I Could Do About Anything

Della was able to see all angles, she was sure of that since she was a child. She couldn’t remember if it was a skill that she had always had or that she developed as she grew up, but it was undeniable that it was there. Also, there were other possibilities that the sight of it offered her, and that was to read people, particularly her brother.

Of course, there were non-believers (including Donald himself) who claimed otherwise, and there were others who argued that it was because they were twins that Della was able to know what he thought, and that was partially true. Because while there were times when they found themselves thinking the same thing, the truth was that both also worked individually, and Donald himself was a different world from her.

A world that was commonly incomprehensible to many, including her. Not exactly because of the way her brother speaks, but because of the way he acts. It was not a secret that they were completely opposite, even Della had heard such comments since they were in high school, and she knew that he did as well because of the erratic way in which his behavior changed despite remaining like the typical shy boy from the corner.

Perhaps that was why she had sensed the discomfort of her twin throughout the journey, even if she was a few kilometers from him and even if she turned her back to him, as if it were a gentle breeze brushing her feathers and fiddling with her clothes. Her gaze remained focused on the sky, a path that she recognized on the way and that she recognized back; however, a part of her was focused on the conversations that were going on behind her. Goofy chatted with the children, Max’s name popping over and over with such a familiar fondness that it left an emptiness in the pilot’s stomach,

(Especially since it reminded her of her brother while talking about the triplets, but it didn’t make sense: would Goofy have a child?

Her brother always got on better with him than her, but she had always known him as a loving guy, and surely she would have known of a child before she had taken the Spear of Selene; particularly what will his wife be like? She must be very gallant if she, again, had managed to conquer Goofy of all people.

Which, in turn, made her wonder about Mickey and Minnie, because so far the only clue she has had since her return has been that melon that Donald had with him on the island and—)

on the other hand, and now that she had stopped talking to LP, she could hear her brother having a pleasant conversation with Agent— Beakley. And though Della couldn’t figure out what they were talking about, her hands were shaking on the wheel. Because Donald’s desire kept tickling her mind.

Specifically, on his reason for asking it.

Not having to worry about the family being capturedorlost.

“Della.” Her uncle’s calloused hands on hers made her blink, and she returned to focus on the flight — much to the extent that Launchpad took care of it to her apparent distraction, though she did let her uncle know that she was listening to him with a gesture, “are ye okay? Ye’ve bin very… quiet since we got on the plane.”

In fact? No. At least, not quite. Lost, lost. Lost. The word poked at her brain incessantly, and it frustrated her.

Della cherished having discussed the Spear’s topic with the children, and having her uncle’s support despite yelling at each other — it was to be expected, though, with their tempers. However, she acknowledged that she still owed her twin a conversation; not only about the rift that she had formed between them a decade ago, but also about the time when he was the one who was on the moon and her apparent disinterest when he told her through that bizarre melon. Her brother had always been someone who refused to talk, particularly if it involved his feelings, but he had even refused to speak after the invasion and it made her stomach clench.

Lost.

Della knew she was lost even when she returned to her home. From the terrible second impression with her uncle to the relationship with her kids. She had no idea how to be a mother, she had barely read a thing or two even when she was waiting for the triplets because her thoughts were more focused on the world behind that stardust she saw through her window after every adventure, and when she landed on the Moon her priority had been to repair the rocket and return to Earth. Instead, her brother had read all the books on parenting the moment he discovered that she was waiting, and even she could claim that he had been made from other sources that she was still unaware of to date.

Her mind had always been in the clouds and that had led her to be stranded in space without being able to develop her motherhood. But Donald had always been on Earth, being the father and mother of her sons; But having wished Gene for a normal and perfect family, she had a feeling that perhaps it could be something more.

“Yeah, yeah, Uncle Scrooge,” she said in a distant voice; though she knew she had been slow to respond, her uncle’s concerned expression confirmed it once she returned to concentrating enough on the vast stage in front of her, “but I need to think a few things. Launchpad, would you mind continuing the flight to the mansion?“

Of course, the other driver was an incarnate sunbeam, and he only responded with a thumbs up and a smile without reciting any words or questions before taking the wheel again.

But no matter which direction her mind took, they all came to the same conclusion: she should speak to Donald soon.

It was with that thought in mind that she headed for the houseboat, feeling her shoulders grow heavier as she approached. The triplets and Webby were watching TV, and she had literally seen Beakley in the kitchen not long ago. Scrooge had retired to his office with Isabella’s journal and Duckworth was away, doing ghost things; ergo, there was no one who could interrupt her during her conversation with her self-proclaimed best friend, but that did little to relax her and, otherwise, made her tenser. Not just because it wasn’t a secret that Donald was more emotional, the lamp incident had proved it to her, but because with their infamous temperaments it was a lousy combination in case the situation got out of control, what if …?

When she was least aware of it, her metal foot stepped onto the hatch that gave her access to the boat. And even though she knew it was more sensible to go to the door and knock, especially remembering how strict her brother had been about his privacy from their distant adolescence — that, on second thought, it made no sense when it came to Donald because: what could he hide from everyone that required a dress code that never existed? —, the truth was that she was very impatient to discuss this issue to walk the deck only to go to the bow and also wait to be attended.

No. If she was going to do this she was going to do it now, and with that conviction, she raised the hatch.

"Donald, listen. I know I’m coming unannounced, but you and I have to…” Down the stairs, her words died in her throat when she saw the aforementioned accompanied by… a strange-looking duck, who had also become tense at her presence. They appeared to be looking at a framed photo, but the abrupt way in which they parted, as if they had been caught doing something wrong, did not go unnoticed.

This puzzled Della much more than expected, perhaps due to the fact that…

“Dumbella! I told you to knock.” Donald was really calm, when he used to be on the alert for a visit from any stranger. If that in itself was strange, he just looked a bit annoyed at her sudden entrance.

"Don’t worry, D,” however, his features seemed to relax when said stranger addressed him, approaching to murmur something that caused him to stifle a laugh. That definitely didn’t twist something in his stomach.

Her brother looked relaxed, off guard, more cheerful than she could remember, and it took the pilot out of focus on the reasons that brought her to the houseboat in the first place. Sure, she remembered seeing him like this during junior high and high school with Mickey and Goofy, or in college with José and Panchito; but right now there was something in his gaze that she was unable to define.

Particularly, there was the fact that her brother used to chat about the antics he did with his friends all the time, and the visits did not wait when they were in the mansion on an almost daily basis, not to mention the multiple sleepovers that her little brother did per week.

In one way or another, they had adopted a small place under their roof, allowing her to know and grow fond of them, even if they got on better with her twin.

But this guy? She didn’t recall Donald mentioning an outrageously dressed mallard, not even in a slip; there were no antecedents, there were no visits. Still, his calm in the face of this unfamiliar new face tickled the back of her neck, and she didn’t like it.

“Er…” She cleared his throat, and it seemed that they too had been pigeonholed into their little bubble. There was also the look that this guy gave her at all times, as if he was watching her and reproaching her for some reason she did not know. “Donnie? Don’t think I’m planned to be rude, but who is he?”

Having to fight her willpower not to point him out because Donald would scold her for the rudeness, she instead pointed her eyes at him, and the frown of her strange companion didn’t soften - at least, not with her. That did less to reassure her, especially considering the way her brother’s eyebrow arched in confusion, at least until he met his partner’s gaze and his face lit up in an unusual way, and it lit a small sparkle in the pilot’s gaze.

“Oh, where are my manners?” he exclaimed with a small blush blurring the feathers of his cheeks, and her desire to make fun of him increased but she was held back when she noticed that Donald was really sorry and her conversation with him continued in a pendulum.

“Easy, Ol-Don,” he cleared his throat, letting his hand rest on the sailor’s shoulder for a second, though of course, it would be enough for him to relax, before addressing her again with a serious face, all traces of complicity that he seems to have with her twin fading away.

And judging by the way his eyes widened, he noticed it too.

“Uno Ducklair, Donald’s old friend. Nice to meet you.” His voice had certainly turned strict, enveloping in a dark aura that mystified Della as he shook her hand, with a smile that might look real if not for her keen eyesight.

She wasn’t sure if the other duck in the residence would have noticed, but it seemed to be eyeing the blissful Uno with an indecipherable expression. Most disconcerting was the way he tried to hide his outstretched arm from her brother, as if he were trying to protect him.

But from who?

"Erm, I’m… Della Duck, Donald’s sister. I’m sorry for the… intrusion, but I didn’t know my brother was expecting visits” and she was really sorry, considering they both seemed to be in the middle of a chat when she arrived “nice to meet you.”

Before shaking her hand with the mallard’s, she sighing aloud at the grasp.

“Wow, you really have a strong hand, huh?” Laughing nervously, she heard her brother reproach her in the background.

But Uno knew.

Uno knew he wouldn’t find himself in the Ducklair Tower again until years later as Odin Eidolon, when Donald and his adventures as Paperinik, as well as the friends and enemies they had made along the way, were nothing more than a vague memory in the abandoned lair. However, there he was: the tower reviving while he was reactivated and his data was transferred, the memories that he had kept hidden from his creator becoming overwhelming during the moments in which he became accustomed again to the environment that was the hiding place that once witnessed the tommyrot of two partners who saved the city and saw Anxieties in their spare time.

Uno knew that the first image in his database after that memorabilia was Donald’s face, cheerful and full of life, always telling bad jokes as he faced Evronians and the misadventures of daily life. The glint in his gaze as he thought of the future with his nibling, who would later become nephews. And Uno knew that he should appreciate that look again, being almost instantaneously that he looked for his old fellow in the system while his arms were in charge of giving the last details to the body that had begun with so much care before being deactivated.

He had missed him, he had to confess. He was not ignorant that many of the machines of the time of his partner of crime were incapable of feeling any emotion; but after meeting Lyla and himself learning about them after his friend, that stereotype had been erased from his data or, in Donald’s words, thrown out the window.

As he polished the finishing touches to what would be the new recipient of his data, he hadn’t gone unnoticed the adding of some Gizmoduck and Darkwing Duck as saviors of the city. And though he found the absence of Paperinik alarming, that concern was forgotten the second he found the whereabouts of said vigilante.

In just a few minutes, an Artificial Intelligence had given way to an android that was heading to the McDuck Manor. That, while he took in every detail, feel, and color that the city was from a new perspective.

But as an AI, Uno’s data was collected, and he was able to remember.

And he remembered every afternoon they watched every episode of Anxieties, new or old, while they both tried to disguise the effect that Saxony Starbright had on them and made a few comments about the plots and absurd twists that the writers made even if they used to be on the edge of the seat at such absurd twists like the hypocrites that they were.

He remembered every mission he did alongside Paperinik, being his eyes and ears in the tower as the hero took care of the casual villains and the Evronians in his umpteenth futile attempt to increase his army, as both would joke about it later while he checked the little scrapes and bruises between his feathers.

But he also remembered those wounds that were not generated by the occupational hazards, those occasions when Donald had to work harder and not smarter due to the adventures he faced every day in the company of his sister and his uncle. Those moments when he limped into the secret apartment, refusing to be checked to retire to put on the suit of his second job despite the reprimands he gave while Donald was dressing or when the situation was resolved, when the hero was too mentally and physically exhausted to fight the worrying intelligence.

When Donald was on the brink of hypothermia from some magical ice he was on.

When he came in exhaling a cocoa scent and trailing bright-colored plumage, his sensors detecting sensitive peck marks under his own feather coat, particularly in the cranial area.

Or each time he came in with more and more scars, his clothes shattered, bald spots, and even obvious bruises. Many times because of some crazy adventure, other times because he fought someone at school, the character of his partner added to the physical ability that he possessed from his self-induced training.

When he arrived depressed due to an argument with family members, because he refused to go out with them to the next hidden temple, because of his bad luck or even his cousin’s getting in the way of each meeting, or because he was still not understood metaphorically and literally by his family or a third party.

For his family.

For his family.

For his family.

Uno did not know how, but until he discovered that Della was waiting even before Donald, the occasions in which he had seen him truly smile, at least with his family, could be easily counted and that because he had collected them, and on the other hand he really stood out when he was with friends, including him.

He really didn’t want to feel some things unless they involved Donald, and while this technically involved his partner, he also knew the fondness he had for his family, so his confusion at his reaction was not only valid, but justifiable.

“Uno?” He blinked, and they knew what a relief it was for the sailor to mutter that name again even if there were no words in between, and even blinking out of his thoughts was so strange and wonderful to him, “Is everything okay?”

It was then that he recognized how nervous Della was in front of him, and tried not to feel joy at it because this was his best friend’s sister and while he wanted her to fear and more, he did not want to get into an argument with Donald after a decade of estrangement and a lot of time to recover.

“Yes, yes, my apologies,” and though he wasn’t really sorry, it was gratifying to see Della tense enough because that was the least he feared every time Donald had to leave Duckburg with them. “I’m not that used to physical contact.”

And well, that wasn’t entirely a lie. Donald has been the one who has gotten him used to it, and that because he used to be very affectionate back in the tower, and getting used to the body was also new to him, but he did not know how much he had changed in recent years if the first thing he had done when he saw him was to keep clung.

But Della was watching them warily, and somehow both knew what the next question would be before it exited the pilot’s peak:

“And how did you meet?”

“During the time you were in flight school,” Donald began almost instantly, finally intervening between his sister and Uno even if he tried his best not to make it weirder than it already was, “I was looking for a part-time job and coincidentally Uncle Scrooge had just bought the Ducklair Tower so I started working there. Uno is… one of the sons of Everett Ducklair, the previous owner of the tower” Donald had to accept that his lying skills had rusted over the years — after raising the triplets on honesty, but the least he could do and he was grateful for was dancing around the truth because he had become the custodian of the Tower while his sister soared through the skies in search of her pilot’s license, as uncomfortable as it was for him to even mention the name of his old friend’s master’s name.

But he also didn’t want to know her reaction to knowing how involved he was with artificial intelligences, aliens, droids, and time travels. Especially when it was all over and it had been a lot to him at the time.

“Hmm, well Uncle Scrooge said you changed a lot while I was in school, that you had become more sensitive or something, and more alert,” she commented out of nowhere and with a thoughtful expression, and Donald blinked after hearing someone snort, rolling his eyes after recognizing Uno’s giggle even though a smile was visible on the edge of his beak, because if he had heard that several times during his time as a janitor and superhero, many times for teasing or bothering him, the truth was that he missed the teasing a lot — coming from his partner — because, unlike the ones he had heard on multiple occasions, they were not malicious. Besides the fact that facing bad boys had indeed helped his temper during his studies “it must have been for that. I guess I must thank you… Uno.”

Still, neither of them missed the discomfort on Della’s face, or the way she fiddled with her scarf, and her smile became strained as she spoke more.

Maybe it was because of the fact that Donald had secret friends? Because of the looks Unogave her behind the back of his brother? Was it some older sister instinct that hadn’t been around since high school coming to life and yelling at her to protect her brother from Uno at all costs?

And that was the hardest part, because Donald didn’t look at all overwhelmed or alert by the mallard’s presence. Indeed, she felt her twin relaxed in a way that only happened when he was with José and Panchito, and that had been while they were in college.

“I was just telling Uno to introduce him to the rest of the family, that you came in was a mere coincidence,” Donald commented, with a smile so bright it puzzled Della, when was the last time you saw him so happy about something that surrounded him?

But she couldn’t question it too much when Donald’s face turned strange, blinking as his expression changed.

“What brings you here anyway? Not that it bothers me!” He clarified quickly, grinning nervously, and Della could have sworn the third duck’s face turned warmer, and that was something she could share: she had also missed seeing Donald turn into the same nervous wreck as to when they were young adults. The duck cleared his throat and crossed both arms behind his back, “it’s just, well, the only times you come unannounced are when you can’t sleep. Now that I think about it, you seemed to want to tell me something… is everything okay?“

As he looked thoughtfully, he acknowledged that sooner or later he would have to talk to his sister about his desire and what happened next was more than evident. However, he did not expect it to happen so soon, and Donald preferred to wait once the situation with Uno was over and he had had enough time to think about what to say to her.

Unconsciously, that little consideration from the sailor had been enough for Della to remember what had dragged her into the boat in the first place, it can’t be that she has forgotten so quickly!

However, the pilot couldn’t help but wonder if now was the right time, especially seeing how calm it was in comparison to the cave. Actually, it was as if he had never had a breakdown in the first place.

She wanted to preserve that for a few more moments. Furthermore, she would never have known how to start that conversation even if she could chat with her brother at the time.

"It’s not that important, it can wait.” She shrugged, maintaining a serene expression that she now felt more sincere. If Donald noticed that tiny detail, he didn’t say anything. “Don’t you mind if I keep you company to the mansion? If anyone had the audacity to put up with my brother’s plover head, it’s worth knowing.”

She olympically ignored her twin’s reproach in favor of sneering at him, feeling satisfied when the mallard giggled despite the faint reddish tinge in the sailor’s feathers.

“I don’t see why not,” Uno commented. And even though he still looked relatively tense, his shoulders looked more relaxed when he side hugged Donald. Della could not gloat over that small victory given the strange glint in Uno’s eyes. It was a bit inhuman, though the pilot didn’t want to jump to baseless conclusions, but they seemed to be on the alert, “but I’d rather wait: the plover head was thinking of wait and respond with the whole family present, he doesn’t want to leave anything unsolved.”

Unlike her, there seemed to be an iota of homesickness when he used the same nickname to poke fun at Donald, and though he rolled his eyes this time, an exhausted smile took place.

Della flinched when Donald suddenly raised his voice, his voice raspier with the effort.

“Family, can you come over for a second?!” Even Uno smiled, wincing at the future state of the sailor’s throat. “I want you to meet someone!”