/A.N.~ Here is chapter 2 :D
Chapter 2: Learning the Basics
Hours later, the others return to the HQ and are met with the sound of loud crying.
"Hoover dam! What is this caterwauling?!" Skipper exclaims covering his ear holes.
Kowalski pokes his head out from the lab. "Skipper!" He exclaims. He hasn't felt this relieved to see another penguin in a while, but he already was getting to his wit's end on how to get the chick to stop crying.
Skipper waddles over. "Rico got injured, take care of that." He sighs and waddles past him into the lab. Marissa is in there trying to entice the chick to calm with a stuffed penguin from the gift shop. "Why is it crying?"
"I don't know! He was quiet until we brought him in!"
"Have you tried feeding him? Holding him?" Skipper asks. "Have you even given him a name yet?"
"He has a name! His name is Atlas! And I gave him a fish, but he wouldn't eat it!" She sounds nearly desperate.
He face-flippers and gets the wailing chick up from the crib and looks at her. "I'll do this once as an example, okay? After this, it is for you and Kowalski to take care of. I'm not going to mommy your chick." He sighs and nudges the chick's beak with his own. Marissa watches as Atlas sniffles and opens his beak wide and then Skipper feeds him.
"Ewwww! That's how they have to be fed?!" Marissa exclaims. "But that's so gross!"
Skipper rolls his eyes but feeds the chick instead of replying. After a few minutes the chick moves its head away and squirms. He gives the chick back to Marissa. "You could probably feed him on formula like Alice would, but it's healthier and more natural I'm sure to feed him by mouth." He shrugs. "It ought to be instinct."
"You know Kowalski and I have no natural instincts." She sighs and softly rubs Atlas's back. "But thank you..."
"You two need to develop some. If you can't take care of your own chick, Alice will get it and take care of it instead. You really want an idiot human raising your chick? Indoctrinating it in the ways of captivity?"
Marissa holds Atlas close and shakes her head. "She's not going to lay a hand on my chick. I'll bite it off first."
Skipper nods with a small, pleased smile. "And here you claim not to have any instincts." He chuckles, waddling out. "You just haven't noticed them yet."
Marissa holds her chick closely as it coos and chirps. She looks at the door as Kowalski waddles in. "Hand me a splint, Rico dislocated his sesamoid." He sighs.
"But I'm with child." She says and nuzzles the chick.
Kowalski smiles a little and gets the splint himself. "Well once Private is finished helping me with Rico, I can nearly guarantee you that he's going to be after you to see Atlas."
"Okay." She nods and softly gets her feathers from Atlas's tiny flippers. "When he does, can you watch them? I should call Skippsy now that he's quiet and let her know the big news."
"Roger that." He smiles and pecks her cheek before waddling out of the room again.
Atlas squeaks loudly after Kowalski and squirms more. Marissa repositions him and looks him in the face. "Calm down please, the HQ isn't baby-proofed yet and I don't want you to get cut or blown up." She says looking him in the eyes.
The chick only coos and reaches for her glasses.
Marissa moves her head back. "No, stop, I need those."
Atlas starts crying again and reaches.
She then sighs and lets him get her glasses. "Fine, if it will make you be quiet."
The chick squeals and shakes the glasses around triumphantly. He then tries gnawing loudly and slobbery on the legs of the glasses.
"Don't eat them!" She exclaims and tries to get them back.
Atlas growls at her and throws the glasses onto the ground.
Marissa hears them hit the floor and frowns at Atlas. "See what you've done? Now Mama can't see and she's stuck standing here holding you."
He giggles and gets her beak with a happy coo.
"Oh? You like making things hard for Mama? Well, let's see how much you like this!" She starts nuzzling his sides and he giggles loudly and squirms. "Ah, I see you're ticklish!" She chuckles and pets him and lets him calm down again. She looks around at the blurry fog and sighs. She can't risk walking or she might step on her glasses. She can't risk sitting or she may sit on them.
Kowalski enters the room again to put away his medical kit. Atlas squirms and reaches for him, cooing.
"Kowalski, he threw my glasses, find them, please?" She sighs.
He looks around before seeing them and softly sitting them on her beak. "There you go." He smiles. Atlas flaps his tiny flippers and curiously grabs hold of Kowalski's chest feathers.
"I think he says it's your turn." She says, passing him over.
"Oh." He looks at her and then at the chick.
"BLAAAAGRAAAAAAAA!" The chick shouts and giggles.
"Really?" He sighs and pets his head. This was already proving to be a larger challenge than he had expected. He had of course tended to Jiggles and other lab specimens before...But none of them very quite this vocal. The ducklings even are usually fairly calm and quiet.
Private then peeks into the room at the chick. "Aww! He's adorable! Congratulations!" He smiles widely and comes closer.
Kowalski offers him the chick. "Want to hold him so I can finish cleaning up in here?"
The boy nods excitedly and gets the chick from him. Atlas coos and looks at Private for a moment before looking around the room and chirping at random objects. He then carries Atlas to the main room and sits with him at the kitchen table.
Atlas starts crying the moment Private sits, so he stands back up and rocks him and the chick calms again. He rubs the chick's back and he falls asleep on his shoulder.
After a little while, Kowalski waddles over. "Here, I'll get him now." He smiles and softly gets the chick from him and takes him back to the lab.
Marissa looks up from her computer. "Probably time for his diaper to be changed, Kowalski."
"And you want to change it?" Kowalski says hopefully.
She gives him an even look over her glasses. "I'll allow his father to have the honor of the first change since instead of watching him you handed him off to Private."
Kowalski sighs and nods. "Fine, fine. I'll change his diaper. Surely it can't be that bad."
Marissa returns to looking at her computer with a sly chuckle. "According to Skippsy the first is always the most horrific."
"She was probably just trying to intimidate us." He rolls his eyes and gets a diaper and wipes. He lays the still sleeping chick down and opens the diaper and immediately turns his head away. "Good Galileo that is not humane." He gags.
"Told you it wasn't going to be pretty." She smirks. "And I'd keep the diaper closed until it is swapped with the other. He is a boy, so he could aim."
"He's asleep, Marissa. He isn't going to aim anything." He snorts as he cleans and changes the chick.
Marissa chuckles. "I don't know...I do remember you used to pee in your sleep back some years ago."
"Because you put my flipper in water!" He exclaims.
"In all fairness, you tested that experiment on me first, I only replicated it to see if you did the same as me, and since I did not pee, it showed that that method is not always successful."
Kowalski rolls his eyes and throws away the diaper. "Anyway, that wasn't too terrible."
"I wouldn't tell Skippsy that if I were you. She was hoping it'd be the worst fate you'd ever befall." She chuckles.
"Yeah, I know." He picks Atlas up and lays him on his shoulder. "She just doesn't know my limits. That was well in my limits. She ever wants true disgust, she should let Rico swallow her whole one day...The things she'd see….They're not unseeable." He shivers at the thought.
Marissa looks at him and opens her beak as if to ask, but then shakes her head. "I don't even want to know…."