Chapter Text
Louie sat down and watched as his mom and Uncle Donald took seats around the table, both of them trying not to look at or pressure him too much. Calling Uncle Gladstone had been an idea that his mom had suggested, based on trying to figure out how, or if he could control his newly found luck.
He had originally protested against the idea, and was quite certain that he couldn’t control it, based on what he had seen before, and from what Lena had told him.
Besides, his family had accepted his luck. Initially, at least. After he had first told them, things went back to normal, and it was fine.
But Uncle Scrooge, rather than dropping it entirely like his siblings had, passive aggressively brought it up whenever he saw Louie. The old miser left a phone number in Louie’s usually seat at the table, and when Louie looked it up, he was brought to a shady-looking and poorly set-up website claiming that a witch could reverse curses.
And on the next adventure they were on, Uncle scrooge called Louie up to check out the trap, rather than Dewey or Webby who were usually the most excited and willing to seek action, or even Huey, who was the smartest and quickest at figuring them out. It was Louie who was sent out first, and stood next to Scrooge as they checked out some ancient puzzle.
Uncle Scrooge had stepped back, and gave Louie free reign over matching the tiles. The duckling tried moving the tiles in the right order, but no matter what he did, or how he shifted them around, he kept getting the order of tiles wrong. After just a few times of trying and failing, the ground at the other side of the room began to cave in, and every time he got it wrong, more of it crumbled off into a bottomless pit.
Finally, once Louie gave up and sat against the wall with his hood pulled up over his head, Huey stepped over and finished it in one try, opening the door to let them pass into the next room.
Louie hadn’t missed the disappointed look Uncle Scrooge had given him, however brief, as they moved on.
His luck had failed, hence why the duckling had finally agreed to call his uncle.
“Louie?” Della asked, and he shook his head to clear his thoughts before he selected Uncle Gladstone’s number.
On the second ring, his uncle picked up. “Hello? Is this about a prize.”
“It’s Louie,” the duckling offered, figuring that his uncle hadn’t looked at the called I.D.
“Oh! Green-bean,” Gladstone greeted. “How’re things? You know, I’m actually between airports right now. How lucky of you to get me free.”
“Yeah,” Louie agreed, tracing invisible designs on the table. “It’s really lucky of me.”
“... You feeling okay over there, kiddo?”
“I think so. Mom and Uncle Donald wanted me to call and talk to you about my luck,” the duckling told him, and his luckiest uncle hummed in response. “I told them that I can’t control it.”
“Well you can’t,” Gladstone agreed. Louie breathed out, some of the tension leaving his body. He couldn’t control it. It wasn’t just him being difficult or anything. It was something outside of his power.
Louie continued after a moment of thought spurred on by his mom’s gaze landing on him, and Uncle Donald’s huff of annoyance, probably aimed at Gladstone in general.
“Mom said that that didn’t sound like what she remembered , or something like that.”
“She might remember wrong,” Uncle Gladstone said dismissively. “You can’t control it, but you can sort of predict, or at least guess when it’s going to kick in.”
“That’s what I thought,” Louie nodded, and then looked at his mom. “He said I can’t control it.”
Della frowned and reached across the table. “Let me talk to him.”
Louie reluctantly handed over his phone after muttering a farewell to Uncle Gladstone. Uncle Donald gave the duckling a look, raising a brow. The duckling shrugged and got up.
“I’m gonna go see what the girls are doing,” Louie told them, and left the room.
He stood outside the door for a moment, listening to Della rage over the phone about remembering correctly , before moving on to let the adults talk.
In his hoodie, burning a hole in his pocket, was the number that Scrooge had left him. Louie… had some thinking to do.