Ray studied Henry’s face for a second before putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Henry. If anything like that happens, I will take care of it. Okay? Nothing like that will happen, but if it does, I assure you that you’ll be fine. Nothing is going to happen to you on my watch. Got it?”
Henry took in a shaky breath. “Got it.” He met Ray’s eyes and found nothing but love looking back at him.
Schwoz spoke from the driver’s seat. “Are you two ready?”
Ray didn’t reply. Instead, he looked at Henry, waiting for his approval. Henry briefly squeezed Ray’s wrist, prompting Ray to squeeze his shoulder in return. “Yeah, man.” Henry tried to sound as confident as possible. “We’re ready. Let’s do this.”
Ray grinned widely, not out of excitement like before, but out of pride. He pulled away from Henry and they both situated themselves on the skids of the helicopter, holding on to the handrails. Henry made a point to not look down.
“You wanna count us off, Kid?” Ray shouted over the sound of the motor. In giving Henry the figurative reins to decide when they jumped, Ray hoped it would lessen the stress.
“Sure.” Henry looked down at the ground below before he squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed hard. “Three...” He shifted the placement of his feet on the bar. “Two...” Slowly, he released his grip on the handrail. “One...” He noticed Ray silently offering his hand, and Henry grabbed it without hesitation. “Go!”
Ray stepped off the skid slightly before Henry did, almost dragging him along by their joined hands. Henry was tense and rigid when he first felt the ground disappear from beneath him, but he soon found himself relaxing. Slowly, as they started to reach terminal velocity, Henry released his death grip on Ray’s hand and drifted a bit further away.
Ray swelled with pride as he watched Henry start having fun. He’d been a bit worried about him in the helicopter, but he knew the anxiety would leave him when they were in freefall. Watching Henry laugh and do flips while flying through the air seemingly gave Ray permission to loosen up as well, laughing and doing tricks of his own.
As they approached the ground, Ray checked the altimeter on his watch. They were quickly approaching 5,000 feet, meaning they would need to pull their parachutes soon. At least, Henry would. Ray was still toying with the idea of crashing into the desert sand and seeing how much of a mess his body could make.
As the altimeter ticked down, Ray floated towards Henry and motioned for him to pull his ripcord and deploy his parachute. Henry looked disappointed and rolled his eyes, but he pulled the loop anyway.
Nothing happened.
Henry looked up at Ray in alarm before trying the loop again; this time, in a panic. He tugged on it repeatedly, hoping to get it to move and release the parachute, but it didn't. Ray leaned himself forward to get closer to Henry and tried to pull the cord, too, but it still wouldn’t budge.
Thinking as quickly as he could, Ray pulled the breakaway handle to Henry’s chute, releasing the primary parachute to land somewhere in the desert and causing Henry to start spinning a bit. Ray did his best to get Henry stable again before pulling on the backup parachute’s handle, only to find that Henry’s reserve had the same problem as the primary—it wouldn't open!
It was near impossible to hear anyone talking while they were in freefall because of the deafening wind in their ears. Even still, Ray could have sworn he heard Henry scream something along the lines of, “Oh God, I’m going to die!”
Taking one look at his sidekick’s face showed Ray just how much of a panic Henry was in. Ray was panicking, too, but he couldn’t let Henry see that. Not right now. Ray needed to be something that Henry could rely on.
Ray forcibly grabbed Henry’s wrist and pulled his hand towards one of the straps of Ray’s harness. It took Henry a few precious seconds to process what Ray wanted him to do, but he eventually gripped Ray’s harness with both hands. Ray grabbed Henry’s harness in turn with one of his hands, using his other one to pull the ripcord on his own parachute.
Mercifully, Ray’s parachute opened, and they were able to keep their grip on each other as the chute filled and jerked Ray as he rapidly slowed down. In spite of their new string of luck, Ray’s altimeter showed that they were too close to the ground to slow down properly—even if it was just one person using the chute.
Unsure of what to do, Ray mentally prepared himself to flip onto his back at the last second and pull Henry on top of him so he could absorb most of the impact when they hit the ground.
Scanning the ground, looking for sand with the least amount of bushes, Ray was suddenly reminded of the safety net Charlotte and Jasper had put up (and were currently standing near in great alarm.) The safety net that was meant to be a joke—to be a way of keep Ray from messing around—could actually be his and Henry’s saving grace.
Ray maneuvered him and Henry towards the net. There was no way Ray could move the parachute enough for them to land in the center, but he was going to get as close to it as he could. He had to.
The moment of truth came, and Ray grabbed Henry by the shoulders and threw himself over onto his back, pulling Henry into his chest. Henry seemed to have had a similar idea, as he aided a bit in the turning-Ray-into-a-shield process. Ray held Henry as tightly as he could for the half-second before they made contact with the net.
The world fell to silence. Without the wind rushing past his ears, Ray couldn’t hear anything. He could tell that he and Henry had made it onto the net, mostly from the slight bouncing that he felt. He could tell that his parachute was slowly deflating on top of him and Henry, casting a shadow over the pair. He could tell Henry had survived, mostly from the death grip that held his torso now that they had hit the net and from the tremors he felt through their connection. He could tell Charlotte and Jasper were clamoring their way up the ladder and onto the net, both from the screaming he could barely hear and from the way the net swayed from their steps.
A few seconds passed before Ray could finally breathe again. The fall had knocked the wind out of him (it didn’t help that Henry had also landed full force on his chest,) and it took a little while before he got it back. Gasping for air, he was finally able to move himself to return the hug Henry had been giving him since they landed.
“Told you I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, Kid.” Henry’s only response was to squeeze Ray tighter, prompting Ray to ruffle his hair a bit.
After the kids engaged in a small battle with the parachute, Charlotte and Jasper were finally able to find an entrance to Ray and Henry’s little cave. Charlotte ran towards the pair while Jasper peeled the nylon back and off of them, bathing Ray and Henry in sunlight.
“What the heck happened?!” Charlotte rushed towards Henry, checking him over, but obviously talking to Ray.
Ray pulled himself to sit up, although Henry still insisted on clinging to Ray’s chest. “Henry’s parachute didn’t deploy. We had to improvise.”
The Man Copter descended as quickly as it safely could. As soon as it landed, Schwoz shut off the motor and ran out to the net. “Ray! Henry! Is everything okay?!”
Ray stood, with the help of Jasper and Charlotte, and started to head towards the ladder. Henry remained steadfast in his grip on Ray, maneuvering himself so his arms were around Ray’s neck and his legs were wrapped around Ray’s waist, making Ray front-heavy. Ray wrapped his arms around Henry, holding him close and keeping him from falling (again.)
It was difficult for Ray to traverse the net while holding a shaking child the same size as him and not being able to see his feet, but Ray made it work. Anytime he would stumble or nearly trip on a hole in the net or the strings attached to his parachute, Charlotte and Jasper were right by his side with their arms out and ready to catch him, and Henry gripped Ray with more force than before.
When they got to the ladder, Henry refused to let go. Ray didn’t push Henry to let go, knowing he wasn’t in a healthy mental state, but he did have to remove his arms so he could safely descend the ladder. As soon as his arms let go, Henry clung to him tighter. “Relax, Kid. I just need to get down the ladder.”
As soon as Ray’s feet made contact with solid ground, he let out a sigh of relief and wrapped his arms back around his kid. Schwoz ran up a few seconds later, speaking too fast and with too much of an accent for Ray to understand, and frantically trying to check on Henry. In spite of Schwoz’s insistence and gentle nudges, Henry refused to let go of Ray or pull his face from Ray’s neck.
Eventually, Schwoz sighed, resigning to Henry’s resistance. “Okay, Henry is proobably in shock. We need to get him laying down.”
“Try telling him that.” Ray tried to sound as casual as he could, despite the fact that he was terrified for his kid. “He’s been holding on to me like an angry, scared sloth since we landed.”
Schwoz glanced between Ray and Henry a few times, frowning slightly as his eyebrows knit together. “Alright. Let me try.” He got close to Henry—close enough that, on a normal day, Henry would yell at him for being in his personal space—and gently put his hand on his shoulder. “Henry, you need to let go of Ray so I can check you for injuries, okay?”
Henry didn’t let go of Ray, nor did he show any intention to, but he did pull his face away from Ray and looked at Schwoz. Ray couldn’t see what Schwoz saw due to the angle, but he could tell it distressed his friend. Schwoz shook his head a bit to himself before pulling out a flashlight and checking Henry’s pupil dilation.
“Well, Henry. It appears you have a concoossion. Judging by the bleeding gash on your forehead, I’d guess that you hit your head against something hard on Ray’s harness on impact. Does that sound accurate?”
Henry slowly nodded as his eyes started to droop. A second later, he pressed his face back into Ray and took a deep breath. Ray hugged him tighter while looking up at Schwoz in alarm.
Schwoz pursed his lips. “We need to get him back to the Cave... figure out how bad it is.”
Charlotte and Jasper back ran up to the group, a bit out of breath. Jasper was holding Henry’s primary chute, looking down at it in concern. “Ray. What happened to Hen’s chute? You said it didn’t deploy?”
“Yeah. The cord was stuck or something. I couldn’t even get it to move.” Ray watched Jasper warily, as did everyone else in the group. It had been Jasper’s job to ensure the parachutes worked for the training today. He would probably end up blaming himself for its malfunction.
Jasper flipped the parachute around until he found the ripcord. After looking at it for a moment, he tried to tug on it, only to find the cord as jammed as it was in the air. “I... I don’t understand... It was working fine before you guys went up... I...” Tears began to well in Jasper’s eyes. “It’s all my fault...” He dropped the parachute on the ground and pressed his hands against his mouth. “It’s all-... Henry could’ve-”
“Let’s get you sitting down, Jasp.” Charlotte stepped forward and cautiously gripped Jasper’s shoulder, using it as leverage to guide him to a nearby rock. It was a good idea, too, because as soon as Jasper was near it, his knees gave out from all the emotion and he fell right on to the rock.
Ray stepped closer to Jasper, still holding onto Henry. He knelt on one knee so he was closer to Jasper’s level. “It’s not your fault, son. You did everything you could, and it was enough. There was no way you could’ve known this would happen. Alright?”
“But...” Jasper’s face was buried in his hands while Charlotte rubbed circles into his back. “But, what if-”
“It. Was not. Your fault.” Ray tried to sound as firm as possible.
“But, he could’ve-”
Henry stirred in Ray’s arms. “Wassn’ y’re faul’.” Henry’s speech was slurred, only causing alarm bells to go off in Ray’s, Schwoz’s, and Charlotte’s head. But, it seemed to calm Jasper down enough that it no longer looked like he was about to pass out.
“Welcome back, Kid.” Ray squoze Henry a bit and patted his back. “Are you feeling up to answering some of Schwoz’s questions?” Henry gave a slow nod, prompting Ray to look behind him at Schwoz and beckon him forward.
Schwoz trotted up to stand near Henry, leaning down so he was closer to his face. “Are you in any pain right now?” Henry nodded. “Where?”
Henry hummed for a moment, thinking. “Everywhere? Mos’ly m’head, I guess.”
“Okay, that’s to be expected. Now, how many fingers am I holding up?” Schwoz held up two fingers.
Henry stared at Schwoz’s hand for a moment, trying to stop his vision from swimming. After taking a long breath—and taking way too long to answer the simple question, causing all the onlookers to worry—Henry finally answered. “Four?”
A look of disappointment clouded over Schwoz’s face, followed quickly by determination. “Let’s get you back to the Man Cave- We need to get you back to the Man Cave.” He quickly stood and sped back to the Man Copter, hoping to start its engine as soon as possible.
Henry watched lazily over Ray’s shoulder as the helicopter’s blades started spinning. His body tensed for a moment before relaxing back to the jelly it was before. He pushed his face back into Ray’s neck, quietly asking, “Do I have to?”
Ray thought for a moment, trying to decide how best to respond. Knowing his kid just faced his own mortality due in large part to the very helicopter he wanted him to get back onto, Ray had no idea what to say. He kept his voice as calming as he could muster. “Yeah, Kid. You do. That’s a direct order from your superior.”
Henry huffed a laugh—just the reaction Ray was hoping to get!—and took another deep breath. “Don’t wanna.”
Ray slowly stood, again aided by Charlotte and Jasper, and he started walking towards the Man Copter, still holding Henry like a small child. “I know, Kid. I know."