AUTHOR'S NOTE: The mood of Ed Sheeran's song of the same name inspired this drabble, which takes places before the events of Darkly Dawns the Duck. Kinda bleak, depressing, and overall angsty. Generally how the rain can be sometimes. Gonna say real quick that this contains brief, passing mention of blood, though it's certainly nothing graphic. But if you don't wanna read because of that, you're not gonna hurt my feelings. I hope you enjoy.


Darkwing Duck stared out the window of his hideout at the gloom spread before him. The splattering of raindrops cast its white noise throughout the city of St. Canard. The resonance of traffic on the Audubon Bay Bridge below him combined with the rain into a dreary droning that settled in Darkwing's ears.

The thick gray clouds left no color unscathed, reducing them to muted shells of their formerly bright selves. Even Darkwing's baby blue nightgown was left awash in grey against the early-morning shower, the streaks of dried blood on his face contrasting with the white of his feathers.

There was no victory this day for the terror that flaps in the night. There was only defeat.

That night's patrol had brought Darkwing face to face with St. Canard's most notorious thief gang, the Beasts. Darkwing spotted them climbing into an apartment window and took it upon himself to put an end to their crime spree.

No sooner had he begun with his trademarked entrance speech, than the gang was upon him. He fought valiantly but the power in numbers was simply too much for Darkwing, and he was cast out of the window, battered and bruised, to meet up with the sidewalk.

When he came to, the rain had begun to fall and Darkwing, getting wetter and colder by the second, was left to slink back to his hideout atop the Audubon Bay Bridge, a wound on his head contributing to the growing puddles on the concrete.

Upon returning home and removing the soaked costume from his body, the news report came in of the police catching the thieves in the act after the apartment owner called 9-1-1. She was awoken by their fight with Darkwing, and the Beasts' leader sullied the hero's name on TV for the fifth time that week.

All these thoughts melded with the somber picture outside to cloud Darkwing's face in quiet despondency. The rain scurried down the bridge support cables to nowhere as the weary duck sighed.

He always knew there would be days like this as a vigilante crimefighter. But that didn't make them any easier to deal with. Self-doubt was an enemy as devious as those dirty Beasts bandits, and it had reared its ugly head tonight.

The way he was chucked out of that window like a football, and the public smearing afterward, left him to question why he even bothered. Why give his life to protect the fair citizens when he could be so easily snuffed? Why battle evil when the recognition he deserved would never come? Why be Darkwing Duck when the city didn't want or need him?

Darkwing trudged up the spiral staircase that led to his bed. His external wound was patched, but his spirit still ached and bled with misery and loneliness. There was nothing to do except sleep this travesty off and try again tomorrow. This was the life he chose when he was a child, and he would live with this choice, even when some days were more of doldrums than delight.

The warmth of his blankets soothed the faint chills that remained, and he closed his eyes, releasing himself to the cleansing sound of the rain.