Chapter Text
Donald grumbled as he wrung his shirt out and stepped inside the mansion through the kitchen door. Scrooge followed shortly after, shaking the rain off.
“Ah’m glad ye decided to stay the night in the mansion, lad.” Scrooge said.
“Whatever,” Donald rolled his eyes, trying to wipe away the water on the floor with his foot. “It’s just because it’s storming out.”
And boy was it storming. It had been raining pretty heavily for almost an hour now, and the wind was beginning to pick up. The sailor in Donald was certain that lightning and thunder would start any minute now.
“Aye, that it is,” Scrooge chuckled. “Welp, anyways, Ah’ll have Duckworth set ye up in Della’s room. If ye could let her know, that’d be great.”
“What! Why am I bunking with Della? Don’t you have any guest bedrooms available?”
“Oh, quit yer whining!” Scrooge smacked Donald on the head. “Della’s bedroom has plenty o’ space fer the both of ye!”
“Still,” Donald groused, rubbing the back of his head. “What about the spare bedrooms? There where plenty when I was a kid, and I’m pretty sure that the mansion hasn’t gotten any smaller since then.” If anything, it had gotten bigger.
“Oh, donnae be so wasteful, lad! Ah’m sure ye can stand one night bunking with yer sister again! Ye were perfectly fine with it when ye were kids.” Actually, as far as Donald remembered, he hadn’t been ‘perfectly fine’ with it, even when he was younger, but that was besides the point.
This was why he hated sleeping in the mansion (well, one of the reasons). His uncle, ever the miser, would always force him to sleep in the same room as someone else. And Donald had grown to like having his own space, thank you very much!
As his uncle went off to fetch Duckworth, Donald decided that he should try to find his sister sooner rather than later. He could hear sounds coming from the living room. As he went to investigate, he saw Beakly dusting in the hall. “Hey Mrs. Beakly, do you know where Della is?”
“Hello Donald, good to see that you haven’t been caught out in the storm.” Mrs. Beakly replied. “As for your sisters whereabouts, I’m afraid I haven’t got a clue. The kids might know, however. They’re in the living room right now.”
“Yeah, I thought I heard ‘em earlier. Thanks anyways, Beakly.”
“Anytime, Donald.” Mrs. Beakly said as she went turned back to her dusting.
Donald wandered into the living room just in time to hear Louie groan in anguish as a character on the TV screen went flying off the stage. “Oh come on, I had you there!”
“Hah!” Dewey laughed smugly, brushing his shoulder with his fist. “Never count the Dew-spicable Dewey Duck out of a fight!”
“Whatever,” Louie grumbled, shoving Dewey’s shoulder. “And stop with the stupid Dew-whatever stuff, it’s getting old.”
“I think it’s great!” Piped up Webby from her spot on the couch, her hand in a bowl of popcorn.
“Of course you would, you think everything we do is great.”
“Not true!” Webby countered. “I don’t like it when you Pull A Louie.”
“Ooooh, Burn!” Dewey cackled.
“She got you there” Huey added.
“What is this, gang up on Louie hour!?” Cried Louie, outraged. “What even is ‘pulling a Louie’, anyway? And why did you say it like it’s capitalized?”
“Hey kiddos,” Donald interrupted, making his prescience known before things could get too out of hand.
“Hey Uncle Donald!” Dewey and Webby said simultaneously.
“Save me from these jerks, Uncle Donald!” Louie moaned, turning from the screen to complain to his uncle.
“Do you need anything, Uncle Donald?” Asked Huey.
“Yeah, kiddo.” Donald said, then he turned to the screen as it displayed a win screen. “What game are you playing?” He asked, momentarily forgetting his original reason for entering the room.
“Super Smash Birds Ultimate!” Dewey replied eagerly, bouncing up in his seat. “It’s a game where you fight each other to death!”
“Astute,” Louie mumbled.
“You get to choose who you fight as from a list of characters that appear in other Birdtendo games.” Huey helpfully supplied.
“Huh. Y’know, I think Dells and I used to play something similar when we were in our teens.” Donald said, watching the screen as Dewey and Louie began picking from a rather large roster of fighters. “Lots more characters than I remember, though.”
“Well yeah,” Louie said. “It’s a remake, see? And every time Birdtendo comes out with a new Super Smash Birds, they add new characters. Of course, despite that, Dewey will only ever play the broken characters.”
“So says the Cloud main.” Dewey griped back.
Louie glared at Dewey as he picked Cloud.
“Anyways,” Donald interrupted, getting back on track. “I wanted to ask if any of you know where your mother is.”
“Uhh, I don’t know. Why?” Dewey said distractedly as he and Louie began round two.
“I need to tell her that I’m sleeping in her room tonight.”
“Wait, are you moving back into the mansion!?” Webby asked, her full attention now on him and not on the game.
“Uh, no. No, I’m just staying for the night, it’s really storming out.” The kids all paused for a second to listen to the sound of rain hitting to roof of the mansion. “But yeah, only staying the night, and Scrooge decided to put me in Della’s room, so I need to tell her about it. I also need to ask where her room is, now that I think about it.”
“What, she didn’t set up in your old room?” Dewey asked.
“No, you guys are sleeping in there.”
“Oh yeah, we are, aren’t we?”
Huey pondered for a second. “Hmm, last I recall, Mom said that she was heading out front of a second.”
“Really?” Donald asked, confused. “It’s raining pretty heavily.”
“That’s what she told us.” Huey shrugged.
“Hmm,” Donald mused. “Alright, guess I’ll check. Thanks kiddos.”
The kids murmured words of acknowledgment as Donald walked away, their attention already back to the game.
Della probably wasn’t outside anymore. As far as Donald knew, she had disliked rain (and storms, for that matter) her entire life. But hey, maybe he’d find somebody else who knew where she went.
He hoped he would find her soon. The longer he went without hearing or seeing her, the harder it was to quell the fears that something had happened. He knew it was stupid, but his anxiety would just kept pushing his worst fears to the surface: the idea that some monster had kidnapped her, that she had been accidentally transported back into space, that she had run away-
No. He hated it when he thought that one. She wasn’t going to run away. She wouldn’t do that.
But she had once. She had once, so what if she did so again?
No, no, that was wrong. She hadn’t run away, she’d gotten trapped. She didn’t run away. She didn’t run away. She didn’t run away. (He would keep telling himself that until he believed it.)
...Yeah, he should probably talk to his therapist about that before it got worse. For now though, he’d settle for finding Della.
All the way to the front doors -which, to be fair, wasn’t that far- Donald didn’t come across anyone else, which was kind of a shame. He wasn’t sure where she could be, maybe further into the mansion? But Donald wasn’t really comfortable with exploring the rest of the mansion for her. It’s not that he didn’t know it’s layout, Donald didn’t think he could ever forget that, but it was anyone’s guess as to which rooms were cursed or had any cursed objects in them at the moment. (Huh, could that have been why Scrooge didn’t want him to sleep in any of the guest bedrooms? Nah.)
Donald huffed. He supposed he could check outside, just in case. Maybe she’d taken refuge in the garage? Yeah, that sounded about right. ‘And if not,’ Donald thought as he opened the front door, ‘I could always ask Launchpad if he’s seen-‘
...Welp, he found Della.
She was standing right out front. Absolutely soaked. Just staring up into the rain as it came down in spades.
“What are you doing!?” Donald yelled over the wind at her. “It’s storming out!”
He saw her mouth move, but couldn’t make out any of the words over the wind. “What? I can’t hear you! Speak up!”
Della turned around at that, her eyes full of a broken wonder-like nostalgia, rain streaming down her cheeks. “It’s raining, Donnie!” She laughed. “It’s actually raining!”
Donald stared at her like she was missing a few screws (a rather familiar stare). “Yeah, I can see that! Now get inside!”
“Aw come on Donnie, just a few more minutes!”
“Wh- no!” Donald sputtered. “It’s storming! You’ll catch a cold!” Thunder boomed overhead. “And you’ll get struck by lightning!”
“But-“ Della looked conflicted, glancing back up into the storm clouds.
Donald sighed, aggravated. “We can go jumping in puddles after it calms down, would you like that?”
He saw Della’s eyes light up as he said that. “Can we?!” She asked eagerly.
Donald blinked. He’d been being sarcastic, he didn’t actually think that his sister would react so positively to the idea. “Um. Okay, sure. But not if you get a cold, so get inside!”
“All right, all right, hold yer horses, I’m coming, I’m coming.” Della skipped inside, shaking herself off when and getting water all over Donald.
“Whoops, sorry.” She commented, not looking sorry at all.
“Whatever.” Donald groused as he rung out his shirt for the second time in an hour. “What were you even doing out there? In that? I thought you hated rain.”
“Yeah, well, It doesn’t rain on the moon, y’know?”
“...oh.”
“Heh, yeah. ‘Oh’.” Della paused. “I just. I haven’t felt it in so long, y’know? So when I saw it was raining, I said to myself ‘man, it sure has been a while since you’ve seen rain, right?’ And then I couldn’t stop myself from wondering about what it felt like, or what it tasted like, and then I was all like ‘well gee, Della, it’s right there, why don’t you just go find out yourself?’ And then I got all excited -like, can’t think straight excited, you know the type- and so I just. Went out.” She petered off. “Heh. I guess I lost track of time, huh?”
“It’s fine,” Donald reassured her. “Just change out of your wet clothes or you’ll catch hypothermia.”
“Pfft,” Della laughed. “You’ve turned into such a mother, Donnie.” Her focus drifted off to a stray string on her jacket that she’d been playing with. She frowned slightly picking at it a bit harder. “Why’d you come searching for me anyway?”
“Oh yeah. I decided not to sleep on the houseboat tonight -they don’t say it, but the boys always get worried about it when it storms- so Scrooge set me up to bunk in your room and said to tell you about it.”
Della scoffed, “Seriously? Old McMoneybags has dozen’s of spare bedrooms, and he couldn’t give you one?”
“That’s what I said!” Donald exclaimed.
Della and Donald looked at each other then, and they were probably both rather tired, because that was all it took to get them breaking down into giggles. The kids walked in while they were still going and asked what was wrong, to which Della responded with a breathless “McMoneybags!” Which sent her and Donald back into the depths of wheezy giggling.
The kids all leveled one long unimpressed look at each other and just said “grown-ups.”