Chapter Text
One: “I Learned That From You”
“So this is where you've been hiding out.”
The cold voice froze Lena's hand over the puzzle, piece still dangling in the air. Her eyes darted from Webby's curious face, to Beakley's guarded one, and finally dragged to the figure in the doorway.
“Aunt Magica.”
The practicing sorceress tossed her head, shaking a spray of water from the downpour outside. Without waiting for a greeting, she tramped in, earning a fierce look from the McDuck housekeeper. “I've wondered where you've been slipping off to,” Magica said. “Of course I noticed. I didn’t expect it to be worthy of skipping your training, but I didn't believe it would be so bad as this. ” She sneered at the happy cluster of kittens pictured on the puzzle.
“I — I can explain,” Lena stuttered.
“Yes; that you've been neglecting the work I've set out for you, the path I've so carefully crafted, for funtimes at my enemy’s mansion. How wonderful.”
Beakley smacked the pan she was washing down on the counter with more force than necessary. “It seems like the one neglecting things is you . You are her guardian, I presume? Care to answer why you left a child homeless on nights as cold as these?”
Lena flinched, rubbing her arm in embarrassment. She knew she shouldn't have come.
“She wasn't homeless ,” Magica spat. “She had a roof over her head, and she’d stay plenty warm if she used the magic she should have mastered by now.” She glared at Lena. “I had hoped that a need for using her powers would force her to try harder, but I see she managed to weasel her way out of work once again.”
“It’s not like that!” cried Lena. “I've been doing the work, I promise, trying as hard as I can, but I just can't get it… And I didn't come over to stay here, I was just…”
“Spending time with me,” Webby finished. Lena cringed. Yeah. Exactly what Magica shouldn’t hear. “Lena's been trying really, really hard, and she’s really good —”
“In any case,” Magica rolled over Webby's words like the girl didn’t exist, most probably deeming her unworthy of acknowledgement, “I don't have to explain myself to you.” She glared at Beakley and then grabbed Lena by the arm, yanking her from her chair. “I see I’m going to have to be more watchful that you keep your focus.”
“Wait!” Webby jumped up too, running in front of Magica only to be pushed roughly to the side. Beakley snorted dangerously. “Wait, don't take her away. You're not taking her back to the theater.”
“Where I'm taking her is none of your concern.”
“It is if you're leaving her to freeze again!”
“It’s ok, I'll be fine, Webs,” Lena assured her. “I always am.”
“No!” Webby stomped her foot. “It’s not ok! She can't just take you away like this!” Her gaze fell, and she began twisting the edges of her shirt bashfully. “I — I never knew what it was like to have sleepovers, or to hang out, or to stay up until early morning talking, or to play with friends, or to have a sister. But — but I do now. I learned that from you.” Webby wrung her hands together, radiating that endearing, gut-wrenching lack of self-confidence in social situations. Her beak quivered, and suddenly she flung herself forward, latching on Lena's arm. “Please don't go, Lena! You’re family now, you're my best friend.”
Magica scoffed and jerked on Lena's arm. “Oh, how sickeningly saccharine. It's like a soap opera in here. Come on, Lena.”
But Webby clung tightly to her other hand, eyes wide and teary, unrelenting. Begging. Lena couldn't tell her yes. She couldn't explain why she had to go, or even give a proper goodbye. Magica wouldn't allow it. If only Magica had waited until she left to confront her, if only Lena didn't have to say goodbye, if only she could have left pretending she would come back the next day, never having to see that crushed look…
But if ’s are only if ’s. Lena squeezed Webby's fingers in her own and tugged lightly for her to let go.
Webby tightened her grip. “Lena! Please, don't leave me here alone. Don't go with her, Lena, please! I know you don't want to. She’s horrible!”
“I have to go, Webs.” Lena sighed thickly. “She's my aunt.”
“That's right,” Magica snapped. “I’m her legal guardian, brat, and like it or not she belongs to me. Now come on!” She yanked on Lena's arm again, and with a final squeeze, Lena wound out of Webby's grasp.
Something broke in the girl's eyes. Trust, maybe. Her heart. Lena turned away from it before she could break into tears as well, but while she spared her sight she still heard her friend's tiny, hurt “ No. ”
Magica snorted triumphantly and strode forwards, head high. “Really, Lena, I can't believe how disobedient and soft you've gotten. I blame myself, really. Obviously I haven't been strict enough. That you've been mucking around with that sappy little… gumdrop … is bad enough, but that you've let her influence you into —”
“Oh, honestly,” an angry voice interrupted. “I’ve reached the end of my tether with that kind of talk.”
Lena flinched. Magica froze and swelled with fury. She whirled so fast that Lena experienced whiplash. “Excuse me!?”
“No, I won't. It's quite clear that I've excused far too much already.” Beakley stomped forwards, murder in her eyes. She flung a finger under Magica’s beak and spoke slowly, a dark emphasis every word. “You will not call my granddaughter a ‘sappy little gumdrop’ and you will not take that poor girl away again. You are going to leave this house and leave her behind, and if she says the word you are never going to be seeing her again, do you understand?”
“EXCUSE ME!?” Magica demanded again. Teeth grinding, she let go of Lena's arm to clench her fists and lean in to glower at Beakley. They stood beak-to-beak, neither backing off, shaking and steaming with anger. Lena wasn't sure who she feared more in that moment. “Who do you think you are,” gritted Magica, “you simpering housekeeper, telling me what to do!?”
“I think,” Beakley hissed, “that I'm a former secret agent who’s taken down countless slimy, power-drunk oafs before and will have no problems taking you down, much less reporting you for child neglect and endangerment, if you don't get out of my sight this instant.”
“You dare —”
“ Yes I do.” In a mirror of Magica’s own movements moments before with Lena, Beakley grabbed the sorceress roughly by the arm and dragged her to the doorway, ignoring the duck’s scrabbling feet and spitted protests like she was little more than the garbage bags Beakley took out every day. “Good day and goodbye,” she snapped, tossing Magica out. “I suggest you vacate the premises immediately, because if you stay out there one more minute I'm calling the police.” The house shook with the force of the slammed door.
Lena gaped. A moment passed, and then another. She expected Magica to come tearing in and drag her out, possibly calling the cops on Beakley herself. But as time ticked on and the door remained on it's hinges, the realization that Magica would not be knocking it down began to settle in.
Her brain seemed to be on half power; a haze filled her mind to numb the slowly dawning understanding: Beakley had just kicked out Magica. Beakley had made Magica leave, and told her she may never see Lena again. Magica had left. Magica was gone, and if she so chose, Lena never had to go back to her. Magica was gone.
Magica. Was. Gone.
Magica was gone.
MAGICA. WAS. GONE.
Gone.
Magica.
Gone. Magica. Magica. Gone. Magica gone, Magica gone, Magica —
“Well,” Beakley said briskly, “that's that taken care of. I don’t doubt we'll be needing the law enforcement before this is all over with, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.” She turned around, and her eyes fell on Lena. The steely ice left them at once. “You're all right now, dear. I meant what I said, you don't have to go back with her, tonight or any other, not against your will. It'll be hard but… we'll get through it. Don't cry now.”
Lena flushed, embarrassed, and scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeve. She hadn't realized she had been crying. She didn’t even know when she might have started. She tried to speak, cleared her throat, and tried again. “I — you didn't have to do that.”
“Yes, I did.” Beakley sighed gently and kneeled down to be on eye-level. “Lena, you mean a lot to Webby, and to me. And no one, no one , should be treated the way she treated you.”
“Thanks.” Lena sniffed.
She must look like a complete and utter wreck. A weak, sniveling wreck, Magica would call her, followed by an order to clean her face, stand straight, and suck it up. But Beakley and Webby didn’t sneer at her in disgust. Beakley only smiled with sympathy and approval, patting Lena's arm. Webby, who had been hovering off to the side, burst forward. “Does that mean you're going to stay? You're not going back with her? Will you stay here? You can stay here! The house is plenty big enough, and I'm sure Mr. McDuck wouldn’t mind, and we can be like real live-together sisters!”
“Well…” Lena hesitated. They had already stuck out their necks for getting her away from Magica. Anything more would be asking too much. “I don't know.”
“I understand if you want to go somewhere else,” Beakley said, placing a hand on Webby’s shoulder. “But if you do want to stay, Webby and I would be happy to have you with us. Happier, knowing that you're here, and safe. And you needn't worry about Mr. McDuck refusing you.”
Lena looked at them both, full-on, up and down, in the eyes. Sincerity, warmth, compassion, love. A true desire to have her there. It was almost unbearably mushy, painful in a tense, high-strung way. But… she wanted it. She wanted to be with them, with the people she could view as a grandmother and a sister. “If it really isn't too much trouble… if it's ok… I'll stay.”
“Yes!” Webby squealed, tackling her in a hug. Lena toppled over, laughing in spite of herself as Webby pierced her eardrums with high squees too fast to really make out. Beakley chuckled too and reached over to right them up, Webby remaining clung to Lena's middle, and then wrapped both girls in a hug of her own.
Lena settled her face in the downy feathers around her and let the tears fall consciously this time. Maybe she was soft. Maybe she was a gumdrop girl herself.
But she had a family, and this time, for real.