Disclaimer: I don't own Ducktales!
Title: Listen to my Voice, it's my Disguise
Summary: Lena and Webby being gay for each other as they get older. The best things come in twos.
...
Hey there Delilah
What's it like in New York City?
I'm a thousand miles away
But girl, tonight you look so pretty
Yes, you do
Goldie O'Gilt is not an easy woman to please, or so Lena hears. The wedding is tasteful but small, taking place in the lush garden at the back of the mansion. Each wedding gown is the same color as her namesake. She's not entirely sure if they're made of actual gold or not, but Scrooge gets a sour look on his face whenever he happens to glance at one, so it's anybody's guess. Lena and Donald go twinsies for the event, each having a single tuxedo t-shirt to their name. Lena has the luck of finding a black bowtie, letting the loose strands dangle from her neck like a small scarf.
The reception table looks nice at a distance, but Lena wouldn't be surprised if it's just some crafts table and a nice tablecloth. The big drink of the night is store-brand fruit punch mix, reminding Lena vaguely of the dances she went to in boarding schools left in her path of delinquent destruction. Even at sixteen, the flavor can bring her back to the days she spent sniveling and alone.
But it's damn good punch, so she drinks anyway.
At fourteen, Webby's only a smidgen taller than when they first met, and a million times buffer on the outside. A streak of pink marks her hair; Lena, in a typical act of rebellion, had tinged her own orange some months back, leaving it a faded pee-yellow. False earrings dangle from the sides of her head- Lena knows from experience that at least one of them has some sort of poison stored inside. Just in case.
Lena hands the punch cup over as she approaches. "I'm shocked the old codger proposed. From what you said, this has been a long time coming."
"Meh," Webby says, shrugging. "I think they just did it for the tax benefits. Also, I'm pretty sure Goldie beat him in wrestling just so they didn't go to the Justice of the Peace."
"Like, wink-wink-nudge-nudge wrestling or actual wrestling?"
"Actual wrestling. She had him in a headlock when I went to say goodnight." Webby plunked the cup down and grabbed her elbow. The twinkle in her eye is mischief and possible death-cupcake-hurricanes. "Whattaya say we bail?"
"You sure?"
She's tugging now. "Uncle Scrooge'll thank us for saving him a few bucks on cake slices."
Lena smiles back. Her smile is pretty normal, especially compared to Webby's. "Alrighty then."
They don't stray far. Even now, Webby is generally a rule-abiding duck, and it's just not in her nature to, say, steal the Sunchaser and head off into the distant unknown. Instead, they jump into the pool, destroying any retail value her dress may have once had, and climb onto Donald's old boat. It feels more private.
"It's weird to think I'm getting older," Webby admits, leaning on her side. "The mansion never changes. I didn't change. But now Uncle Scrooge is married, and I can call him that in the first place, and I have friends now, and-"
"Point made, pink," Lena promised, leaning back slightly. Their webbed feet skim the chlorinated waters below. "Same here. I never actually thought I'd get to see a fancy wedding up close."
"And?"
"I'm disappointed. Where's the fireworks?"
"Oh, it'll be another five minutes or so before those go off."
It's only two minutes later when the first boom and sparks fly. Webby startles, reaching up to fiddle with her left earring. Lena feels oddly victorious about that. "Your internal clock malfunctioning, Webs?"
"Something like that," she hums, leaning on Lena's shoulder. Her eyes slip closed. "It's nice to be wrong every once in a while."
Hey there Delilah
I know times are getting hard
But just believe me, girl
Someday I'll pay the bills with this guitar
We'll have it good
We'll have the life we knew we would
My word is good
"Odd way to spend your sixteenth birthday," Lena says as they watch two kids slam into each other on their skateboards. "But I'm up for pretty much anything."
"Skateboarding always seemed so fun and free in the movies." The sun bakes into the concrete, making Webby's hoodie and backwards cap seem pretty silly. "I get the feeling that movies lie."
Lena laughs. Webby's reminded of a meme as they lounge against the concrete side of the skate park, her clutching a skateboard so new the tags are still on it. Webby had done her best to look even slightly cool, but felt overshadowed nonetheless. Lena oozed confidence and contentment, reminding her of a cat with its favorite toy. Her short hair is green now. Webby thinks she's trying to find something that looks good on her- recognizes that she looks good in purple, in fact, but has too many memories attached to it, and is searching for a second-best.
"That reminds me," Lena says out of thin air. She does a little twist of her wrist and there's a box where there wasn't before. "Remember when I begged you to let me have that Minotaur horn?"
Webby's eyes visibly light up. "Dicktaur?"
"Yeah, that douche." She pops the lid off, revealing a set of pearls. The horn dangles from the end, sharpened and cleaned until it sparkles white. "Happy birthday, Webby."
Webby wants to hug her, rip the necklace from her, kiss her, it's a big blur. Instead, she turns around. "You mind?"
"Nah." The string thumps lightly against her hoodie. Lena carefully moves some hair away from the back of her neck so she can clasp it shut without any tugging, letting go with a "Ta-da!"
Webby goes for the hug. Lena squeezes, then lets go.
"Wanna see if we can find some swords in the attic?" Webby asks. "I haven't almost been eviscerated in ages now."
"Darned new-age villains and their lasers." Lena quips, already walking. "Loser gets their locks chopped Mulan-style."
They find a dagger and longsword. Webby gives her the big one as a show of faith, but soon regrets it when Lena tackles her and gets her to surrender. Lena is pretty sure she lost on purpose, but nevertheless helps her cut her mop of feathers into a bob. Her hair spikes into a mini-mohawk, sharp and jagged and reminiscent of a couple of glued-on shark fins in the best of ways.
Webby takes one look at herself and grins. "We gotta make these puppies look like they're covered in blood."
A thousand miles seems pretty far
But they've got planes and trains and cars
I'd walk to you if I had no other way
Our friends would all make fun of us
And we'll just laugh along because we know
That none of them have felt this way
They aren't usually so peaceful. Actually, they almost never are. Scrooge McDuck is still kicking even after the boys hit adulthood, and still adventuring. They're gone for weeks on end, solving mysteries, rewriting history- and, sometimes, when he remembers she exists, Lena is allowed to come along.
It's for that reason Lena ends up in the middle of the Himalayas fighting a dragon.
"Yeehaw!" Dewey crows, planted firmly between the beast's horns. The dragon flicks its head back and forth, but Dewey's bested one too many mechanical bull rides to be swayed by a overgrown lizard. Hanging from its neck is Louie, clinging with legs well-muscled from running as he tries to get at the orb safely tucked into its throat.
"The pearl is the power source!" Huey hollers over the wind.
"Kinda figured that!" Louie screeches back, clinging on for dear life. "If I die, I'm haunting all of you!"
"I gotcha!" Webby charges forward and proceeds to stab the dragon betwixt the knuckles with her diamond dagger. Lena snaps her fingers and blows between them, creating a blast of flame that hits it dead-on.
"Hey!" Dewey yells. "Watch it! I'm not dinner!"
"Scorched or dead; your choice!"
The dragon rears up, the blue triplet just barely holding on. Louie's face slams into a scaly neck, cutting himself on the cheek in the process. He curses and tries again for the pearl. Sharp claws glint in the light and Lena doesn't think, doesn't remember that her strength lies in her slyness, and shoves Webby out of the way. Then there's an agonizing pain as she rolls, trailing red across the snow.
"Ow," she says, reaching up to touch her face. She pulls back with a bloody hand, wiping it on her shirt accordingly. Lena cups her hand into a fist and blows more fire, hoping she hits her target. There's a scream that doesn't come from any of her friends, then the sound of something crumpling to the ground, and she passes out right after that.
Lena comes to in the Sunchaser, Beakley hovering over her with a disproving frown and crossed arms. "Why did you jump in front of Webby? You're not certified for that type of thing."
"Hello to you too," she grumps, wiping her face. The crinkle of bandages register under her fingertips; her left eye is covered. "I dunno, man. I just figured she'd be disappointed if she got killed by a dragon. I mean, her favorite trap is spike pits."
"Disappointed," Beakley echoes. "From dying by a dragon over a pit of spikes."
"Okay, okay. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. Get off my back.
"Lena!" Webby busts through the door, flinging herself onto her with a scream. The plane pitches wildly to the side, sending them both sliding. "I thought we were gonna have to take you to the hospital! That'd be really awkward, huh? Taking you in with dragon clawmarks?"
"And scorch marks," Lena adds, her hand stinging; a side-effect of sloppy magic.
Beakley makes a I'm-watching-you gesture, then shifts over a few steps and does it again so Lena can actually see it this time. Lena salutes her as she tromps back out to the sitting area.
"Can I be real?"
"Shoot."
Webby stifles a giggle. "You look like an anime duck."
"Ouch." Lena sucks in a breath. "Harsh, but fair."
"How's your depth perception?"
"Can I be real?"
"Yup."
"Shitty." Lena gingerly reached up to touch it. There's something pain-numbing in her system, so it doesn't hurt. "How bad was the damage?"
"Pretty good, actually. Things might be a bit blurry, but you'll be able to see and everything. And you'll get an epic scar out of it!" Webby's features waver a little. She inched over until she was half-on, half-off her lap. "I really need to change my hair color. Red makes me feel icky now."
"Webby, you're eighteen. You really mean to tell me you've never seen blood before?"
She touched the bandage. "It's different when it's with you. You always seem to get hurt when we do this sort of thing."
"Well, yeah." Lena shrugs. "I don't have your skills, and I don't have the boy band's outrageous luck. I'm okay with that."
"But-"
"And I got a super special anime scar out of it, right?" She tilted her head to the side to show off the bandage. "Sounds like a pretty good payoff to me."
Webby leans in closer, than seems to think better of it and leans back. "Sorry," she says, a bit flustered. "This is a really bad time for this. Like. Age-wise."
"This is true," she agrees. "But, hey. I got clobbered by a dragon and almost kissed by a cute girl. That's a pretty good day if'n you ask me."
Webby laughs. It's infectious.
And I'll be making history like I do
You'll know it's all because of you
We can do whatever we want to
Hey there Delilah here's to you
This one's for you
It's three when Webby picks the lock to Lena's apartment complex and smuggles herself inside. It's not hard; she's forever short, though she makes up for it with her strength, and nobody really takes notice of her.
Even at twenty-two, Lena doesn't own her own bed, used to sleeping on uncomfortable surfaces. Webby's not surprised to come through the front door and find her snoozing on the couch. Webby shoves her legs out of the way and reclines the end, allowing herself to be a footrest. She hardly remembers falling asleep.
She does remember waking up to Lena leaning over her, inspecting a black eye. "Do I need to hex somebody?"
"You hate magic. You only do it for emergencies."
"Someone dunkin' on you and getting away with it is an emergency."
"Oh, trust me, they're dead as a doornail."
"Atta girl."
Webby digs around in her pockets, pulling out her pearl necklace, now in shatters. "Not so atta girl."
Lena snorts. "Oh, man, that's fine. Look." She scraped a few together and blew into the palm of her hand. They immediately stitched back together; a little lopsided, but somehow a little more whole for it. As imperfect as they were. "And that was your friendly demonstration. Blow away, my friend."
She blinked down at her. It was strange to be above her, but it didn't feel bad. Just new. "I can do that?"
"'Course you can, Webby. They're your pearls. They respond more to you than they ever will me." Lena shakes it a moment, then wipes it on her long pajama sleeve. "There, see? Look in it."
She lifts it closer to her face, shocked. "That's the day I met you!"
"Is it?"
"You can't see them?"
Lena squinted at it. Her wound had healed nicely, leaving a sideways z-shaped scar across her eye and down her face. It was, indeed, very anime, but it suited her nicely. "'Fraid not. They're your personal memory pearls, pink, for your eyes only. It'd be pretty weird if anybody on the street could see 'em."
Webby leans her head into her shoulder. "Thanks, Lena."
She wraps her arms around her waist and squeezed. Deep down, Lena still feared losing Webby. Still feared a lot of things. But fear hadn't stopped her before. "Y'know, I was thinking. It must get pretty tiring, adventuring all the time."
She pulled back. "It can, but it's always worth it."
Lena nods. "Of course. I was just thinking- if you'd want, obviously. That, um, when you are here in Duckburg, you could... you could stay with me." She picked at an imaginary stain on her sleeve. "I totally get it if that's too cheesy."
"Lena," she says softly. Warm hands cup her cheeks, lifting her sheepish gaze to Webby's wet eyes. "Are you asking me to move in with you?"
"I love you, Webs," Lena gets out. Webby's kinda squishing her now. "I wanna be with you for realsies."
The squeal that leaves Webby is almost loud enough to deafen. Webby slams their beaks together in a display that will leave both of them bruised later. She pulled back with a small cut on her lip and that old swordhorse-cyclone-massacre smile. "I love you too. Ahhh! I said my first love you to someone who's not family! Granny's gonna be so proud!"
"She's gonna murder me." Lena thumps their foreheads together. Her feathers have lost their color. She's just grateful that she didn't carry on the black hair gene. "Your hair's gotten pretty old, Webs. Might be time to dye it again."
Webby fiddled with a faded blue lock. "I dunno. I kind of like it. What do you think I should do with it?"
She held her hands up. "Your hair, your choice."
"Aww, come'on." Webby pouted. "Gimme some ideas."
"Well..." Lena took her chance to deliver some eskimo kisses, remembering pool smell and fireworks. Webby giggled at the affection. "I always thought you looked good in gold."
Author's Note: Eyyy, here's almost three-thousand words of Webby-Lena with some Hey There Deliah, because it's a cute song. This relies on the idea that there's a two year difference between Webby and Lena- she's fourteen and Webby's twelve in current canon.
-Mandaree1