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mighty-ant · 7 months

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enough is enough

shoutout to @soy-s4uce for commissioning me!

ao3

It started with a little tickle in Launchpad’s throat.

He didn’t think anything of it. A cold swept through the kids just last week, a little thing that cooped them up in the mansion. Beakley kept them well supplied with tissues so they (Dewey) didn’t use their sleeves to wipe their noses and Donald commandeered the kitchen to make enough of Grandma Duck’s “famous chicken soup” to feed an army.

Without any adventures for a week, Mr. McDee begrudgingly attended to the growing demands of his company—after the kids begged, cajoled, and threatened him into not going anywhere exciting without them while Donald and Della glared daggers at him over their heads.

Mr. McDee had his typical Richest Duck in the World-type business meetings, plus he was still interviewing candidates for a new board of directors since his last one didn’t work out so great.

The meetings lasted hours, and took Mr. McDee not just out of the city but all over the state and across the country. These bigwigs were scattered everywhere, and he not only wanted to meet with them, but everyone who worked with them. Better safe than sorry and all that.

All of which meant that for a whole week, Launchpad was really only around the family as Mr. McDee’s driver, just like old times.

Oh, he was flying Mr. McDee too, but only because Della hadn’t wanted to do it. Since it was a business trip, Launchpad was expected to do a lot of sitting around and waiting to drive Mr. McDee to the next appointment, to which Della had immediately declared, “Bor-ing!” before running off to set up Legends of Legendquest for her and Huey to play.

But Launchpad didn’t mind, as much as he would’ve liked to join Drake on his current case: tracking down a runaway theater troupe turned theatrical bank robbers. At least he was being useful here. And besides, he planned to spend his free time while away rewatching some of the Darkwing Duck episodes he’d saved on his phone and trying to decipher the memes Gosalyn was always sending him.

Drake tended to worry about Launchpad when he went anywhere with Mr. McDee and the family, convinced they invited craziness just by breathing, and he wasn’t exactly wrong. So Launchpad planned to text Drake, too, to let him know he was okay. Maybe Launchpad would even call him when breaks in his patrol allowed, so that he could close his eyes and listen to the lilt of Drake’s voice and pretend they were side by side, so close their arms were pressed together. He wasn’t quite brave enough to hold Drake’s hand in real life, but Launchpad would bet anything that they were warm and lined with calluses.

Launchpad had almost been looking forward to the business trip. Time apart from Drake and Gosalyn just meant reunions were always that much sweeter, making him feel fit to bursting with a kind of joy he’d never known before, like he’d swallowed the sun.

Gosalyn usually threw herself at him the second he stepped through the door, from the higher up the better, and would hang off his back while he swept Drake into a bearhug that was eagerly returned. There was nothing quite like the feeling of Drake’s arms wrapped snug around his middle, or how his head fit perfectly under Launchpad’s chin.

But after Della bolted, Mr. McDee pat Launchpad on the arm with a fond, absentminded sort of smile. “Ach, that girl. Well, you’ll be enough for a quick flight, eh, McQuack?”

It was a rude wakeup call; a punch to the gut that left him breathless, impossible to brace against because he never saw it coming. But maybe he should’ve. That was just the story of his life, wasn’t it? Good Enough McQuack.

In the moment, Launchpad had smiled blithely. What else could he do?

“You got it, boss!”

Though as he packed an overnight bag, as he gassed up the plane, as they took-off and through all the long lonely hours of flight, he burned inside. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling: shame and embarrassment and a deep, deep sadness going down like a bad burrito, emotional heartburn without a cure.

He was eighteen when he left home, Loopy having taken his spot in the Flying McQuacks.

Launchpad remembered squinting against the glare of the sun, watching her pull off loops and dives he never could without crashing first, when his dad clapped an arm around his shoulders.

“You were A-OK, son, but now we’ve got a real pilot on our hands!”

He’d traveled a little over ten years before settling in Duckburg, bouncing between undersea palaces and werewolf communes and even a ninja clan or two before eventually wearing out his welcome and being encouraged to move on. He thought he’d found a home with the Ducks, but even though they cared about him, it was clear that he was just a placeholder for someone better.

He was thirty-five when Della came home and took back the plane that was rightfully hers. Thirty-five when he met Drake, and it felt like a dream come true. But all dreams had to end, right?

He’d never said anything to Launchpad about moving on, not yet, but maybe it was only a matter of time. Even he didn’t have to be a genius to know that it had to bother Drake, Launchpad’s…Launchpadness. It was a rotating list of screw-ups: clumsy, slow, bad driver, bad pilot, take your pick. He was a pretty poor excuse for a sidekick, not that Drake had much of a choice in the matter.

But maybe he did now, with Gosalyn’s presence in their lives his life becoming more permanent. She already had a mask and a hood to wear when she joined them on patrol (lovingly stitched together by Drake), and she was trying out the codename Quiverwing, which was as good a superhero title as Launchpad had ever heard.

Drake deserved everything, more than Launchpad could give. And Launchpad wasn’t a jealous man, not really, but sometimes when the Justice Ducks got together and he saw Drake—Darkwing—standing beside great heroes like Penumbra or Gizmoduck, each of them confident, larger than life, he saw how much Drake belonged next to them, and how much Launchpad…didn’t.

He wasn’t a superhero. He didn’t even have a costume, and he wouldn’t be able to think one up if he tried. As a kid, he tied a towel around his neck for a cape (after getting in trouble for tearing up his bed sheets) and pretended his Nana’s old church hat was a cowl. But Launchpad wasn’t a kid anymore, and he knew better than to think he would ever be good enough for Darkwing.

It was a lot of things that added up to one big problem, and the problem was him. Everything he wasn’t, everything he lacked. Even when Drake smiled at him, next to him on the couch or beside him on patrol, something caught in his chest and he couldn’t stop looking for the slightest wrinkle in his forehead, the barely perceptible narrowing of his eyes, any sign of the disappointment he had to feel. Disappointment that Launchpad couldn’t do anything about.

Unless he stepped back, removed himself from the equation, and let Drake and Gos flourish into a happy family without him. Just like he had with the Ducks. Just like he had with his own family.

They’d call him when they needed him, and Launchpad would always come running.

These thoughts didn’t go away by the time Launchpad finally made his way back to St. Canard. He barely slept that long week, sitting alone in the various plane hangars or alone in various parking lots while Mr. McDee’s went to meeting after meeting.

Drake had checked in on him, because he was amazing like that, and they hadn’t seen each other in a while (sixteen days, but who was counting?). Though Launchpad bulldozed through any questions about his well-being to ask about joining Drake on patrol once he was back.

“Oh, uh, sure! Yeah, I was going to scope out the harbor next, see if I could find another one of Tuskernini’s stashes. Are you sure, though? You don’t wanna get some rest after flying all day?”

The answer would always be yes, even when his exhaustion weighed down his limbs and he shivered with fever. Launchpad couldn’t risk it; any call might be the last one.

Launchpad couldn’t risk it. There was a ticking clock in his head that he couldn’t see, but he knew the timer was winding down. Everything felt precious and finite now that he was aware of it, reminding him that no good thing could last forever, especially for someone who was never good enough to begin with.

“Pfft, who needs sleep? I can fly a plane with my eyes closed and both hands tied behind my back.”

“I believe you, but please don’t. Gos and I want you back in one piece.”

—

When Launchpad pried his eyes open, the world around him was dark and hazy at the edges. His entire body pulsed with a bone-deep ache and his mind was foggy, thoughts harder to latch onto than loose balloon strings. But he’d been buried in an avalanche once, so he couldn’t be doing that bad, right? Comparatively?

Although, this time he didn’t know where he was and he was too bleary-eyed to recognize anything around him.

Had he crashed? Launchpad vaguely recalled being in the air, the grip of a familiar yoke in his hands, but that could’ve been any time in the last twenty years.

Wherever he was now, he was warm, and whatever he was laying on was soft. A bed?

Then, above him, a light. And casting a shadow over him was a silhouette he’d recognize anywhere.

Though Launchpad’s vision was still poor, he’d have to be blind not to admire the way the light shone pink through Drake’s feathers, always inviting Launchpad to touch. He obviously knew better but the temptation was always there.

He smiled up at Drake instinctively—there’d never be a time that he wasn’t thrilled by the sight of him—before ever noticing his expression. But then, notice he did.

Drake’s hat was missing, leaving his hair in disarray, his maskless face revealed eyes dark and narrowed with worry. The corner of his beak, where his answering smile would normally be, was pinched in a frown.

Launchpad knew what this expression meant: danger.

Someone was in trouble. Who? Not Drake, he didn’t look hurt other than the usual bruise here and there, and a tear in the shoulder of the suit. Definitely not Launchpad. Gosalyn? Where was Gosalyn?

Launchpad didn’t realize he’d started sitting up until Drake was pushing him back down with a hand on his shoulder, gentle but unyielding as steel. He was so much stronger than he looked, and Launchpad already thought he was the strongest man he’d ever known.

“No one’s in trouble,” Drake soothed, and Launchpad slumped immediately in relief. Had he been talking outloud? Or did Drake just know him that well?

“Well, except you.”

If Launchpad had the wherewithal, he would’ve blanched at the sudden chill in the room. There was an edge to Drake’s voice he normally reserved for supervillains and people who didn’t tip. He’d never heard it directed at himself.

Drake came closer, like he knew Launchpad’s eyesight wasn’t working too good right now. His eyes were red, as if he’d been crying. He looked so tired.

“Wha-what happened?” Launchpad stammered in a rush. How long had he been asleep?

He knew, instinctively, that he was the one to put that expression on Drake’s face. Even barely conscious, shame and embarrassment burned through Launchpad, a deep, deep sadness going down like a bad burrito. He was always making things worse for the people he cared about.

“You don’t remember?” Drake snapped, more desperate than angry. “You almost got yourself killed, Launchpad!”

His tired eyes were wild, and he looked like he wanted to get up and pace, throw his hands around like he did when he was frustrated, but he just gripped a fistful of Launchpad’s blankets tighter. Blankets. Bed. Launchpad was lying in Drake’s bed in the Tower.

Launchpad almost got himself killed walking out his front door sometimes, that was no big deal. But even achy and groggy, waking up in Drake’s bed had a blush flooded up Launchpad’s neck and pooled in his cheeks. He cleared his throat to distract (himself) from it.

Launchpad struggled to sit up again. This time Drake let him.

“I’m fine!” he insisted, voice hoarse and sleep rough. It felt as if he’d gargled with rocks. “I once fought off armed goons after getting bitten by a big pile of poisonous snakes! Or, wait, is it venomous? What is it when they bite you?”

“Venomous,” Drake confirmed weakly, hands hovering uselessly in front of him. “You really don’t remember what happened, do you?”

“I, uh…” Launchpad looked down, noticing for the first time that he was wearing pajamas. But not his. And definitely not Drake’s. “We…went on patrol?”

Drake closed his eyes, like he was in pain. That was definitely the wrong answer.

“We went on patrol,” he confirmed, and Launchpad almost perked up. But Drake clearly wasn’t finished. “We went on patrol to the docks, where we thought Tuskernini might be stashing some of the money from his recent string of bank robberies. And on this patrol, you conveniently forgot to mention that you had a 102 degree fever!”

Now Launchpad was the one holding onto the blankets, his palms sweating. “S-sure. But-but we caught Tuskernini!” he recalled.

Drake threw his hands in the air. “Yeah, at first! But he got away when you passed out and fell in the bay!”

“W-wait, what? No I didn’t.” Forget sweating, Launchpad had never been colder in his life. He didn’t remember falling in the water, but he wondered if he’d felt like he did now: sinking into pinprick darkness so frigid and so deep it stole the breath from his lungs.

“You almost drowned,” Drake pressed, eyes overly shiny (just from reflecting the bright desk lamp, Launchpad was sure). He let out a breath, scrubbing a hand over his eyes and through his hair, pushing it out of his face. “I had to let Tuskernini go when I jumped in after you. Then I radioed SHUSH for an evac and one of their doctors said you could rest here. That was about…how many hours ago now, W.A.N.D.A?”

“6.28 hours, Darkwing.”

Drake was still in costume. Had he…waited for Launchpad to wake up? That felt like wishful thinking.

Launchpad wasn’t the guy people worried about. Sure he got knocked around on adventures sometimes, but he always got back up, bruised and battered or otherwise. It’s what everyone expected of him. To be just good enough, until someone better came along.

Drake sat down heavily on the side of the bed. His fire had been snuffed out, and he looked tired and lost again as he stared down at his hands.

Launchpad watched him in profile, the ache of helpless love in his chest more painful than any tumble into icy waters.

“I just don’t get it,” Drake sighed. “Why would you take a risk like that? And why wouldn’t you tell me you were feeling that bad? Just…what were you thinking?”

If Launchpad’s ribs weren’t throbbing like they’d been used as a marimba, he might’ve laughed.

Drake had to know. Didn’t he? That for him, Launchpad would get beat down again by every supervillain in Calisota? Give up flying, borrow a time machine and save Jim for him, all without Drake ever needing to ask.

“DW, l…I did it for you,” Launchpad said helplessly.

Drake stiffened, like he sometimes did when he got hurt doing something dumb and didn’t want Launchpad to know. But when he lifted his head, there was a small, anguished crease between his eyebrows Launchpad hadn’t seen since Drake fell to his knees before the fire and ruin that was Jim’s last stand.

“For me?” he repeated slowly, as if wishing he’d heard wrong.

Launchpad nodded a little nervously. “Y-yeah. It was my idea for you to be Darkwing, y’know? I should be able to watch your back and I didn’t wanna let you down.” Not the full truth, but good enough. Drake didn’t need to know about the countdown in his head, or how his latest stunt might’ve cut down on the time they had left together.

Drake still looked ill at ease. He wrapped one hand around the clasp of his cape, glancing down at his costume with a furrowed brow. “I don’t want you feeling obligated to come to St. Canard,” he said stiffly and extremely un-Drakelike. “You-you don’t owe me anything, LP. I made the choice, not you.”

He and Drake had learned to speak paragraphs in only a glance, and Launchpad instantly recognized Drake’s poorly hidden (to him) anxiety for what it was. It was a fear Drake had expressed at the start, too. That Launchpad’s hero worship of Jim might extend to Drake, impair his judgment and make him blind to his flaws.

But Launchpad loved Drake for his flaws (and all the good stuff too, of course), because unlike Jim, Drake knew he had them and worked to be better.

Launchpad’s own anxieties fell away under the strength of his certainty, his faith in his best friend. “I know. I promise, I know. I’m here for Drake, not Darkwing.” His voice still rasped, sore from his illness and impromptu dip in the bay, but his conviction was undamaged.

And for a moment, Drake smiled, tired but relieved, and it lifted the strain from his features like taking off a veil.

It didn’t last long, and Launchpad’s heart dropped when Drake looked away, his silence pensive. He took a breath, hands trembling in his lap.

When Drake pinned Launchpad with his stare, he was sure his heart stopped entirely.

“I don’t want you to push yourself like that. Not for me, or anyone else. I knew it was a bad idea to let you go back and forth from here to Duckburg, but I didn’t think it would almost get you killed!”

Launchpad flinched. There it was then.

Six months wasn’t a bad run, right?

He dropped his gaze as he fiddled with his pajama sleeve, feeling awkward and out of place in Drake’s bed, Drake’s tower. He managed a wavering smile, clenching his jaw against the pesky burn of tears in the corners of his eyes.

“Sorry, DW. I know I messed up. Just a matter of time, right? I know I’m not good enough to keep around long term, but it was fun while it lasted.”

Dead silence greeted him, like the kind before a bomb went off. He wasn’t even sure he could hear Drake’s breathing, but then Launchpad’s own heartbeat pounding in his ears was kinda distracting.

When he glanced up, Drake was already staring at him, but he didn’t look relieved or guilty or anything like what Launchpad imagined he’d look like when Launchpad let him off the hook. He mostly looked…stunned. Like in the split second after you got hit over the head with a comically large mallet (there’d been a startling number of Quackerjack copycats since the Fearsome Four invaded their reality).

“LP,” he managed, as confusion flooded his expression. “What are you talking about?”

Uncertainty replaced Launchpad’s earlier feeling of resignation, and he looked everywhere but at Drake. This really wasn’t how he thought things would go. “I, uh…same thing you’re talking about?”

A warm hand wrapped about Launchpad’s knuckles and his eyes shot up to Drake at once. “I was going to ask if you’d be willing to move to St. Canard,” Drake said quietly. “W-with me. No more driving back and forth.”

“Oh. That’s…I was…” Launchpad stumbled over himself like an idiot, unable to tear his eyes away from Drake’s. A sickening sort of hope was building in the back of his throat but he didn’t dare voice it. Wishful thinking, he told himself. Wishful thinking.

But Drake’s voice was low, and so soft in its sincerity. “Launchpad. What have I done to make you think you’re not enough?” His grip around Launchpad’s hand tightened, as if someone was trying to snatch him away.

Launchpad quailed. “Nothing! It wasn’t—it wasn’t you—”

That just seemed to upset Drake even more. Unstoppable as an incoming train, he barreled over Launchpad and left him speechless in his wake. “And what if I want to keep you around forever, huh? What if I’m always going to need you?”

And Launchpad just…stopped. Because he couldn’t even begin to imagine what that looked like.

He knew what to look for when people wanted him gone, whether they were subtle about it or just told him to his face to get lost. He’d receive every sort of brush-off under the sun and accepted them all with a smile. But being asked to stay? That he had no frame of reference for.

“Why would you want that?” he asked without thinking.

At some point, Drake had stood back up in his agitation. But he never let go of Launchpad’s hand, and though Launchpad hadn’t intended it that way, he used it to guide Drake back onto the bed beside him.

Drake sank onto the edge with a huff, searching Launchpad’s face imploringly.

“Because I love you,” he said, so, so easily. Like it was a well known fact that Launchpad had simply forgotten.

This time, it was Launchpad’s grip that went tight, possibly to the point of pain, but he couldn’t even think straight enough to apologize. Or let go.

He used to date a lot more after leaving home, looking for someone to share his life with. He’d wanted a family of his own eventually, one he could devote himself to completely, and have that love returned, for once. But while he and his old partners had plenty of fun together, none of them were the right fit. It had hurt him to leave them, and vice versa, but he’d been able to do it, and move on. But Drake?

I dunno, this whole thing sounds like it could get…

Dangerous?

He’d known ever since he watched Drake look up, the spark of realization in his eyes catching and turning into a blaze of determination as he put Darkwing’s hat back where it belonged—he’d known that there would be no coming back from Drake. No moving on. Drake was it for him.

Launchpad had found the one person he’d been looking for almost his entire life, and he hadn’t even been searching at the time.

And Drake was in front of him now, getting twitchy, because Launchpad had been quiet for too long.

He exhaled in a rush, almost feeling lightheaded by the end of it. “Drake, I…I love you too. Of course I love you. How couldn’t I?” Setting the long-trapped words free, quiet and sincere, straight from his heart to Drake’s face…it had him feeling about ready to float away.

Drake barked that short, sharp laugh of his, one of Launchpad’s favorite sounds. “Do you want the list alphabetically or numerically?” he joked, smiling a true brilliant, relieved smile that Launchpad wanted to kiss off his face. Like a shock to the system, he wondered if Drake would let him.

He muffled a cough against his arm.

Maybe when he wasn’t contagious anymore.

But that seemed to be enough to remind Drake of what got them here in the first place, and he sobered a bit.

“I’m serious about you moving to St. Canard. You can’t keep doing this to yourself, LP. Burning the candle at both ends like this…what if something happens to you and I’m not there? You shouldn’t have to deal with killer robots or venomous snakes or-or supervillains all on your own! When we’re together we can watch each other's backs, and I think we make a pretty good team.” Drake grinned wryly, but his smile soon slipped a bit, voice turning hesitant. “I don’t want to make you chose between us and your family—”

“You’re my family,” Launchpad interrupted without thinking. He immediately flushed with mortification. But a glance at Drake revealed that he was blushing just as hotly, his face pretty and pink, and failing spectacularly to hide a pleased little smile. Launchpad decided to be brave and smiled back. “You and Gos,” he said, more firmly.

It was his turn to hesitate now.

“But… Darkwing Duck doesn’t need a sidekick. He never did.”

Drake leaned forward. And kept leaning forward.

Launchpad froze up when Drake pressed his temple against Launchpad’s own clammy forehead. Drake’s free hand settled on Launchpad’s chest, over his heart, and it thumped madly under his palm.

Launchpad had just started to settle into this new embrace, one hand coming up to press tentatively against Drake’s lower back, when Drake spoke again into the short, warm distance between them.

“Darkwing Duck isn’t real. Or, wasn’t. Not until you came along. And yeah, maybe I don’t need a sidekick. But I do want a partner.”

“And you want…me?” Launchpad hated how small his voice sounded but everything in him was still screaming that this was all too good to be true. That he was still asleep with Drake watching over him, but no more.

Drake’s hand on his chest tightened, gripping a fistful of fabric. “Of course, you,” he said, gentle but unwavering. “Why would I want anyone else?”

Launchpad shrugged, flustered but unable to help himself. “You don’t want someone, I dunno…better?”

“What’s ‘better’ than the man I love?”

“I…I didn’t…when…wow. That was a really good line,” Launchpad breathed, and he laughed for the first time that night. But it felt like his first breath of fresh air in years.

“You think so? I practiced a little, y’know, cuz I wanted to get it right, but I hoped for a more romantic setting. Some candlelight maybe, a nice sunset behind us.” Drake pushed Launchpad back onto the bed, following him down to kiss his forehead. “Now get some rest, partner, so we can work on that first date.”

#ant writes #drakepad #ducktales 2017 #poor lp is still in the angsty pining phase while drake's ready to pick out curtains #ducktales #darkwing duck #launchpad mcquack #gosalyn's staying at honker's dont worry

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