#mineruck

[asteriskemily]

The Five People Duck Fell For

(And The One Who, Quite Literally, Picked Him Up)

Here’s a kinda shitty, but kinda okay fic that I wrote because I didn’t know that needed Waynerva until Justin handed it to me on a silver platter. 

If Wayne Newton has to real think about it, he would say that his first crush was on Danny Keil in the second grade. They lived in the same cul-de-sac and their mothers were both on the PTA, so they were often made to spend time together. They walked to school together, they ate lunch together, and they played tag together. It was the perfect friendship for two eight year old boys.

Danny moved away in the third grade. His mom was still around, but Wayne would never again see Danny. Wayne’s mom told him that Danny’s parents got divorced. Wayne didn’t know what that meant, but he knew that Danny was gone.

Wayne hadn’t realized that it was a crush at the time. He barely knew what a crush was and when he learned what it was, he didn’t know he could have one on a boy. By the time he recognized what it had been, Wayne had already been taught that boys liking boys was a bad thing, so he chose to avoid thinking about his first friend.

-

Wayne had his first kiss at a birthday party in the fifth grade and it was the beginning of his whirlwind romance with Becky Emberson. They shared pudding cups and pushed each other on the swings during recess and once Wayne gave her a dandelion on Valentine’s Day to show that he really loved her.

Becky’s favorite subject was art and Wayne’s was English and, because of that, Becky said that they were too different and that they had to break up. Wayne was absolutely heartbroken. One month later Juno Devine came to Kepler with three things that Wayne found fascinating: a Polaroid camera, a Walkman, and a love for nature that he had never seen in anyone else. Juno became his best friend and together they sat in the woods, listening to R.E.M. and taking stupid pictures of each other. Wayne made silly faces at the camera and when the picture came sliding out of it Juno laughed and said that his mouth looked like a duck’s bill. She took a pen and wrote, under the picture, Wayne “The Duck” Newton.  The nickname stuck.

-

Tabatha and all of her friends were attractive, popular, and loaded. He asked her out on a dare and was shocked when she actually said yes. They went to a drive in movie theater that was just outside of town and made out in her car while The Empire Strikes Back played in the background. They dated for three months and neither of them found the relationship particularly interesting. She took him skiing on his 18th birthday and he fell down the mountain and nearly broke his legs. He then limped to the Wolf Ember and had his first ever bowl of French onion soup and it changed his life. She found him there, eating soup and trying not to break down in tears at its glory. She drove him home in silence and they both knew that this would be their last date.

That same night a blue woman who was maybe a ghost or maybe computers told him that he was destined for greatness, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the soup and the math test he had on Tuesday and how he wasn’t the right guy to save the world.

-

Duck wanted to get as far away from Kepler as he could. Away from the people he was only half-friends with, away from the mom that called Juno a dead beat just because she didn’t fit the perfect standard of what she thought a girl should be, away from whatever destiny he may or may not actually have. The farthest he could get was Marshal University. Even if he wasn’t so far from Kepler, it was like a whole other world. A world with less stress about destinies and more cell service. A world where he didn’t feel terrified when he was calling that cute boy he met at the campus bar and asking him out on a date. Duck Newton dated Charlie Wallace for nearly three years before he got a letter from his little sister that told him that their mom had died in a car crash.

That same day, Duck packed his bags and bought a bus ticket back to Kepler. He told Charlie goodbye and they both knew that they wouldn’t be able to keep in touch. When Duck got to Kepler he hugged June and they both cried. Their dad died when they were little and now their mom was gone too. This was all the family that they had left.

Duck got an apartment and a job and he finished college online. June went to school and tried to have normal life. Duck became a ranger and June made it all the way to Harvard to become a lawyer. Everything was normal. That is, until Duck had a dream about an archway made of stone and suddenly Minerva was back.

-

Duck thought that the mothman was hot. He may be just a regular guy now, but he was a regular guy who knew where the mothman lived. He went to knock on the door to the winnebago that Indrid lived in and it opened before his fist connected. Indrid smiled at him with a grin that seemed to wide to be human. This is because it in fact wasn’t human. Duck asked him out for coffee and Indrid agreed. They sat and talked about having visions of the future while they drank coffee and shared a scone. 

It was the first date that either of them had been on in quite some time and as they walked back to the winnebago Indrid informed Duck that it was the last one that they would be going on together. He told Duck that there wasn’t a future where the two of them ended up together and that there was no point in delaying the inevitable. In the months following the date, Duck would think back to what Indrid said to him as he walked away, still wearing his too-wide, inhuman grin.

“So few people have true soulmates, Duck Newton. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that.”

-

Minerva had been quiet lately. While she usually went through life roaring like a clap of thunder, since the end of the battle that she had been fighting for who knows how long, she was more silent. Duck didn’t necessarily think it was a bad thing. She seemed calm like she was finally at peace.

He came home to find Minerva laying on the floor with Moony the cat sitting proudly on her chest.

“Wayne Newton,” she chuckled at her own joke before it had the chance to come out of her mouth “I fear that this deceptively small beast has felled me. I lay here, trapped by its powerful grasp, unable to escape. Please, Wayne Newton, flee before you suffer the same fate.”

“I refuse to run and leave you behind, Minerva! I will save you!” Duck set down his groceries and playful ran to Minerva’s side. He crouched down and picked up Moony, then set her down on the ground. Moony ran off to scratch up Ducks pillows. He plopped down next to Minerva as she sat up.

“You have saved me, Wayne Newton. I am forever in your debt.” Minerva pushed herself off the floor and offered a hand to Duck. She pulled him up and put a hand on his shoulder. Her smile was brighter than any of stars in the universe.

“Would you help me with the groceries?” He asked. It was something easy, something normal. They both needed a lot more of that. For a little bit they worked in silence and then Minerva spoke up.

“I have something that I feel that I need to speak to you about, Wayne Newton.” She seemed serious and  almost nervous. The tone made Duck nervous too.

“Yeah, what’s up?” He tried to seem calm as he set aside the ingredients for the soup that they would be attempting to make for dinner that night.

“Since we finally fulfilled our destinies things have been very calm.” She started. Duck nodded along, listening intently. “And I think that that is a good thing. It is nice to have the opportunity to be calm and to think about something other than a battle that is coming. And now that I’ve had that time to think, I’ve been thinking a lot about how lucky it was that I ended up choosing you. I know that it was a somewhat random choice, but I highly doubt that things would have gone the way that they did had it been anyone else.” For a moment she paused. She looked as though she was considering whether or not she was going to keep going. In the end she must have decided to continue.

“You are someone who is very important to me, Wayne Newton, and I cannot imagine a world where we never met. You changed my life. When I had chosen Leo, he was truly just a warrior that I was training, but when you and I started training together, you became friends. I am grateful that you taught me how to be someone’s friend again.” Duck smiled at her.

“I can’t imagine a life without you either, Minnie.” Duck had been thinking about this for some time now as well. “I-When we lost our connection, it was really hard for me. Not just because I wasn’t as tough as I usually am, but because I lost one of the most important people in my life. You showed upon

and you turned my whole world upside down and I’m so much better off because of that. I used to think that I was just a guy and then you told me that I could be more than that. Maybe at first I didn’t want to believe you, but it got to the point where I wanted to prove you right.” Suddenly Duck realized something and what Indrid told him finally made sense. He didn’t know what to say next, scared of what might happen. And then it was like Minerva had read his mind.

“I believe that I am in love with you, Wayne Newton, and If what I have observed about human romantic behavior is correct then I believe that this is the point at which I should be asking you on a date.” Minerva’s cheeks were growing darker as she spoke.

“I would like that.” All at once Duck was, quite literally, swept off of his feet as Minerva pulled him into a bear hug. Smiled and looked up at her as they settled into something that was less like her hugging him and more like her carrying him bridal style. “And hey, guess what.”

“What, Wayne Newton?”

“I love you too, Minnie.”