DANGER MOUSE:

IN HER SHOES

WRITTEN BY ZARIUS

(contains spoilers for "Danger-Thon")

Squawkencluck could scarcely believe it as she watched the footage play out in full.

Danger Mouse squirmed as it was broadcast to millions tuning in to CBBC.

The Colonel kept his thoughts on the matter to himself, he tried to rationalise what was unfolding as being vitally necessary to keeping the Danger Agency operational and out of Quark's hands.

The telethon had been an unparalleled success due to the appetite for this kind of material. Danger Mouse, in his own way, had done it again.

There he was, messing around in the Danger Agency's laboratories, attired in high heels, a white lab coat, his lips ruby red with lipstick, pouring various unstable chemical concoctions into beakers and getting caught in several miniature explosions that wrecked havoc on the lab interior.

How he'd been able to cover the damage without being detected was a plot hole not even I, your humble narrator, had the attention span necessary to explain or plug. This had been one of my off days.

Penfold wondered how this kind of cross-dressing cosplay was getting past the radar.

I suppose someone should tell the hapless hamster it's 2019 now, such things are commonplace in modern society, and certainly will be the norm in a couple of more decades whether you can put up with it or not.

"Professor? You seem a little shaken" Penfold said to a visibly unstable Squawkencluck, a noticeable twitch in her eye.

She mourned for the absolute state of her lab in this video, but deep within her, there was a sense of vindication.

For too long, she had wondered how others viewed her, if they were perhaps envious of her, frightened of her, or if they dismissed her out of spite or general disinterest. She sometimes didn't make herself the most approachable of people, and that was certainly true in the beginning.

Here was someone in her shoes, literally, a klutz of an agent, a routine thorn in her side, but one who'd grown into a close friend, flattering her in his own way, putting himself at risk all to put himself through her kind of paces.

Professionally she had to be embarrassed, professionally she had to be outraged, but personally she could not stay angry at the fruitful flattery on display.

Finally.

Somebody actually enjoyed being her.