let's get dangerous

☆ — drake’s childhood was getting tripped in the hallway, and slammed into the lockers in the gym room. shocking as it may sound, he was not the coolest kid growing up (so shocking), and was rather small and easy to pick on. it didn’t help that he went to school dressed up in the costumes his mom hand-made for him.

☆ — drake got pretty used to being banged up at school, and though he played it cool like the teachers told him to, it usually just resulted in them beating him up more to get a better reaction out of him.

☆ — while the bullying never changed, one day drake’s attitude on it did. he saw the show ‘darkwing duck’ on tv for the first time, and was immediately enamoured with the hero. he saw himself in the character on screen— someone who took a lot of abuse, but even through it all, darkwing still somehow managed to keep getting back up. it inspired drake to do the same, no matter what.

☆ — so for his birthday, his mom got him a brand new darkwing duck lunchbox to take to school, and sewed a costume for him. he took it to school the next day, proudly displaying it at lunch. in response — his bullies slammed his face into it. only a total baby would like that lame superhero— duckpool was where it was at for the cool grown-up kids.

☆ — still, using a move he saw on the show, he finally stood up for himself, knocking the kid down and taking his lunchbox back. it may have been ruined, but at least it was proof he could do this and stand up for himself. the physical harassment at least lessened, even if the verbal and emotional increased.

☆ — drake powered through the rest of school, reminding himself that villains usually had tragic backstories, and he never really knew why the other kids were jerks to him— so he just had to prove he was better.

☆ — he got into acting, something he thoroughly loved, and took up kick-boxing as a constructive way to get out his frustrations. by the time he graduated high school, he was feeling a lot more confident and was ready to dive straight into college, which he did, graduating with a bachelor’s in drama.

☆ — drake spent his time doing shitty commercials and background roles for a couple years before he got what he would consider his first big breakthrough — and man, was it a spectacular breakthrough for him. alistair boorswan was directing a reboot of the darkwing duck television series, and drake was just what he was looking for. the reboot was grimmer and grittier than the original show had been and was missing some of the heart, but drake just knew that he could make it better by being apart of it.

☆ — something was missing though. when drake found out that jim starling, the original actor for darkwing duck, hadn’t been consulted or informed of the reboot at all, he decided to tell him himself. he hoped to ask him to mentor him on bringing the character to life — but was beaten to the punch by jim finding out ‘darkwing duck’ was trending online.

☆ — jim showed up to the studios, expecting to be the star of the new film, and was sorely shocked to find out that not only had filming nearly finished— he was being replaced by the president of his fanclub, drake. drake was promptly tackled by jim when he walked into the meeting and attacked. security was called, jim was thrown off the property and trespassed.

☆ — this didn’t stop jim from sneaking back in though, jumping drake and locking him in a closet, and taking his place in filming the finale. irritated with the way the script was written and slightly unhinged by his quickly spiraling ego, jim ad-libbed the way he thought the character should react, and attacked the actor playing megavolt, knocking over electrical equipment in the process and starting a fire in the studio. he was determined to take up the role of darkwing again, even if it killed him and everyone in the studio.

☆ — drake, having not succumbed to the concussion jim had thought he had given him, managed to escape the closet and arrived on set in time to fight off jim and help evacuate the studio. he couldn’t convince jim to calm down though, and the flaming equipment exploded. drake made it out okay, but jim was nowhere to be found in the wreckage.

☆ — after the explosion, the studio put the production on hold, saying they’d be in contact with drake after they picked up the pieces.

☆ — while he waited for the studio to get back to him, drake did small gigs, and has also been bitten by the hero bug after it was mentioned to him that he could probably be darkwing for real. it was while moonlighting as a superhero that he met gosalyn waddlemeyer, the teenager he eventually adopted after she lost her grandfather and guardian. drake has never given up on the reunification of gosalyn with her grandfather*, but somebody had needed to step up in the meantime, and besides— drake got very attached to the scrappy kid that he saw a lot of himself in. she was determined to get herself in trouble, and if he couldn’t keep her out of trouble, he could at least teach her the ropes of not dying while doing so.

☆ — in the years that passed since meeting gosalyn, drake also picked up another down-on-their-luck kid on one of his cases. he cares fiercely for both of his children, even if they’re not biologically his, and is determined to support them in whatever way they need, even if they’re both now old enough to strike out on their own.

☆ — after the spell was cast and drake was transported to the new realm, he’s still bopping about happily trying to find acting jobs and doing vigilante work on the side. of course, it mostly amounts to getting cats down from trees, but hey. at least he’s the cats’ hero, right? something feels like it’s missing, but then again, that’s been a lifelong feeling for him. nothing new, right?

☆ —  drake’s trigger for remembering his children is lullabies. even though both of his children were older when he adopted them, he would sit with them on rough nights and sing them lullabies they remembered from when they were younger.