Author's Note: Written yesterday, heh. I'm updating this now so I can wake up to reviews and also, because I didn't want to post this on Saturday morning when DuckTales airs.

She liked the triplets against her better judgment. She wasn't supposed to trust or like anyone, because everyone could be out to get her. Steelbeak had impressed upon her that everyone was an enemy and everyone had an agenda. Black Heron had told her anyone linked to Scrooge McDuck and Agent 22 was bound to betray her. Webby tried to keep that in mind, but the triplets seemed so genuine, so good, that she had to constantly fight against lowering her guards.

It didn't help that she kept feeling like she ought to know them, that if she hadn't been kidnapped at age five, she would have. But she wouldn't have been trained as she had been. She would be weak, a duckling ripe for the taking as she had been at age five. Steelbeak had been insistent on that point. She was only strong and powerful because she'd been trained by FOWL's best. She could be cold and analytical, assessing a situation within seconds. There was no room in her for warmth or compassion. When she was eight, she'd witnessed Steelbeak murder a SHUSH agent. He'd made her watch, saying that it would be good practice for her. When she'd cried, he'd berated her and then made her watch him kill again and again until she was numb to it.

The boys had never had such an upbringing. They were soft and she envied them. Dewey was talking about the places they used to frequent and where the teens went in Duckburg. She was paying attention, nodding at the right times, but her mind kept drifting. Everyone could be a threat. She was carrying weapons, of course; she'd insisted on swinging by her stash hidden behind bushes to secure her knives. The boys probably thought they were decorative.

One of them was tipped with poison. It was a paralytic and would permit the victim to speak, just not move. She was to use that on Lena de Spell when she found her. As for the other, it was serrated, designed to maximize pain inflicted and make the victim suffer before perishing. That one was reserved for Magica, assuming Webby could get close enough without Magica sensing her approach or attacking her with magic. Webby was confident, but not cocky. She didn't assume she'd win in an encounter with the sorceress.

Dewey touched her shoulder and she snarled, reaching for her weapons before realizing he'd meant it as innocuous. Her defense was up, however, and she pushed him away.

"Don't touch you. Got it," Dewey said, looking shaken.

"You said you came from everywhere," Huey said, likewise perturbed. "What did you mean, specifically?"

Webby's eyes narrowed. They were prying and she didn't appreciate it. They would use the information against her. Of course, they could mean nothing by their questions. However, she didn't think so. FOWL had taught her otherwise.

She stopped, suddenly realizing their destination. This time, she whipped her knife out, the serrated one.

"Why are we headed for McDuck Manor?" she snapped, raising the blade threateningly.

"We wanted to stop by and ask-" Dewey started, but that was as far as he got. She grabbed him, pressing the side of the blade into his neck. Blood pooled on the knife and the teenager's eyes grew wide. Louie and Huey stared, aghast.

"I'm not going there," she snapped. "So you can think again."

"Are you Webbigail Vanderquack?" Huey asked with his eyes narrowed. "Mrs. Beakley mentioned that her granddaughter had been kidnapped by FOWL agents and you've heard of SHUSH and FOWL. I don't know how you would unless you were in the spy game too."

He knew too much. She spun about, kicking Dewey to the side, and rounded on the red attired boy. Louie snuck up behind her and she kicked him in the gut, sending him flying too. She wasn't sure how hard she'd hit him, but he was gasping. He'd brought it on himself, thinking he could catch her unaware.

"It was a mistake to come here," she hissed. She looked up at the imposing manor and knew her grandmother was there. Her grandmother, FOWL's enemy and one who wouldn't hesitate to attempt to brainwash her into joining her. Yet something struck her as wrong about that thought. Webby pushed it aside. She hadn't survived by questioning the situation. She'd survived by doing what she was told and swallowing her objections.

"Put the knife down," Dewey said, holding his hands up as he rose to his feet. He helped Louie back up too and Louie coughed, holding his abdomen. To her irritation, she felt guilty. They seemed like honest, decent boys and she'd lashed out for no reason. No, there was a reason. They were the enemy. The world was against her.

Her shoulders sank and then she stiffened them. If she let them live, they'd tell her grandmother and Scrooge McDuck. If she killed them, Scrooge McDuck would want her head. There was no safe way to exit this situation.

She supposed she could paralyze them and leave them for Gizmoduck and the police to pick up. All she'd need to do was nick them and they'd collapse at her feet. They wouldn't pose a substantial threat, even all three of them. But she was reluctant, which was a sign of weakness. She really didn't want to hurt them.

Thoroughly infuriated with herself, she shoved her knife back in its sheath.

"Webby," Huey said, holding his hands up too. All three boys were approaching her and she stood her ground. The last thing she needed to do was show further weakness by retreating. What was wrong with her? In all of those simulations, she'd had no problem killing her target every time. She shouldn't be faltering now.

But they'd been simulations. They hadn't been real people.

"Mrs. Beakley said that if you were alive, you'd be brainwashed," Huey continued. "That FOWL would've convinced you they were right."

While she was tempted to lash out again for that, there was more important information to be had. She worked on mastering herself and trembled, hating the demonstrated distress. Maybe she hadn't been ready for this mission, no matter what Black Heron and Steelbeak thought.

"Why would she tell you so much?" Webby asked, suspicious.

"She never forgot about you," Dewey said. "She kept hoping you'd come home."

"It's not home," she countered. Yes, this was a mistake. What she should do, since she couldn't kill them and she probably shouldn't poison them, was knock them out. Her heart hammered between her ribs.

Granny.

No. She was not a child anymore. And she was FOWL's property, not her grandmother's. Damn it, she should've started at Mount Vesuvius and disabled Magica. She never should've come to Duckburg, not without backup. She shoved her hands into her pockets.

"But you're not denying you're Webbigail Vanderquack," Huey said softly and she glowered at him.

"That's not who I am anymore," she told him. "I'm Snow Goose. Webbigail Vanderquack doesn't exist anymore. And if you're smart, you'll let me leave without a fight. If you don't, it won't end well for you."

"Calm down," Louie said. "We're not going to jump you. And even if we were, you'd kick our asses."

"You're good kids," she said. She was the thing that didn't belong here. Steelbeak was wrong. She was pathetic. They were enemies, albeit belonging to Scrooge McDuck. Yet she couldn't bring herself to seriously harm them. She didn't want to. They hadn't done anything wrong and she couldn't shake the sense that in another universe, they would've been like family.

But she didn't have a family. She had Black Heron, her martial arts' expert, and Steelbeak, who was technically her father but who would never let her treat him as such.

"You're good too," Dewey said and Louie shot him a dirty look.

"She pulled a knife on us!" Louie cried, outraged. "How can you say that?"

"I have a feeling," Dewey said. "I can tell she's not who FOWL made her."

She ought to prove him wrong. She ought to attack them and be done with it. Yet her hands were still trembling and she felt faintly ill. If she couldn't bring herself to disable them, then she needed to disengage. She shouldn't have made contact with them in the first place. She should have broken it off when she realized they were Ducks, as in Scrooge McDuck's great-nephews.

"Don't follow me," she spat and, with a roundhouse kick that bowled them over, she bolted. Dewey got up first and she hissed; he was following her. His phone number on its piece of placemat burned in her pocket.

Black Heron and Steelbeak would punish her severely for this failure. Steelbeak didn't believe in corporal punishment, but Black Heron did. She shuddered, putting on an extra burst of speed and propelling herself up a fire escape, and then, from there, onto a rooftop where Dewey couldn't follow. Despite the lack of effort on her part, her heart was pounding fiercely. She couldn't stop herself from staring down at Dewey.

"Webby," he pleaded. "Look, I know we barely know each other, but I can help you."

She searched for something to throw at him to knock him out. A loose brick came to hand, but he could dodge it. Instead, she pulled herself away from the edge and stood in the middle of the rooftop, where he could no longer see her. She was shaking so badly that her teeth were chattering and she collapsed to her knees.

Dewey had said she was good. No one had ever said that to her. Sobs threatened to break out and she punched her thigh to stem them. Crying was a weakness. Crying wasn't allowed. Why was she so upset, anyway? She wasn't good. She'd been raised to be a villain. Why should some random stranger's opinion matter so much?

His opinion should matter less than her masters' opinions. She worked on calming her breathing and balled her fists, punching herself repeatedly until she mastered her emotions. Even then, a few tears slipped down.

Her secret heart, which she'd suppressed for so long, yearned to talk to the boys again. Yearned to feel normal. She'd struck Dewey for touching her, but she couldn't remember the last time she'd been touched in an innocent way instead of as a lesson or punishment. No, she did remember. Faintly. Her grandmother.

Webby's next breath was ragged. She was weak, she was wrong, and she was destined to fail.

"Webby?" Dewey said and she jerked her head up. The boy was exiting from the rooftop door and approached her cautiously.

"You must have a death wish," she said, but there was no rancor in it.

"Your grandmother never stopped looking for you," Dewey said, sitting in front of her. "And...I always kinda wanted to know more about you. I couldn't shake the feeling that we were supposed to know each other."

Webby's beak twitched but she didn't respond otherwise.

"I'm sorry I startled you," he said. "I won't do it again."

Webby couldn't meet his gaze. She stared at the concrete beneath her boots. Dewey approached, closer now, so close they could touch.

"Webby?" he prompted again.

"I'm not good," she said. "You're wrong. I'm a FOWL agent."

She punched him in the head, not hard enough to give permanent damage, but enough to knock him out. He rocked back on the concrete and then fell; she cushioned the blow to keep him from hitting his head again on the cement. Biting back a gasp, hating herself for having done it, she escaped the roof and left him behind. His brothers could find him later.

If she was supposed to disable her enemies, if not kill them outright, then why did it feel out of line? Like she'd miscalculated and made a mistake-like she should have befriended them instead of assaulting them.

What was wrong with her?

Bentina Beakley reviewed the security footage again. Dewey had been able to pinpoint where he'd been before Webby had knocked him out. If there had been any doubt before, this had eradicated it. Mrs. Beakley had difficulty reconciling her granddaughter with this teenage girl who had assaulted Dewey and then held his head before his skull cracked against the cement when she knocked him out. There had been an almost tenderness in her movements and she hadn't missed Webby's attack of conscience.

She stilled the image of her granddaughter fleeing the rooftop and sighed.

"You're torturing yourself, you know," Scrooge said quietly. They'd been quietly working, him on businesswork and herself on scanning the footage and discerning what she could about FOWL's operations. The boys were safely ensconced in the living room and watching repeats of Ottoman Empire. Although Webby had given Dewey a concussion, he was otherwise unscathed. Bentina knew Webby hadn't meant to cause that-if anything, she'd only knocked him out because it was expedient.

Her heart ached seeing Webbigail. For years, she'd wondered whether she was deluding herself by thinking that her granddaughter had lived in FOWL's custody. Now, it was excruciating and reassuring to see her granddaughter alive. She could tell at a glance that Webby was miserable and she yearned to hold her again. But Scrooge was right. Webby wouldn't return to McDuck Manor without a fight and she would see her grandmother as an enemy operative. It was like another blow to the heart. Webby was all she had left of her family.

"I can't look away," she confessed. She stiffened. "You kept tabs on Donald even after he stopped speaking to you after the Spear of Selene."

"Aye," he confirmed. "I never lost track of him."

She bristled, taking his words as a condemnation that she'd lost contact with Webby.

"But Donald was much easier to trace," he added. "He wasn't being held hostage by a criminal organization."

"I can imagine some of what they told her and I can understand their supposed rationale for it," she said. It was like a trainwreck. She knew she ought to look away but she couldn't bring herself to. For the first time in a long time, tears pricked her eyes beholding her granddaughter and knowing she was so close, yet agonizingly out of reach.

"But that doesn't make it any easier to take," he said, squeezing her shoulder.

"You found Della and you brought her home," Bentina said. "Why can't I do the same with Webby?"

"Della wasn't brainwashed for ten years into believing we were her enemy and not her family," he reminded her, albeit quietly, so as not to provoke outrage. She knew he was right.

"I believe there is some housework I need to tend to," she murmured. "Dinner will be ready in a few hours, Mr. McDuck."

"It's all right," he said. "I understand what it's like to lose someone you care about, Bentina."

She nodded. With all due respect, these were two different situations. Della had chosen to steal the ship and leave her boys behind. Webby hadn't had a choice in the matter. However, she didn't want to argue with him; he was her employer, after all. Instead, she bowed out, taking the laptop and the screenshot with her. Webby's still image haunted her.