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In late evening, the air on Killmotor Hill grows brisk and the sky dark. The mansion, being by definition expansive, becomes a vast and ghost-cold space. Its inhabitants huddle under soft quilts and warm blankets, whiling away the hours before bed in comfort. Even Scrooge himself retires to a warm corner of his suite, with a cupful of hot tea and his warmest housecoat.
In an old hangar-turned-garage, not far from the Money Bin, Dewey and Launchpad are sitting on a comfortable but threadbare couch. Dewey’s wrapped himself in his quilt like a silkworm, while Launchpad sprawls over the rest of the seats, bomber jacket swapped out for an elderly sleeping jacket and a crocheted throw slung over his lap. The space is lit by an old lamp, its shade dented, and its warm glow illuminates dust motes drifting through the still air. It’s drafty here, not made for living, but warm cocoa and thick blankets go a long way.
“Popcorn, D-man?” Launchpad sets the bowl down next to Dewey on the couch. The duckling quickly realises his arms are trapped in the quilt and, brow furrowed in determination, resorts to pecking the popcorn out of the bowl. Launchpad chuckles, leans forward to prod an elderly VHS tape into the player.
“What’s this movie, anyway?” Dewey asks, through a mouthful of popcorn, so it’s really more like whatsh thish mo’ie ‘nyway?
“Iron Giant,” Launchpad says seriously, settling back into the couch. It lets out a tortured, baleful creak. “Favourite movie when I was your age, and also still. I put it on every time I need a good cry.”
The VCR gives a high, scratchy whine. Dewey swallows. “You need a cry today, big guy?”
“‘S no harm,” Launchpad shrugs. “Don’t look, I’m rewinding.”
Dewey blinks, then wiggles an arm out and slaps one hand over his eyes. “How come?”
“I always forget to rewind the tape when I’m done. Old tape players, it’ll just pick up where you left off, so you have to skip back to the start.” He clicks his tongue. “There we go. Ready?”
The screen shows a grainy logo, the pause symbol flickering. Dewey hesitates. “Is it, like, long? I just - I kind of get distracted during long movies.”
Launchpad shakes his head. “It’s actually pretty short, but I did grab something for you - uh.”
“Uh?”
“I do need to remember where I put it,” Launchpad admits, pulling the throw aside to root through his pockets.
“You sitting on it?”
Launchpad flourishes an aged GameBoy, plastered with faded, peeling stickers. “You’re a genius, D.”
“For sure.” Dewey catches the console as it’s tossed to him and boots it up with interest. “It’s got Bubble Bobble on it.”
“Yup,” Launchpad says, pops the p. “Best game ever made. Except for Battletoads, but my sister has that one.”
“Thanks, LP.” Dewey says earnestly.
An hour and a half later, Launchpad’s bent double on the couch and sobbing into Dewey’s shirt.
“He just wanted to be loved!” Dewey wails, pounding him on the back with his fists. GAME OVER! blinks on and off insistently on the forgotten GameBoy. “Is that so much to ask?”
“Oh, misunderstood but gentle souls always get me,” Launchpad sniffs, using the sleeve of Dewey’s undershirt to wipe his eyes. He takes a deep breath, leans back out of Dewey’s grip and visibly composes himself. “Whew.”
"How come you wanted to come over, anyway?" Launchpad asks, once the treacherous tape is tucked back into its cheap plastic case and the TV is turned off. Dewey's wrapped back up in the quilt, curled up at the end of the couch with the GameBoy in his hands. "Not that I don't like having you around, but the mansion is way nicer."
Dewey flops around a little, like a fish on dry land, eyes fixed on the tiny screen.
"I just needed to get away for a bit. Mom's just… there, all the time, and if I go to the houseboat Uncle Donald'll get all worried and they'll probably get in some huge fight about it."
"About what?"
"I dunno. I'm just tired. Being around Mom is great, y'know, but I have to be, like, the best kid ever all the time or she won't… Like, she likes adventurer-Dewey. Of course she does, he's awesome. But I get tired sometimes, and I get scared, and I need to go somewhere until I can be him again."
Launchpad furrows his brow. Dewey's still playing the game, looking ridiculously small swaddled in the big blanket.
"You know sad Dewey and scared Dewey and brave Dewey are all the same guy, right? And that's who your mom loves. She won't think less of you 'cause you're not some crazy adventurer every minute of the day."
Dewey sighs. "I know that, but I don't know that? I mean, I know I could do anything and Uncle Donald'd still love me. I blew up the houseboat, like, come on. Mom's just… different. I'm scared I'll mess it up."
"Maybe it just takes a while before you can trust her."
Dewey frowns. "I do trust her. She's my mom. She's awesome."
"But you don't trust her to love you?" Launchpad says slowly, like he's just working it out himself. For a moment the two of them share the same expression, utterly bewildered, before Launchpad shakes his head and settles back against the couch.
"Dude. I feel like you just pulled a Jedi mind trick on me," Dewey mutters, rubbing at his eyes. Launchpad chuckles. Wind whistles through the gaps in the garage door, scattering dust across the concrete floor down below. It's fully dark out now, crickets coming to life in the crisp night air. The loft is dim. The warm golden light from the old lamp barely reaches beyond the sofa, carving Launchpad's furniture into sinister shapes in the shadows. The blankets are warm.
"Hey, LP?"
"Yeah?"
"You know that stuff you said about how I'm all the same Dewey? Like, no matter what, Uncle Donald and Mom'll love me 'cause I'm still Dewey?"
"Sure."
"Does that count for, like… Does that still count if it's something I don't actually know, I just think I know, and I'm really scared to know so I'm trying not to know but I might know anyway?"
"Buh?"
Dewey barrels on, not making eye contact.
"Like say there's a guy and he's trying to find out something, but if he does find out then there's a chance everything will change and people won't like him anymore or wanna be his friend… and he's scared that if he does find it out then it becomes real and he can't - he can't ever go back to how it was before? And everything's ruined forever?"
"Listen, D-man, I'd love to help, but… I'm confused."
Dewey groans, and tips face-first onto the sofa. "Yeah, me too."
"Huey's selling Junior Woodchuck cookies, and Louie's trying to get a cut of that for Louie Inc, so we've got the room to ourselves," Dewey explains, pulling the Dewey Dew-Night set out.
"I just don't get why we can't do this in my room, it's so much more secure," Webby says, pulling the boys' dresser in front of the door.
"Because, the set is here! And no-one's gonna interrupt us, anyway, everyone's busy. It's gonna be fine, Webs, just relax."
"Right." Webby pauses from where she's been stacking more furniture against the door, takes a deep breath, balls her fists, and stamps her foot against the floor. "It's fine. This is a fact-finding mission."
"Yep!" Dewey says brightly, setting up the cardboard audience. "Think of it like recon, but the unknown terrain is your own mind! Spooky!" Webby laughs.
"Now, I'm gonna set up the cameras, but they're not recording. This is gonna be the legendary lost episode of Dewey Dew-Night, the one fans will obsess over for years to come!"
Webby crosses the room to sit on the guest sofa, feeling oddly self conscious. Dewey fiddles with the camera setup some more, before sliding in front of Camera One. He brandishes his Polaroids, and starts the intro.
Dewey's voice washes over Webby like a wave, distant and fuzzy as he reels off his opening patter. There's crisp crumbs under her and sweet wrappers between the couch cushions that crinkle loudly when she shifts. There's a stain on her skirt.
"So, Webs, tell us about her."
Her head snaps up. Dewey's looking at her, expectant, but it's not Dewey. It's the Gracious Host, the Entertainer, the guy who's here to ask questions and not care about the answers. The guy who's going to disappear the moment the curtain falls.
This could work.
"Lena? She's great. My best friend."
Not-Dewey nods, pensive. "Is that why you fell in love with her?"
Webby's hands twist in her lap. "I don't know if I'm in love with her."
"It's what Magica said. Do you think she was lying?" He turns to wink at the camera. "I wouldn't put it past her, folks!"
"She was trying to hurt me, so maybe…"
"If it wasn't true, wouldn't you know? Why are you so upset about this, if it's just some lie?" Not-Dewey needles, chin resting on his hand.
"I've never been friends with a girl before," Webby says, and in the theatre of her mind a hush falls over the cardboard audience. "How much of what I feel is friendship? I love her, but do I like her?"
"Let's play a game."
"Huh?"
Not-Dewey gets up from the desk and walks off-stage, coming back a moment later with a cardboard Huey in tow.
"Huey's one of your best friends, right?"
"Sure he is," Webby says, bewildered.
"Here's the scene: you're in the park, and Huey wants to show you something. He grabs your hand and leads you to where it is. What are you thinking?"
Webby blinks. Not-Dewey stares at her.
"...I wonder what he wants to show me?"
"Interesting," he says, fixing the blank eye of the camera with a meaningful look. "Can you recall what you told your lovable best friend Dewey backstage, shortly before the show began?"
Webby furrows her brow, backtracking. "I said… we were talking about Lena, and I said how… I said when we were running from the Beagle Boys she was holding my hand, and it - it was all I could think about."
He gestures for her to continue, and she closes her eyes. "It was like her hand on my hand was taking over my whole brain. The fact we were running for our lives was just secondary… and the rest of the night, I kept wondering if she'd do it again. Or if I could do it, and she'd let me."
"Why did you think she wouldn't let you?" You take Huey's hand all the time," Not-Dewey jostles the standee. "You held hands with all the Duck triplets right after you met them. Why did you think Lena wouldn't want you to?"
"Because it's different!" Webby blurts, then claps her hands over her beak. Cardboard Huey topples to the ground and stays there. Her face is distorted in the camera lens. Not-Dewey is watching her closely. She takes her hands from her beak with the caution of a bomb defuser, afraid of what might come out. "She's different. Everything's different, with her. Where we are, what we do - it doesn't matter. All I can ever think about is whether I can hug her, or hold her hand, or - or…"
Not-Dewey steps away from her, leaves her stammering. He smiles his tune-in-next-time grin, spreads his arms wide and says, "That's our show!"
Webby flips over one of her conspiracy boards - it reads Rumpus McFowl, Man or Myth? - revealing that a second board has been started on the underside.
"Are Gay People Real?" Dewey reads slowly, sitting on the ladder to the attic. "I think they might be."
"But we don't know," Webby stresses, uncapping a marker and tapping it on a crudely drawn portrait of Magica. Dewey snorts, hooks his knees into the rungs of the ladder and flips himself upside down.
"In any case, we've done some research research on the subject. What have you learned, Agent Dewey?"
"Dew-ble-O-Seven," he corrects. "One, that Iron Giant is the greatest movie of all time."
"Two?"
Dewey frowns. "Two is that I tried to ask Launchpad some stuff but now I'm confused."
"That seems par for the course with Launchpad. I'm honestly not sure why you thought he could help."
"Hey!" Dewey pulls himself right-side-up again. "LP knows stuff! He just wasn't able to help with this because - look, I'm really confused. Like…"
Webby stares at him for a minute and then turns back to the board, Sharpie in hand. She reaches up to the two Polaroids in the middle and draws a large ? under Dewey's picture.
"We may need to broaden the scope of our investigation."
Dewey groans. "Can we just leave me, for now, please? Let's just talk about the show."
"Oh, right!" Webby says brightly. Her own photo is connected to a drawing of the Dewey Dew-Night logo with a length of yarn. She scribbles on a post-it note and then slaps it energetically onto the logo. Dewey slips off the ladder and comes up to the board to read it.
"Wol."
"That's a heart," Webby says hotly. "W ♥ L"
"Oh, awesome. So you're sure?"
"It's more likely than not, and I think we're more likely to get somewhere if we just take it as true for now," she sighs.
"Okay, sooo…" Dewey takes the string and stretches it over towards Lena's portrait, but Webby shrieks and slaps it out of his hand.
"No! We don't know if she loves me back!" Her shadow writhes like eels underfoot. "And I don't want to think about it right now because it makes me feel like I'm gonna cry and puke at the same time!"
"Ah," Dewey says sagely, rubbing his hand. "A familiar feeling."
Webby turns her back on the board, rubbing her fists into her eyes. "I just want someone to tell me if I'm a freak or not. I don't want this to be another way I'm wrong."
Dewey scuffs one foot against the carpet. "I don't think you're wrong, or a freak. But what if I just think that because I'm - I don't know. I'm scared."
Webby balls her fist up by her face. She grits her teeth, squares her shoulders, and turns on her heel.
"If we don't know," she mutters, "then we're going to find out." She snatches up the marker and starts to draw up a list of questions, sticking them at the top of the board. The little square of paper stares out at her room, plaintive.
"Are there other people like me?"
"Is it ok to like girls (i am a girl!) ??"
"do We know any gay people"
"will our family still like us me?"
Dewey raises one hand to his forehead in a mock salute, expression deadly serious. Webby puts the cap back on the marker with a deafening click.
There’s a stink of antiseptic and Tiger Balm in the little living area of the Tower, branched off from the main expanse and cluttered with memorabilia, old blankets and empty mugs. Drake has one foot propped up on the coffee table and has the tail end of a bandage in his hand, looking vaguely confused as to how exactly it’s wrapped around his leg. Dewey’s lying on his back on the couch, looking up at the high, high ceiling with his phone face-down on his stomach.
“Sorry, this isn’t super exciting,” Drake says, winding the bandage the rest of the way around and tucking it in place. His tongue is sticking out a little as he works. “LP and Gos’ll be back soon. They probably stopped off at the Hippo on the way.”
“It’s cool,” Dewey says, absently. “D’you get bats in here?”
“There was when I moved in. Still might be a couple in the rafters,” Drake replies. “I might chase away the vermin of the city, but I do still need to hire a guy for that.”
“Is there a pest control service that caters to top-secret hideouts?”
“You’d be surprised.”
Dewey hums, kicking his feet against the couch cushions. The tower is so tall and so dark, moonlight glitters through the little windows near the top like stars. He squints. The stars double up and crowd his vision.
“I get weird dreams sometimes,” he announces to the dark. The only sound is the steady thump-thump of his own feet against the couch and the ever-present creak of suspension cables. “Like, I dream about the moon a lot?” Maybe the bulk of that steel fixture, high high up there, maybe that could be a moon too, the way it glows in the black. “I think I’m scared of growing up.”
“That’s pretty normal, I think,” Drake hedges. Thump, thump, thump.
“I think… I’m really scared of some of the stuff that comes with growing up.”
Drake scratches the back of his head. “Do you dream about that a lot?”
“Yeah.”
The cables screech, so far overhead the sound barely registers.
“I keep dreaming I’m in love,” Dewey says quietly. “And I really don’t want to know who I’m in love with. I don’t want to know what it means.”
Drake blinks. He needs to say something, give some profound advice. The kind of thing he needed to hear at this age. All his brain is providing him seems to be footage of a 63-year-old man in Arkansas demonstrating a karate chop on a piece of plasterboard.
Shit.
“That’s okay,” he manages. The man in Arkansas is wearing a gi with the belt tied wrong. “Do you want to watch Youtube videos on my big computer while I Google some stuff?”
“Yeah, sure.”
When Launchpad and Gosalyn arrive with a sugary coffee for Drake and a kid’s meal for Dewey, courtesy of Hamburger Hippo, Dewey is watching Fortnite compilations on W.A.N.D.A., curled up sleepily in the big chair. Gosalyn runs over to show him her favourites. Drake tugs Launchpad down to whisper in his ear.
The drive home from St. Canard is uncommonly quiet. Dewey's playing with the Darkwing bobblehead. The cheap plastic figurine comes with Launchpad wherever he goes; sometimes stowed away in the limo’s glove compartment, sometimes balanced on the plane’s console, and most often tucked into his jacket, hard edges pressing against his chest.
“So, uh…” Launchpad begins, drumming his fingers on the wheel. “You and Drake talk about anything?”
Dewey shoots him a look, one that clearly says I know what you're doing, sighs and looks out the window.
“Nothing much. He wasn't very helpful.” They're flying through the outskirts of Duckburg, streetlights flashing through the windows sporadically. “I think I caught him off guard.”
Launchpad chuckles. “Yeah, he panics sometimes. But, uh… you could try me?”
Dewey doesn't respond immediately. At his side Launchpad is lit up in turns, watching the road without seeing. Whatever Drake told him, in hushed tones while Gos was climbing over him to commandeer the console, it has Launchpad worried. Hey, LP, your ten-year-old best friend is broken. Maybe hey, LP, your best friend is a coward. Or hey, LP, he doesn't even know if it's real but he's scared. LP, he's scared. He's scared.
“Dewey?”
“I’m scared,” he blurts. His hands tighten around the bobblehead and Darkwing nods at him, up and down. Yes, you are.
Launchpad jerks his head around like he's expecting to see something, someone pressed up against the window, maybe, a gremlin on the wing of the plane. Something real. Something that isn't amorphous and stupid and confusing. Instead it's just Dewey looking small and pale in the passenger seat, unable to meet his eye.
“What’s scaring you?” He asks, worried. He hasn't looked away from Dewey and the limo is careering gently over and back across the median. “Did something happen? Was it the Shadow War?”
“No.” Dewey says. “Nothing happened. I just…” He slumps down, chin on his chest, webbed feet barely clearing the edge of the seat. “I just thought I knew who I was growing up to be,” he mumbles. “Now I don't know.”
Launchpad hums, glancing back at the road just in time to swing the limo harshly away from the curb, clipping a mailbox with just the corner of the bumper rather than hitting it head-on. He thinks back on what Drake told him. He thinks about Dewey's long, pensive silences, the grim look he gets. It all adds up to something he both understands intimately and is alien all the same; thoughts and feelings he had (still has) all tangled up in a whirling, spitting tornado, a force entirely outside his influence. There are things he could say, things he was told, but Dewey is special and sensitive and very fragile in the big dark expanse of the limo, and Launchpad is a crash waiting to happen, and he doesn't want to make things worse by saying the wrong thing.
Instead he says, voice low, like he's imparting a secret: “When I was a kid I really liked Darkwing Duck.”
Dewey blinks at him, eyes wide. He gives a disbelieving little laugh and says, “Yeah, Launchpad, I know.”
Then Launchpad looks over and he meets his eyes and Dewey's laugh dies in his throat and his incredulous smile drops.
“Oh,” he says, stupidly.
Launchpad clears his throat. “Yeah.”
They don't say anything else until the limo’s already slid smoothly into the fountain and Dewey's loitering by the door. Launchpad’s waiting for him to go inside before he drives away, in case the door is locked or something. Instead he turns, meets his eyes through the windshield, and offers him a barely-there smile.
“Thanks, LP” Dewey mutters, before he opens the door and lets the mansion swallow him up.