A/n: No ownership, only story.


Of Toys and Curses


23

Drake Mallard IS


Drake woke up with daylight streaming onto his face. A presence. He immediately bolted up, jumping to the ground ready to fight.

"Alright! Get away from me, you whoever you are...! Hooter?" He let his pose relax. J Gander Hooter was a short elderly agent in reasonable proximity to 'a gentleman'. In physical combat he was all about defense. "I suppose you're here to explain to me why I'm here... again." He gritted, "But you know, let's just skip all that and get to the part of me jumping-out-of-the-window. Good bye!"

"Drake-."

"Darkwing Duck." He countered severely, looking at Hooter in his typical regular grey business suit standing in the sunlight room of many empty beds. "How may I help you, or conversely 'not' help you, since apparently respectable polite etiquette e-lu-udes you...?"

Hooter blinked at him.

"Didn't you catch my drift?" Drake said tersely, "I said 'you' a lot!" He gestured to Hooter. "As in 'it's all about you'!"
"I wanted to apologise."
"No, you didn't! You don't respect me; I don't respect you. That's our relationship. Apologies not included. Now, if you'll excuse me." He turned for the window.
"Please don't do that it's dangerous."

Drake cringed. "Don't get your regulations in a bunch, Hooter. It's unbecoming." He stepped to the window, grabbing his fedora hat from the chair as he got there.
Hooter sighed, "Please."
Drake stood by the window, eyeing the fluttering curtains as he put his hat on. Want, want, want. He turned back to Hooter and gestured to the door. "Then leave so I can go."

"I'm not going to ...defend my severe lapse of judgement about the Ripperjack case."
"Good start." Drake responded darkly.
Hooter took a slight undignified breath. "Neither of us has made a very good first impression on the other."
"We're a bit far beyond first impressions!" Drake glared at him.
"Then I'll tell you some more impressions-."

"How's the demotion?" Drake interrupted smugly, folding his arms.


Hooter stopped, watching him. "...I know he wanted it."

"Really? I wonder why?" Drake responded in scathing sarcasm, "You know, he was very happy under Harold Mallard's command. They worked as a 'team'."

"How did you know that I was demoted? You have literally only just woken up. There are many factors that they consider."
"And 'I' know them 'all'." Drake finished imperiously. "I'm just sorry I wasn't the 'first' person you slipped up on." He stared stonily at Hooter. "Here at S.H.U.S.H. we value our integrity-."

"Please!" Hooter's face contorted. "You're really very terrible."

That hit like a compliment. "Ah, so happy you've noticed... at last." Drake smiled in dark triumph.


The door to the room opened and Grizlykoff walked in. "Ah, forgive interruption."

"Er. Not at all, sir." Hooter backed up, "I was just hopefully leaving."
Grizlykoff nodded. "Very good; you have good afternoon, agent." Grizlykoff turned to face Drake directly. "Darkwing, we have F.O.W.L. assignment would like to give you if you feel up to it."
"R-really?" Drake smiled, feeling his world expanding. "Yes, sir, I'd be happy to help!"

The door clicked closed. Hooter had left.


Grizlykoff looked back to the door for a moment. "I is sorry for what you have been through so far as employment go, Darkwing."

"I don't normally go on huge monologuing psycho rants. That antijack was just nasty."
"It was for fighting nasty demon."
"Yeah; it made me sorry for the demon."

Grizlykoff sighed lightly. "If I had not interfered, you would have been safer."
"No, sir I would not." Drake replied smartly. "Because by the time you came the antijack had already activated. And even if it hadn't. Babysitting his breaches takes your time away from other cases. Meanwhile the situation only gets worse. You called it the minute you found out. That. Is what makes me confident that you stand for S.H.U.S.H. integrity. You're a good agent for us to have as a director."

Grizlykoff relaxed, a sober expression on his face. "As I say, if 'he' had not interfered we would not even have argument. S.H.U.S.H. procedure took walk under bus for this case. Was complete shock to system." He clenched his teeth. "I blame self, I am one who do routine cross check of database. I should have seen hole. Even then, I did not see hole till you started filling it in. My eyes bug out of head. Is one thing, think you know everything of place, is another to see you do not." he sighed, "is fortunate was not any worse."

"If it makes you feel better 'I' didn't see the hole either." Drake supplied.
Grizlykoff raised an eyebrow. "How did you know to look?"
Drake chuckled, "Because I'm a detective and boy: he looked guilty."


"Darkwing. I must discuss situation regarding Doctor Bellum."
"She was working for Hooter. She's a very good actor."
"No, she is not actor, Darkwing;" Grizlykoff corrected seriously, "she is genuine crazy. She is manager for research department teams, however she has now met you because of Ripperjack case..." He paused. "She is... how do you say this...? 'Big fan'."

"Wow." Drake breathed. "Crazy on cases, crazy off cases, Director, this really is something we need to put time in to investigate."
"Unfortunately for me, 'now' is not feasible with training both myself and new Assistant Director once placed." He sighed, "very busy time ahead."

"I-I'd like to say I can look into it for you, sir..."
Grizlykoff chuckled, "Perhaps after F.O.W.L. case, it will be still here when you return."
Drake smiled.
"Agent Fishburn is heading case. You will find her at Museum. She will give briefing on mission."
Drake nodded with a smile, "Very happy to help."


The museum was closed. Drake showed his S.H.U.S.H. ID to get past the S.H.U.S.H. guards at the door. There were teams of personnel trekking about the place. Black electrical cords lay perilously across the glossy tiled halls. Most of the people were working on something in the geology room.

The woman overseeing the project wore a regulation grey jacket with S.H.U.S.H. printed over the front pocket and slacks, a heavily laden utility belt and firearm. Her blonde hair was tied up at the back.

"Agent Fishburn?" Drake asked, mostly certain.

She looked up from her phone. The intense look of concentration on her face turned to 'unpleasantly surprised'. "Don't tell me Grizlykoff sent you. I asked him for an agent."
Drake swallowed, "Uh, what seems to be the problem?"
She sighed in annoyance, "You're so smart Mr Filing Clerk, why don't you figure it out and stop wasting my time?"
Drake hesitated, trying to find the best answer to that.
"Dowell!" Fishburn barked, "need to talk to you about C7 on that grid." She walked off.


Drake turned back to the room. There were so many people in here. No in tact fingerprints. No idea how the thief got in, nothing left, no evidence of who took whatever rock since he wasn't a museum buff and they'd literally pulled the entire cabinet out to redo the security rigging.

Darkwing Duck was beginning to feel just a little bit frustrated.


"Bah." Drake grumbled, looking at the jumble of rocks on the cart in the next room, "Who'd want a stupid rock anyway? Grizlykoff said this was a F.O.W.L. case. So how do I find them?" He turned around. Ask someone here? Who here would know? All these people did was put in security systems. He walked out. "No problem. Easy. Just find F.O.W.L., any 'real' S.H.U.S.H. agent would know exactly where to look. A five minute job."

From the historical records he'd scanned, Drake recalled that The Fiendish Organisation for World Larceny was essentially arranged on a three tier hierarchy. The first tier being the untouchable 'High Command', the second tier being its top agents and beneath them lay anything from a solo act to squadrons of eggmen. If it was a solo act, Drake had very little chance of finding anything given nothing from the crime scene. On the other hand, a squadron of garishly garbed goons was far easier to spot.

It begged the question of how Grizlykoff had known it was F.O.W.L., but Drake hadn't recovered the information from the desecrated crime scene; Fishburn must have absconded with it like F.O.W.L. had the rock. Never mind. Squadron. Find all the places a squadron could hide. He resolved to start with the biggest places a squadron could hide in the inner city and work down from there.

Drake sighed, walking back to S.H.U.S.H.. No transport, and his phone wasn't up to the task of reviewing all the buildings in the inner city. He looked at his phone. Flat? He needed to charge it; he was probably going to need it when he got to F.O.W.L. as well. Walked. To F.O.W.L. That was.

The nausea he was feeling was probably due to the fact he hadn't eaten in days and it was nearly lunchtime. He should probably have thought of doing that instead of racing off to help some person who didn't want it. And then he wouldn't be feeling so nauseous now. And not like it mattered to Agent Fishburn if he keeled over from starvation. She wasn't going to thank him. And since this search analysis was going to take a while, he was probably also going to need dinner on the job.

All for some dumb rock of any description. It wasn't exactly a full collection in there. Not even any Fool's Gold.

Worse for the matter, Fishburn wasn't going to thank him for getting it back for her either. He filed that under 'extremely unlikely'.

Because it really was just some dumb rock.

On the other hand, Drake finding F.O.W.L. would be nice. Agent Fishburn 'had' given him a free run for when and how he got it back. He'd never dealt with F.O.W.L. before.

So this was going to be fun!