#besides diving and fixing things. and we know he doesn’t like killing & that it’s stunted his emotional/mental growth/made him distant

[venti-death-watch]

yknow based on freminet’s emphasis on being controlled & the director’s weapon vs making his own decisions, and looking at xiao’s everything, if one of the house of hearth kids is going to betray the fatui/join the traveler i’d kinda expect it to be him

[trans-darkwing]

talk yourself up

DWD + DT17 drabble | written before the the Double-O-Duck ep aired, but I still like it | Darkwing and Steelbeak | ~1800 words

-

Darkwing scrabbles backward across the floor, his gas gun has been kicked across the room, in the corner behind the director’s desk. His cape is gone, torn away and with it all the other gadgets he kept stored in hidden pockets. Steelbeak stalks closer, a sadistic smirk twisting the joints of his metal beak.

“What now, Darkwing Duck?” he mocks, drawing out the name, “I’m on the edge of my seat to find out what happens next. No, really,” he goes on, “you’ve got a whole script for this, am I right? Or did you not plan this far ahead?” He laughs. Steel beak talks a lot, he likes that. It suits Darkwing just fine.

“Don’t have a script,” he starts to respond, “but I am very good at improv.” His hand hits on something heavy and metal and he grabs for it, flinging it in his best overhand towards the towering titan taunting him treacherously. The wrench flies through the air and hits him squarely on the mouth, with the sickening clang of metal on metal. It stuns him, only for a moment, reeling as he clutches at his face. Darkwing takes the scarce instant to look for something, anything to get himself out of this.

The rooster lowers his hand, baring his teeth furiously, “I think you just gave me a dent. That’s gonna cost ya. An arm and a leg!” The man lunges for him, apparently growing tired of playing with his food. But Drake has already started scrambling to his feet and rolling out of the way. He’s off balance though, being thrown across the room seems to have done more than just knock the breath out of him. He steadies himself and dances further out of reach, letting the loquacious lug of larceny lumber closer to him.

“So... how do you fix a dent in your face?” Drake wonders conversationally, going for diversion now, “you just open it up, pop the dent, and buff it out…? Or do you just have to replace the whole model?” He inches around him as he does, slowly circling the scoundrel in a stagnant stand-off.

“They really only have to replace the one joint that’s dented, but you got me in two.”

Darkwing Duck’s face splits in a grin, trying not to let on how woozy he feels. “Ooh, two for one, do I get a prize?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna give you a dent of your own,” Steelbeak says sweetly, “how do you fix those?”

DW gives him a look of faux innocence. “My face? It just always looks this good,” he shrugs, all bravado.

“Not when I’m done with you,” he snorts, “and don’t think I don’t know where you're going. Your stupid little toy-gun is over there, but you also backed yourself into a corner. Deadmeat Duck.”

Darkwing stays silent this time, darting his eyes around the room once more, this time though, it’s an act.

“What now, pretty boy?” 

Drake backs away from him further, reaching the edge of the desk. He clutches at it blindly, pressing himself against it as he holds onto the edge with tense fingers.

Steelbeak sneers, “guess that’s gonna be a big nothing, then.” Still getting closer, right where Drake wants him.

“Have you ever done a coordinated stunt fall?” He asks calmly, looking up at the rooster with his hands gripping onto the lip of the desk behind him.

It takes Steelbeak off guard, looking bewildered by the sudden change in his demeanor. “What? No.”

“Oh,” Drake says gravely, “then this is gonna hurt.”

With that he deftly throws himself up, using the table for leverage and kicking out as he does, and landing the blow to Steelbeak’s head, knocking the man heavily to the ground. Then he uses the backwards momentum of his movement to flip behind the desk. He stumbles on the dismount, clutching at his own head and willing the dizziness to dissipate. Without further hesitation he reaches for what had been his actual goal, sliding his hand across the underside of the desk.

“There,” he mutters to himself, flipping the switch and activating the silent alarms. “They’ll know you’re here now, Steelbeak,” he announces helpfully, to the man now just recovering enough to stand, “in fact, we should have company in just a few minutes.”

“That’s still plenty of time for me to kill you!” he roars, diving over the desk now. Drake doesn't dodge quick enough this time and gets tackled bodily to the ground, his head knocking into the polished marble flooring once more. This time— rather than just dizziness and the fuzz of pain at the back of his head, marking the start of a headache— it feels like his head is splitting open. He doesn’t mean to let out the breathless noise of pain, but he doesn’t seem to be fully cognizant anymore. He struggles for breath, this fall also having forced the wind from his lungs.

“What are you gonna do now, huh!?” Steelbeak demands, looming over him and lifting Drake by the collar. Limp form hanging from the grip fisted in his shirt, his head lolling back uselessly. He drops him again, giving a low chuckle as he pushes himself to stand over him, staring down at him and lording himself above Drake.

“Now that you don’t have all your weapons and your little gadgets, what are ya gonna do?” he asks, metal jaws gleaming in the low light, “you’re nothing.”

Everything is still blurry and Steelbeak sounds far away, as if he’s underwater. Still, as he listens to the words, it’s nothing he hasn’t heard before.

So Drake gasps a laugh of his own, fighting back control of his voice if nothing else. “You know... back before I had all that stuff, way back... I used to deal with guys like you,” he shifted, trying to push himself up little by little as he forced the words from his chest, still recovering his breath. “The kind of person who hurts people because they can. Does it make you feel good?” he asks from his place on the floor.

“A little,” Steelbeak responds, his smile curling awfully.

“Does it make you feel like a big man?” Drake hisses furiously, propping himself up on his arm now.

At that, Steelbeak laughs, hearty and cruel. “You really took this hero thing to heart, huh?” He laughs again, stepping back to look down at Drake on the ground like he’s admiring his handiwork. “So, what did you do when these big mean bullies pushed you on the playground?” He asks, pitching his voice like he’s talking to a child.

“I got back up,” Drake breathes, voice low and barely audible. 

Steelbeak leans closer, holding a mocking hand up to his ear, “What was that?” He asks.

The thing about Steelbeak is that he likes to hear himself talk. And for a long as Drake can talk back— which is forever because Drake is about exactly as full of hot air as Steelbeak is— Steelbeak will draw it out. He likes gloating. He likes boasting, and preening, and talking himself up. And that suits Darkwing just fine. And it’s useful.

“I got back up!” He shouts and without hesitation he forces himself to his feet, coming up swinging. He spins his fist out, catching the man in the stomach first, then he whirls another fist towards his face. But this time he stumbles back after his hand slams into solid metal plating. He laughs in hysterical panic, shaking out his aching hand.

Steelbeak looks at him wild-eyed and grinning, “you know, I’m starting to like you. Too bad this is where you die,” He grabs for him again, Drake just barely staggers out of the way, falling to his hands and knees as he does and scrambling to get on his feet again.

“Well, you’d better hurry up—” he starts, and as if on cue a door in some other part of the building opens with a bang. Drake grins up at him, feeling jovial and entirely off-kilter as he says, “time’s up.”

Steekbeak does back away this time. “Next time,” he growls and Drake can only smile and nod at him, still half-way fallen down.

Steelbeak then breaks through the window and dives out and for a moment Drake can’t fathom why until he watches him catch onto a rope ladder he hadn’t known was there and is pulled away with the roaring sound of a helicopter flying off.

Drake collapses fully to the ground at that, in relief, and maybe exhaustion. The door behind him bursts open not a moment later. And Drake lets himself be rolled over by strong paws, squinting up at Grizzlykoff kneeling over him.

“Great, it’s my favorite SHUSH agent,” Drake intones dryly.

“Darkwing is alive,” he calls out flatly over his shoulder.

“You’re late,” Drake informs him, lifting one heavy arm to point out the broken window, “I already fought the bad guy, as you can see.”

He ignores that and helps Drake to sit up, pulling out a thin flashlight to shine in each of his eyes.

“You definitely have concussion.” The bear says gruffly in his thick Russian accent.

“I could have told you that,” Drake bemoans bitterly, blinking spots away with his headache growing. He rubs a hand to the back of his head where it had hit the floor, not once but twice. Then he glances around, suddenly realizing he'd lost his hat at some point.

“You are acting childishly immature, as always, along with your unnecessary jabber. It comforts me to know your head is in normal state,” the agent responds in a heavy deadpan.

“I always have some spare sass for you, Grizz,” he tells him with a single pat to the shoulder, “now, do you see my hat a— Ah! Hey!” without preamble, the grizzly hefts him up to toss him across his back. Then looping an arm around Darkwing’s leg and securing his wrist with the same hand

“I can walk!” he protests, though he's not certain it’s actually true. “And you could at least carry me like a gentleman!”

“This is fireman hold. Standard procedure for transporting injured civilian out of potentially dangerous area.”

“I know what a fireman’s hold is!” he screeches, punching his free first into Grizzlykoff’s back. It doesn’t do much. “And I am not a civilian!” he growls furiously, then, once more for good measure adds, “and I don’t need you to carry me!!”

The bear shrugs, unfazed, “Procedure still applies.”

Drake just groans heavily dropping his head where it hangs freely beside Grizzlykoff’s shoulder. His heartbeat pounding too loudly in his skull, which felt as if Steelbeak had taken a sledgehammer and opened it up like a coconut. Actually, why would you open a coconut with a sledgehammer? Seems like overkill. Just— however you open a coconut that is his brain, a coconut. He needs help.

The agent doesn’t pause his walking but he does ask seriously, “do you want me to cradle you like baby, instead?”

Drake snorts, but that just makes his headache worse so he’s moaning in pain again, “no, just— get me to a doctor.”

“That is what I am doing.”

“And call Launchpad.”

“I will.”

[mangokiwitropicalswirl]

Paging Dr. Scully, chp 5: Ice

Paging Dr. Scully 1: Squeeze / 2: Jersey Devil / 3: Shadows / 4. Ghost in the Machine

“Dad, do you think I’m becoming detached?” Scully leans back in the dining room chair, fingering the stem of her wineglass. “Emotionally stunted? Immune to feeling?”

“Oh Dana, what would make you say that?” William Sr. replies in a soothing tone. “You were always my soft-hearted girl.”

“I don’t know, Dad.” Scully looks to the distance, then down into her glass. “I saw a friend lose somebody close to him in the ER this week. And I barely cried. It all seemed so rote, so normal. And then I saw him tear up, and I realized I’m giving more attention to all the notations in my charts than the people in the rooms.”

William Sr. nods and places an arm on her shoulder. “You are a good doctor, Dana. You always want to fix people, to make everything better.” He pauses until she looks up at him. “But you can’t fix everything. Some things are out of your control.”

Scully swallows, a lump forming in her throat. Her response is a choked whisper. “I just worry I’m becoming so cold. I don’t want to close off my heart from my work, you know.”

Maggie has stopped clearing away the dishes away and is listening in. “You just sound burned out, dear,” she offers.

“That’s such a cliche, mom,” Scully rolls her eyes and sits up a bit straighter, taking a sip of wine to help steady her voice. “If I’m burned out, then all doctors everywhere are always burned out.”

“I mean it,” Maggie presses further. “When was the last time you stopped working and took a vacation? First, you graduate college early and you start straight into med school. Then you choose emergency medicine as your speciality and dive into your residency without so much as a week off between getting your coat and your first clinical rotation. You’ve been going non-stop since you were 17, dear. I’d say you might be dealing with burnout.”

“Now now, Maggie,” William Sr. chides her lightly, “You know Dana thrives on achievement.”

“It’s true, dad,” Scully adds with a sigh. “I do.”

Even so, hearing her mother give the details of the last 12 years of her life like that, she is suddenly exhausted. “But… but mom might be right.”

She looks back and forth at her mother and father and the remnants of the first after-church dinner they’ve managed to schedule in months. She has never felt like she had more stress than the average person, but when looked at objectively, it’s a wonder she hasn’t collapsed from the pressure.

“What do you think I should do?” She looks at her father, the stalwart Navy captain, as if he should be the one to chart a course for her. The idea that any kind of stress would be too much for her is vaguely embarrassing in light of his rigorous standards. But he is, after all, her dad.

“I can’t answer that for you,” he shakes his head. “But in my opinion, it’s nothing a little more sleep can’t cure.”

“Mom?” Scully knows her mother will see things a bit differently.

“I think you might want to ask about a brief leave of absence, a sabbatical,” Maggie suggests, “I mean, when was the last time you even had time to go out on a date?”

Scully sighs. So often with her mother, it always comes back to her love life. Or lack thereof. Now doesn’t seem to be the time to get into that subject, even if for once, Scully thinks she might have something to share. But now’s not the time to delve into that.

“Honestly mom, dating is the least of my concerns right now…” she trails off wearily, too tired to mount her usual defenses.

“I’m just saying,” Maggie interjects. “These things don’t just happen. It’s not like the right guy is just going to stumble into your ER.”

Scully does her best to hide a smile as she stands up from the table and begins gathering her things to go. In fact, back at home there’s a message on her answering machine from a guy that she met in her ER. A message she’s probably played a half dozen times over the course of the last few days.

She had finally listened to it the night Mulder’s friend Jerry had died, once she made her way back to her apartment for the first time in days. She had stumbled her way to the couch and barely pulled off her shoes before passing out. When she woke in a puddle of drool, the blinking red light on the console table was the first thing she saw. She had leaned up on her elbows and slapped “play,” trying not to hold her breath as the machine ticked through a couple robo-sales calls and a reminder from her mother that they were due to have lunch after church the next Sunday. Then, his voice filled her apartment, on a message dated from Monday night.

“What’s up Doc? I’m guessing you’re probably on shift at the hospital now. I’ve been thinking about ways to get myself injured so I’d have a reason to see you, but I got a weird case this morning. I’ll have to tell ya about it – what do you know about artificial intelligence? Because it looks like our robot overlords might be arriving sooner than scheduled. Anyway, I’ll be kinda busy this week with this case, but I wanted to call and say thanks for making the drive up to Philly. You were right about the bell – it’s a big bell with a big crack, but at least we didn’t have to wait in any long lines. I don’t think I’d mind waiting in a long line with you anyway though. I know you have my number. Call me when you get a chance.”

The smile that had started when she heard the first words of his message only brightens the longer it goes on. She can hear the grin in his own voice as he pauses at the end of the message before hanging up.

She hasn’t known how to call back, though, after their interchange at the hospital. She has wanted to give him space, and she knows that he’s probably confused that she hasn’t responded. It’s just all kinds of awkward, so what exactly is she going to tell her parents? Nothing, yet.

“Thank you for dinner, mom. It was wonderful as usual.” Scully hugs her mother and clears away a side dish and some glasses on her way through the kitchen.

“Things will be alright, Dana,” William Sr. stands and places an arm on her hand as they stall by the door. “You have a good head on your shoulders.”

“Thanks Dad.” Scully squeezes his forearm, smiling faintly. “Thanks for the advice.”

In the car on the way home, she decides she has two things to do. First, she needs to call Mulder back, awkwardness be damned. And second, she needs to schedule a meeting with hospital HR and find out about leaves of absence.

Her stomach lurches wildly as the little plane dips and dives through a cloudbank. She hates small planes. She’s not much of a fan of big ones either, but small ones are infinitely worse. She pulls the white fur hood of her puffy jacket closer around her face to try and block the view of the towering peaks looming a little too close through the windows.

She glances at Mulder in the seat beside her. He’s looking at her with an expression somewhere between “I’m so sorry,” and “please don’t kill me.” He reaches over and laces his fingers overtop her right hand that is gripping the armrest. He squeezes.  “Almost there.” He tries to make it sound like a promise, but she hears the hesitation in his voice.

It’s moments like this that it hits her that she barely knows this man, but here she is, quivering in a tiny prop plane, on their way to God-knows-where for who-knows-why. But she is on a sabbatical and she’s going to Alaska with a man she just met. Her face and her fingers are freezing, but this is the warmest she’s felt in years.