Darkwing Duck: The Webfoot Chronicles
My Kingdom For a Double-Plait Bolt!

by RL Kelly

A/N: Just a couple of things: Henny's dialogue sounds a lot better if you imagine it being read by Fran Drescher. Preferably in her most nasal voice. :D Secondly, the bit with Beth and the instant list is a reference to a moment in Amanda Rohrssen's "Ties That Bind", Ariana's story... it hasn't been posted on as yet but it's a scene that CRACKS ME UP and hopefully when you see it you'll know just what I'm talking about. (And you should see it. Go read that fic. I'm totally serious now.)
Act I, part three

"Noooo, you're not listening. Look, all I'm saying is that, as a dedicated reader of your newspaper, I found it disappointing that you can't spare the extra expense of hiring a competent photographer for your late-night shifts!" There was a pause, and then DW said, "Well, I'd say the quality of the photo in question makes it pretty clear that 'competence' isn't a skill this guy has!"

Launchpad looked at the photograph again, and tried to remember posing for it. He thought he might have remembered being instructed to stand on the robber, but that seemed so silly it might have just been a dream. DW was still going strong after nearly 20 minutes of complaining to the newspaper people; Launchpad checked his watch, sighed, and propped his face up on his elbow on the kitchen table.

"I meant the photographer! Who'd you think I meant?!" DW sputtered, his level of indignance getting almost dangerous. Launchpad winced; this call could go on for a while, now. DW now said, "Be that as it may, what kind of photographer only takes one shot and expects it to turn out perfectly? Is there some kind of world shortage on camera film?! ...Well, why ELSE would you guys have used that shot, unless only one picture was taken? Darkwing Duck happens to be EXTREMELY photogenic, so if you're going to tell me that an entire roll of pictures only produced that picture as printable -"

There was a pause, and then DW chuckled awkwardly. "What? Nooooo, no no no no, of course I'm not Darkwing Duck. Heh heh. But, uh, I am, uh, flattered by the comparison. Heh heh. No, no, just a dedicated fan... One who, might I add, is sick of seeing this virtuous vigilante get underplayed in the media!" He picked his confident tone right back up and started going again. Launchpad snuck another look at his watch, then picked up a pencil and went for the crosswords page again. DW frowned and took the pencil away. "You know, I ALSO resent the implication that anyone who cares about Darkwing Duck getting fair and unbiased reporting is accused of being Darkwing Duck. There are plenty of people in his fan club, bub, so don't go thinking he's the only one looking out for his interests! That's right!"

DW paused, fiddling with the phone cord, and then snapped, "Yeah, well, if the quality of reporting doesn't improve you can bet there will be a campaign against you guys! We little people can move mountains! Try explaining that one to your bosses, pal! Yeah, well, same to you!" He hung up abruptly, dropped into an empty chair, and crossed his arms, snarling.

Launchpad looked sympathetic. "Any luck gettin' a retraction?"

"They don't do them for photos," Darkwing said, his tone mocking. "As if you can't hurt someone's reputation just as much with a photo as you can with a completely falsified story. LP, remind me later, we're going to have to see if the kids are up to starting a letter-writing campaign after school this week."

"Uh, sure," said Launchpad, hoping DW would forget about this one by the end of the day. "So, you ready to hit up the hardware store?"

"Yeah, yeah, might as well get that out of the way of the day," said DW. His mood appeared to be permanently soured, and Launchpad steeled himself to ignore any unnecessarily snappy comments that might be thrown his way. Just another one of those days, although with luck it still might turn around.

They set out around 1:30, with Launchpad driving and Drake looking moodily out the car window. "And what's the name of the place we're going to, again?" Drake asked, his tone implying he didn't particularly care.

Launchpad soldiered onwards. "Bindler's! They're kinda small but they sponsor a weekly do-it-yourself show on cable access. I think it's re-runnin' tomorrow night if you wanna -"

"Pass," said Drake flatly. "Small, huh? You sure they'll have what I'm looking for? I don't want to make two trips."

"Oh, they do. At least, they did last time I looked." Launchpad made it a point to keep up to date on all the local hardware stores. He liked visiting them, in fact; not only did it keep the Tower pretty well-stocked but he got a kick out of seeing which stores carried what. Bindler's was one of his favourites, because even though there were a number of standard things they didn't carry - nail guns, for example, or cement that wasn't quick-dry - they tended to pick up a lot of fringe stuff you didn't see any place else. He'd taken to going in once a week, in fact, just to see what new items they'd ordered.

Well, okay, he conceded to himself that it wasn't just to keep track of their stock. After all, he deliberately kept to one specific clerk's schedule, and he wasn't going to deny he'd gotten into the habit of flirting with her. But that was more like a perk than a real reason to keep going back; Beth was cute, but he'd been going to Bindler's since well before he'd met her, and he'd keep going even if she didn't work there anymore.

Speaking of which, he was planning on introducing DW to Beth, he remembered. "So, that friend of mine I toldja 'bout? I dunno for sure if she's working today, but if she is, you can ask her any question you want about hardware an' she can usually answer it."

"Oh, any question?" asked Drake.

"Any!" agreed Launchpad, missing the sarcasm. "She's got a lotta the instruction manuals memorized."

"Charming. That's GOT to be fun on a date."

Launchpad chuckled. "Might be," he acknowledged. "I don't think she goes out on dates a lot, though."

"Noooo!" Drake sounded astonished, and this time Launchpad caught the over-emphasis.

"She's cute!" Launchpad said, surprised by his own defensiveness. "I mean - well, you gotta meet her. She's really smart and really..." He paused, looking for the right word; Beth had a vibe about her, and it was appealing, but it wasn't glamourous or cool. It was... "Cute," he decided, aware that he was repeating himself. But she really was cute. Especially when she blushed. Sometimes she'd get really flustered, and that cracked him up.

Drake didn't look away from the window. "Cute, huh? I'll make a note of that in my log."

Launchpad laughed again, and parked the car. "Aw, you'll like her. C'mon."

DW started grousing on the way up the street towards the store, first - briefly - about the newspaper and then, when Launchpad wouldn't join him on that one, about the waste of time in going out to buy the stupid bolts just to repair the gas gun. "I mean, of all the luck!" he exclaimed as Launchpad pulled the door open for him, and they stepped inside. "It just figures that I only need one!"

The door drifted shut behind them, and Launchpad's eyes drifted automatically to the counter at the back of the store and settled on Beth. He found himself smiling at the sight of her. She hadn't noticed them come in; she was looking into a hand mirror, something he'd never seen her do. He nudged DW, and pointed towards her. "There, that's her."

"Her?" DW sounded dubious.

Launchpad shrugged, without taking his eyes off of Beth. She was, he noticed, holding the mirror out to her side at arm's length, craning her neck in the opposite direction and apparently trying to keep her eyes on her reflection at the same time. It looked more than a little awkward. Her hair, a deep brown, was up in a ponytail - he'd actually never seen it down - and she'd swept it over one shoulder, accentuating the smooth length of her neck. It seemed like a pretty uncomfortable way to try out a new look, he thought.

He stepped forward slightly. "Hey, Beth!"

She jumped and turned towards him a little, letting the mirror fall to her side almost guiltily. "Oh! Launchpad!" There was a pause, and then she smiled; when she spoke again she sounded glad to see him. "Hi! Hey, do me a favour? Can you check my neck for moles?" She turned her back to him and lifted her ponytail up out of the way, clearing her hair from her neck entirely.

"Sure, no problemo!" Launchpad grinned down at Drake, and received a very unimpressed look in return. Then he started towards her. "Moles, huh? Are we talkin' the little freckly kinds, or the furry animals that like to dig?"

Beth gave him a look over her shoulder, a sort of amused are-you-kidding-with-me smile with a raised eyebrow, and said, "Um, the former - at least I think."

"Just checkin'," he said easily, and she faced forward again, away from him.

"Today's not Friday, is it?" Beth asked. "I mean, not that I don't know - it's just that you don't usually come in on Tuesdays - or at least, not on the Tuesdays when I'm working I don't usually see you, so..."

She had a real way of filling silences, and although Launchpad generally found it congenial, he always felt a little sorry for her when she was doing it out of anxiety. "Nah, we needed to make a special run. Gotta pick up some double-plait bolts."

"Oh." Even from the back he could see her relax, as her shoulders fell a bit. She waited perhaps three seconds more before turning her attention back to the task she'd assigned him. "Anything?" she asked, sounding a little nervous.

It had been immediately obvious that she didn't have a single mark on her. Launchpad, enjoying the situation perhaps more than he should have, said, "I'm not sure... Lemme look closer."

"Okaaay," she said uncertainly, and took a backwards step towards him.

Grinning widely, he said, "Anyone ever compliment you on your neck before?"

"Wha-? N-no," she said, and turned to face him briefly, her cheeks lightly pink. She caught his eye, and looked briefly annoyed and more than a little flattered. "Okay, enough already, do you see anything?"

"Nah," he answered, taking pity on her. "You're clean. Someone really oughta tell you someday how pretty your neck is, though."

Beth cleared her throat and looked at her feet, unable to hide that she was grinning. "Ha ha, funny funny. Anyway I'm sorry to spring that on you, it's just that my mother called this morning and sort of freaked me out, so..." She looked back up at him quickly. "Oh! Did you check around my shoulders? I haven't been able to see that either, and as long as you're here-"

"Oh, sure." He agreed before he really thought about it; upon reflection, he had to wonder if she'd thought about it that much either. With the style of the collar on her shirt, to check the base of her shoulders he'd have to tug the collar down a little, which was a step beyond the kind of contact they'd had previously. In fact, he realized, he didn't think he'd ever actually touched Beth at all - not so much as a handshake, and now he was going to be pulling her shirt collar down to look closely at the skin on her neck.

Well, he was definitely making this sound like more than it was. If she'd been wearing a shirt with a lower neckline, her collar wouldn't even be an issue, would it? So, no big deal.

Except why did it feel like such a big deal, then? Because he had a feeling that Beth wore shirts with kind-of-high collars by conscious choice? Because it was the first time he'd had a thought that maybe she wasn't just reacting to his flirting with her, but actually reciprocating?

Still holding her hair up to her head, standing with her neck slightly stooped, Beth asked, "Um... Is everything okay?"

Launchpad tried to swallow, and couldn't. And he couldn't think of a good reason why that should be the case. Before he could answer, a hand reached past him, tugged the shirt collar down momentarily, then let it go. "Your neck looks perfect," said the hand's owner from just behind him. Beth straightened up like a shot and whirled to face both Launchpad and Drake, who continued, "Can I get a little help now?"

"I - I-" Beth looked absolutely helpless, and was blushing far more heavily than she had over anything Launchpad had ever said. She looked quickly back and forth between both Drake and Launchpad, while Launchpad realized that for just a moment he had completely forgotten that Drake was even in the store. "I'm so - so sorry, I didn't know anyone else was here - um - how can I help you?" She apparently noticed for the first time that she was still holding the hand mirror, and tucked it down quickly under the cash register.

Launchpad decided to step in and rescue her. "Relax, this is a friend of mine," he said to Beth, who didn't look any more at ease. Her hand stole to the back of her neck, where she fumbled with the tag of her shirt for a brief second before coming to rest on the base of her shoulder. "Drake, this is Beth, the worker here I was tellin' you about?"

"I gathered that," said Drake flatly. Launchpad got the feeling he wasn't pleased to have another interruption from the actual purpose of his errand, but he sighed and held his hand out to Beth. "Drake Mallard."

"Beth," she answered, taking his hand lightly and shaking it in a quick jerk. "Beth Mallard."

She froze. Launchpad caught a look of puzzlement on DW's face just before he looked at Beth; her mouth was hanging open in horror. "Webfoot! I mean Webfoot. Beth Webfoot, that's me!" She let go of DW's hand, and laughed it off.

"Nice to meet you," Drake said perfunctorily, and turned to look around the store. "Now, as much as I enjoy charming company and delightful conversation about skin imperfections, I do have an ulterior motive in coming here. If you could just point me in the direction of the double-plait bolts, I'll be more than happy to-"

"Double-plait bolts? Right this way!" Beth smiled brightly and stepped out from behind the cash wrap, leading Drake and Launchpad to a wall towards the back of the store. "We keep all the bolts here, but if there's anything you don't see, let me know and I'll check the back."

"Sure. Thanks." Drake began to busy himself by looking along the wall of bolts, and Beth stepped back towards Launchpad and leaned in close to him.

He leaned close to her, aping her motions out of instinct, and was close enough to realize that her hair smelled nice but not close enough to identify just what it smelled like when she whispered, "I said Mallard!"

"Huh?"

She looked up at him, anguish all over her face. "I said my name was Beth Mallard! I just spaced out and I sounded like a total dweeb!"

He had to laugh. "Aw, I don't think he even noticed."

"Really?"

"Sure. DW doesn't think too much about stuff like that."

She looked at Drake's back pensively. "'DW', huh? Do most of his friends call him that or-"

Shoot, that had come out by mistake. Launchpad tried to cover. "Uh, it's kind of a nickname, from... uh... from when we were kids."

"Oh." She nodded. "I should probably just call him 'Mr. Mallard' anyway."

"I'm sure you could call him Drake. He wouldn't mind." Would he mind? Things that seemed obvious to Launchpad were sometimes much more complicated in DW's mind, and vice versa. Well, almost the only person who called DW "Mr. Mallard" was Honker, so probably Beth could call him Drake if she wanted.

Beth cocked her head, still looking at Drake's back, and she touched the back of her neck again, her expression almost vacant. "Are you two good friends?"

"Yep!" Launchpad answered cheerfully. "We work together too!"

"Oh yeah? What do you do? I mean - what does he do? Or, um, what do both of you-"

"Uh, it's complicated," said Launchpad. He really had to remember that Beth paid attention to the things that people said; he was having to backtrack an awful lot in this conversation. "Civil service stuff. Kinda."

"Civil service," she repeated, a little softly.

When she didn't follow that comment up with anything, Launchpad looked at her in profile. Beth looked like everybody else, and like no one he'd ever seen before. She had an amazing skill at blending into scenery; he'd probably never even have really noticed her, even when she was helping him with a question, except that she had knocked a broom or a pan or something over. He couldn't remember what it was, only that she'd done it with such a beautifully choreographed sense of disaster that she'd suddenly become real to him in a way she hadn't been before. It was like he blinked and there she was.

He'd thought she must have been new, but it turned out she'd been working there for the past three years already - well before he'd started coming in to the store - and she was full-time so he must have been in the store at the same time as her at least a dozen times before. Somehow he'd totally missed her.

It was true, of course, that Beth was not his usual type. Working for Mr. McDee he'd encountered quite a few ladies, generally glamourous and exciting and outgoing, and Beth was - by her own admission - none of those things. What she was instead was down-to-earth, practical, and shy. She talked a lot, right off the bat, and didn't slow down once she got going; Launchpad was surprised to find that even though a little of it was just filler chatter, once she got comfortable more and more of it was really interesting. There was something inviting about the way she spoke, and even more so when she settled in to listen. Unlike some talkative people, Beth didn't pretend to be interested in what other people had to say; she just talked as a way to pass the time until other people spoke.

Launchpad smiled at her, though she didn't see him, since her eyes were still on Drake. She really was cute, he thought, getting her own name wrong in an introduction. Well, he had to admit as he looked at her now, she was more than cute. It was just that he didn't take much notice of that, since they were just friends anyway. She was pretty - pretty in a way you didn't usually look twice at, because she was so good at making herself look boring, but when you really looked at her...

Beth turned to him again, opening her mouth and taking a breath, and then stopped. "Sorry - was I doing something?" she asked.

"Huh? No. Just thinkin'," he answered.

"About what?"

"Beth Mallard," he answered, and chuckled. She blushed pink, and pouted.

Launchpad flirted away behind him with the shopgirl, and Drake ground his teeth together and scanned the wall for the bolts he needed. They were whispering like teenagers, and here he was, a paying customer, being ignored! If that girl had any idea that she was standing in the way of justice, she'd probably change her tune.

"Did you need help finding anything?" she asked, and he turned to find her right there, at his shoulder all of a sudden.

He took a step back, swallowing a yelp of surprise, and recovered quickly. "Yes, actually, if you're really on the clock."

"Um, yes?" she answered uncertainly.

Drake wasn't aware that he'd said something she'd need to guess the answer to, but he wasn't in the mood to point that out. The girl was a flake, that was obvious; the sooner he could get himself and LP out of here, the better. "I'm not seeing the kind of bolt I need. You've got a whole lot of double-plait bolts but unless I'm going blind I don't see the size I came here for-" He gestured at the wall. She leaned forward, sort of squinting, which was a silly thing to do because Drake hadn't told her yet what size he was looking for. It seemed like everybody he interacted with today existed solely to slow him down.

Beth straightened up and turned towards him, looking squarely at his forehead instead of his eyes. "I'm sorry, what size -?"

"Four-and-a-quarter," he said quickly.

She nodded, then smiled. "Four-and-a-quarter! That's funny, just this morn-" The smile slid off her face. "Oh. Ohhhhh."

Now what?! Drake tried valiently not to scowl as she put a hand to her mouth. "Is there a problem? Do you not carry them?"

"Well no - no, we carry them - um can you wait right here? I - I need to check the back." She put her palm up towards him, firmly signaling that he should stay put, and backed away a few steps before turning and practically running towards the back of the store.

Drake shook his head. "I don't know how this place stays in business," he said in a low voice.

"They usually have 'em," said Launchpad, sounding almost puzzled by the situation. Drake decided not to mention that the selection was not what he had been criticizing.

Meanwhile, Beth was about six inches from the door to the stockroom when it swung widely, missing her beak by about an inch. She stepped backwards so quickly that she nearly lost her balance and fell. From the stockroom emerged a woman wearing more makeup than Drake had seen on your average mime. Her hair was a very curly honey-blond, right up until about a quarter-inch from her scalp where it was a much darker shade, as well as somewhat straighter. She stopped, blinked lazily at Beth, and then stepped right past her without a word of explanation.

The new woman's face lit up when she spotted Drake and his sidekick; it took Drake a second to realize she wasn't looking at him.

"Hiiiii, Launchpad!" she said in a voice that sounded like nails on a chalkboard. "Long time no see!"

Although Launchpad smiled politely, Drake noticed that he took an involuntary step backwards and ended up with his back against the wall of bolts. Several boxes shook and one or two fell to the ground. "Hiya Henny. How've ya been?"

"Oh, not bad, not bad. Better now that you're here." Henny fluttered eyelashes that could only have been fake, and smiled in a way she evidently thought was becoming. At the same time, she completely ignored Beth, who had followed her and was tugging lightly on her sleeve. Somewhat petulantly, Henny added, "You said you'd be in sometiiime."

"Well, here I am!" Launchpad answered.

"I was expecting you much sooner. In fact I almost gave up hope." She actually swatted at Beth's fingers when her employee tugged again at her shoulder. Although Drake knew he would probably find sleeve-tugging pretty irritating himself, that didn't keep him from deciding that he absolutely loathed this new woman. From Launchpad's reaction, Drake wasn't the only one who didn't quite care for her, either. "Y'know, I have the late shift tonight so I got a break just around dinner time. We could catch up on everything that's-"

"Hi there, guess you're the boss around here, huh?" Drake stepped in between her and Launchpad, catching her attention for the first time. "Maybe YOU can tell me why you don't seem to carry the bolts I need, which my friend here has assured me repeatedly that you carry."

As Henny's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, Beth tapped her boss's shoulder with a fraction more urgency. "Henny...?" she said in a loud whisper. "Can I talk to you?"

"One second," Henny said to Drake, her voice oozing false congeniality, and she turned to Beth. In an oddly effective combination of a snap and a whisper, she said, "Zip it!" Then she turned back to Drake. "I'm sorry, sir, if my employee here is falling short of your expectations. We take our customers VERY seriously here. How can I help you?"

Behind her, Drake noticed, Beth looked uncomfortable and put her fingertips against her forehead anxiously. In his peripheral vision he noticed Launchpad taking a step towards her, but his sidekick never made it beyond that first step, since Henny turned and flashed him a huge smile.

As calmly as he could manage - imagine all this fuss over a handful of stupid bolts! - Drake said, "I need a certain kind of bolt. Four-and-a-quarter double-plait bolts - they look like this-" Drake held out a finger and curled it slightly. Henny raised an eyebrow and managed to make it clear that she had no idea what he was talking about, and she was offended that he'd thought she would. Drake coughed and relaxed his finger. "Uh, anyway... I only need one, so if I can avoid buying a whole box, that'd be great."

Henny had her arms crossed, and looked bored. "Hey, big spender," she said, and uncrossed her arms. "I'll see what I can do. Beth, check the back, will ya?"

Beth stood her ground, and looked intently at Henny's feet. "Um, actually, before I do that - I think maybe I should just tell you about, um, what happened earlier?"

"Oh, for crying out loud..." Henny said it first, but Drake was surprised to hear her echoing what he was saying on the inside. "Okay, okay, what happened?"

"Well..." Taking one hand in the other, Beth started twisting her fingers, still looking at the floor. She cleared her throat. "You know how you came in earlier, Henny, and I wanted to tell you something but you had to -" She stopped herself, then continued, "Um, you had to do the paperwork?"

"Yeaaaahhh..."

Clearly very aware of the three sets of eyes on her, Beth looked like she was trying to find a way to melt into the floor as she continued. "W-well... Um... C-can we talk about this in the back, actually?"

"I think that anything you wanna tell me, you can say in front of our friendly customers," said Henny haughtily. Drake couldn't tell if she was punishing Beth in advance for whatever had happened, or if she was just a jerk. He had his suspicions.

Beth winced. "W-well, the thing is, I don't need to go to the back to look for the bolts, b-because, um, before you got here today this guy came in, and he kind of..." She looked up at Henny, then quickly changed her mind and looked back down again. "He sort of bought all that we had."

"All of them?" Henny sounded surprised, but not entirely displeased. "Really? Jeez, why didn'tcha just say so?"

"Well... because... well, when he bought them, um, he sort of f-forgot to pay..."

There was a gasp. Everyone, Beth included, turned to look at Launchpad, who looked back at them sheepishly. "Sorry. That just slipped out," he said.

Henny whirled on Beth. "We got ROBBED?"

"N-no! I mean, well, yes kind of, but -"

"We got ROBBED and you didn't even think you needed to TELL ME?!" Henny took two rather terrible steps towards Beth, who had been cringing since before Henny had even spoken.

"I - I tried!" Beth said, her voice so quiet that it was almost lost under Henny's enraged breathing. "You were busy-!"

"Do you know..." Henny began, holding her hands out towards Beth and brandishing an impressive and threatening set of acrylic nails, "Do you know how bad this is going to make me look!?"

At this point everything got a little crazy, as Henny grabbed for Beth, Launchpad stepped towards them both to stop her, and Beth yelped; Drake was never sure but at the time he got the impression she actually said "Eek!" In the end, it was all so ridiculous and he was so fed up over not being able to get the single stupid bolt that he stepped in himself.

"Well, I'm sure this is all VERY hard for you to process," he said, standing in front of Beth and blocking Henny's access to her. Henny looked positively taken aback at the intrusion. "And I'm sympathetic. Believe me. So if you'll do me the favour of just letting me know where I can get my bolt, I'll get right out of your hair and you can do... whatever it is you do here."

Henny gaped at him for a moment, then scowled. "SHE'LL tell you," she said, gesturing over Drake's shoulder. Then she turned sharply and stalked towards the cash wrap, where the phone was. "I have to file a police report." There was no mistaking the accusation in her words.

Drake heaved a huge sigh, ground his teeth together, and prepared to railroad the names of a few other hardware stores out of Beth. This time he wasn't going to let anyone distract him - this time, he was just going to get the information he needed, and finally get out of this hole in the wall.

As he turned, however, his heart sank; Beth was looking at him with wide, grateful eyes. "Thank you so much," she said, her voice still quiet. He realized that she thought he'd stepped in front of Henny with the direct intent of saving her, and he nearly groaned out loud. Now she thought she'd made a friend or something. "I know I should have said something, but sometimes Henny just doesn't want to listen, and I really did try but she just wouldn't let me get the words out."

Drake wondered how anyone could stop this woman from talking, and made a mental note to interview Henny on her technique. He nodded sharply. "Yeah. You've been through a lot, huh? So how about you just let me know where to go to get that bolt, and I'll -"

"Yeah," Beth nodded, and to his huge dismay, did not start talking about hardware stores. "To be totally honest, this guy was just kind of... unnerving. I don't usually like to judge customers but he was - he was weird, I really think there might have been something... wrong with him." She finished in a whisper, and tapped her forehead.

"Uh-huh." Drake put his palm to his own forehead, mostly to try to keep from strangling her. "Soooo, the bolt...?"

"Oh!" Beth smiled nervously, and seemed to bounce to her feet even though she was already standing up; her posture suddenly improved markedly. "Right! Let me look at the phone book and I'll see what I can get you."

As she darted off, Drake breathed a sigh of relief and considered making his escape. But Launchpad was at his shoulder, and before he could mutter a suggestion about leaving, his sidekick said, "DW - if they got robbed, isn't that somethin' we should look into?"

He actually considered it for a moment; but in the momentary lapse of conversation, he could hear Henny talking dramatically into the phone about a violent holdup, how she'd risked her life by pushing her employee out of the way of a gun, and how several thousand dollars was gone from the register. Drake snorted. "They're on their own."

Beth reappeared, holding a sheet of yellow lined paper with a nearly illegible scrawl over it. "Okay - these are the addresses and phone numbers of six different hardware stores in the area that I think carry the bolts you want. And if they don't then you can maybe special order them or something. Oh - do you want to special order them here?" She looked very hopeful suddenly.

"Not especially," said Drake curtly. "Now, I really need to-"

"Can you read my handwriting?" Beth asked suddenly. Drake had wondered that himself, but he wasn't going to say anything.

Unfortunately, Launchpad took up the conversation again. "Hmmm... I think I can make that out," he said. He was about to try flirting again, Drake could hear it in his tone. "Is that a 'Q'?"

"It's a 'G'!" Beth said, sounding at once embarrassed and pleased. "Oh, this is going to be completely useless, isn't it?"

Unable to help himself, Drake actually did groan aloud as the two got back into the subject of the robbery. Beth was describing the "weird guy" in some detail as Drake tried to sneak out the front door; he was nearly there when something in her description clicked in his head.

"...And I know this sounds crazy, but I swear to you he was wearing a battery on his back."

"Huh, no kidding?" said Launchpad, without showing any trace of recognition. Drake found this maddening.

Despite his better instincts, Drake spoke again. "You're talking about Megavolt."

A lightbulb seemed to go off over Launchpad's head, and he said, "Oh hey, yeah!"

Beth, on the other hand, looked completely blank. "Who?"

"Megavolt!" Drake, irritated, walked back towards them. "Crazy electrified rodent who wears a plug as a hat? Looks like he stuck his finger into one too many wall sockets?"

"Oh," said Beth. "I have no idea who that is, but it sounds about right."

From the back of the store, Henny called out, "Don't tell them anything else, Beth! We have the right to a lawyer!"

"He was just asking ab-"

"Need-to-know basis!" Henny yelled back.

Launchpad said, "Hey, DW, if it was Megavolt don't you think we should-"

"Zip it," Drake hissed, grabbing hold of his sidekick's scarf and yanking him towards the door. "Thanks for the list, Ms. Webfoot, really regret that we can't stay and chat."

"You're leaving?" Beth asked, looking and sounding disappointed. "Well - come back so-"

They were out the door before she finished the sentence. Drake felt like he could breathe for the first time since they'd stepped inside that store.

"Wow," said Launchpad. "So, Megavolt, huh?"

Drake nodded. "I wonder what that voltage junkie would want with a bunch of hardware?"

"Dunno." Launchpad thought for a moment, then offered, "Maybe he's gonna build an addition onto that lighthouse he hangs out in."

"I kind of doubt that one, LP," Drake answered. They reached the car. "Well, here's the plan. We wasted enough time on the bolts today - we'll have to take care of those later. From here on out we're on the hunt for Megavolt. Whatever his scheme is, we're on top of it! Nothing is going to get by us!"

"I'm with ya, DW!" said Launchpad enthusiastically. After a brief silence, "So, what'd ya think?"

Puzzled, Drake said, "I thought I just told you."

Launchpad laughed. "Nah, not about Megavolt! I mean Beth!"

"Oh. Well, she's..." Drake paused, then shook his head and exhaled loudly.

"I know, huh?" Launchpad grinned. "Y'know, I was kinda thinkin' it might be nice to hang out with her outside of Bindler's. Thought I might ask her out to dinner or somethin'."

Drake wrinkled his nose a little. "Her?"

To be continued!