When He lost Her
A Darkwing Duck One-Shot. It takes place during Time and Punishment, when DW 'Rediscovers his purpose' and begins down the path toward Darkwarrior Duck...
In retrospect, he should've known it wasn't Her.
A flash of red hair, a glimpse of purple, and he'd been so desperate and too quick to assume, and that tiny ray of hope just made the crushing depression all the more terrible.
He stood still staring, at the purple shirt, a blouse rather than the worn jersey that She loved so much, at the red hair, in two neat pigtails, instead of Her messy ones, and lastly the doll. That should have been a dead giveaway, She never played with dolls, never liked them.
And even if She had, Darkwing mused, a bittersweet thought coming to him, the bully was no match for her. The fight would've ended with Her the victor, and Drake in another uncomfortable parent teacher conference with Principal Farnsworth.
She wouldn't have needed his help. She didn't need his help and, it seemed didn't need him.
But He still needed Her.
Without Her Darkwing Duck was a pitiful excuse for a hero She was the reason he fought for this thankless city. She was the spark for his fire, the power in his punches, and the canister in his Gas Gun.
And without Her Drake Mallard was nothing. Drake Mallard had been no more than a ghost, 5 years dead when they had first met…
"How come you wear a mask?
"Because... there is nothing so terrifying to the criminal mind as the unknown… I am the thing that goes bump in the night! I am the neurosis that requires a five-hundred-dollar-an-hour shrink!"
"You mean you don't take off your mask for anyone?"
"That's right. Not no one, not never."
"What about a really, really, really close friend?"
He had been stunned at the fact that she had seen him as someone other than the dashing, brave hero Darkwing Duck. And so for the first time in years, he became mild mannered civilian Drake Mallard for Her, to fill the void in Her life her family had left behind.
And he had failed.
Deep inside he knew that he would never find Gosalyn if she didn't want to be found. And if he had failed so badly as a parent and a hero, that she ran away, then he didn't deserve to have her. He just wanted his baby girl to be safe, and she wasn't safe on her own especially in this city, with superpowered maniacs on the loose, with whom the justice system seemed to have no hold on. Not even he could keep those criminals locked up for long, loath he was to admit it. Not that he had been trying to as of late.
And then he knew. He knew how to protect Gosalyn, even if she didn't want to be found. He once again had to take up the mantle of the Masked Mallard, Defender of Saint Canard.
But this time, he had to do it right. No crooks would get away, no more jailbreaks just days after incarceration. The criminal element of Saint Canard would finally learn to fear the Mighty Masked Mallard. And he would give them a reason to fear him.
He needed something to represent this change in him, He thought, as he quicked his pace out of the school. A new intro perhaps? I am the fiendish terror that-No that's Negs intro. He ground his teeth thinking, something to strike fear into the criminals he would now be hunting down-Hunt. That was it.
I am the Terror that Hunts in the Night. I am the surgeon to cut out the infection of Crime. I am Darkwing-No...Darkwarrior Duck!