Epilogue Chapter 7

"Mr Duck?" The blue uniformed nurse said. "He's in ward four. You go straight until you turn left and go up some stairs. Then you follow the signs from there."

"Thanks." The mallard tipped his sandy, brown hat to her as he set off for the stairs. He wasn't sure whether it was the layout of the corridors and rooms, or whether it was its purpose, he found hospitals an uncomfortable place to be. Even with the beige tiled floors and the cream walls, to him, the hospital had an eerie atmosphere to it. When he was a child, he only visited it when he had something drastically wrong with him and that was not very often. But the same nervous feelings spread in his stomach like they did when he was an infant. But he knew he didn't have a stomach bug this time.

His anxiousness increased with every step he took up the stairs as well as every step closer to the ward that his parents happened to be in. As instructed, he followed the signs taking to a set of double doors with the sign "Ward 4" written on the top. After cleansing his hands with the antibacterial fluid, he pushed the doors open and read a sign in front of him. He read through the list of patients and which rooms they were in. He eventually located the name of the room his parents were in.

"Drake Duck - Room 10."

Duck strolled to the right.

As the mallard past each room, he contemplated in his mind what he was going to ask the parents, who abandoned him, and never came back to see what he became as he grew up. His hands clenched in his pockets as he finally stopped at the exact door. His left hand slowly covered the door handle. Hesitantly, he pressed it down and pushed it out cautiously.

He strode in expecting to have two pairs of eyes staring at the offspring that they never took the chance to know. Instead, he found a female water-fowl wearing a short-sleeved, burgundy dress. She seemed to have hunched herself over the legs of a mallard lying unconscious. He shared almost all of Duck's appearances, but being older, the patient looked wearier. As both of them we're asleep, Duck decided to pull a blue, plastic chair next to the bed and place himself on it.

"So, you're the one who's meant to be my father?" The mallard rested his head onto the back of his hands. He gave a chuckle.

"It's funny because you're also the one who decided I was a reject, a snub," Duck leant his face closer to the patient's face. "An unwanted child."

He pulled his face back, stood up from his chair, and started wandering around the room.

"You thought that I'd be just like our ancestors before us; always tried to work their way up the ladder of success, only to be dragged down to disappointment and failure. Maybe because you were a failure in the past that you thought I'd be the same."

Realising his mother was there too, he bent down to her level.

"And you." He whispered so he didn't wake her up. "The woman I should call 'mother'. You tried but failed to convince him to give me a chance. And you gave up. If you wanted me that badly, you would have fought a little harder for me than you did back then."

A sore lump developed in his throat as he wandered back to his seat again and glared at his sleeping father.

"So back to what I was saying about failure," His voice strained as he tried to keep his emotions under control. "You thought that because all of our ancestors in the past have failed miserably, you assumed I would do the same."

Try as he did, tears started to stream down his face.

"Didn't you know how hard it is to try and compress all the sadness, the anger and the confusion into yourself so that no-one will think you're weak?" He stammered. "Didn't you know that I had to put on an act in front of everyone else so that no-one would find me as a target to bullying? Didn't you think about what I could have become when you held me in your arms for the first time? Did you?"

Duck stripped off his sandy brown mackintosh to reveal him in his uniform. Even if his father slumbered during his confession, Duck wanted to prove something to him.

"This uniform I'm wearing says, 'I am Danger Duck, I am part of a superhero team and I have risked my life so that you, mom, and everyone else in this damn city can still live to see another day'. I am a hero! You hear me? I am a hero!"

Silence held after the volume of his voice rose. He spoke so loud it could have woke both his parents up. But they still slept. Duck slumped back into his chair and made eye contact with his father once more.

"I could have used these powers to get my revenge on everyone that has wronged me. I could have used them to hurt you and mom." He seethed through his teeth. "I could be committing robberies, mass murders and the apocalypse if I wanted to! But I haven't yet. Do you want to know why that is?"

His voice wavered as more tears trickled down his face.

"I wanted you and mom to be proud of me." He mumbled. "I wanted you to watch me save the city with my friends and boast to everyone else, 'That's my boy, Daniel Duck! I'm so proud to call him my son!' Where were you while I was doing that huh? Where were you? "

Duck buried his face into his hands and bawled into them. His eyes burned as he sobbed. As he cried, a quiet raspy voice broke the mallard's whimpering.

"Daniel… is that you?"

Duck's head slowly tilted up as he gazed at his father's face.

"Drake Duck? Dad?"

"Son… my only son… you came…" The patient smiled as he embraced his son into a hug. Duck hesitated as he was unsure how to react after he told his parents what he thought of them. He hated them for what they did to him, but they seemed to have begun to except him into the family again. For the sake of this reunion, Duck slowly placed his arms around his father's waist. He found it uncomfortable and slightly claustrophobic but he wasn't trying to show it in front of his father. He didn't want to ruin his first meeting with his parents in many years. His father suddenly winced as he placed his hand at the side of his head. Duck broke from his father's grip and watched him recover from the sharp pain. He sighed as though he had just come out from being strangled by someone. Just then, Duck looked over to find his mother finally stirring.

"Dear," She groaned to her husband. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Drake seethed until his smile returned to his face. "Guess who's come to see us, Dahlia."

The female water-fowl glanced over to Duck. Her eyes filled with tears of happiness.

"It's you! You came!" She cuddled him.

Once again, Duck had to play along with it just to keep things normal between them. Just then, a word slipped out of his mouth.

"Why?"

"What?" Dahlia made eye contact with her son.

"Why did you want me to come now?" He murmured as he gently pushed his mother away from him.

"Daniel…"

"You could have tried to call me at any other time," He continued. "So why didn't you call me until now? Is it because I didn't progress to anything until that meteor came?"

"Daniel," His mother's voice trembled. "That's not it!"

"Maybe if the meteor never came, I wouldn't have known you're alive because you didn't want anything to do with a future failure." Duck clenched his fists.

"Daniel, I'm sorry!" His father finally burst out to silence the atmosphere.

Duck glared at his father.

"Oh now you're sorry!" He said sarcastically.

"Daniel! Just stop and listen for a moment!" The patient barked. He looked down onto the bed and sighed.

"Have you ever felt that you never seem to appreciate something until it's almost or completely gone?"

"Plenty of times." Daniel nodded.

"When you were with us, I said some horrible things about you." Drake continued. "Sometimes I wished that you were part of another family so I didn't feel more disappointed than I was then. But when that day came, when we dropped you off at that orphanage…"

He twiddled his fingers nervously.

"When we dropped you off at the orphanage, I felt nothing at first. But as time went on, I began to regret everything that I said and done. Dahlia kept saying if I wanted you that badly, I'd ask the staff to give you back. But I was afraid that if I tried that, you would never trust us ever again. I couldn't bear that so…"

Drake gave a soft smile to Duck.

"How old are you now son?" He asked.

"I'm twenty-one." His son replied.

"Eighteen years, I've spent regretting." Drake said. "And to finally meet you for the first time… I want us to start again. I know it sounds a bit atrocious for asking you to do this after what I've done. But your mother and I want to know everything you've done and everything about you. I want us to be a family again."

Duck's fist loosened to a normal hand as his father shakily extended his.

"My son," He posed. "Do you want to be part of this family again?"

END OF EPILOGUE CHAPTER 7.