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Gosalyn can’t think of another time she felt this awful.
Well, that's not a complete truth. She can, but all her memories that involve the system aren’t ones she likes to remember. It was the flu, she thinks, not that anybody bothered to tell her that back then. Her whole body had ached like she’d been checked over the barrier during hockey by someone twice her size and landed on a bench, and then kicked for good measure.
The home she lived in at the time had two other foster kids, a temporary stop on her forever rotating cast of carers that thought they could handle her. She had only been briefly checked up on once in the middle of the day to get given a peanut butter sandwich, and then once again before bed. The woman in that home touched her like she was dirty, when she took her temperature, when she gave her medicine. Hot shame and anger prickle in the back of her gut, even now.
She was a special kind of lonely back then. Grandpa was the only person she wanted. Just her Grandpa who smelt of pipe tobacco and would slather her in vapor rub and make her drink hot lemonade and let her watch old sci-fi horror flicks while he told her about atoms and particles and chemicals until she fell asleep, pressed into his side. Not a stupid woman with ugly lipstick. Jokes on her though, because she stained all that prim lady’s lovely plush yellow hand towels with blood when she cut her knee that one time. And the time she flushed all the tampons down the toilet at once and ruined their plumbing just before leaving, and, she's pretty sure they never found the reason for the ant infestation, and now they never will.
Not that she can fully appreciate her own genius when it feels like bees are trying to climb out her brain through her eye sockets.
And things are different, now. Better than the foster homes, definitely, and different from when her Grandpa was alive, but good in the same soft kind of way. Her Grandpa’s photograph sits up on their mantelpiece, now, even if she can’t hug him anymore, LP’s big bear cuddles are a good substitute. And she can’t hear him talk about the chemicals and atoms and science, but when she needs to talk to him, Drake will take her to his memorial bench in the botanical gardens whenever she wants. Even if it’s the middle of the night and they have to commit some light breaking and entering. And it’s hard to be upset about being ill when Dad will make her hot tea with honey and hot chocolate, and she gets to sit in his bed and they’ll watch cartoons all day while LP is out at work.
Gosalyn doesn't need that now though. She’d rather swim the whole of Audubon Bay in the freezing cold than miss out on the one chance a month she gets to see her Dad kick butt, even if it is from the safety of the Thunderquack with the doors childlocked and the protection protocol on.
She definitely won't be missing it for a stupid cold.
Willful ignorance may have played a part in ignoring the feeling for as long as she did, the sneezing yesterday, the faint drum of a headache brewing this morning, the more than a little persistent cough she’d swallowed down at breakfast. She hadn't thought much about it, too caught up in the prospect of action. Now it all piles up on her like her unwashed laundry, her head stuffy and distant.
The sniffles could’ve been anything, though! Hay fever, a tickly nose, random floating pepper spores, anything!
Last hockey game she had a cold and she still knocked five goals in, so sitting around in a big tower or a big plane is a piece of cake compared to that. She’s just gotta make sure that her Dad sees it the same way that she does… which is another story.
Dad is cooking when she comes in. An old recipe book sits out on the table, one of the handwritten ones that Pops' family has rebound countless times. He’s leaning over a deep saucepan, the whole house filled with warmth and steam and spices, if she was able to smell right now.
‘Hey Slugger,’ He says to her without turning around, he’s got that silly apron on, the one she bought for his last birthday, mostly as a joke, with pink and black frills, he wears it with sincerity and pride on a daily basis. ‘You had a good day?’
‘Normal,’ She replies, trying not to sound as bunged up as she feels,
‘Really?’ He asks, curiosity curling in his tone, ‘You? A normal day?’
‘I can have normal days, Dad!’ She sniffs hard, dumping her backpack on the table with enough force to make the legs shake.
‘Oh yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it,’
Drake pads to the table. The relaxed look on his face calcifies when he sees her, though, concern furrowing his brow. So much for getting it past him.
‘You’re looking a bit pale Gos, you feeling okay sweetheart?’
‘Like you can tal-’ She sneezes so hard it makes her ears pop.
She gets shuffled up to bed without so much as an argument.
‘Gos, I can't get a babysitter out,’ He says, sitting on the bed next to her, a few hours later, she’s sitting over a bowl of chilli wishing she could taste it, and begging the ache in her head to make the room spinning. ‘So I’m gonn-’
‘Please don’t not go on patrol for me!’ She begs, throwing out her arms and spilling the bowl just a little before Drake catches it. It hurts enough knowing that she won’t see any heroics first hand tonight, and the idea that all those gangs and bad guys will have a free night to terrorise her city because of her increases it tenfold. So much so that it almost eclipses the ache sitting in her body from the fever.
‘Oh sweetie, I’m not gonna leave you alone,’ He looks torn for a long moment, catching her truly unhappy look from across the bed. Concern furrows his brow and tensing his shoulders, and he presses a hand against her cheek, stroking back her hair, ‘Okay, okay... ugh, where's your Pops when you need him, huh?’
‘He’s flying over the Atlantic, Dad’ She says, like he’s out buying milk. She presses crescent moons into her palms to will the fear away. Her voice is croaky and lacking all usual wit, watering the seed of worry in his chest.
‘Oh, how could I forget,’ He deadpans but slots back into being worried immediately, ‘Okay, hm, how about you come stake out the tower with me, huh?’
Her cheeks hurt from the grin she gives him, ‘Really?!’ Turning up the sheets she throws herself at him, and he catches her effortlessly.
‘I’m going to regret this, yes. But there are some rules,’
She nods into his chest, looking up at him expectantly.
‘You will not be joining me in any outside excursions, you will not be staying up all night, I will not be attending anything that isn't urgent and you cannot; one, complain about this and two, convince me otherwise, I’m your Dad before I’m Darkwing, got it?’
‘Right,’ She says, ‘Thanks Dad!’ She’s close enough to cheering that it starts a hacking dry cough that wracks her body through.
‘Oh honey, you’re so congested’ He says, sternness melting away completely into care, leaning away from the girl in his arms. ‘Do you think you could sit over some steam?’
The bathroom is all steamed up when she gets in there. Dad has coiled up her braids in two little buns on top of her head, though the baby hairs still curl out in the humidity round her cheeks. He makes her kneel on the toilet seat, head bent over the sink with a towel trapping all the hot air trying to escape. It wouldn't be a problem though, since the entire room is thick enough with steam that it feels like a sauna.
'Stay there sweetie,' Dad says, hearing him pace back and forth, soft footfalls on the hallway carpet, to his room to her room to the bathroom cabinet again and back, it's only when he tugs the towel from her head that Gos realises he's back in the room with her. Gos plods back to her room, feeling all the gunk in her system shift until she can actually smell again. Her pajamas are set out on her bed when she gets back, they’re unmistakably pressed. Gos can’t help but laugh, giving way immediately to a cough.
What kind of a freak irons pajamas?
Dad packs her bag while he gets ready. He doesn't change into the costume until he’s actually in the tower, it would be stupid to have a set of clothes here, then any bad guy could break in and figure it out. But all his protection-wear is here, the kevlar vest and some of the tech stuff. She watches him move around like company is coming, stuffing her backpack with a quilt and the switch and her soft stuffed crocodile she’s had since she was a baby. He hesitates with the last one, gently tucking Sharptoof into the folds of the quilt before moving to make a huge thermos of Assam with honey and lemon mixed in. She fiddles with the fringe of the blanket, only half paying attention to the fuzzy scene around her, too sleepy to really focus on anything in particular.
He slips his big coat on, the one that Gos likes to put on when she’s being a detective, and slips cold medicine and thermometer into the pocket.
Unwillingly, she gets wrapped in another three layers before they leave the house. She wears her football shaped slippers over her socks, gets slathered in vapor rub, and piled into one of Pop’s old hoodies. It’s soft and threadbare, and smells like motor oil and his shampoo. It comes down to her ankles, and Dad has to roll the sleeves up three times before she can even think about using her hands again. Her hair gets tucked into the hood with the utmost care, and he brushes back her bangs in the same motion. This close, Gos can see how worried he looks. His eyebrows are pinched but his eyes are gentle even underneath the bags and the wrinkles that weren’t there a few months ago. He still looks at her like she’s the sun. It’s nice.
The Tower is as big and dark and cool as it always is. She shuffles out the elevator but then her Dad swoops her up over his shoulder, a protective hand on her back. He doesn't have his hat on yet, but the tails of his mask keep brushing against her beak while he makes the ascent to the main monitor platform. Once there he switches it on, it makes a familiar humming noise, that could be a lullaby by now. They only stop for a moment though, her Dad glancing through the alerts without sitting down, then makes the baffling decision to turn around to leave again.
‘Where we goin’?’ She asks, voice croaky, when they’ve made it halfway down the platform again.
‘It’s too cold up there for you Slugger,’ He replies gently, stroking the back of her head between the braids he’d tied in, ‘We’re going to the server room,’
The server room houses the … servers for the entirety of Darkwing’s surveillance system. It has a bank of tall bleeping towers that blink in small lights intermittently. It’s the only place in the tower, barring the bathroom, that has four walls. She gets plopped in front of one of the screens on the desk while Darkwing Dad goes about mother henning to fix the place up.
She feels absolutely miserable, her head is filled with cotton and slime, all mixed up together and making it hard to pick out individual thoughts in her head. She doesn't know when Sharptoof was taken out her bag, but she finds herself clinging to him under her arm.
A camping bed is the next thing to come in, and he piles it with a roll out futon and stuffs it with pillows, parachutes, a sack filled with old torn Darkwing outfits he hasn't gotten around to fixing yet. He drapes one of the blankets over it, and then her quilt. It sits next to the computer chair, close enough that she could reach out and grab him, if she needed to.
On the way back he puts his hat on her head. She giggles at the way it drops across her eyes when she shifts with surprise. He laughs in return, pressing a kiss to her forehead when she tilts it off, and pulls her blankets closer around her shoulders.
All faffing ceases once the bed has been fluffed up to his expectations. Like a homing beacon, he returns, pressing the back of his hand against her forehead.
‘Okay Cupcake, all ready’
‘Jus’ ‘cause I’m sick doesn't mean I'll let that one slide Dad,’
‘Aw, but how can I help it when you’re so sweet!’ He says, a goofy smile washing over him. He leans over to wrap her in a hug, and she presses her face into his chest. His heartbeat is loud and steady, and the cold buttons on the front of his suit feel good on her feverish forehead, Gos sighs. He’s rubbing a hand over her back in circles, no doubt checking her breathing for bad signs, he murmurs something, but her ears are too blocked to pick it out.
Belatedly, she realises she’s getting picked up. He walks over to the bed and tries to put her down, she clings onto him and refuses. He plops back into the computer chair, and strokes her hair.
‘You need to drink some more kiddo,’ He says, pushing her away from him gently, grabbing the thermos with the other hand. He holds it up to help her take a swig. It’s bitter and on the colder end of being warm, Launchpad has always been better at making tea, but the honey soothes her scratchy throat and the familiarity relaxes more than any tea could.
‘How’re you feeling?’ Drake asks, pressing a hand up to her forehead again.
‘Bad,’ She replies, it's the truth too. She slumps over so far that her back would have started aching if it hadn't stopped from the coughing she’s been doing. Her head throbs so much that she could make a tune out of the way she can feel the individual blood vessels in her brain expand and contract. A shiver wracks her body suddenly, and her Dad freezes.
‘Oh sweetheart,’ He says, shuffling her up into his arms so she’s draped over his shoulder ‘You can have more medicine in a couple hours, okay? That should help the pain, pumpkin - I’m sorry you’re feeling so, so shitty’
Gosalyn huffs some laughter at that, but her brain is too fuzzy to be offended at the hypocrisy. She clings, weak fisted to the back of his cape. Sharptoof is sandwiched between them, and she has a loose arm wrapped around her Dad’s neck. He continues to rub circles into her back, less investigative this time. He smells like home. She nestles into his arms a little further, and overcome with a fuzzy kind of comfort, she falls asleep.
She wakes with a start, coughing and spluttering enough to make the whole bed shake. There’s a noise outside that stops, and when she finally sucks in enough air to stop coughing, it starts up again. It sounds like the low timbre of conversation, and she freezes up. Her Dad isn’t sitting in the chair, her blood runs cold. She stays still for a bit, fighting the urge to fall asleep again and trying to listen through the whirring in her ears to the noise outside the room. Did he have to go stop a bank robbery? Did he get captured? Did someone break in?
Gosalyn feels the anxiety spike up her spine. With an energy that she didn’t know she had, carefully sits up without making a noise, and creeps over to the door of the server room. She left her slippers on the bed for maximum stealth, but only realises she's still holding Sharptoof when she’s at the door. Oh, whatever, he’ll have to come along for the ride.
She opens the door, holding it up and pushing the handle down so the latch won't catch in the door frame. It opens silently, and she peeks out just enough to see a slither of light come up from the platforms that has the main monitor set-up. She steels herself, forcing all the fear bubbling up in her down to a manageable level. Flu or not, she’s gotta look out for her Dad, she won’t let anyone tear this family away from her too. She pads as quietly as she can up the stairs. They spiral around the platform, the further she gets to the top the lower to the floor she sticks, until she can peek a head around the last curvature and see who's up there.
The lighting is dim up here. The shadow cast is definitely her Dad, and she can see another figure. She watches the shadows move across the opposite wall for a little while. They are both speaking low and severe. She’s never heard her Dad sound so serious, not even when he got thrown into that electrical wire that one time and had like 5000 volts zapped through him. The tone panics her more than she wants to admit. It must be a bad guy, and he must be negotiating something, and Darkwing is talking so quietly so he doesn’t wake her up, so the bad guy doesnt know she's here. She can't just let someone hurt her Dad, so she waits for the perfect time to strike.
From this part of the stairs she can reach the ledge that juts out behind the built in desks, so all she has to do is climb up there and cause a distraction, which should make the bad guy come down the stairs, so all she has to do is wait for that, and then she can either attack the intruder, or jump down behind him quick enough to go free her Dad. It shouldn't be too hard, easy as pie, even if the ground keeps wobbling in her vision.
She reaches up, and scrabbles against the smooth cold metal of the wall. It’s too hard to do with Sharptoof in her hand, so she throws him up there after her first failed attempt. She makes a quick silent jump, making just enough air to reach the ledge. The grippies on the bottom of her socks makes climbing up there even easier, and soon she's huddled behind the desk. She strains an ear to listen again, willing her ears to pop back into normalcy.
‘-don’t think you’ll-’ Darkwing, she thinks. It’s hard to break it up with her stuffy head.
‘-never let it-’ That must be the bad guy, she’s jarred by how much she recognises that voice, but no matter how hard she wracks her brain, she can’t hear well enough to piece it together.
‘-give up-’ Darkwing again, probably saying something super braggy and heroic, no doubt. Damn, she hates missing these speeches, as much as she would never admit it, especially out loud. Her Dad’s ego is already big enough as is.
‘-have until the morning to make the decision-’ That’s definitely a bad guy thing to say, what kind of normal person puts deadlines on things? That’s only said by evil guys like villains and teachers.
She makes her choice. Raising her arms above her head, she throws Sharptoof with all her strength past the stairs to the floor below, his little eyes crack against the concrete.
His noble sacrifice will be remembered.
The talking stops, and, success, the second voice comes creaking across the platform to the stairs. They lumber down the first step, then the second, then the shadow comes to peek around the corner. The back-light makes it hard for her to see who it is, but in a rush of adrenaline and cold medicine she throws herself, kneeing him in the face as hard as possible with her superior angle. It meets with a heavy thwack, and her fever addled mind is impressed that this guy is still standing.
He lets out a shout, and cusses, it's not a bad one though. A great hand comes up to grab at her back, she tries to make herself as slippery as possible, pushing all her weight to scrabble over his shoulder. It’s only when her sinuses clear enough that she can recognise the smell of this guy. The motor oil and shampoo. The low light betrayed any sort of his defining features. When she has her foot on his shoulder ready to leap behind him to her Dad, she can finally hear the rumbling soft voice of her Pops.
Her heart drops into her shoes. She turns on her heel on meeting the floor and almost passes out from the motion, her vision tunneling with relief and apology and fever.
When everything comes back into colour again Launchpad is holding her by both shoulders, talking rapidly to Drake behind her, and rubbing his thumb over her collarbone through her shirt. They keep talking above her, until her Dad puts a hand on her back and she sinks into it.
‘I’m sorry LP,’ She sobs, holding out her arms to ask for a hug. He picks her up with no hesitation, carding his hand through the back of her already messed up braids.
‘Aw, Gossie, it’s okay pumpkin, it’s okay baby,’ He shushes, sort of bouncing her on his shoulder like she’s a baby.
‘I thought- I thought you were a bad guy,’ She hiccups, try not to let hot tears spill down her cheeks, ‘ And I thought that Dad was in trouble and I was going to make a distraction and -’
‘Hey now Gos, it’s okay, we’re safe, we’re all safe, no danger here, see?’ Her Pops says, the timbre of his voice rumbling in his chest, as he uses his other arm to gesture around, ‘I’m sorry I scared you like that Pumpkin, you were very brave,’
‘You sure?’ She leans back to look at him skeptically, how he’s so nice even though she just decked him in the face is beyond her,
‘That you're brave? A hundred percent kiddo,’
‘No, no that you’re okay?’
‘Oh yeah, it’ll take more than that to knock Launchpad McQuack down,’
‘You’re telling me,’ Dad says behind her, ‘Let’s get down to the warm, yeah?’
On the way down they find the poor Sharptoof, his beady eye is cracked down the middle and half has smashed completely. Her Dad picks him up with the utmost care, tutting softly, he says, with complete sincerity;
‘Oh, what a hero,’
In the server room, she sits cuddled up next to her Pops on the low camp bed. He's a big comforting weight that makes Gosalyn feel safe in a different way, like all she has to do is stay there and nothing bad will ever happen in the world ever again. He gives her the next dose of medicine, which is goopy and bitter and the worst, but Pops pulls from his ever full stash of candy somewhere hidden in his pockets and gives her a mystery flavoured dumdum, even if it is very late at night.
Dad comes back in, with the sewing kit and Sharptoof under one arm and three mugs of hot chocolate in his hands. He’s careful to step over the pillows and blankets that Gos must’ve thrown on the floor during her mission. He puts the drinks on the desk, and pulls the chair way closer to the camping bed. He didn't have his hat and mask on when he came down, so she wonders if they’re even on duty anymore, or they got someone else to cover. He kisses Gosalyn’s forehead, despite the fact she knows it's sweaty and her hair is all greasy from the fever, and hands her the hot chocolate.
‘You taken your medicine?’
She grimaces and nods.
‘Good, okay, and how are you feeling now, slugger?’
‘My head feels okay now, and I don't feel as heavy, my back hurts and my throat hurts and I can’t hear properly,’
‘Oh dear,' He presses his hand to her head for the thousandth time that night, the relief palpable when the rigidity in his shoulders relaxes, 'Okay, you're feeling a lot cooler, that's good, means you're probably over the worst of it,'
'Good,' She replies, stuffy nosed, 'It better be,'
Launchpad laughs, ruffling her hair with one hand and taking the drink with the other. She watches, wide eyed and sipping her hot chocolate as her Dad leans over and kisses LP on the side of the beak, and they make those gross goo-goo eyes at each other.
Her hot chocolate is the perfect temperature, somehow, and though she can't taste much, the sweetness is revitalising. Dad sits back in his chair, cradling the heroic Sharptoof in his lap, the sewing tin clinks and jingles while he roots around in it.
‘LP, could you glue this noble crocodile's eye back together?’ He asks.
'I think I can manage that, pass me the tweezers,' He sits up properly, making Gosalyn slide down further into her nest of blankets and pillows and the occasional parachute.
They go on in silence, her Pops meticulously fusing the plastic eye of Sharptoof back together with his eyes all squinted and a steady hand that is a little unfamiliar on her Pops clumsy personality, his tongue still pokes out a little though, like it does when he's working on the tricky bits of a carburetor. Dad works away too, finding the right colour thread to stitch up the seam that got split open upon impact, he makes it look so easy. It's a ladder stitch. She remembers asking him when he fixed one of her favourite hoodies one time, gasping in delight when it looked like the tear had never been there, like the coolest sleight of hand she never got to know about.
She only manages to make it halfway through her hot choccy before she bows over and plops it on the floor. The ceramic meeting the concrete makes a nice little kachink sound, and she bundles herself back into her makeshift bed.
'What time is it?' She asks, trying to hide the yawn that overcomes her on the last syllable.
'Way too late for you to be awake little miss,' Pops replies, handing the cracked but whole eye back to her Dad, 'Special circumstance though, I guess,'
He runs a hand through her messy sweat slicked hair, and frowns deeply.
'Come here pumpkin,' he says, she slumps onto his lap, 'Aw jeez, you can really tell Drake did these braids,'
Gosalyn giggles, while her Dad opposite fluffs up and squawks indignantly,
'I thought they were pretty good!'
He gently fingers combs her hair, it's harder to do without any leave in conditioner or cocoa butter or anything, but Pops has always been good at detangling. Hair, her buzzing brain, Dad when he’s wrapped up in a case and keeps forgetting to eat. She hardly feels the pulling. Before long there are two fat french braids plaited flat to her skull, way closer than any of her Dad’s previous attempts, until two stubby little tail ends get tied off just below her chin. The rhythm has made her so sleepy, too sleepy to fight her way back into the covers, so when he's done she just tips back in his arms. Dad is finished too, his impromptu surgery on Sharptoof complete in the same amount of time. He ties a knot on the last bit of thread. And with a dramatic flourish, because of course he does, kisses Sharptoof’s eye better, and hands him back to Gos.
She dozes, content with their squabbling and talking low about boring grown up stuff above her. At some point the camping bed sinks under the pressure of her Dad sidling up next to her and Launchpad, and a hand comes to stroke her forehead, another kiss to the top of her head, and then she lets herself slip into sleep completely.