Once Donald had drove off, Scrooge took a moment to look over the kids before then ushering the lot of them into his home. Two of the boys- Hughey and Dewy?- were fairly talkative.
And just a bit hyper too.
They took turns circling him like little hyper sharks and firing all kinds of questions at him that he did his best to answer.
However it was when one of them mentioned that he used to be an adventurer and a 'big deal' that he growled at them, upset that they would even dare to say such a thing about him. And then pushed them out of his way so that he could go back to his office and...brood over the painful reminder that he'd missed out on a lot in their young lives.
As well as the few other things that he'd given up once they had been gone.
After all, it wasn't as if they were totally wrong. He used to be a very big deal. A trillionaire, an adventurer, CEO and owner of his own company- he used to do a lot of things that had put him in the news daily.
However after he and Donald had lost Della, and then he had taken the boys and left- Scrooge had simply lost any will to do those things anymore. The adventure's and treasure hunts that he'd once lived for and loved to share with his family; simply lost their appeal.
And he'd locked himself away in his home, and begun a new routine of running his company and staying out of the limelight. Why he even stopped going to gala's and charity functions too.
He hadn't spoken to anyone, friend or foe, with the exception of his oddly humorous rival Glomgold. And the only reason that he bothered speaking to the man at all was because he tried to kill him nearly four times a week. Every week.
He always failed...but he liked the fool's tenacity and single mindedness. Plus he got a good chuckle or two out of some of his ridiculous plans.
He got about twenty feet away from the kids before a thought hit him, that maybe he should take this chance to get to know the girl that Donald had adopted since she was technically family now. And that made her one of his clan.
Stopping in mid step, he tried to think of the best way to go about separating her from the boys and decided to play the doddering old man card. Taking a moment to clear his throat, he turned and started to call out to the lass but paused. Noting that she was watching his three nephews like a hawk while two of them ran around touching various things.
Various expensive things.
One of them- managed to make the priceless Knights of Templar suits of armor that stood at the top of the stairs- cave like a house of cards. And the other boy picked up a priceless Ming vase, examined it for a moment, and then tossed it over his shoulder carelessly.
Scrooge watched in a combination of fascination and utter horror as the girl ran and lunged to catch the vase before it could hit the floor and shatter into pieces.
She landed on the floor on her side with the thing carefully cradled in her hands while the third boy- Louie took his time following and grabbed his two brothers by the scruff of their necks and dragging them away from the other stuff that was about to meet an equally bad end as the suit of armor had.
"Ah, that was a close one-" He heard her say in a relived tone as she slowly sat up with the vase and set it back on the table that he'd had it placed on and then turned to the boys and said in a chiding tone. "You two should be more careful with your uncle's things. These things might look pretty but their priceless pieces of your history. Just because they're sitting out where you can touch them- doesn't mean that you should."
Scrooge stood there and observed as she finished speaking to the boys. And then cringed when Louie punched them both in the shoulder hard enough to make the boys yelp loudly and nearly started crying while the girl sighed and gave the boy a slightly perturbed look.
Honestly it was a peculiar spectacle.
But at least the girl seemed to handle the boys and their mischief well.
"Ah, lass-" He finally called out. She turned her head to look at him. "Would you mind helping an old man with a few things, dear?" He asked politely.
"Oh? Sure." She replied as she turned and handed her bags to two of the boys, and then started towards him.
He smiled at her in what he hoped was a totally innocent manner and took a moment to call out to his housekeeper, Mrs. Beakley, about preparing some rooms for them all. Once the woman led the boys away, he turned and started walking again with the girl quietly following along behind him to his office.
He was gentlemanly enough to hold the door open for her once they reached it. And even stood back to allow her to enter the room first, partially to see her reaction to his vast collection of ancient texts and books.
He was silently betting that she would be in awe since generally every young person under twenty, that stepped into the room, usually was.
He was slightly disappointed when she didn't do more than look around at the various, large shelves filled with books and such, and did nothing more than let out a whistle of appreciation.
Grumbling to himself about blasted teenagers, he entered the room and politely told her to take a seat on one of the couches furnished in the room. Just in case he had to pull an overnighter and needed either someplace else to sit comfortably, or he needed to sleep for a little bit.
After all, he wasn't as young as he used to be anymore and naps were absolutely necessary to his health and everyone else's continued survival. All it took for him to decide to pull a global hostile takeover was one missed nap. After that he was usually up and about, looking up horrible curses in his ancient occult books.
To date he had one sure fire way to take over the world. He never spoke a peep of it to anyone, and for some really good reasons too. But he still had one anyways.
Ichigo seated herself and patiently waited for him to wander over to his desk and sit down before finally saying, "You didn't really need my help with anything, did you?"
He shouldn't have been startled by her words. But for some crazy reason he sort of was. Just a smidgen.
So naturally he got a tad bit defensive.
"Oh course I did-" He lied as he took a moment to scan his desk and other immediate surroundings for something that he could fib about not knowing how to do. His eyes landed on the paper shredder and he almost crowed in triumph as he carefully schooled his features and then turned back to look at her and asked in a pitiful tone. "Do ye know how to work this contraption? I'm just so old and feeble-"
"And weak minded too, I'll bet." She said absently as she eyed the paper shredder sitting next to his desk with a dubious look while he shot her a quick scowl for calling him 'weak minded'.
Why just because he was almost a hundred years old didn't mean that he was feeble minded. In fact despite his advanced years, his mind was still just as sharp as it had ever been. So of course he knew when he was being sassed.
"Watch it lass," He warned with a growl. "I may be old but I'm not suffering from dementia just yet."
She merely smiled at him in an amused manner and waited for him to grab some papers for her to shred before she bothered to get up and move to take them from him. Once she had the papers in her hand, she took a moment to glance over them and then asked, "Aren't these important work papers?"
"Bah. Shred the damnable things anyways." He said as he watched her turn on the shredder and then feed the papers to it.
Once the noise died down a little bit he grabbed some more papers- this time it was some contract's from work that had been giving him a migraine recently, and handed them to her. She glanced over the papers again and then gave him a funny skeptical look, causing him to grin at her an motion with his hand to the shredder.
She started to feed them to the machine when he decided to finally ask her, "So...how did my nephew come to adopt a lass like you?"
If she were the least bit upset by his question, she didn't show it. Not in her expression at least. Though the sudden white knuckled grip on the contracts certainly gave her anxiety away to him.
Cocking his head a bit in an inquisitive manner, he waited patiently for her to say something. Anything really. The girl looked as if she were debating on saying anything to explain her presence with his family however after several heartbeats seemed to decide against saying anything. And merely muttered, "You'll have to ask Don about that."
After that, she quickly fed the contracts to the paper shredder and then excused herself and left before he could so much as respond.