Tender Touches

By: EricaX

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Staring at the chalk board in front of him, Bushroot tried his best to ignore the blizzard that was raging outside of his Greenhouse. Tightly around him, he was wearing his lab coat, more to stay warm than the fact that he was working on his experiments at the moment. The Greenhouse heating system was working double time today, no thanks to the freezing temperature, raging windows, a whirlwind of snow blowing against it.

Spike whined from underneath the table which held Bushroot's formulas and beakers, notes and lab equipment. He didn't quite care for the cold, and the howling of the wind scared him. The Venus Fly Trap continued to whimper, quivering slightly as the wind grew stronger at that moment.

Bushroot tore his eyes off the chalk board to glance outside, noting that several more inches had been added to the three feet of snow they had already gotten. "Lovely" muttered the mutant darkly.

Going outside was no longer an option for Bushroot, not like he had been planning on leaving anytime soon anyways. Still, the option was always nice to have.

Placing a leafy hand under his chin with a complacent look on his green face, Bushroot looked back at his work at hand. He just couldn't seem to add this equation up for some reason. The adjacent factor in the problem was not adding up to what it was supposed to be. And it drove the mutant plant duck crazy as he tried to figure out why that was.

While thinking back on what had happened to Posy, the experiment turned disaster, a thought had occurred to him. While Posy had been an experiment gone wrong from the beginning thanks to improper experimentation, one imposing thought had struck the botanist. Posy's actions had been far from loving and ended up being quite hostile, even to her husband-to-be. If he ever planned on re-trying that experiment, and doing to correctly, that factor would have to be fixed. How hard could it possibly be, to simply change the chemicals and have it so that feelings of hatred would be composed to those of loving feelings. Hard, as Bushroot regretfully found it. But not impossible. Or so he hoped to believe so.

No one has yet to bottle emotions, and Bushroot knew very well that it is impossible to do so. However, any well educated scientist knows that emotions can be altered and changed by chemicals in the brain. Although, this is all knowledge based on mammal studies and of course, plants do not have brains. This was the tricky part; finding the right part of the plant that is equivalent to the brain of say, a human, duck, or rodent.

Well, he didn't become a botanist by simply asking for the title. There was little to nothing that Reginald Bushroot didn't know about plants. Each plant had a life source of its own, almost like a spirit, thought most people doubt this. But this is only because most people don't know plants as well as Bushroot does, seeing as how he had conversations with them all the time, every day. He just had to come up with a way to gain access to that said spirit.

Sighing, Bushroot sagged his shoulders in defeat. The equation was not going to be solved anytime soon, he sadly admitted to himself. Right now he was trying to calculate a chemical formula which would allow him to know how much "love toxin" as he had dubbed it, to put into the flower that would be his newest bride-to-be. If things went according to plan. For he had created a formula, which, according to his experiments on several other common flowers, would cause them to 'feel' more loving, caring, and kind than the average plant would feel. Unlike Posy, who was the opposite of those emotions. He did not want another repeat of Posy. It was not so much that he didn't like the idea of marrying a potato instead of a flower, as was originally planned, it was now more of how she had treated him. Cruelly. He had enough of that in his life already without adding more to it.

Looking away from the chalkboard and out into the wintry blizzard that was currently taking place outside, he sighed once more, feeling more depressed than he had already felt.

Spike crawled his way from being underneath the table he had been hiding under and whimpered up at him, sharp little cries that sounded like a wounded puppy. Bushroot looked down at his loyal pet and reached his hand out, urging the Venus Fly Trap to come over to him. Spike didn't waste a minute, crawling out even more from the table and coming up to his master, nearly tripping over onto his chin in clumsiness as he did so.

"Ooooh….Spike…" lamented Bushroot, running a hand through his purple petal foliage. "Why does everything have to be difficult? Am I really asking too much, hmm? All I wanted in life was to make the world a better place, by solving world hunger and then finding myself a woman to love and to hold and to be with. Someone who loved me back just as much…" His blue eyes sparkled for a moment at the thought of his past dreams and hopes, but the spark quickly left as reality settled back in. He blinked, the reflection of the white snow outside all that could seen in his eyes now.

Spike rubbed his muzzle against Bushroot's leg, whimpering some more in sympathy for his master.

"…………Of course…" whispered Bushroot reluctantly, almost as though he didn't want to talk about it, even though he was all by himself with only Spike and his plants to listen. "……Nobody…..said it had to be a woman…." he averted his gaze away from the Greenhouse windows and away from the snow, looking to his left, where he saw the cement of his Greenhouse. He shrugged slightly. "That's….just what everybody…assumes I'd be with…" He swayed back in forth where he stood, shifting his weight from root to root, looking embarrassed. "I mean…..A nice fellow wouldn't be so bad, but of course, none of them want to be with me either!" A hint of anger showed up in his voice. But it went away as quickly as it had come. "But of course, what do you expect? No one wants to be with a mutant plant duck criminal. Especially not…" He stopped talking to himself altogether, his cheeks turning a deeper shade of green, the sap in his cheeks going warm.

For some time now, Bushroot had contemplated what had possessed him to start having feelings for someone like that. Someone who would never in a million years look at him in such a way as that. But that was how love worked, it seemed. On days that he felt particularly lonely or depressed, Bushroot would deliberately commit a crime just so that he could see him. He didn't care if he was tossed in jail for a few days afterwards, he knew all the tricks of the trade on how to escape. These days it was easy for him to do. Sure, his plants would suffer for it since he would miss a few days of watering them, but he made it up to his friends in the Greenhouse. They understood him, at least, and didn't get too upset with him for leaving.

Against all odds, the criminal fell in love with the hero. Darkwing Duck.

It was cliché and foolish of him to have done something like that, but love was not always kind in such matters. His heart ached to be with the same vigilante who has mulched him, arrested him, tossed weed killer at him, threatened him, outwitted him, teased him, and most importantly, hurt him.

Wrapping his vine-like arms around himself, Bushroot shivered, but not from the cold outside. He was a hopeless case. Truly hopeless. His feelings would never be returned, which was why he was now working on his newest bride-to-be, in hopes that once she was created, he would forget his feelings for that egotistical mallard and move on to love her.

Yawning, Bushroot began to feel the day's activities catch up to him as he realized how late it was. It was only five in the afternoon, but for a plant, that was late, since the sun began to set around that time.

He stretched, fighting back another yawn, when the whispers of his plants aroused his curiosity.

'Ooooh, what is that?'

'Is it dead?'

'What is it?'

'Is it a fallen over tree?'

More similar whispers could be telepathically heard by Bushroot as he stepped closer to where his children were speaking. It was in the back of his Greenhouse, on the south side, where all the excitement was taking place. Spike trotted along beside Bushroot, just as eager to see what was going on as his master was. Peaking around past the vines that were hanging from the taller branches of the trees and gently moving past the shrubbery at his roots, Bushroot listened more to his children after going off the path of his Greenhouse.

'Look, master!'

'What is it!?'

'Tell us what it is!'

His curious friends desperately wanted to know what it was, and frankly, so did he.

'There, in the white grass, master!'

'It's laying in the white grass outside!'

Bushroot gave them a wry smile as they referred to snow as 'white grass'. He finally made it to the glass of his Greenhouse, leaning up close to it, holding his leafy hands up around his eyes in hopes to see better at the wicked cold blizzard.

There was something lying there in the snow. He could see a fallen form of something lying there, face down. As he squinted even more, he saw that it was purple cloth and a purple fedora hat.

Realization spread across Bushroot's face, his blue eyes going wide as though he had been slapped in the face. "Oh, my Golly! Oh,….GOD!" cried out Bushroot, doing nothing less than freaking out in panic. He frantically moved about in a circle, looking around him in hopes for an answer, reaching up and grabbing onto his purple petal hair. "Th-That's Darkwing Duck! What's he doing out there!? What am I supposed to do!? He looks like he's passed out!! What if he's hurt!? I-I gotta do something!"

Just as he was about to run to do so, he froze, reality settling in. "But wait…." he said to himself. "He's my enemy…Who am I to go out there and save him? Certainly he wouldn't do the same for me, would he??"

He wrung his hands together fretfully. His bill formed a deep frown, a look of hopelessness crossing his features. "No….I can't just leave him out there…. Oh….son of a broccoli! Of all the people to have feelings for!" he stamped down his foot in frustration, only to squeak and move it back up, looking down as he realized he had stepped on a Lily. "Ahhh! Oh, I'm so sorry, Lillian. You know I didn't mean it, right!?"

After apologizing, Bushroot didn't waste any more time in getting ready to go out into the cold to retrieve Darkwing. Sloppily putting on his brown jacket over his lab coat for extra warmth, the socks he wore as mittens and his woolen cap, he ran out through the doors of his Greenhouse on the other side and cursed himself for not going out the back door, but he had been so flustered to get outside as soon as possible, he hadn't thought about it.

The icy air went straight through his two coats, feeling like icy blades that cut through his green plant skin. He grabbed his hat just before the wind blew it off as he took his first step into the three and a half inch deep snow. Bushroot groaned in pain at the first step into the snow, feeling his roots start to go numb already. Slowly, step by step, he walked to the back of the Greenhouse where he had seen Darkwing's body lying out in the snow. His back towards the wind, Bushroot found it easier not facing it, getting slight comfort that it was not blowing into his face and down his coats, whereas the collar of his jacket protected him this way. It didn't take him long to make his way through the snow, making large steps in hopes that it would be a quicker trip.

Behind the Greenhouse the wind was not as strong since the building blocked the worst of the cold wind. Bushroot froze at the sight before him. It was indeed Darkwing Duck. He was lying face down in the snow, obliviously after having passed out. The same warmth in his cheeks that he felt every time he was in Darkwing's presence swept over him. But there was no time to be timid and shy. Darkwing needed his help desperately. Crouching down in the snow, Bushroot reached for Darkwing's cape, which was covering most of him. He could see Darkwing's footprints make a trail behind him until he could see nothing but white from the blizzard. Then, lifting up his fedora hat, Bushroot could see his face, which was blue and frozen looking from the cold. The sight of this only made Bushroot more determined to help him.

Just as he was about to collect the mallard into his arms, he saw something else in the snow. Red. Red snow.

His eyes going wide, Bushroot nearly cussed, "Holy ---!!" but stopped himself, instead letting out a whimper of his own. "Ohhhhh….You're bleeding too! But, of course you are! Make me freak out even more, why don't you!?" he scolded the passed out mallard, shouting. He doubted Darkwing would have heard him over the wind even if he had been awake.

He quickly checked to see where the bleeding was coming from and how bad it was, but after a few minutes of finding nothing, he scrapped the idea, knowing that if he didn't hurry he was going to be a frozen vegetable and all of this would have been for nothing.

He dug his arms into the snow beneath Darkwing's body and with a grunt, managed to pull him up, stumbling greatly as he tried standing. "Ohhh!" cried out the villain. "You're heavier than you look!" he panted. He squinted his eyes shut, trying to gain his balance in the snow. He struggled to heave Darkwing's body over his shoulder, his knees buckling slightly from the weight. But after another moment, he finally gained his balance and was facing the right direction. In the back of his mind he remembered that he kept the back door to his Greenhouse locked at all times, and since he hadn't used the back door, it wouldn't be unlocked now. So he had to make his way back to the front of the Greenhouse, which he hoped he would be able to do.

After taking several steps forward, Bushroot started feeling some sort of warm liquid against his shoulder which Darkwing was on. Unable to look over and see what it was, he wasn't positive, but a sickening feeling in his gut told him that it was blood. He didn't know where the blood was coming from on the mallard, but it didn't matter. Blood was blood.

It felt like an eternity walking back to the front of the Greenhouse. Bushroot berated himself for not remembering to go out the back door so it would be open. He looked up, figuring out how much farther he had to walk, but found that the snow was coming down so heavily it was like a white out. He just continued to put one root in front of the other, making sure to stay close to the side of the building so that when it was time to turn to the right, he could just feel for the building with his hand and know.

But out of all of this, what shocked Bushroot the most was how worried he was for his nemesis. Worry gripped at his heart as he went over all that could be wrong with the superhero. He felt dread at the thought of Darkwing being hurt too badly.

He continued to walk, his gloved hand touching the side of the Greenhouse, until he couldn't feel it anymore and he knew he was close to the door. Turning to the right, Bushroot's free hand searched for the doorknob, finally finding it and twisting it, giving it a push until he finally made it inside and was able to slam the door shut, shutting out the frigid cold.

Bushroot collapsed to his knees, looking sick. He placed Darkwing down on the floor beside him and then leaned forward, gasping, his lungs feeling frozen and frigid as he sucked in each breath. Bushroot took several moments to recover from the cold and glanced over at Darkwing once more, who had yet to wake up. Blood pooled around Darkwing's arm, which alarmed the mutant plant duck greatly.

Jumping into action, Bushroot tore off his mittens, hat, and brown jacket until he was in nothing but his white tattered lab coat once more. He ignored the blood that was now on his lab coat, having soaked through his brown jacket. He quickly scooped Darkwing up into his arms, ignoring his own aching and recovering body and took him over to an empty table he had near the front of the Greenhouse.

He placed Darkwing on the table on his back, taking off his fedora hat and dropping it on the floor, not caring where it went. Now he just stood there and looked at him, unsure of what to do next.

The mutant wrung his hands together nervously. He wasn't a medical doctor. He was a botanist. A plant doctor. All he could do was stand there and watch Darkwing lay there, taking in one slow breath and letting it out at a time. Bushroot decided that it was a wonderful sight, just sitting there, watching him breathe, even if he was half frozen and bleeding.

He came back to his senses once he remembered that the mallard was bleeding. His face going entirely hot with embarrassment, Bushroot began taking off Darkwing's purple jacket so that he was left with his teal colored turtle neck. It was then that Bushroot saw where the blood was coming from. He fallen mallard had cuts all over his arms. His right arm was the worst. Pulling up his sleeves as gently as he could, Bushroot saw the cuts first hand, blood stained feathers all around them.

Minding not to trip over Spike as he did so, Bushroot ran over to the little kitchenette he had and grabbed a washcloth, watering it a little under the faucet. He rushed back over to Darkwing, who had yet to wake, and began cleaning his cuts.

As he did this, Bushroot couldn't help but contemplate what all was happening to him. Here he was, aiding and attending to his worst enemy. Oh, if any of the other members of the Fearsome Five or any other villain could see him now, they would surely kill him for helping out their nemesis. Or at least hold it against him until the end of his days.

But at the same time, he was helping the one he loved. Another blush came to the mutant's face as he shifted his gaze away from his arm, where he was cleaning one of the many cuts and looked at Darkwing's closed eyes. It was shame they weren't open, for the mutant loved the color of blue they were when they were open, but of course, Darkwing was usually glaring at him with those beautiful eyes.

Bushroot liked the way his beak was shaped, albeit large, but there was nothing wrong with that. He supposed he was so attracted to Darkwing because of how brave he was. He could never be as brave as Darkwing. Daring and confident. It just wasn't in the plant duck's nature. He was a bit egotistical for his taste, sure, but when being a mutant plant duck villain, you couldn't be picky.

"Ohhhh….This just isn't fair…" spoke Bushroot very quietly in case Darkwing woke up. "Why? Why you? Why did it have to be you?" he asked. What made the duck's heart ache the most was the simple cold hard fact: Darkwing would never return his feelings. Darkwing was too wrapped up in his own little world. That, and he had barely let Morgana McCawber off the hook for being a villain, and Bushroot figured that the only reason that was, was because he was head over heels for her. All the more reason for Bushroot to know that his feelings would never be returned. Once this was all done and said, he would just have to go back to his experiments and hope that he got the experiment right this time.

Going to clean off the washcloth from all the blood, Bushroot bit back a sob. He never should have let this happen. Just seeing Darkwing made his heart ache for him. Just hearing his name. He tired pulling himself together, without much luck, before going back to where Darkwing was laying, continuing to clean off the blood. He found, with relief, that the cuts where not at all as bad as they blood made them appear to be. He knew he had some band-aids around the Greenhouse somewhere to properly wrap his cuts.

After having Spike fetch them for him, not wanting to leave Darkwing's presence anymore, he bandaged Darkwing's cuts, loving the feel of Darkwing's muscular arms. He certainly didn't look as strong as his arms were currently making him seem.

Once he was all bandaged, Bushroot finished by finding a blanket to put over him to keep him warm and bundled up his fedora hat to use as a pillow. Now all the mutant could do was wait for the mallard to wake up.

He dreaded Darkwing's awakening, because then he wouldn't be able to stare and enjoy his presence any more. Because then Darkwing would wake up and realize what happened and more than likely give him a disgusted look, then leave. He tried not to think otherwise, knowing it would make him feel worse when it didn't happen.

Staring off into space, Bushroot desperately wished that things were different. That he wasn't a mutant plant duck villain and that he could possibly have a chance of being with him. Spike came up to his master and placed his head on Bushroot's knee as the mutant doctor sat a chair beside where Darkwing was laying. Bushroot barely even registered Spike, his gaze never leaving Darkwing's face, a sad expression of his face. He let his mind drift, daydreaming about what it would be like if things were only different.

Then, a thought struck him. Suddenly, he stood up, taking a gulp, and walked up to Darkwing, looking down at him. Now was his only chance to do what he's wanted to do for some time now. There was no harm in it, really. Darkwing would never know and even if he did somehow, miraculously remember, he would deny it as some sort of dream or illusion.

Feeling brave for once, Bushroot slowly leaned downward until his beak met with Darkwing's beak in a sweet and gentle kiss. After staying that way for several long seconds, his eyes closed, he quickly withdrew and leaned back, standing straight again, his eyes never leaving Darkwing once they were open again.

It was at that moment that Bushroot realized that even if he were successful in making Posy the Second and the "love toxin" he was working on did work, it would never be the same. No, not the same as what he just felt. Feeling his true love's lips against his own, even if it was a stolen kiss. Nothing he could ever create would ever come close to that feeling.

He slowly walked backwards and slunk back down into his chair, looking even more sullen than ever, only because he knew that that was the last kiss he would ever get from his true love.

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Several hours went by where Bushroot did very little save for sitting there, watching Darkwing as he slept, wanting him more than anything the more he watched. But time didn't seem to matter to Bushroot. For all he knew, three minutes could have gone by in the four hours he had been sitting there watching him.

He watched as Darkwing's breathing began to quicken as consciousness slowly came back to him. Darkwing slowly opened his eyes, groaned as he did so, moving about underneath the blanket as he stretched. Bushroot just stayed where he was, his eyes hidden underneath his purple bangs, waiting for the moment when Darkwing would storm out of the Greenhouse in a fit of anger, self pride, and arrogance, not wanting to admit to the fact that a super villain had saved him.

Grunting, Darkwing sat up slowly feeling the aches and pain in his body. "Ooooh, someone get the license plate of that truck I hit?' he mumbled mainly to himself. He reached up rub his aching head, and then realized from the slight restraint of his arms that they were all bandaged up neatly. In some places he could see blood soaking through the bandages, but not much.

Bushroot flinched when Darkwing asked himself, "What? What happened?" But he remained silent, wishing to wait until Darkwing saw him before announcing his presence. "Where am I?" was his next question. Taking a good look at his surroundings, Darkwing finally managed to put the pieces together. "……….Bushroot's Greenhouse…" he breathed. Bushroot flinched again in his chair as he heard the mallard say this. Darkwing took in a deep breath, looking down at his bandages for several minutes. It was then that he noticed his jacket was off. "M-My jacket….." he mumbled. Bushroot bit his tongue to keep him from telling him that was lying on the floor beneath him.

Glancing around more at his surroundings, Darkwing scanned the room around him and when his eyes finally landed on Bushroot, he did a double take. "Bushroot!" he cried out, sounding slightly alarmed.

Bushroot's sad frown deepened at this, but did his best to remain calm. "Yes….it's me…" he began wringing his hands together. At any moment, Darkwing would realize what happened, get angry, and in a huff, walk out the door after collecting his hat and jacket and leave and that would be the end of it.

Darkwing groaned deeply in pain and was forced to lay back down on the table Bushroot had put him on. "Owww…..That hurts…" he moaned.

Bushroot stood up, anxious. "What's wrong? Did I not put the bandages on right??" He mentally kicked himself for acting so concerned. He was not supposed to care, he was a villain, his enemy. Although, he had already stepped over that boundary when he saved him from being out in the snow to begin with.

"I….uh…." fumbled Darkwing, searching for the right words to say. Bushroot perked up at the sound of him stuttering, having not expected it. "Ohh…." He realized what Bushroot had said, still laying on his back. "So…..You bandaged me up?" Bushroot blinked, sitting back down in his chair and mutely nodded. "And…you were the one who brought me in from the snow?" Again, Bushroot mutely nodded.

Darkwing just continued to lie there in pain, panting slightly, trying to put all the pieces together. Bushroot, not knowing what else to do, scooted the chair closer to the table and sat back down, nervously twitching his leafy hands in his lap.

It was then that Darkwing licked at his lips slightly, looking as though he was tasting something that had been on his mouth. Bushroot tensed, his mind going back to the sweet little kiss he had given him while he had still out cold. Darkwing gave him a side ways look. "You didn't happen to give me any kind of drink or anything while I was out, did you?"

"Why do you ask?" squeaked Bushroot nervously, still sitting in his chair several feet away.

Darkwing gave him a pointed glare. "Because my lips taste woodsy and I smell like sap. Almost like I kissed a tree…." he then gave Bushroot a suspicious look. "You didn't actually make me kiss a tree, did you!?" The thought was so incredulous, and the image of it was even more so, making Bushroot bite the urge to laugh. He wasn't too far off, but he could never tell him the truth.

"No, I didn't" he assured the duck, grateful that his blush was not as noticeable on him as a mutant plant duck as it would as a normal duck. Well, what he told him was only half true. He did make him kiss something, but it wasn't a tree, but a mutant plant duck.

"So, you just….happened to find me in the snow?" asked Darkwing innocently enough. But after having years of experience when dealing with superheroes and criminals alike, he could sense the suspicious tone underneath everything else.

Bushroot fought the urge to roll his eyes. "As it happens, you were inches away from my Greenhouse. Had you not collapsed out there, due to the white out, you probably would have walked straight into the side of my Greenhouse. My plants alerted me of you being out there and….yes, I went out and got you" he concluded.

"Right…" nodded Darkwing, looking for his hat, twisting about as he laid there, only to find it a minute later and getting out all the wrinkles. Bushroot just sat and watched him, fascinated.

"So…..exactly what were you doing around my Greenhouse?" he wrinkled his beak slightly in distaste. "I haven't done any robberies in weeks." As much as he hated to admit it, that was probably the reason the Masked Mallard had been out there to begin with. Bushroot then felt a sting of pain in his heart at the possible thought that Darkwing didn't trust him that much; that he actually found it necessary to check up on the mutant botanist. Then again, he reasoned, what more had he honestly expected?

Darkwing opened and closed his mouth several times before finally answering. He grimaced in pain. "Well….I was…on a case. F.O.W.L. had stolen a laser gun from S.H.U.S.H. and I was told to get it back." he grunted, grabbing onto his arm.

Bushroot, without thinking, stood again and gently grabbed Darkwing's arm, which made the mallard freeze on the spot, his eyes wide. "Unwrap that. I have something that might help you…" his voice was uncharacteristically calm. His cheeks burning with shyness, Bushroot walked over to his kitchenette and opened up a cabinet, looking at the medicines he had inside. Being a botanist, he knew all about herbal remedies, and at the moment, he knew one that would help Darkwing's pain. He had no idea why he hadn't thought to put the medicine on before he wrapped his cuts, but then again, Bushroot had just been anxious to stop the bleeding.

Darkwing, now propped up on his good elbow, watched in bewilderment as Bushroot came back with a small bowl and some q-tips. Inside the bowl, Darkwing noted when Bushroot came closer, there appeared to be some sort of green paste. Weary, Darkwing gave Bushroot a tired look. "What is that stuff?"

"Just something that will ease the pain in these cuts. A herbal remedy. That's all you need to know. Besides, I have trouble saying this stuff's real name…" he laughed half-heartedly. It was a fake laugh, his heart not really into it.

Darkwing had done as he was told and had unwound the bandages around the cuts that were bothering him the most. Without wasting anymore time, Bushroot began to gently apply the medicine onto the cuts, which Darkwing hissing in pain at first.

Bushroot flinched, the frown on his bill deepening as he worried that he had pressed too hard on the cut when applying it. "Sorry!" he flustered anxiously, nearly dropping the bowl.

Obviously seeing how hard Bushroot was trying, Darkwing tried his best to smile. "It's okay, it just….caught me off guard."

Bushroot nodded, focusing on the task at hand. The plant duck thoroughly covered each cut with the medicine, applying it evenly. As this took place, there was nothing but silence between the two of them, and the occasional howl of the wind or Spike whimpering from a few feet away.

Darkwing sighed, glancing up at Bushroot, who's attention was on his cuts. "Yeah…" he began, feeling the need to have a conversation. "So….this is the result of the case…" Bushroot blinked, having not expected Darkwing to want to say anything, let alone talk to him. "That damn Steelbeak had laid out a trap for me, knowing that I was going to show up…..Hurt like hell….as you can tell…" he shrugged, sounding as though he was trying to brush it off as a simple mistake.

All Bushroot could do was listen as he continued applying the medicine. When at last he was finished, he took back the bowl and q-tips and returned with fresh bandages. "Here you go. Those other bandages are all blood covered now, so it's pointless to put them back on" he pointed out. Darkwing didn't argue.

"I can put the bandages on myself…" protested Darkwing when Bushroot started trying to wrap his arm. The Masked Mallard slapped his leafy hands away, but as he did so, he unconsciously grabbed the mutant's hand, making them both freeze. The two of them just sat there was looked at their hands. Bushroot felt his heart pounding heavily in his chest.

'This can't be…..Awww, he's actually holding my hand….' thought Bushroot inwardly, unable to keep a small smile from forming on his beak. He was brought back to reality when Darkwing squeezed the mutant's hand slightly and Bushroot realized he was speaking to him.

"Thanks, Bushroot….You know, for all that you've done. Had it been any other villain, they would have just left me to freeze to death…." Bushroot turned away, blushing furiously, modestly shrugging.

"Oh, it was nothing…" he muttered. If this kept up Bushroot wouldn't be able to keep his hands off the other duck. Just the fact that Darkwing had yet to storm off, angry and humiliated, and the chances of that now lowered, was enough to make the plant duck giddy. It was then that he noticed that Darkwing was still holding his hand. He blinked, confused, and looked back at Darkwing.

"You know, you're not all that bad of a guy" Darkwing said at length. "I've had my doubts before and I've been mean to you ,sure, but its just the crime-fighting in me, you know?" Bushroot absently nodded.

Knowing that if he ever wanted anything to happen between them, now was the best time to act, seeing as how Darkwing seemed to be in such a good mood and was actually thanking him. "I….uh…." he suddenly found it very difficult to speak. Unbeknownst to Bushroot's struggle with words, Darkwing gave Bushroot's hand a final squeeze before finally letting go, wrapping up the cuts on his arm that had been left unattended. Freaking, Bushroot stammered to continue talking as Darkwing finished bandaging his arm and started putting on his purple jacket. "I……I…really like you!" he finally got out.

Darkwing stopped what he was doing and stared at Bushroot incredulously. "Oh….Well, I….like you too Bushroot…" shrugged Darkwing, swinging his feet off the side of the table and standing up.

Bushroot winced and groaned inwardly, knowing that his choice of words had not been the best, but that was all he could manage to say. " I mean…I REALLY like you!" Again he winced, not understanding why he couldn't just say it to him.

Darkwing turned to him, having been ready to leave, and smiled up at the plant duck. "Despite you being a villain, you're a great guy. As you always say, you're just misunderstood. It's taken me a while to realize that, but it's true. And I REALLY like you too Bushy…" He then winked at Bushroot, who just looked down at him with wide eyes. "No offense, but you're the one villain I don't worry about. The one villain who, when I find out I have to go up against, I think, 'Oh, I get to see Bushroot again' instead of the usual, 'Great, why me?' that I would normally say." Darkwing said all this, with all his dramatics as he said his examples, with a smile on his beak. He put his fedora hat and turned to leave. "I look forward to seeing you again Bushroot. Thanks again."

And with that the Masked Mallard that Flaps in the Night was gone, leaving a stunned, yet, ecstatic Bushroot behind him. It then occurred to Bushroot all that Darkwing had said. He had said that he liked him and then winked at him. Did that mean--!?

Oh, it didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was that Darkwing liked him. Bushroot walked back over to his chalkboard and began erasing the "love toxin" ideas and equations off the board with a smile. It seemed that those weren't necessary anymore.

The End

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Author's Note: Well, that was all for you Cheezey! Hope you liked it! You had asked for a Bushroot/Darkwing fic, and taa da! I gave you one!