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There’s an episode of Darkwing Duck Drake taped over when he was young that he would watch on repeat when he came home from school with his peers’ recrimination weighing heavily on his mind, and the imprints of their fists weighed heavily on his body. He would play it on the television set in the living room with the volume turned low, and he would sit inches from the screen, his knees drawn up to his chest, in the hopes of drowning out his parents’ latest screaming match in the kitchen without bringing attention to himself.
In the episode, Darkwing was chained to an anchor by the Fearsome Four and dropped to the bottom of Audubon Bay. Before the screen faded to black, and the stylized “To Be Continued?” could crawl into view, the last shot of Darkwing Duck was of him struggling to escape his bonds, while in voiceover he counted down the seconds of oxygen he had left. The episode ended there, before Darkwing could make his usual daring last-minute escape.
It was the season one finale, when the showrunners tried pushing for an older target audience by putting Darkwing in more genuinely life threatening situations. In fifteen years time, Drake would read on a Darkwing Duck fan site that Jim Starling was one of the main proponents of this idea, wanting to showcase more of his skills as a serious stuntman and actor.
It wasn’t meant to be. The season one finale had some of the show’s lowest ratings to date, and come the season two premiere Darkwing was freed by a mutated fishwoman named Neptunia and the episode turned into a lesson about the importance of recycling and preventing ocean pollution and it was like Darkwing had never almost drowned in the first place.
But for Drake, ten years old, bullied, and friendless, it was harrowing to watch his idol come so close to death. Because this wasn’t getting crushed to death in Ammonia Pine’s giant mop wringer, or getting electrocuted by Quackerjack fifteen times in a row. It was drowning, plain and simple, devastatingly mundane and terrifyingly simple, like Drake had heard happening to the nephew of a friend of a friend’s neighbor. The idea that something like that could fell Darkwing Duck had felt ridiculous. He was the hero who was beaten down every day like Drake was, and always got back up no matter what.
But for the two weeks until the first episode of season two premiered, Drake had gone about life feeling the way he imagined Darkwing did, struggling for breath, alone at the bottom of the bay.
By the time Drake is thirty-years-old, he’s almost drowned three times. Once thanks to a magical whirlpool, and again when his cape gets caught on the back of a speedboat. His cape has detachable clasps now and he’s worked on his breaststroke, because Darkwing Duck always gets back up and he’s been Darkwing Duck for two years now.
But nothing can prepare him for when he almost drowns a third time.
Fenton knocks, his exclamation cheerful as it carries through the door. “They’re asking for you, Drake!”
Drake can hear Gyro’s voice, muffled and snippy, accompanying him. Probably annoyed about being sent to join Fenton on this errand, or at least affecting that he is.
But Drake finds that he has to swallow twice before he’s able to speak.
“Be right there,” he replies, raising his voice to be heard. He turns again to face the full length mirror beside the dresser, which Webby had promised was of the non-enchanted kind and thus wasn’t likely to try stealing his soul. He feels lost in a daze as he needlessly smooths the lapels of his tux and straightens his already rigidly straight purple bowtie.
Drake walks out of the room he was getting ready in, gently closing the door behind him. He makes it four steps down the hall before it hits him that he’s getting married in half an hour.
A tsunami rises ponderously at his back, and he’s struck by the wave with crushing speed. The water goes over his head as he’s buffeted by the tide and Drake finds that he can’t quite breath. His vision tunnels.
Fenton and Gyro are at the end of the hallway, a few feet from completely disappearing around the corner. But they aren’t moving, and Drake has entered a fugue state of panic, unable to make it back to the room he just exited. Then, three feet to his left, salvation comes in the form of another closed door.
Drake closes his hand around the doorknob and slips inside with practiced ease. He finds himself in a closet. There are blankets and pillows stacked on shelves, and holiday decorations peeking out from behind a cluster of ancient, ornate rugs rolled up in the corner. He spots what looks like an actual duck skull shoved between two stacks of folded blankets and a dusty silver sword sticking out of a box of Harp-B-Gone merchandise.
It’s dark and smells faintly of mothballs and Drake can almost breathe again.
He moves to the back of the closet, as far as he can go, before sinking to the ground on shaky legs. He draws his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around his shins. Dropping his head onto his knees, he wills his heartbeat to slow so he doesn’t have to keep hearing his thunderous pulse in his ears.
The door creaks open with none of the stealth Drake employed, spilling light from the hallway in a blinding arc before sealing shut again.
“I saw you sneak away! Is there an emergency? Is something going on?” asks one of the last people Drake wants seeing him like this, “Should I get my suit?”
Fenton trails off as his mouth catches up with his brain. He looks down at Drake with wide eyes, his hand still wrapped around the doorknob.
Drake looks back, expression as sullen as he can make it. His heart is pounding so painfully it feels as though someone is beating his chest like a drum.
“Oh,” Fenton says. “ Oh .”
“Yeah,” Drake replies dryly.
When he and Launchpad first started looking into venues for the wedding, Scrooge was surprisingly quick to offer up the mansion. And not just for the ceremony, but the reception too. While Drake had found that unexpected, if not a flatout relief, he was downright suspicious when Scrooge then insisted on paying for more than half the wedding.
“I think Scrooge has been possessed,” Drake told Launchpad as they sat down on a fire escape to eat dinner before patrol. “Again. Or we’ve got a pod person situation on our hands.”
Launchpad laughed, nearly choking on his coffee.
“What makes you saw that, DW?” he asked, pounding on his chest.
Drake made a face, opening his box of takeout. “He’s being...generous.”
Launchpad laughed again, luckily this time without introducing more coffee to his trachea. “Is this about the wedding?”
“Yes, it’s about the wedding,” Drake snipped, reaching over to steal a piece of Launchpad’s pad thai. “Do you actually expect me to believe Mr. Richest, Cheapest Duck in the World is willing to pay for half of it?”
“He’s only paying for half ‘cause my dad fought him on it,” Launchpad pointed out. “Mr. McDee would’ve paid for all of it otherwise.”
Drake shook his head. “I just can’t believe it. I mean, this is the same guy who ate a two day old burrito he found in your glovebox to avoid paying for lunch. And he wasn’t even the one buying!”
“He also spends thousands of dollars to polish the gold in the Money Bin,” Launchpad replied, brow quirked in amusement. “His priorities are all over the place.”
Launchpad’s expression softened and he glanced away, looking fond.
“But I think in this case he’s just...trying to keep me close for as long as he can, y’know? I mean, even though I’m not really his pilot or his driver anymore, I’ve still been living at the mansion half the time. But after the wedding, I’m moving into the new apartment with you and Gos and I just won’t be around like I used to.”
Drake reached over to squeeze Launchpad’s arm. “I’d say I was sorry, but I’m finally getting you all to myself, so I’m not.”
Launchpad ducked his head with a laugh, but it did little to hide the blush climbing up his neck.
It was a heady feeling, knowing Drake was still able to make Launchpad blush. Launchpad, who had far more experience being in a relationship than Drake did, and had already been with Drake for two years.
But Drake grudgingly turned back to his own dinner, because they still had patrol to think about, not all the different ways he might make Launchpad blush.
“Oh, did you tell Mr. McDee about the wedding theme we wanted?” Launchpad asked around the ridiculous amount of pad thai he’d stuffed in his beak.
“I did,” Drake replied, “Are you sure he doesn’t know my secret identity? Because he implied more than once that it seemed a little vain .”
Launchpad shook his head vehemently. “No way! There’s no way he knows. Well...unless Mrs. B told him.”
“ Launchpad !”
But the question of whether or not Scrooge knew what Launchpad’s fiancé did at night would be postponed in the coming weeks as the wedding preparations ramped up to an alarming degree. Drake, and Gosalyn by proxy, found themselves practically living at the mansion so that he could confer with Launchpad over flower arrangement and color schemes and seating charts. The wedding would be held in the ballroom, because of course the mansion had a ballroom, and they got through a dress rehearsal with Launchpad only setting two tablecloths on fire. They put in an order for more fire extinguishers, went out to try different flavors of cake, and got fitted for their tuxedos.
It’s a whirlwind of panic and exhilaration that ends with Drake shorting out and hiding in a closet on his wedding day.
“No one will bother you in here, that’s for sure!” Fenton says beside him, in the tone of someone trying to bring levity to an awful situation. He’s not doing a very good job.
“That was the plan,” Drake mutters, resolutely not looking at Fenton.
He moves to sit cross-legged, because he’s not quite pathetic enough to let Fenton see him practically curled up in the fetal position. But he can’t help but hunch forward, burying his fingers in his neatly styled hair just to have something to help ground him. He sends Daisy a mental apology for ruining all her hard work.
The silence between them grows well past awkward and verging into uncomfortable. Drake refuses to be the first to speak, mostly because he has no idea what will come out of his beak if he does. Out the corner of his eye, he sees Fenton nervously tapping his knees, the motion picking up speed with every passing second. Drake knows all he has to do is wait.
Fenton doesn’t disappoint.
“You’re not...you’re not having second thoughts, are you?” he asks quietly.
That gets Drake to look at him, jerking out of his miserable slouch so hastily he hits his head on one of the low shelves behind them.
“Ow! What? No, no, god no,” he says in a rush, rubbing the back of his head. The question is like a shock to his system, and his hands begin to shake as the idea that anyone, that Fenton, would even make the implication.
He gives Drake a hard look, examining him with a grave expression that he hasn’t seen on Fenton’s face outside of the Gizmosuit. And even then, only in the most dire situations.
“I’m not having seconds thoughts,” Drake says fiercely. That, at the very least he can manage, in spite of the roaring in his ears.
Fenton’s expression clears, taking the tension in the air with it. Drake breathes out as discreetly as he can manage, unwilling to admit having been temporarily cowed by the same guy who can’t have caffeine in the morning because it makes him too hyper.
“I thought so,” Fenton says, cheerful as ever, “just needed to be sure.”
Drake sighs, without bothering to hide it this time. “Yeah, you and everyone else,” he mumbles, running a hand through his hair. By this point, it’s likely mussed beyond all reason.
In the weeks following their engagement, Drake had been approached multiple times, both by members of the expansive McDuck family and by complete strangers. All of them gave him some version of the same shovel talk, threatening him if he ever got it in his head to hurt Launchpad. Drake didn’t know how to tell them that he’s the one in danger of being hurt. Don’t they know how completely gone he is over Launchpad? How easily Launchpad could hurt him if he ever decides he’s tired of Drake’s ego, his baseless anxieties?
Drake watches Fenton wince and it almost makes him smile. He’s probably remembering being around for Gyro’s own not-so-veiled threat to turn Drake into a lab specimen and not doing anything to help him out.
“Is that why you’re in here?” Fenton asks hesitantly.
Drake shakes his head, wishing it was that simple. He doesn’t even know why he’s hiding.
“Nah. It was almost kind of sweet to know so many people cared enough about Launchpad to actually go out of their way to threaten me. Though I could’ve done without being snuck up on by ninjas and Manny the Headless Man-Horse.”
“Then what’s wrong?” Fenton asks, face creasing in concern.
Drake lifts his hands, only to drop them back in his lap. “I just ...I don’t know.”
Fenton nudges him with his elbow. “C’mon,” he goads, “you can tell your groomsman.”
That gets Drake to laugh, if a little hoarsely.
“You’re Launchpad’s groomsman,” he corrects weakly.
Fenton shrugs. “I’m co-groomsman. Now stop avoiding the question.”
Drake presses his palms together, interlocking his fingers. He goes to take off his tuxedo jacket and then thinks better of it. He undoes his bow-tie, abruptly feeling like he’s being strangled by it.
“I don’t know,” he says again. “I just...I panicked. I’m still panicking. I love Launchpad; I want to marry him. But I think it’s just hitting me that today’s the day we become till death do we part, and...and I don’t know. I thought becoming Darkwing Duck was too good to be true, but now it’s my new life that feels —are you texting ?”
Fenton glances back up, looking a little guilty. “Just calling in reinforcements, Drake.”
He grimaces. “If Storkules shows up outside that door, you’re officially fired as my groomsman.”
“I don’t think the Justice Ducks are what’s called for in this situation,” Fenton replies, expression wry. “I thought someone a little closer to home might be able to help you more.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Drake demands. When Fenton fails to answer, much less look at him, Drake resists the urge to shake him by the lapels of his tuxedo, which is still annoyingly crisp and unwrinkled, unlike Drake’s. “ Fenton ! What’s that supposed to mean!” he hisses.
There’s a knock at the door. They both freeze, Drake’s hands raised threateningly in the air. The sound of a voice reaches them, muffled through the door.
“Yo, is this the closet my dad and Gizmoduck are hiding in?”
Drake whirls on Fenton in affronted embarrassment. “You told my daughter I was—”
“Oh, geez, now she knows too?” Fenton exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. As he stands up, he jabs indignantly at his phone. “Note to self,” he says aloud as he types, “add Gosalyn to the list. Number thirty-seven and counting.”
He opens the door before Drake can stop him.
“I knocked on like five different doors before I found you guys,” Gosalyn is saying before Fenton even lets her in. “Do you know how many closets this place has? A lot .”
Despite his mortification, Drake can’t help the ridiculous rush of pride and admiration seeing his daughter in her fitted tuxedo , her riotous curls hanging down over her shoulders rather than in the rushed ponytail she, Launchpad, or Drake himself will put her hair in.
Gosalyn looks back at Drake, still sitting on the floor in a dark closet, with a good deal less fondness in her regard compared to his.
“You didn’t tell me it was this bad,” she says to Fenton.
“Hey,” Drake protested, albeit weakly.
Fenton claps his hands together.
“I’ll leave you to it,” he says. Before he completely ducks behind the door, he winces and adds, “don’t forget, the ceremony officially starts in twenty-two minutes.”
“You think I don’t know that!” Drake whispers angrily.
Fenton closes the door behind him, plunging the closet back into semi-darkness. Earlier, Drake didn’t have the presence of mind to notice that there’s some glowing object keeping the closet from utter pitch-blackness. He hopes it isn’t some cursed totem, if only because Gosalyn is with him now.
“How’s my best man doing?” Drake asks softly.
Gosalyn pulls out her phone, illuminating the lower half of her face with the screen’s glow.
“Not too bad,” she replies, taking a seat beside him. “Uncle Donald was telling me embarrassing stories about the boys. Did you know he took pictures of them being potty trained? Classic.”
Drake can’t resist the urge to have Gosalyn even nearer, so he wraps an arm around her shoulders and tugs her close against his side. She goes willingly, pillowing her head on his chest and hugging him around his middle. With her rhythmic breaths for him to match and her heartbeat so close to his, the roaring in his ears dulls a little, and the vice tightening around his chest eases. He doesn’t feel so out of control when she’s with him.
When Gosalyn speaks again, her voice is very quiet, almost verging on meek.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
Drake squeezes her shoulder.
“Sure I am, kiddo,” he says gently. His stomach churns at the lie. “Your dad’s just being a little overdramatic right now.”
“No, you ?” Gosalyn retorts.
“Haha,” he replies dryly. “I’m gonna remember that next time you ask to come on patrol with us.”
Gosalyn elbows him, just hard enough to hurt, and Drake almost barks a laugh. “Hey!” he exclaims, playfully jostling her. “You’re not helping your case here, Gos.”
She sticks her tongue out at him.
“Very mature,” he replies.
“Thank you,” Gosalyn says primly.
Drake contents himself with holding her for several long moments, and Gosalyn doesn’t protest. He lets himself forget that he’s currently making a fool out of himself, hiding in a closet in the mansion of the Richest Duck in the World as he falls to pieces mere minutes before his wedding. It’s ludicrous enough to be tragic, pathetic enough to be an act of comedy. He’s sick of himself, ashamed of his wordless panic, but he doesn’t think he can even stand right now, much less walk down an aisle. And that thought terrifies him.
Gosalyn squirms against his side, and Drake eases up his hold with a quiet snort.
“You know, Dad,” she begins, in a far too casual tone that he’s learned to be wary of, “a wise duck once told me that if something’s bothering you, the only way to feel better is if you talk about it with someone.”
“Hmm,” Drake replies, even as his insides twist, “sounds like a smart guy.”
Gosalyn shrugs. “Not that smart.”
“Ouch.”
She looks up, pinning him with her green-eyed gaze. All mirth flees under the force of her stare.
“Dad, if something’s wrong, you can talk to me about it,” she says, imploringly.
Gosalyn is Drake’s hero. That is an irrefutable fact. But even so, he can’t foist his issues onto his daughter’s shoulders. He won’t.
Drake smoothes the hair out of her face. “Nothing’s wrong,” he lies, “just some pre-wedding jitters. And you know how comfortable I feel in creepy, dark spaces.”
Gosalyn doesn’t look reassured. And she only looks a little disappointed. Instead, she shakes her head, like his lie was the answer she was expecting.
“I didn’t want to have to do this,” she says, leaning back.
“Do what?” he asks slowly. When she glances at the closet door he resists the urge to drop his face into his hands. Or maybe pull his hair out.
“Please don’t be mad!” Gosalyn says in a rush.
“Gos, I swear, if there’s another well-meaning but clueless acquaintance on the other side of that door, I’m—”
“Drake?”
There’s no knock to accompany the voice in the hall, no introduction, not that Drake would ever need one. That voice is the last he hears before he falls asleep and the first he hears when he wakes up in the morning. It’s the voice he hears in his dreams, that pulls him out of his deepest nightmares. It’s a reassurance, a promise, whether it’s travels across the space of their kitchen or opposite sides of a battlefield.
But for the first time, Drake feels cold upon hearing it. There are ice shards in the pit of his stomach, sharpened to a razor point, and as they extend outward they freeze everything in their path and puncture the rest.
“You told Launchpad?” he whispers, his throat so tight he can barely get the words out.
Gosalyn carefully extricates herself from Drake’s embrace, smiling at him with an expression that says of course I did, stupid, but too polite to say as such to her father.
“Of course I did, stupid,” she says, standing up. She tempers her words with a brief kiss to his forehead, before crossing the small stretch of carpet to the door.
“I’ll see you out there,” Gosalyn turns back around to say, her tone one of absolute conviction. She doesn’t give Drake time to respond before she’s opening the door and stepping out into the hall.
“Hey, Launchdad,” he hears her say.
“Hey, Gosaroonie,” Launchpad replies, and Drake smiles at the sound of his voice, despite the terror eating him alive from the inside out.
“Hmm. I’m not feeling ‘Gosaroonie.’”
Launchpad chuckles. “I’ll keep trying.”
There’s a beat of silence, in which Drake waits with bated breath for Launchpad to open the door and see him, sitting hunched and pathetic on the floor. But there’s just a brief shuffling sound against the door, and then nothing. The silence stretches to the point where Drake can hear voices traveling from some other wing of the mansion.
Wondering incredulously if he’s been left alone, Drake scoots over to the door. This close, he can hear the wood creaking, like there’s something leaning against it.
“Launchpad?” Drake says hesitantly.
“Yeah?” he replies immediately.
“What-what are you doing?” Drake asks, and his voice wavers somewhere between laughter and tears.
“It’s bad luck to see you before the wedding,” Launchpad says matter-of-factly, and Drake makes a sound that is both laughter and a sob.
“I think that ship has sailed,” Drake murmurs to the closed door, swiping at his eyes.
“Nah,” Launchpad says, and Drake imagines he’s doing his overconfident little headshake. “This’ll turn into one of those hilarious wedding stories that we’ll be telling people for years to come.
Drake shakes his head vehemently. “ No way. No one else is going to know about this. I’m swearing Gos and Fenton to secrecy.”
“Fenton knows?” Launchpad sound surprised, even laughing a little.
Drake groans. “Don’t ask.”
Silence falls between them once more, and would be comforting if Drake weren’t wishing he could hold Launchpad’s hand.
“How’re you holding up?” Launchpad murmurs, more gently than Drake deserves.
Drake scrubs a hand down his face. “I’m sorry about this, Launchpad. Like, really, really sorry.” He laughs bitterly. “I know this probably isn’t how you imagined we’d be spending our wedding day.”
Launchpad chuckles. “To be honest, I thought we’d get a supervillain crashing the party. Either one of ours or one of Mr. McDee’s.”
Drake thumped his forehead against the doorframe. “Well, the night’s still young.”
The sound of distant laughter reaches him, muted conversation from a hallway or two over. The mansion is full of family and friends, all of the mundane, eccentric, otherworldly people they’ve come to know, here to celebrate them. The realization leaves Drake awash in guilt all over again.
“You know, you’ve done this before,” Launchpad says suddenly.
Drake’s mind stalls out for a moment as he tries to process Launchpad’s words. After an almost embarrassingly long pause, he haltingly retorts,“What?”
“When we went to sign the last of Gos’ adoption forms,” Launchpad explains fondly. “I drove ‘cause you were so nervous. And then when we got to the adoption agency you wouldn’t get out of the car for fifteen minutes.”
“I...really?” Drake murmurs, so quietly he doubts Launchpad even heard him. Louder, he says, “I don’t remember that.”
It had been over a year ago, and all Drake recalls of the day is a haze of panic. He’d been terrified that the rug was going to somehow be snatched out from under them, even after all of the background checks and home visits and the forms. That because he and Launchpad weren’t married yet at the time, the agency wouldn’t allow them to adopt Gosalyn. Maybe his SHUSH-provided cover story would fall through. Maybe he would have a heart attack on the way to the appointment.
“What did you do?” Drake asks, and quickly amends, “to-to calm me down?”
Launchpad laughs.
“What do you think I’m doing right now?” he replies wryly, and Drake can hear the smile in his voice. Drake finds it difficult to muster one of his own.
“I’m sorry for making you do this,” Drake sighs, rubbing the space between his eyes.
“Whoa, hey,” Launchpad says immediately, “I never said—you’re not making me do anything, Drake.”
“I just—” In frustration, Drake throws his hands sharply in the air, punctuating his words, only to let them drop unceremoniously back in his lap.
“I don’t know why I’m freaking out now . We’ve been planning this for weeks, months even. Every day was wedding planning and patrol, almost back to back, and I was able to hold it together fine. But now on the most important day of our lives, I...it’s all come crashing down.”
The words sound pathetic to Drake’s ears, the apology paltry. But he doesn’t know how else to explain that it feels as though his very supports have not only been dismantled, but vanished entirely, like a puppet with its strings cut from fifty-feet high find themself in abrupt and terrifying freefall.
“Well,” Launchpad begins, and there’s a reservoir of tenderness of boundless depth beneath his words. “I happen to know a thing or two about crashing.”
Launchpad is adept as ever at coaxing a smile onto Drake’s face.
“Oh yeah?” he replies. “And how’s this novice doing?”
“Not bad for a first-time crasher,” Launchpad replies in a scholarly tone that has Drake muffling a snort. “Step one: acknowledging that you crashed! That’s very important. Step two: accepting help from others. No first-time crasher is getting back in the air without a little help.”
“Is there a step on what to do if you’re afraid of crashing?” Drake asks, his smile shaky, attempt at levity falling flat.
“Talking about what has you so afraid, I guess,” Launchpad responds, hesitant.
“Sounds reasonable,” Drake says unsteadily.
“Drake,” Launchpad begins, sounding worried.
“What if I’m not good at it?” Drake rushes to cut him off, unwilling to let his flare of courage go to waste. “At-at crashing.”
Launchpad takes a moment to respond.
“You’ve just gotta practice, I guess,” he eventually says, “find a good crashing buddy. Learn how to crash safely. Um…I’m sorry, I kinda lost track of the metaphor. Are we still talking about our wedding?”
Drake laughs, his shoulders shaking from the force of it. So much of the churning anxiety in his chest feels as though it’s expelled that way, dissipating in the air. There are tears in his eyes when he says with incredulous conviction, “God, I can’t wait to marry you.”
He stands up, straightening his tuxedo as he goes. Or at the very least, making an attempt. He ties his bowtie a little crookedly, and his hair is a lost cause, but he’s confident he no longer looks like a stag party reject. When Drake starts to open the door, he hears Launchpad scrambling to move out of the way on the other side and he has to restrain another little laugh-cry.
That effort proves to be in vain when he steps out into the hall, blinking at the influx of light. Launchpad is there waiting for him, cutting such a fine figure in his textured, purple tuxedo jacket that Drake has to pause and catch his breath. Then he lets it out in a rush, choking on laugh, because Launchpad has a hand covering his eyes.
“Launchpad,” Drake begins pointedly.
“Yeah, Drake?” he responds, positively beaming.
“What are you doing?”
“I told you,” Launchpad says, “it’s bad luck. I can’t see you until the wedding.”
“Okay,” Drake replies. He reaches out and takes Launchpad’s free hand in his own. Their difference in size never fails to incite a warm, giddy flutter low in his stomach.
“But just so you know, it’s gonna be the blind leading the blind because I still don’t know my way around this place. Even with my normal bad luck, I’d probably lead us straight into a pocket dimension or something.”
“Nah, we made sure to take care of the last one before the wedding,” Launchpad says, but he sounds unsure now.
Drake helps make the decision easier. In two steps he’s standing nearly chest to chest with Launchpad. With a hand on the back of Launchpad’s neck, Drake tugs him down until he gets the hint, meeting Drake in a slow, insistent kiss. Launchpad’s hand falls away from his eyes, moving down to cup Drake’s jaw. Drake hums in approval, and tilts his head just so, prolonging the kiss.
When they pull away, Launchpad’s looks stunned, and he blinks several times at Drake without seeing him, wearing a wide, dazed grin. But then his gaze sharpens, judging by the way his eyes widen and his beak drops open. He leans back and looks Drake over from head to toe.
“Wow,” he murmurs. “Daisy’s gonna kill you when she sees what you’ve done to your hair.”
Drake groans. “Don’t remind me.”
Launchpad reaches up to lightly run his thumb over the crease in Drake’s messy bowtie. Drake clutches at his wrist.
“You look amazing ,” Launchpad vows, much more seriously.
“I love you,” Drake says, and he’ll never tire of how right it feels to say it. “Are you ready to teach me how to crash?
“Again, I’m still not sure if it’s our wedding you’re talking about or actual crashing. ‘Cause I’ve got the Thunderquack ready to go in the garage if that’s the case.”
“Let’s get married first,” Drake replies, completely serious if not for the smile making his beak waver. With his hand on Launchpad’s wrist, he pulls Launchpad’s arm down until he can thread their fingers together. “I think I’ve kept everyone waiting long enough, don’t you?”
“I thought you were all about dramatic entrances?” Launchpad replies cheekily, his expression blinding in its joy, and Drake doesn’t think he anyone could blame him for pulling Launchpad into another kiss, and then a third.
They only stop because they’re being a little too dangerous with what little leeway they get in being fashionably late for their own wedding. Instead, Drake consoles himself with the knowledge that the next time he and Launchpad kiss, they’ll do so as husbands.