Chapter Text
Louie woke up in his bed with a pounding headache, a bruised chin, and without the slightest memory of anything that happened last night. As he sat up, his whole body seemed to ache. He looked around his room and saw Miles was curled up by his feet.
Something was wrong.
He looked to his side to nudge Webby, but he remembered she was off at a SHUSH conference in New Stork City. He looked back at the duckling curled up by his feet and saw he had a giant bruise on his face he didn’t remember him having the previous day. That wasn’t too unusual for Miles, he constantly got himself hurt in ways Louie didn’t even know were possible.
“Miles..?” Louie rubbed his eyes and nudged his son with his foot. The boy’s eyes shot open at the mention of his name.
“Is it over? Can we go out now?” He asked. Louie tilted his head.
“You know… the scary lady? The smoke?” Miles was confused at Louie’s confusion.
“What scary lady..?” Louie was getting genuinely concerned.
“The green one with the fur coat. Don’t you ‘member?” Miles asked.
Green.
Fur coat.
“Dad?” Selena emerged from their walk-in closet.
“Selena? What’re you doing here?” Louie slid off the bed.
“You… told us to hide in here last night..? Don’t you remember? Me, Miles, Lucy, and Hazel were all playing Scrooge-opoly when the alarms went off and you told us to come in here. Miles was supposed to stay with me, but Miles decided cuddles were more important than immediate safety,” Selena raised an eyebrow in suspicion. Louie looked down at himself and noticed he was still in yesterday’s clothes.
“Where’s Lucy? Hazel?” Louie asked.
“I- I assume the safe room as you told them to last night after you told us to hide in here” Selena tried to recall. “Are you okay? Did you hit your head or something?”
“Something like that,” Louie shook his head. “I’m going to go look. If what you two said happened last night, happened, then you two stay in here,” he looked at them and they nodded. Louie did the same and when he opened the door he was horrified at the sight he saw.
There were feathers, fur, and signs of struggle and fight everywhere. What worried him most though, was one of Lucy’s favorite stuffed animals pinned to the wall with an arrow and an all too familiar green feather with a note.
“N-no…” Louie whispered to himself as he looked at the feather. There was no denying who it was or how or why.
It was Turaco.
A wave of cold washed over Louie’s arms as he spoke her name in his mind. His breathing got unsteady and he found himself running up to Lucy’s room, in pure denial of what he had seen before.
The room was not much help to his failing mental state.
The window was shattered. A little blood here and there. More green feathers. Scratches on the wood floor.
“We’ll split up. Selena, Miles, go to my bedroom, now! Lucy, Hazel, go to the saferoom. I’ll be there in a sec,” He remembered ordering. Selena had grabbed Miles’ wrist and ran off to his room. Lucy and Hazel nodded and they went to the safe room. Louie had picked up his bat and remembered trying to hit someone with a bat, he didn’t remember who.
“Oh pretty boy~’ The familiar call of Her had made him freeze in his place. He heard screams in the other room and he began to run towards them.
“Where do you think you’re going?” He remembered someone tripping him and pinning him down, which caused the current bruised chin.
“Such a pretty daughter… such a pretty niece,” She suddenly appeared with two strong men holding Lucy and Hazel.
“You had really thought I’d never see you again, didn’t you? Well here I am, but I’m here for a different prize. Pleasure doing business,” He remembered her smiling her hideous teeth when the men began to take them away.
“Daddy!!!”
“Uncle Louie!”
He could hear their cries for help, clear as day in his mind. He remembered scrambling up and running after, forgetting there was one of her henchmen behind him.
“Lucy! Hazel! I’ll be right there! I’ll-”
That was when he remembered everything going black.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He reached for it and answered without looking at the contact.
“Hey Louie, how’s it going?” It was Huey. He was coming to pick up Hazel.
Shit.
“I-i-i…” Louie couldn’t manage words. Too much was swirling in his mind and he wanted to run as far away from this mess as he possibly could.
“Louie?! Is everything okay?” apparently his mental state was detectable even over the phone. Loue buried his head in his hands, shaking his head.
“Louie?! Is everything alright? Where’s Hazel?” He asked. Louie still couldn’t find it within himself to respond. Eventually, Huey hung up and arrived at their house, was let in by Selena, and he ran to where he heard Louie’s sobs and went into Lucy’s room, mortified at what he saw.
“L-louie, what happened..?” his jaw nearly dropped to the floor in shock and fear.
“S-she’s gone, okay?! I-I didn’t keep them safe and th-they’re gone,” Louie finally admitted.
“…N-no… Th-they… they can’t be. Selena and Miles are still here they-”
“I told them to split up. Them in my room, Haze, and Lu-lucy in the safe room,” Louie cursed himself for suggesting the idiotic idea.
“D-did you check in there?” Huey asked, doing everything in his power to deny to himself what he knew had happened.
“I don’t need to Huey! They’re gone! I saw them! She took them! Turaco kidnapped Lucy and Hazel!!!” Louie spat. Huey’s face and heart dropped.
“Wh-… why? Why would she even do that?! What does Hazel have to do with anything?” Huey tried to make sense of the situation while forcing down tears, as that was what he did best when the world was falling apart.
“you think I know?! God- I feel like such an idiot,” Louie clenched his fist.
“W-we can figure this out, Louie. We’ll just call Webby a-and we’ll sort this all through. I-it’ll be okay-”
“No, it won’t! I-I know what she does, Huey. This isn’t going to be light and breezy. S-she’s going to hurt them. Bad,” Louie looked him dead in the eyes. Huey looked into them and saw the scars of the past had resurfaced in Louie’s eyes.
“We’ll call Webby. She’ll know what to do,” Huey said, “for now though, I’m really going to need you to breathe b-because I’m freaking out too and we need more backup before we do this. S-so yeah,” Huey said, his hands shaking as he picked up his phone and called Webby.
Voicemail.
He called again.
Voicemail.
Huey called her seven more times and not once did she pick up the phone. Huey cursed to himself. By then, Louie had calmed himself down to a state of tired numbness. The brothers made their way down the stairs to pull themselves away from the mess and Huey proceeded to try and call a few more times as Selena began to make both of them tea.
“You’re supposed to be staying in my room,” Louie sniffled.
“Mom gave us direct orders to help you after a panic attack like that. Tea is number one on her list,” Selena said quietly as she began to pour hot water into cups. Louie nodded silently.
“Did she leave any clues? A-a note? Anything we could go off of?” Huey rubbed his forehead. Selena nodded.
“By the doorway,” She said. Huey nodded and went there. He cringed at the pierced teddy bear and read the note, which only listed a pair of coordinates.
“I found coordinates. We can ask Dewey or Mom to punch them in, and then we’ll be there to rescue them in no time,” Huey said.
“right, Let’s get going then,” Louie stood up.
“Does this mean we get to go on a serious mission to save Hazel and Lucy?” Miles scrambled out from Louie’s bedroom.
“Oh no. There’s no way on earth we’re letting you two anywhere near Her,” Louie shook his head. Miles frowned.
“This isn’t a fun mission. This is serious. Hazel and Lucy’s lives are at stake,” Huey said. Miles and Selena shared a look.
“I-i can be serious,” he muttered.
“No Miles. And that’s final. I’m texting Donald,” Louie drank some more tea and borrowed Huey’s phone.
“Daaaaad, you know I’m just gonna sneak onto the plane anyway,” Miles huffed. Unfortunately, that logic did make Louie question his actions.
“Miles, I can’t risk any more of you getting hurt. I love you two far too much to even give you the chance of going through even a sliver of what happened to me. it’s too dangerous. That’s final,” Louie said, his tone dead serious. Miles understood and nodded.
“Okay… I’ll wait,” he sighed. “But if we came along, you’d be able to keep a closer eye on us,” Miles said. Louie rubbed his eyes.
“I can’t let you come along, got it? It’s too dangerous and I seriously can’t afford to lose any more of you. Not now” he said. That got Miles to shut up.
“We’ll stay here,” Selena said. Louie nodded, silently thanking her.
“I’ll get Webby’s spy things. You call mom and Dewey,” Louie handed his brother his phone back and went into his room. He emerged two minutes later with a black duffle full of spy gear he had no idea how to use. He knew Huey also didn’t know how to use it, and neither did Dewey or Della probably, but it had to be good for something.
“Let’s go. We shouldn’t waste our time,” Louie said. Huey nodded when Miles tugged on his sleeve.
“Lucy’s gonna be okay, right?” he asked nervously.
“Of course. it’ll be alright Miles,” Huey patted his nephew’s fluffy hair. The boy nodded.
“Selena, you’re in charge until Donald gets here. I love you,” Louie hugged both of them as tight as he could.
“Love you too,” they replied.
Louie and Huey nodded at each other and they got in the car, Louie taking the wheel.
“You ready?” Huey asked.
“I’m absolutely terrified. Let’s go.“