Work Text:
“So uh...judging by your reaction, nobody thought to tell you I was back.”
Della had been watching Gyro stare into her very soul with a deeply haunted gaze for about two minutes before she decided to speak up again. Granted, maybe it would have been best to call, but she’d been eager to jumpscare her scientific rival in his lab, expecting him to burst into a tirade of insults. She certainly didn’t expect him to drop the papers in his hands, looking like he’d just seen a ghost.
“...Earth to Gyro? It’s me? Your least favorite person in the world: Dumbella ‘Beats-You-At-Scrabble’ Duck?”
A small noise came out of his throat, and Della almost laughed. “Hold up, do you need a sec, Gy? I mean, have I really changed in appearance that much that it’s boggling your mind this hard? And look at you! You haven’t seemed to age a day over twenty-t-”
Her voice trailed away as she suddenly saw two large, quiet tears drip onto the chicken’s cheeks, not having even noticed them in his eyes.
“Gyro...are you okay?”
“You’re alive,” he spoke in utter disbelief. “You’re alive .”
“Uhhh yeah, that’s been established.” She smiled awkwardly. “Sorry if that messes anything up in your plans to take over the world and-”
A cough and sob jumped out of Gyro’s throat as he covered his beak to try and stifle himself and Della threw her hands up. “Okay! Bad time for jokes! I get it! You gotta let this sink in for a bit and get all this weird crying business out of your system.”
Gyro screwed his eyes shut as he tried to stop more tears from coming, and he shuddered as his chest heaved from the emotional sobs he was trying to restrain.
“Ohhhh man, uh, do you need hugs or anything?”
“No!” Gyro coughed out, shaking his head, voice trembling. “J-Just give me a minute!”
“Do you want me to wait for you while y-”
“No!” the inventor gasped, a mix between a sob and a laugh. “Come back later!”
“Heard!” Della awkwardly gave finger guns and made her way towards the elevator, watching as her old squabbling mate sank into the chair at his desk and tried to breathe the rest of his emotions into tissue.
Gyro had more than likely meant for Della to return in a few hours so he could collect himself, but thanks to the family business of adventure and her constant attempts to be a good parent for her kids, she ended up returning to the lab almost three weeks later.
This time, Gyro hardly looked up as she went over to his desk, and it took her swatting his hat down over his face to get him to pay her attention. He gave a distasteful click of the tongue.
“What took you so long? Busy causing mayhem at the mansion?”
“What else would I be doing? Plotting vengeance for the gum you put in my rocket?”
“I figured you’d extracted that revenge by not thinking to tell me ahead of time you weren’t dead.” Gyro rolled his eyes.
“Huh, so that’s why you freaked out on me,” Della snorted. “Classic Gearloose.”
Gyro shook his head and was back to ignoring Della as he fussed with a modified alarm clock on the desk.
There was a long pause before Della awkwardly piped up. “So, uh...are you okay?”
“Yes?”
“Well, you just seemed...really freaked out when I last saw you and-”
“I thought you were dead for the last ten years, and I thought it was at the fault of my inventions,” Gyro sighed in exasperation, “so excuse me for not reacting as calmly as I normally would to seeing you return.”
“Awww, you thought you were responsible for my death?” Della held a hand to her chest, grinning. “I’m touched!”
“Wow, you’re so compassionate,” Gyro observed, dripping with sarcasm. “Don’t you have your rugrats to wrangle?”
“Eh, they’re out with that pilot guy Scrooge hired. Don’t feel up to trying to pick his brain.”
“Launchpad?” Gyro glanced up, then snorted. “There’s not much to pick. Trust me.”
“Anyway, I feel like I haven’t caught up with you enough to find new things to make you mad. With Donald on vacation, and Scrooge pitting against Glomgold, I need someone else to argue with.”
“How about Beakley?”
“I have a feeling she still doesn’t trust me much,” Della admitted with a shrug. “Even with all the stuff I’m learning about my boys, she always finds something wrong with me.”
“There is always something wrong with you.” Gyro grinned smugly. “You’re Della Duck.”
“Ouch,” Della swatted his hat again. “You’ve been waiting to use something like that on me a long time haven’t you?”
“Maybe.”
After several minutes of silence, Della sighed. “You’re boring enough that I can hear myself think. It’s like the moon.”
“You say boring, I say productive.”
“You haven’t changed,” the duck scoffed. “Either in age or personality.”
“Nice to notice.”
“Wasn’t a compliment, Gy.”
“Make it more clear next time.”
Della sighed as she unscrewed her prosthetic and used it to tap Gyro on the head a few times. He grabbed it in his free hand to make her stop and tried to yank it out of her hands.
“I’ll melt this thing down for scrap if you don’t stop touching me with it,” he warned without looking up from his work.
“Well, now you’re just pulling my leg!” Della grinned, then laughed loudly at her own pun.
The chicken groaned as he rest his face on the desk. “Less than twenty minutes of your company, and I’m already tired of you.”
“Oh good! We’re back on track!”
“Your clothes are a mess, and a small portion of your hair is on fire,” Gyro observed with a smug grin as he sat cross-legged on one of the many couches in the mansion. “I take it your family outing went well?”
“Don’t. Comment,” Della gritted at him, sinking down into a soft chair and rubbing her face.
“Where did you cause more mayhem?” Gyro sneered lightly. “An ancient burial ground? The rainforest? Your uncle’s basement?”
“A park, thank you very much,” Della snapped at him. “God, add a couple modifications to your kids’ paintball guns, and everyone throws a hissy fit!”
Gyro was trying not to laugh. “Dare I ask how many casualties?”
“I’m gonna run you over with a car one of these days,” Della pointed at him with a warning glare. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“Had a meeting with Mr. McDuck over an investors conference next week. Hardly as exciting as watching you become a public menace.”
Della didn’t respond.
“Earth to Della? Is your brain still on the moon?”
“Am I a bad mom?”
“That’s a hell of a question.”
“Seriously. Am I?”
If the question threw Gyro off-guard, he was certainly not showing it, as there was hardly any hesitation to his answer.
“I’m not the person to ask.”
“Well, who do I ask then?
Gyro gave a half-hearted shrug. “Your kids? Your uncle? I don’t know.”
After a long pause, Della sighed. “I’m gonna kick myself for saying this, but I think I need a drink. I haven’t been to a bar in over ten years.”
“No bars on the moon, I’m guessing?”
“Nope. Want to come with me? Drunk arguments with strangers aren’t half as fun as drunk arguments with you.”
Gyro rolled his eyes. “I suppose I have no choice, do I?”
“Nope. Get your car keys, Gearloose.”
Della had been visibly disappointed at Gyro’s unexciting order of seltzer water and a small glass stuffed with maraschino cherries in comparison with her tall pint.
“I was so ready to see if you could still drink me under the table,” she lamented.
“I’ve been sober for almost seven years, so probably not.” Gyro munched on one of the cherries.
“Oh.”
Della awkwardly stared at her drink. She didn’t want to look into any allusions that her disappearance may have had a negative effect on more than the mental wellbeing of her companion.
“At least you can have fun watching me get drunk as a skunk and bring it up in front of my kids.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Well, I mean, it would be super embarrassing if they heard about me getting smashed at a bar on a weekday and-”
“Della, I’m not going to bring up you being drunk at a bar in front of your kids,” Gyro scoffed. “I have plenty of better things I can embarrass you with in front of them.”
“Liiiike?”
“You using duct tape to try and shave the prickles off your legs? Cutting your hair with a kitchen knife because you saw it in a movie once and almost going bald? Teenage molting? Endless possibilities.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“I would.” Gyro grinned, eating another cherry.
“Then I’ll just bring up that time during company baseball where you got food poisoning from a rancid hot dog and puked into the bleachers!”
“You seriously still remember that?”
“I got video of it.”
“Oh no,” Gyro whispered under his breath.
“Yeah, so don’t piss me off in front of my kids.” Della gave him a poke in the ribs and took a healthy swig of her drink.
After a while of just mindless chatter and catching up on the latest scientific endeavors they’d both come across over the years, it fell quiet again.
Della polished off her third drink and stole a cherry from Gyro’s glass. “Y’know what’s weird? I totally expected you to take shots out on me for being away from my family, but you haven’t said anything about it at all.”
“Why’d you expect that?” Gyro tugged a cherry off the stem.
“I dunno. It seemed like something you would do.” The duck shrugged. “I mean, everyone else has had something to say about it, about how I still don’t know what I’m doing...but you’ve said zilch. Zip. Nada.”
“It sounds like you’re asking me to take shots at you on your parenthood.”
“I dunno!” Della threw her hands up a little. “Maybe I am? It would beat having to just overhear it from behind a wall! Why can’t they just say that stuff to my face? If they think I’m such a bad mom, why do they need to tiptoe around it?”
Gyro didn’t answer, just looking at the stem in his fingers.
“Well, can you at least tell me the truth of it? Really dish it out. Tell me the hard cold truth, Gearloose.”
“I don’t know!” Gyro sighed. “I mean, your kids seem the same as they were before you came back: fine more or less. I don’t pay much attention to them.”
“Can you please just tell me I suck at this so I can fight you on it and feel revitalized tomorrow?” Della whined.
“Della,” Gyro scooted his barstool back when she tried to grab at him, “I’m not going to insult you on something I have no real forte in. You’re the parent here, not me. I didn’t even grow up with a mother, so I don’t know what I would apply to your performance.”
Della gave a sigh of disappointment. “Shoulda guessed.”
“I mean, your kids seem happy around you, and they’re relatively well adjusted...well, except for the green one. He disturbs me.”
“That’s my boy,” Della whispered in drowsy pride.
“And I don’t know who’s the one giving you so much flack on your parenting, but I know for a fact that Scrooge and Beakley take those kids out on death-defying adventures every week, and look what happened under your uncle’s supervision! You stole a rocket! Have your kids stolen a rocket, Della? I don’t think so!”
Della gave a tipsy snort. “Oh my god, you’re right! I’d never let my kids steal a rocket like I did! Not without ejector seats!”
“See? One step above Scrooge on that!” Gyro smirked.
There was another long silence as Della quietly ordered another beer and nudged Gyro’s arm. “Hey. Thanks.”
“Nothing of note to be thanked for, but I appreciate it anyway.” Gyro shrugged, pouring the last few cherries from the glass into his mouth and watched Della down the fourth drink. “Are you sure you can handle that much alcohol still? It’s been years since you’ve-”
“It’s good! It’s good!” Della slurred, slapping Gyro’s back with one hand. “I’m just happy to be here tonight with ya, buddy.”
“Okay, you’re getting too friendly.” Gyro furrowed his brow, and signaled the bartender. “Get her some water, please.”
“Nah, nah, gimme another pint.”
“Nope!” Gyro shook his head at the bartender, relieved the man seemed to agree with him, and passed over the glass of water.
“Aww phooey Gearloose, why do you gotta go and be such a boring ol’ science fart again?” Della groaned, folding her arms.
“Yeah,” a passing Barhopper Beagle Boy chimed in as he strolled by the row of stools. “Why ya gotta be boring?”
Immediately, Della sat up with a murderous glare as she stared down the off-duty crook. “What did you say about my friend here?”
“Wh-What you said, lady,” he gulped. “That he’s a boring ol’-”
“ONLY I CAN CALL HIM THAT!”
Barhopper Beagle was immediately tackled to the floor by an enraged Della, and it took Gyro more than a few minutes to get her off of the other and even longer for him to beg for them not to be banned from the establishment.
Della woke with a groan to the smell of coffee and uncleaned laundry, discovering herself on a couch under a blanket.
“Morning, Sleeping Ugly,” Gyro piped up from his seat on the edge of the sofa.
Della looked around at how shabby the place looked compared to the lab and turned her head in the direction of the sound of purring. A tabby cat was hunkered down on the arm of the sofa, curiously sniffing her.
“How drunk was I?”
“Enough to suplex a barstool over that poor Beagle’s head and get us banned from the one bar in town I liked.” Gyro rolled his eyes. “I didn’t want to drive all the way to the mansion, so I just let you sleep on my couch for the night.”
“Oh,” Della mumbled, then glanced into the bowl Gyro was eating from. “Is that coffee and cereal together?”
“It’s convenient,” Gyro said as he took another mouthful.
“Ugh.” Della wretched and pressed her face in the blanket, trying to avoid a headache. “Thanks for not letting me go home in front of my kids completely smashed. Dunno what I’ll tell them when they ask where I was all night. Or if they ask you.”
“I won’t say anything. You can just tell them I kidnapped you for genetic testing and that now you fire lasers out of your eyes? Something creative like that.”
“That actually is a pretty believable lie,” Della mused aloud. “But for real, can you actually have me do something like that??”
Gyro gave a smirk. “I could, but I’m not going to give you that satisfaction.”
“Wow, you actually are my worst friend.”
“'Friend' is in the loosest terms, I’m guessing.”