Donald (and Della, but it hurts to remember) was orphaned at thirteen.

He abandoned the sailor suits his mother used to dress him in and started picking fights for no good reason. He'd always had a quick temper, but now he was mad all the time. His anger became a wild, uncontrollable thing, an inferno in his heart, and sometimes he feared it would burn him from the inside out.

He said goodbye to Donald the Dweeb, who always needed his sister to defend was too afraid to talk back to the people who mocked his voice. His old bullies didn't know what to make of his newfound ire, of the way he would glower at them and match them punch for punch.

Sometimes it felt like his anger was controlling him, that it was all he was anymore. Sometimes it scared him. Other times, it made him feel strong. Unbeatable.

His parents were dead. He was through with being a pushover. He had adventures with Uncle Scrooge to toughen him up now, adventures that his parents could no longer say no to.

Uncle Scrooge, who didn't leave their side throughout the funeral. Who squeezed Donald's shoulder and held Della's hand when their parents' coffins were lowered into the ground. Who was the first to insist he would take them in.

If Donald couldn't have his parents, living with Uncle Scrooge was an adequate substitute. Even if outside adventuring, they didn't see him very often.

He had a global company to take care of, and countless meetings and press junkets and business conferences in far-flung countries to worry about. The day-to-day well being of his niece and nephew had to rank fairly low on his list of priorities.

Or so Donald thought.

One night, Donald came back late to the mansion so late that Duckworth wasn't even there to greet him-slash-rat him out.

The fire in the foyer's grand fireplace was out. The mansion was dark save for the occasional hallway lamp, and Donald felt safe in creeping up the stairs with no one the wiser.

He'd made it to the top of the stairs leading to the east wing, where his and Della's rooms were, when the west wing's hall light clicked on behind him.

"And where have you been?" asked the bane of his existence at that very moment, in a very irate Scottish brogue.

"Uh." Without turning around, Donald fished for a lie. His line came back empty. "I went for a walk."

"Uh huh," Scrooge replied, not believing a word. "And I suppose you figured eleven p.m. on a school night was the perfect time for a stroll of the grounds."

Donald could hear his uncle stomping down the stairs behind him, on the brink of joining him at the top of the east stairs. He didn't dare turn around.

"I, uh, I went to meet some friends," Donald said quickly, "and I'm really tired now so I think I'll just go to bed and you can yell at me in the morning, okay, good night!"

"I don't think so," Scrooge replied dryly, closer than Donald expected. He clapped a hand on Donald's shoulder, spelling his doom. "How about I just yell at you now, how's that, lad?"

Scrooge started to turn him with the hand at his shoulder. Donald closed his eyes, as if by obscuring his own vision it would do the same to his uncle's. He knew his genius plan hadn't worked when he heard Scrooge inhale sharply.

"Who did this to you?" Uncle Scrooge demanded, his accent making his words sharp and dangerous.

Donald opened his eyes, or eye, considering his right one was swollen and nearly black with bruising.

Uncle Scrooge was standing before him, with messy hair, in his cashmere robe, arms crossed over his chest and looking more livid than Donald had ever seen him. Angrier than the time the school administration refused to replace Donald's dead name on the class roster. Angrier than the time Donald and Della were briefly kidnapped by the Beagle Boys.

His brow was furrowed and his beak cut an impressive scowl as he looked Donald over, every torn-clothes, bruised, black-eyed inch of him.

"I was mugged," Donald blurted.

Scrooge shook his head once, expression unchanged. Strike one then.

"Would you believe this is all a dream?"

"Donald—"

"Fine!" he exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. "I saw these jerks from my school ganging up on someone! I ran in so he'd get away, and then they tried going after me!"

Scrooge blinked, his annoyance and anger replaced by a taken aback expression.

Donald waited for the outage to make a comeback, but then Uncle Scrooge was chuckling and shaking his head. "A hero in the making, aren't you, lad? I expect you beat those doddering delinquents?"

"Oh, yeah," Donald said proudly. He puffed out his chest, his bruises suddenly feeling like badges of honor. For a moment, he had the same feeling he got when his parents used to congratulate him on a successful speech therapy session.

Scrooge was still laughing, and he patted Donald on the back. "That's m'boy! Keep in mind you're still very much in trouble."

"Aw, Unca' Scrooge!"

"Ah, ah, ah, don't 'Uncle Scrooge' me! Come on now, we'd better do something about that eye of yours," he instructed, guiding Donald back down the stairs with an arm around his shoulder. Scrooge shook his head incredulously. "Honestly, getting into fights. If your mother were here I'd never hear the end of it."

"I thought Mom got in fights all the time?"Donald argued as they headed in the direction of the kitchen.

"Aye, she did," Scrooge confirmed. "And I know that the last thing she would want is for you to do the same."

Donald folded his arms over his chest, glaring down at nothing. "Whatever. Those guys deserved it."

"And so did the dishwasher this morning?" Scrooge asked pointedly. "And my teapot last week?"

Scrooge pushed open the door to the kitchen, flicking on the light.

Donald maintained his expression of indignation for a moment longer before slumping against the kitchen island with a sigh. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I just-I get so mad, and it's like I don't know how to do anything but be mad."

Scrooge busied himself with filling a dish towel with ice from the freezer. He handed it to Donald with a serious look. "Keep that over your eye, now. You'll have a shiner for a few days yet; how you didn't get a concussion is beyond me."

Donald sullenly did as he was told, slouching against the island so that his upper body was practically splayed out across it.

His uncle put the kettle on the stove to boil. Scrooge was like his mother that way; neither of them could enter a kitchen without making tea.

Donald's eyes burned, though it had little to do with the ache of his black eye.

With his back to Donald, Uncle Scrooge sighed and said, "it's alright to be angry, lad."

Donald blinked his tears away, straightening behind the kitchen island. "Yeah?" He asked quietly.

Scrooge looked back at him, his expression tired and sad. "I miss your mum and dad, too. I hate that Hortense is gone, and…sometimes I want to blame her for leaving."

Donald looked away, closing his free hand in a fist on the countertop.

He'd never wanted to admit it, but when his rage was at its fullest, when he felt the most alone, he'd hate his parents for dying. Hate them for getting in the car that day, hating his mother for dying in something as unremarkable as a car accident when she had her life supernaturally extended so as to avoid the slow creep of illness or old age.

The kettle started to whistle, and Scrooge switched off the burner. He poured some of the hot water into a waiting teacup.

"It's alright to be angry," he repeated, "But you can't let it become your life." He turned back around, stirring his tea with a small spoon. "That means no more fights, not if you can help it. No more calls from your teachers, and especially no more destruction of my property." Scrooge pointed at Donald with his tea spoon, expression playfully stern.

Donald's shoulders still hitched a bit in embarrassment, but he smiled. The weight of his anger was still there, that latent rage, but it felt a little lighter. Not as consuming.

"Thanks, Uncle Scrooge," he mumbled.

Scrooge came around the side of the island, wrapping at arm around Donald's shoulders and drawing him to his side.

"Anytime, lad." He cleared his throat, looking away. "And if…you ever want to talk about your mother and father, you know where to find me. Aye?"

Donald nodded, hugging Scrooge back with one arm as he held the ice pack against his eye with the other.

Uncle Scrooge held him for a long moment, lowering his head so his beak brushed against the top of Donald's head. As much as the hug settled Donald, he suspected that his uncle needed it more than he did.

After some time, Scrooge loosened his hold and patted him on the back. "Alright, Donald, you'd better get yourself to bed. You still have school tomorrow after all."

"But my eye!" Donald protested.

Scrooge shrugged, going back to his tea. "Should've thought about that before you started picking fights."

"Ugh," Donald muttered, stomping out of the kitchen. "Della'll never let me hear the end of it."

"Good night, lad!" Scrooge called after him cheerfully. "Keep icing that eye of yours!"

"Good night, Uncle Scrooge," Donald gritted out, without turning back around.

But despite his frustrations, Donald knew he wouldn't be mad with Scrooge the next day. Not even when Della burst into his room at six the next morning so she could see his black eye herself, and only one person could have told her about it.

Over twenty years later, and everything was different.

What started as a way to carry out elaborate pranks against Gladstone and Uncle Scrooge ended with Donald captured on the eleven o'clock news defeating the Phantom Blot. Before he knew what was happening, the Duck Avenger was born.

Donald was twenty years old when he became Duckburg's defender. He saw and did amazing things, things beyond even his uncle's greatest imagining. He met and lost Uno. He traveled to the future.

When Donald was twenty-four years old, he learned he was going to be be a uncle.

When he was twenty-five years old, his sister disappeared from his life forever.

He was twenty-five when the Duck Avenger was quietly retired.

Everything he'd become (hero, adventurer, caballero, nephew) took a back seat to the three little eggs, and the three little boys who hatched five days after his Uncle Scrooge gambled with Della's life and lost.

Donald was thirty-five when he saw Scrooge again.

Thirty-five when he swallowed his pride and gave his boys a stable roof over their heads, gave them the same dangerous and exhilarating childhood he'd had, introduced them to the family he'd thought he was protecting them from. When he finally carried out Della's wish for Scrooge to be a part of her children's lives.

For ten years, Donald hadn't been anything but a father. He loved his boys, and they were his; his to coddle and to lecture and to fret over. He loved them, and being able to watch them grow was the greatest gift he'd ever receive. But his identity had been swallowed up by endless dead end jobs, the stagnancy of never leaving the marina, constantly worrying that he would screw up somehow, screw them up somehow.

Donald came back to Scrooge, and (though he hated to admit it) he came back to himself in the process.

He tore shadows apart with his bare hands, and he'd never felt more alive. The Three Caballeros rode again, and he was best acquaintances with a demigod.

His boys were safe and happy and healthy and finally knew the truth about their mother.

And when he was thirty-five years old, just as quietly as he'd been retired, the Duck Avenger returned once more.

"Who did this to you?"

With one sentence, Donald was abruptly transported to another time, another life. When he was awkward and gangly, when he grew his bangs long and the pain of his parents' death was still fresh and he was angry at everyone and everything.

Just as he had done at thirteen years old, Donald was sneaking back into the mansion, bruised and battered and exhausted.

And now, as he had then, Scrooge was waiting for him.

The mansion was supposed to be empty. Donald had counted on it being empty; everyone was supposed to have gone on an expedition to Kafka Island that he'd backed out of last minute. So Donald hadn't bothered with much stealth since he'd thought Duckworth would be his only concern. But instead he got Scrooge sitting in an armchair in the foyer, clearly waiting up for him.

Scrooge sitting in his robe, messy-haired and disapproving, his arms crossed like Donald was that rebellious teenager all over again.

"I'll ask again," Scrooge said icily. "Who did this to you?"

It was a fair question, considering Donald was decorated in a mosaic of bruises, his head bandaged from a cut that would just not stop bleeding, limping from what was a sprained knee at best, and a broken bone at worst.

Darkwing had, begrudgingly, called for backup to take down an underwater F.O.W.L. base in the Audubon Bay. Duck Avenger had responded, and so had Gizmoduck, which was a good thing because there had been a whole battalion waiting for them inside.

But Donald wasn't that moody teen anymore, needing his Uncle Scrooge to hold his hand. Or lecture him, for that matter. He allowed Scrooge to be in his boys' lives, but it ended there.

So Donald briskly replied, "I was mugged," while walking past Scrooge with as much dignity he could muster, considering his limp.

"Oh, aye?" Scrooge retorted sarcastically. He stood up to follow him. "You only ever look like you've got ten dollars to your name, and someone beat the life out of you for all of it?"

"It's hard times all around, Scrooge."

Donald nearly made it past the expansive fireplace, but his rapid pace caught up with him. His knee creaked, and pain lanced through his leg so sharply he almost fell over. He leaned forward and grabbed the edge of the fancy wooden fireplace mantle so tightly his knuckles popped, and concentrated on taking deep breaths through his nose.

Scrooge, of course, was standing a foot away from him for all of this, and kept far from quiet.

"Take it easy, lad." The bite in Scrooge's voice eased, until it reminded Donald of how he talked to the kids. "I can't have you keeling over in my parlor."

"I'm fine," Donald muttered. He was definitely not fine.

"Aye, I bet." Donald could practically hear Scrooge roll his eyes. "Come on now, let's get you in the den and see if we can't fix you up." He pressed a guiding hand between Donald's shoulder blades.

Donald reacted violently at the contact. He didn't know if it was the mission that left his nerves raw and volatile, or because it was Scrooge, whose name alone had made him flinch for ten years.

He jerked away, swinging his arm in a wild, blind arc that Scrooge just narrowly avoided. Donald fell clumsily into a defensive pose, his abused body aching. His knee screamed at the abrupt, rapid movement, and gave out beneath him.

"Donald—" Scrooge's cry was aborted, but high and tight with alarm.

Donald just groaned from the carpet, pushing himself up into a slightly more comfortable seating position. His leg felt like someone had taken a hammer to his kneecap (when it came to F.O.W.L. Eggmen anything was possible) and the pain only eased slightly when he stretched his leg out in front of him.

Scrooge kneeled beside him, brow furrowed and expression stormy. "Stubborn fool," he muttered, "You'll be lucky if nothing's broken."

With his eyes closed, Donald massaged his knee as waves of pain ebbed and flowed. "Why aren't you at Kafka Island?" He asked, more plaintively than he'd like. Though he couldn't help it, not with Scrooge hovering over him like the time he and Della were twelve and decided it would be a good idea to parachute off the roof of the mansion. "I thought you were going after a solid gold cockroach or something."

"It was a solid gold flea," Scrooge replied snippily.

Donald wanted to laugh because it was all so familiar. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream and rage because how dare things be the same when Della was dead and gone.

But Donald just sighed, because more than anything he was tired. He'd been tired for the last ten years. He was sitting on the floor of his uncle's foyer, mottled with bruises and too weak to stand, and the last person he wanted to see him like this was sitting next to him.

"And as for why we didn't leave," Scrooge went on, dragging Donald out of his existential reverie, "it was a decision we all came to, though the boys especially insisted."

"Uh huh," Donald mumbled slowly, warily. In his experience, the only thing that could've dissuaded his kids from a dangerous adventure was an even more dangerous adventure.

But Scrooge kept looking back at him, expectantly, like he was waiting for Donald to come to the conclusion himself.

"Bless me bagpipes, you are blind," Scrooge muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "

"Hey—"

"They wanted you to come with us," Scrooge interrupted.

The fire crackled behind them. Scrooge was sitting beside him, his legs crossed, expression serious and imploring as he lectured Donald about his children. And Donald thought he might have a concussion because his life had never felt so surreal, and he had the Storkules, the mythic Greek hero of legend, on his speed dial.

"Huh?"

"You dinnae notice how excited they've been?" Scrooge asked incredulously. "The four of them have been talking up a storm whenever you're in the room. You've joined us on so few of our adventures, they wanted this opportunity to spend time with you. To impress you."

Guilt, raw and bitter, burned the back of Donald's throat. He scowled down at his bum knee.

"Because you know so much about what my kids want," Donald snapped, pain and anxiety and shame catching up to him. This might be the longest conversation he'd had with Scrooge in the last ten years. Just being near him had Donald feeling like he was being suffocated, barbed wire tightening around his lungs.

"I might as well, what with how little you're home!" Scrooge retorted, "I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the perfect guardian, but at least I'm not the one out gallivanting about every night in a cheap suit and mask, taking a beating from every two-bit ned who looks at me funny!"

Donald choked on a breath, the barbed wire coiled in his chest puncturing his lungs and filling his mouth with the taste of blood.

"What did you say?" He managed, his voice coming out strangled. He felt like a deer caught in headlights, and his muscles bunched, ready to bolt, but his screwed up knee kept him firmly in place.

Scrooge rolled his eyes, as if Donald were the one slowly coming a decade-old realization. And maybe he was, all things considered.

"Did you think we didn't know?" Scrooge asked, looking amused. "Voice modulator or not, did you think I wouldn't recognize my own nephew when he showed up on the local news?"

Donald's mind felt like it was spinning down a drain, but one word still managed to stand out to him.

"We?" He repeated carefully.

Scrooge's smile fell, and Donald knew the answer before his uncle even opened his beak.

"Della. She, ah…well I suppose she confirmed it for me." Scrooge's chuckled quietly. "She was walking by while the telly played, nearly spit out her drink when you came on-screen. I hope you'll understand that I was a bit doubtful at first, but Della, Della, she said 'I know my brother. And that's him up there'."

Donald looked away, spreading his hand flat on the carpet. "Neither of you ever said anything," he said softly. "I was the Avenger for five years before…"

Scrooge snorted, expression distant and wry. "Oh, believe me, the second I knew it was you, I wanted to drive over to where you were being interviewed and drag you away by the ear. But your sister…" he sighed.

"Your sister talked me out of it. You could clearly handle yourself, she reasoned; capturing the Phantom Blot was no easy feat. He's still in prison, did you know that?" Scrooge chuckled, but it was a low, mirthless sound.

"But I think that, maybe…I shouldn't have listened to her. I've no idea what you faced in those five years, the dangers you were in without our knowing. There were so many times we, I, could've lost you, by willfully ignoring what you were getting yourself into."

He met Donald's gaze, expression awash with all the grief and regret that Donald had taken years to learn to stifle. "I let myself believe Della was invincible, and look where it got us. I refuse to lose another member of my family the same way."

Donald swallowed. He hadn't spoke with his uncle for so long. For all of Scrooge's mistakes, his bullheadedness and penny-pinching ways, he'd almost forgotten how much Scrooge cared.

Had almost forgotten the early years after his parents' deaths, living with Della in the topmost tower. When he was just so angry, all the time, and Scrooge bandaged his knuckles, bruised and bloody from punching walls and people and a living statue one time. When Scrooge guided him by the shoulder, I think we could find a better outlet for that anger, don't you? And fitted him with boxing gloves, like the ones his father used to have, in a little gym with other boys like him. When Scrooge would stand on the sidelines for his every match, cheering louder and more embarrassingly than any other parent.

It was familiar, and for once it wasn't a bad thing.

This was one step closer to how things used to be. How they used to be. It was huge and important and deserved to be acknowledged.

What Donald said was, "So do I need to ask permission before I go save the world?"

Scrooge's laugh was sharp and loud, and it cleared the dark cloud from his features. "Saving the world, eh? Someone thinks highly of himself."

"I had to get it from somewhere," Donald shot back. He made to bend his knee, and grimaced at the flare of pain that followed.

"There you go with that lip," Scrooge said. He rose to his feet with a huff, straightening his coat. "Let me go get a splint for a Mr. Comedian. I'm still not convinced you didn't break something, but when have you ever listened to my advice."

"Not once," Donald grunted.

"You might want to start." Scrooge paused on his way out of the foyer, looking back over his shoulder. "You know, lad, you're lucky I was the one who found you and not one of the kids."

Donald rolled his eyes, hunching over his aching knee. "And why's that?"

His uncle smirked, pointing up at his face. "You forgot to take your mask off."