The duck was made to hop along with his taller friend, bouncing up and down with glee as his hug eventually loosened up. Soon returned the examination, looking the other up and down to see if there were any changes he should take note of. “It’s so great to see you! It really has been far too long!” Donald agreed when he calmed down enough from his joyous outburst. The grin spread across his beak, however, remained a permanent fixture on his face.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?! I could have picked you up at the airport or set up my spare bedroom for you!” Donald asked. Of course, it wasn’t like he wasn’t happy to see one of his best friends! It was only that he wanted to make things easier on the rooster.

     Playfully rolling his eyes, Panchito chuckled. “Why would I? If I told you before I got here, it would not be a surprise anymore. Eso no es divertido!” Besides, he knew if his friend had too much of a notice, he would run himself ragged trying to get unnecessary tasks done just to accommodate the rooster. There was no need to put his friend in an extended state of stress just because he wanted to spend some time with him. 

Dugan nodded quietly, feeling pretty disappointed but not too surprised. Not that it would stop him from pretending of course, but Mister Drake did make a pretty good point. As much as he wanted to counter the man’s deductions, maybe the Ducks weren’t related to Darkwing after all. It was a good thing Drake’s question was enough to divert his superhero blues, however. Seriously, why did grown-ups have to ruin things with logic?

“Weeeell, my unca watches it, kinda! Not sure where he got the tapes, maybe from that super duper cool pilot guy who works for Unca Scrooge?” A unsure shrug. He couldn’t tell if Fethry was into them himself, or if he simply borrowed them for Dugan himself to watch. If anything though, it was clear he enjoyed them so far. “Oh yeah! There’s that one time I did errands with Unca  Fethry and I saw this REALLY big plant guy running ‘round the next city! Thought I saw Mister Darkwing chasing after him, but I thiiiink it’s just someone dressing up as him… ‘cause he’s just a guy on the TV, right?”

With a curious glance toward the older duck, he prepared himself for more confirmation that a certain Masked Mallard simply wasn’t the real deal.

     It warmed the vigilante’s heart to know that there was a new generation that knew about the show that reshaped his whole life. It had always been a fear thought in the back of his mind that one day, no one would remember the original Darkwing Duck TV show. Drake had been adamant about making sure Gosalyn and Honker watched the show at least ten times through, but knowing that the main two children in his life weren’t the only ones who knew about the formative show.

     He almost asked to clarify if Dugan knew Launchpad, considering his comment about Scrooge’s pilot, but the boy’s eager transition into talk about his exploits as the masked hero quickly pulled his attention away from the thought. He had seen him as Darkwing Duck! Someone had indeed taken noticed of his heroics in St. Canard. 

@gearloosened

     When the dust had settled in the aftermath of the invasion, it was time to finally face the reality of what he - or was it one of the others(?) - had caused with the cloning experiments. The Gyro that had created the rest of them had executed his experiment flawlessly, having even transferred every single one of his memories to the replicas of himself. In fact, there had been no urgency to enforce any order between the clones and the original, as all of them had been treated as the original Gyro’s equal.

    Yet the problem remained that not all of them had survived the invasion. And worst of all, none of then really knew who the creator was anymore, or if he had survived it all.