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Gyro still had his eyes glued to the elevator’s door, as if he was waiting for something, or someone, to come out of it. He should’ve known better.
The day had started pretty uneventfully, or as uneventfully as it could have started, given the constant bad luck that had been following the chicken for weeks now. He had been trying all week to perfect his portable toaster handbag in order to prove his worth to the board of directors, because his position was once again at risk—not that it ever stopped being at risk, but this time it appeared to be serious—and he really needed the funding for bigger projects, such as updating the Gizmoduck suit, or improving the accuracy of his time tub.
After a couple hours of trying to get the toaster to stop before it burned the toast, screaming at it and growing frustrated, he decided his time would be better spent on another task that required his intellect, such as improving the vending machine that kept malfunctioning. But just as he was starting to get somewhere near fixing that archaic machine, the power went out. Brilliant. Now he had to get Lil Bulb from the lab.
As he entered the lab, leaving behind multiple flights of stairs, he was met with a sight that was so horrifying it was worthy of his nightmares. His invention was partially disassembled on top of Cabrera’s desk, and Cabrera himself was looking for something inside a drawer, almost desperately. There was smoke coming out of the machine, and not the nice oh, my toast is ready kind of steam, but a fried circuit fume kind of smoke.
He can’t exactly remember what happened next, because he was so overtaken by his rage he didn’t even stop to think about whatever was coming out of his mouth. The only thing he knew for sure is that he was screaming at Fenton. He was furious, so furious he didn't even notice that the power had returned during his angry monologue. Tampering with his invention trespassed every type of boundary Gyro had set between himself and his co-worker, and he was definitely not going to let it slide, especially with this being such a defining project.
In retrospect, he might have been too harsh.
“This is disrespectful to me and to my work, and it's severely unprofessional of you. Although, I don't know what I had expected. You already stole my suit to go around Duckburg playing hero, you leaked my blueprints on the internet. Clearly, you have no respect for me or my intellectual property. It was only a matter of time until you would get your clumsy hands on one of my projects and completely ruin it,” he stated, arms crossed, brows so furrowed that the head of research and development was sure his muscles were gonna hurt the next day. He glanced at Fenton, who was looking anywhere but at him, so nervous that Gyro could swear he was trembling. “The least you could do now is look me in the eye and apologize to me.”
Fenton kept looking at the floor, something growing in him. Gyro couldn't believe what he recognized in his expression: the slightest bit of determination.
“I'm sorry for trying to help you, Dr. Gearloose.” He finally looked at his boss. Gyro wasn't happy at all with this response. It only made him more angry at the duck.
“Trying to help me. Right. You.” He snorted. “You're completely useless. I can't even let you alone with the suit for five minutes without you breaking something. You're of no help to me, Cabrera. Know your place.”
“Well, I'm sorry that you think of me that way. I'm sorry that you can't see the good side of anyone but yourself,” the duck responded, fury increasing with every single word. “I'm sorry that you can't be kind to people, that you're so mean to everyone. I'm sorry that you're an asshole and you're always lonely because you keep pushing aside everyone who cares about you.” He averted his eyes for a second, almost feeling guilty about that, but then shook his head, determination back all over his trembling body. “I'm sorry that I wasted so much time staying here.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” the chicken asked, his careless façade dropping for a few seconds.
“It means that I quit, Gyro.”
“You quit,” he repeated, processing the words. “You quit.” he snickered. “You're quitting.” He let out a few ironic chuckles. “You have a job with the best scientist in all Duckburg, and you're quitting.”
“Yes. I'm quitting. I hope it doesn't cause much of an inconvenience to you.”
“An inconvenience? Please.” He rolled his eyes. “You're the inconvenience. I don't need you. If anything, you're the one who needs me,” he said, posture proud and authoritarian. “You're nothing without me, Fenton. You're nothing without the Gizmoduck suit.” While Gyro was screaming at the duck, the aforementioned had called an elevator which was arriving at the lab. “You're making a mistake,” he finished, watching the duck get inside the elevator.
“Goodbye.” Fenton replied drily, while the elevator's door closed, leaving Gyro behind.
“Hey!” He stepped forward, trying to stop the door, but it was too late. “Come back here!” He banged on the door. “I'm not done with you!” But the elevator was far gone. “I'm not—” He stepped back, anger fading, leaving him with only a feeling of confusion. “I'm not done with you...”
Emptiness. Gyro had been staring at the elevator's door for a full ten minutes. He’d been counting them. That's a sixth of an hour of his day, gone. The elevator spends half a minute on a trip from the lab to the lobby. It used to take a full minute—he knows this to be true because he modified it himself. In the time he spent looking at that damned door, Cabrera could've taken the elevator twenty times. Clearly, he had no intention of coming back to the lab and apologizing to him, so his energy was being wasted.
Once he had fully accepted this, Gyro headed back to his former co-worker's desk, where Lil Bulb was sitting, looking at him with the most disapproving look he had ever seen his invention give him. Placing the little robot aside, he picked up his invention to just throw it in the trash, yanking it towards him when he realized it was stuck. He then realized why it was stuck; it was connected to an extension cord which was now broken thanks to Gyro's aggressive behavior. Clearly, this was not the inventor's best day, but he wouldn't let it get to him, so he took a couple of deep breaths, and just as he was regaining composure, he heard the elevator arriving at the lab.
With an accidental burst of hope, he turned around and waited for the elevator's door to open, revealing no other than…
A headless man horse. Gyro frowned, trying to hide his disappointment. “For God's sake, Manny, you've been gone for an hour.” He started cleaning the desk and putting Cabreras' personal belongings inside a box, while listening to Manny's half hearted apology.
“Alright, that's enough, I couldn't care less about the lady you almost ran over in the supermarket's parking lot.” He rolled his eyes before turning around and facing his intern again. “I need you to help me find another intern.”
Whatever Manny's response to that was, it certainly got to Gyro.
“I did not—! Who do you think I am, some kind of monster? I didn't fire him this time. That insolent just quit. Can you believe it?” Gyro kept throwing blueprints, circuits and various incomplete artifacts into the box, tensing at what his intern was communicating to him.
“Yes, I am having a horrible day, thanks for asking,” he answered, last part being completely sarcastic. “And if you keep using that tone with me, someone will be fired today. Consider yourself warned.” He dropped the box on the floor and began walking to his own desk, without looking back at Manny.
He had a lot of work to do if he wanted to keep his position at the Money Bin. His whole future depended on his next brilliant idea. If he got fired, that was it for him. No other sane big corporation would hire him, given his extensive criminal record and bad public image, and he couldn't afford to go independent. Heaven knows he needed McDuck's funding. So it was either try to earn the trust of those buzzards, or end up working for some sketchy people that planned on world domination or some civic crime of the sort, and as mad a scientist Gyro was, he'd rather starve than go through something like that again.
His new intern was a piece of shit.
There was no reason in particular. Gyro simply loathed this guy. How dare he stay silent and do whatever he gets told to do with such disinterest and lack of curiosity? It had been three days and the intern hadn’t once asked what he was up to, which happened to be a very interesting and complex device that the average mind might feel tempted to refer to as a freezing ray. Not Gyro, though. He was trying to come up with a name, it’s a whole process, it would come to him eventually. But not a freezing ray. Definitely not a freezing ray.
But who even cared about the name! His intern certainly didn’t. He didn’t care about anything surrounding him at the moment. When he was at the lab he simply followed orders and left at the scheduled time without saying anything besides the common courtesy of a ‘have a good night’ . If Dr. Gearloose wanted someone who would just stay silent and do what they’re told, he would’ve built a robot. Scratch that, even his robots had the decency to confront him from time to time when he was doing something as pathetic as a freezing ray.
So, by the time the night started to set and it was time for his intern to head home, Gyro knew he wouldn’t be able to shrug another ‘have a good night’.
He watched his intern start to gather his things, every single thing on top of his desk, he never left a trace. For a moment, Gyro’s eyes focused on the box behind the desk, containing a pile full of Fenton’s personal belongings, anything from very specific blueprints to a figurine of that purple vigilante that Launchpad liked so much. He stopped himself from dwelling on the fact that Cabrera was attached to the lab enough that he kept trying to make it look homey, to the extent of bringing a plant to decorate the bathroom, which he had called Sir Baño, a joke Gyro never actually understood.
By the time he had successfully gotten rid of such useless thoughts, his intern was already pressing the button that called the elevator. At any minute he was going to say that goddamned phrase. The elevator arrived, and the new intern turned to face Gyro.
“Have a good night, Doctor Gearloose,” he said, with an insincere smile on his face.
“What if I don’t? What are you gonna do about it, huh? What if I decide that I’m not going to have a good night, what if I refuse to, huh?” Oh. Okay. Maybe the scientist was overreacting a bit. Maybe he needed some rest. Or food. Or something else that he struggled to remember when he was so engrossed in his work that all basic human needs faded into nothing at the very back of his brain.
“Then, I’ll see you tomorrow?” A look of confusion had made its way into the intern’s eyes the moment his boss’s cold and distant façade broke.
“I’ll see you tomorrow? That’s it? That’s all you have to say? You’re not going to ask me to drive safely? To go to sleep at a reasonable hour? Not gonna remind me to drink water so I don’t get dehydrated?” Right. Water. That was what he needed. He almost mentally thanked Fenton for nagging him so much about it, but quickly reminded himself that he remained mad at the duck. “Not even going to say goodbye to Lil Bulb? What are you? Heartless?”
“That’s actually really hurtful, Doctor Gearloose,” the intern responded, and for the first time, Gyro could tell that he actually meant it. “Look, I got hired to do what I’m told, that’s it. I’m not your family, dude.”
Gyro tried so hard to come up with an answer, but he had nothing. His intern was right, he had no sort of moral obligation regarding Gyro’s wellbeing. Neither did Fenton.
He noticed that the intern was about to step into the elevator, and cleared his throat.
“Intern?”
“Yes?” he turned around while holding the elevator’s door.
“I’m sorry,” he offered.
“I know. We all have those days” The intern nodded. “I’m quitting, by the way. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
“That’s alright, I was going to fire you anyways.” He shrugged it off, watching his intern get inside the elevator, suddenly turning around and holding the door.
“Doctor Gearloose?”
“Yes?”
“Have a good night. Or don’t. But, whatever it is you’re going through, I hope that you sort it out. You’re meant for bigger things than building a freezing ray.” And with that, his former intern left, not even giving Gyro the chance to explain why the device he was working on, which still didn't have a name, should never be referred to as a freezing ray.
Having no other choice, he found himself grabbing a water bottle before focusing on his invention once again. He was completely set on finishing the job tonight. The faster he finished it, the faster he’d be able to move on from it, as it was certainly not one of his proudest inventions. But it would do. The board only wanted to see something that worked, they didn’t care about it being useful, helpful, or revolutionary, as proven by their lack of interest in Lil Bulb.
And it took several hours and coffee breaks, but he had finally finished his invention.
“A freezing ray. You just made a freezing ray. When did you become so unoriginal and predictable?” he asked himself, looking at the now finished gun sitting on his desk.
He felt a sting in his eyes. For the past three days he had been focusing solely on this project, pushing aside everything else, all of his feelings, even some of his basic necessities sometimes. But now, all of it was rapidly coming back to him.
Now he was alone in his lab at 3AM, tired because of his fucked up sleep schedule—or lack thereof—and he had just accomplished something so stupid all of his rivals wouldn’t even laugh at it, no, they would just feel pity. Now he had no one who would try to pitch an idea to him about how this new invention, this godforsaken, predictable, trite freezing ray could actually do good to the people of Duckburg, could actually save a life, could mean something.
Right now, he felt as if he had no purpose.
But that was ridiculous. He didn’t need Cabrera, he didn’t need anyone. He was fine before the duck came into his life and subverted his whole system, his very motivation to keep inventing. He wasn’t doing this to save anyone, he hadn’t invented anything with the wellbeing of others in mind ever since he saw where that took him. Destruction. His inventions were merely for his own benefit and the benefit of Mr. McDuck’s company. For many years, it had been this way. For many years, this had kept him satisfied. So why did he feel so empty now?
Maybe something had changed in the past year. But maybe it didn’t; maybe he was overthinking it, something he tended to do, sabotaging himself when things finally started to go his way.
He microwaved some mac and cheese leftovers from… Tuesday? He couldn’t really remember. For a couple of minutes, he just sat on the floor of the break room and, lights out, back against the counter, ate his mac and cheese. As if he were some sort of animal. Gyro couldn’t recall the last time he’d had a real meal, the last time he hadn’t just eaten for the sake of remaining fed. He shook those thoughts from his head.
With a full stomach, he decided it was time for him to revisit the portable toaster. He couldn't keep ignoring it forever. Maybe figuring out what went wrong would help him start to get his shit together, maybe fixing it would fix him, and he could finally move on from what had happened three days ago. So he took it out of the trash and opened the lid to the circuits.
And there it was, the irrefutable proof that Gyro was indeed an idiot.
Of course the toaster's circuits would've fried the moment the power went out. He had undoubtedly miscalculated the amount of resistance the battery required in order to not overcharge the circuitry, which he hadn't realized up to that point merely because he always plugged the toaster in for testing. And he was so quick to blame Cabrera for his own sloppy, rookie mistake. But then, what had he actually done to the portable toaster? After inspecting it for a while, he decided to rummage through Fenton's personal belongings, to see if he could find a blueprint. It wasn't easy to find; order had never been one of the duck's virtues, but Gyro had managed to spot it after a while.
He laid the blueprints over the desk, dedicating his undivided attention to them. Lil Bulb, who had been sitting on Gyro's shoulder, silently judging him, jumped over to the desktop, suddenly invested in the piece of paper his creator was carefully inspecting. And rightfully so, Fenton's solution to the problem Gyro had been trying to solve for the past week, was actually extremely clever.
Oh, he had really fucked up this time.
“I hate this stupid road and this stupid rain. This is so, so stupid,” the chicken muttered, struggling to drive with the rain falling so violently against the windshield. “I swear to God, if this car dies on me now I’m going to destroy it and repurpose the scraps.”
Beside the box that rested in the passenger seat, Lil Bulb made some buzzing noises to tell Gyro that if he didn’t calm down, he was even more prone to get into an accident.
“Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?” Gyro asked the robot, who immediately went to check the GPS and blinked twice, indicating that this was indeed the correct route.
He sighed. “I really hope this works.”
As hot-headed Gyro was, he had never considered himself so impulsive as to grab his keys and storm out of the lab at 3:30 AM to drive all the way to his former co-worker's house during a rainstorm. Maybe things did change, though.
He remained uncertain of the route he was taking up until the moment he spotted the Cabreras’ residence, now two stories tall. He vividly remembered how Fenton wouldn’t shut up about the renovations in the past few months, a bit too excited at the prospect of having his room significantly distanced from his mom’s. He was glad to see that it had now become a reality.
After he parked his car, he took a couple of minutes to decide what exactly he was going to do. Ringing the doorbell wasn’t an option, given that it was way too late, and Fenton’s mom didn’t seem to like him. Well, that might seem like an understatement, but Gyro had received a lot of threats in his life. Officer Cabrera might hate him, but not nearly enough as did at least thirty people in the Duckburg area.
But who even rang the doorbell anymore? He should just send Fenton a text and hope he didn’t have his phone muted. So he dug his hand into his vest’s pocket. It was empty.
This was officially the worst night ever.
He considered the possibilities. He quickly discarded climbing as an option, partially because if he was caught trespassing at a police officer’s residence, he’d certainly be in trouble, but mostly because of the giant cactus that stood below what he presumed was Fenton’s room’s window. The cactus standing next to that one was a fake, probably replacing a real one that had experienced some sort of terrible fate. Inside the plant pot, instead of soil, were little polished pebbles. Gyro’s palm flew to his face. His only other option was borderline ridiculous.
Doctor Gyro Gearloose, Duckburg's most brilliant mind—self-proclaimed, but never mind that—was about to get out of his car, under the pouring rain, at almost dawn, to throw pebbles at his former co-worker's window, begging for forgiveness. And he’d thought a freezing ray was the most unoriginal thing he'd done today.
As he was stepping around the car, he gathered all of his romcom knowledge in his head. If he wanted to successfully get Fenton's attention, he'd have to find a constant rhythm. One that would wake him up, but wouldn't make him run out of pebbles, or crack the window—again, going to jail wasn't part of the plan and should be avoided at all costs. Eventually, he chose to apply a five-second interval between pebbles.
He threw the first pebble. No results, as expected. After five seconds came the second. He waited another five seconds, and threw the third. His clothes were quickly beginning to soak. He nearly missed the window when throwing the fourth pebble. His glasses were covered in rainwater and his hair had started dripping into said glasses, so he brushed it away before throwing the fifth pebble. Results, finally. A faint light illuminated the room, probably originated from a reading lamp. For the sake of consistency, Gyro threw a sixth pebble. Hey, I'm still here, you should probably check out that annoying sound outside your window.
The seventh pebble landed on Fenton's face.
“Sorry!” Gyro said immediately. Things were already not going well. That had to be a record.
“Doctor Gearloose?” Fenton asked, his expression confused and a bit sleepy.
He was there, at the other side of the window, shirtless with a bedhead and a hoarse voice because he had just woken up, and Gyro had to pause for a moment and take in the view. Oh no . The scientist blamed having thoughts of that nature on the fact that he had gotten a bit too carried away reenacting a romcom trope. He had no time to deal with yet another realization of feelings tonight.
“What are you doing here?! It's four in the morning and it's raining! You're going to catch a cold!” Fenton was doing a mix of screaming and whispering, trying not to awaken anyone but still making sure Gyro could hear him.
“I—I…” The scientist cleared his throat. “I need to talk to you.” His voice was quivering, maybe he was nervous? He couldn't really tell why, but he felt as if there was a lump in his throat. “About… everything.” he involuntarily sniffed. Oh no, he recognized this feeling. The knot in his throat, the sting in his eyes.
“Dr. Gearloose… Are you crying?” the duck asked, genuine concern in his voice. He had never seen Gyro crying before. Hell, Gyro hadn't cried at all in a very long time, actually.
“I'm not!” He jumped defensively, but then lowered his gaze. “W-well. Maybe. A little bit. It's not like I can control it!” When he actually looked back at Cabrera, he was met with a very confused stare. “Look, would you just get down here?!” he said, a little aggressively. He winced, quickly changing his attitude. “Please.”
Fenton rapidly nodded his head and his figure disappeared from the window.
Gyro looked down at his clothes. He was completely soaked by now. He didn't care, though. This was worth getting a cold for.
A full minute passed before Fenton was right in front of him, now with a shirt on and a more presentable hairstyle, much to Gyro's disappointment—er, indifference.
“Alright, what's wrong?”
“Look. I'm wrong, and I made a mistake, and my life is shit, and I guess what I'm trying to say is—” He took a deep, shaky breath, and looked at Fenton with determination. “I am sorry. And if you could ever forgive me, I would like for us to work together again.”
“Wait, rewind for a second. You said your life is shit? Do you want to talk about it? Cause if you don't, well, that's alright, but if you need someone to talk to I'm always willing to—” The duck had already started to go on one of his rambles, this time expressing a deep concern for none other than the person that had called him an inconvenience three days ago. Only then did Gyro mentally ask himself what good had he done to deserve someone like Fenton in his life.
“Fenton.” The scientist stopped him before he could drown in his own frantic stream of words.
“Sorry.”
“No problem.” He almost smiled at the familiarity of the situation. He had missed Cabrera's constant rambling. “Ever since the moment you left, I've been feeling miserable, and I thought that diving into my new project for the board would help those feelings go away, but—”
“You have a new project?” Fenton interrupted, excitedly.
“Well, yes. It's not a big deal though, and I actually already finished it, I just have to name it.”
Fenton’s face lit up. “Maybe I can help with that! What is it?” Oh God, his eyes were so full of adoration and expectation, and Gyro didn't want to let him down.
“Well, I guess you could call it a…” He adjusted his glasses and brushed his hair out of the way, trying to buy himself some time to come up with something. “It is essentially a… a crystallization point inducing laser beam?” he tried.
“Doctor Gearloose, did you invent a freezing ray?” his former co-worker offered, with a confused look that quickly merged into trying to contain a laugh.
“Alright! Yes! I built a freezing ray!” Gyro admitted, frustrated. “Look, it's whatever, the board doesn't even care, they just want something that works.” He rolled his eyes. “As for me, I think it was established that I hit rock bottom the moment I started to throw pebbles at your window under the rain as if I were a high schooler who thinks the girl who smiled at him once in math class is actually the love of his life,” he said mockingly, earning a laugh from Fenton.
“Right, I'm sorry, please keep going.”
“Okay, so, I focused all of my time and energy into this— this freezing ray—” He pretended to gag, disgusted by the term. “—and you already know how I get when I'm focusing on a single project. And, well, Manny had helped me hire a new intern who I thought would solve all my problems, but this guy just stayed quiet and followed orders, which was more than a little disconcerting to me. I'm not used to my employees being so… obedient, I guess. No offense. I actually absolutely hated this guy because of it. He was the worst. The only thing that kept me from dying was your stupid pestering voice in my head constantly nagging me about how I should eat from time to time and go to sleep at a reasonable hour and—”
“You've clearly failed on that.”
“Yes, well, we're both awake.”
“Only because you woke me up.”
“Alright, you win. Permission to continue blathering about how miserable my life is?”
“Granted.”
“Thank you. Now, as I was saying, no one was actually looking out for me, and I eventually snapped at my intern for it, and he said something like ‘I'm not your family, dude.’” Gyro imitated a generic, low, teenage tone, stealing a laugh from Fenton. “And that— that made me realize that you never really had any sort of moral obligation towards my wellbeing, but you cared anyway. And I'm not used to people caring about me, but God, you care so much, and I… don't. That's why I need you by my side. You're—” He hesitated for a moment and dropped his gaze. “You're teaching me how to care again, and it's nice. I really appreciate it.”
They stood there for a while, both speechless, clothes dripping from the rain. Fenton's stare wasn't judgemental in the slightest, which shouldn't have surprised the chicken, but what did surprise him, as always, is the amount of care and affection that those eyes held, giving Gyro his undivided attention.
Attention, right. He was telling the duck about his terrible day, he almost forgot about that.
“Anyway.” He shook his head. “I told that intern I was sorry, and he quit, which was fine. I was going to fire him eventually anyway. But, he turned out to be a really nice guy, so it's a bit of a shame. I guess that's a common theme with me, pushing nice people out of my life.” He adjusted his bowtie, suddenly feeling choked by the honesty those words held. “You were right about that, by the way. Well, you were right about everything you said to me, but that one was spot-on.”
“For what it's worth, I'm really sorry about everything I said that day.”
“Don't be. You stood up for yourself. I admire that. And I appreciate your honesty.”
“Thank you, I guess.” Fenton suddenly averted his eyes from Gyro, focusing on the giant cactus below his bedroom's window. “So, is that why you're here? Because your new intern quit?”
“What? No! That's old news. Happened, like, eight hours ago. A lot more happened since then. I guess I could try to summarize it quicker.”
“Oh.” He finally looked back at Gyro. “Keep going, then.”
“After that, I spent several hours working on the— the thing . And after I finished it I immediately began to question my entire life. So I grabbed some mac and cheese leftovers from the break room and ate them sitting on the floor while—”
“Wait, the leftovers from Tuesday?”
“Yes, precisely. Anyway, I—”
“Doctor Gearloose! Those were probably spoiled, you should've thrown those away! Now you're gonna get sick and—”
“WOULD YOU STOP WORRYING ABOUT ME FOR A SECOND! I'm trying to have a redemption arc!” He took a deep breath, switching to a more calmed expression. “Look, the moment you asked about my shitty life, you signed up for this monologue. And I would like to get to the point without being interrupted, so I would appreciate your patience. I promise that I'm getting to the point. Please stay quiet?”
Fenton simply nodded.
“Thank you. After that I decided to take a look at the toaster and realized that apparently they give a doctorate to any moron. I'll have to tell Beaks, he'd be glad to hear that. The thing is, I had completely miscalculated the resistance of the battery and that's what fried the circuitry. Your workaround to the burning problem was actually really clever. And for that I owe you my most sincere apology. This is the apology, by the way. I'm sorry. End of monologue.”
“Wait, I didn't burn your portable toaster handbag?” Fenton sounded extremely surprised by this, had he been blaming himself for it the whole time?
“You absolutely didn't.” He saw the relief on the duck's eyes. “Your modifications were actually…” Gyro was struggling to admit the next thing, but he owed it to Fenton to be sincere. “Theworkofapotentialgenius—DON'T let it go to your head.”
“Too late” he said, pretending to be casual about it, but his excitement was obvious.
“That kind of talent shouldn't be wasted working for someone who has you constantly mopping the floor. I realize now that I was completely wrong. I need you way more than you need me. And I would understand if you don't want to have anything to do with me anymore, so I brought your stuff, it's in the car, but I would really like for us to work together once again. Properly, this time.”
“Wait, your car? You drove all the way here?”
“Well, not all of us own a supersuit that lets us fly everywhere.”
“But you hate driving long distances at night! Especially when it's raining.”
“I really do. But it was worth it.”
“Holdup, did you say something about rehiring me?”
“Fenton, I swear to God, are you even paying attention?”
“I'm not, sorry, it's just that your—” The duck looked away from him, seemingly nervous. “Your hair, it— you have a—”
He reached out to brush away a strand of hair that had fallen right between Gyro's eyes. The scientist felt his whole face warming up for some reason. Must be the cold he was starting to develop. “There. Your hair looks really cute under the rain.” The smile Fenton was giving him was one that he had never seen before.
“Thanks. Yours does too. It's kinda hot, really,” he said, unfiltered. Yes, he was definitely starting to experience a fever, that had to be it. “Not as much as your bedhead, though.”
“Oh God, please don't tell anyone about my bedhead, it's horrible.”
“I think it looks really good. And don't worry, I would've taken a picture but I forgot my phone at the lab because I'm a moron and didn't really plan any of this through.”
“Oh, right! You were saying something about a job offering. I was really interested in that, would you please keep going?”
“Gladly.” He smiled, relieved that Fenton was interested in working for him again “As I was saying, I'm offering you a position. Full time, or part time, I'm flexible and I recognize that your superhero gig requires a lot of your time. You would not be my assistant, but my associate. From now on, we both make the calls. If you ever find a flaw on one of my designs again, I want you to tell me right away. And if I'm ever an asshole to you, I want you to stand up to me like you did the other day. You think you can do that for me?”
“Yes, sir, I'll try my best.”
“And another thing. Drop the formalities. Do we have a deal, Fenton?” He extended his hand.
“We have a deal, Gyro,” the duck answered, excitedly shaking the chicken's hand. After he let go of his co-worker's hand, he looked down, gaining confidence to speak. “Uhm, Gyro, do you mind if I—?”
“Oh, come here, you dummy.” Gyro rolled his eyes, already pulling Fenton into a hug.
Right there, in that moment, both soaking wet from the rain, Gyro decided that as horrible as his day had been, he'd be willing to go through all of that again, just to relive that moment, that hug he was giving Fenton with such urgency, as if the duck would change his mind any minute and he had to make that moment last as much as possible.
“Gyro?” Fenton said, without letting go.
“Yes?” he answered, with no intention of pulling away.
“You're going to catch the worst cold ever.”
“I really couldn't care less about that. Plus, you're warm.”
“Oh. I'm glad to hear that.”
Gyro suddenly became aware of the fact that he had absentmindedly lifted Fenton from the ground, but he didn't seem to mind. In fact, the duck was holding onto him just as tight, as if he were someone worth keeping around in his life. Gyro couldn't say he understood Fenton's reasons to feel this way, but he was sure of the reasons why that feeling was reciprocated.
And finally, that was it, what he had previously catalogued in his mind as the worst night ever, now didn't seem to be able to get ruined.
“Tenía que ser ese maldito pollo! What the hell are you doing in my lawn?!” A scream resonated through the whole block.
Gyro dropped Fenton with a start and raised his hands, as he was being aimed at with a gun.
“Good evening to you too, Officer Cabrera! I was just leaving, but—” He helped Fenton stand up. “Have a lovely night, both of you,” he said hurriedly, before proceeding to run to his car as if his life depended on it.
“Hey! Come back here, you pollo nefasto! La próxima no te me escapas!”