Resolution - unfortunatelackofrats - DuckTales (Cartoon 2017) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Lena doesn’t like parties. On that night a million years ago when she met Webby for the first time, Lena told her that she loved them—because all cool teens that eleven-year-old girls look up to love parties. She’d even made sure to use all the cool slang she knew, too, like telling Webby all about the wicked time she’d had at a little get-together the week before while they had walked across town to the junkyard, or calling that weird old beagle lady’s birthday bash with all her sons a blowout .

But that, like most things she’d said that night, had been a lie.

Their sleepover (which Violet keeps astutely referring to as the Collective Bad Dream, as if that makes the memory any less harrowing) was an exception, because Lena planned that herself, and turns out she was really only doing it to subconsciously try and prove to herself that she wasn’t like Magica. That, and to stop the nightmares. She’s pretty sure it worked; they’ve been gone for months—or at least the telepathically-induced ones—and she hasn’t felt any jarring, agonizing guilt about being an evil shadow monster and someday hurting and driving away all of the people she loves lately. So that’s a plus.

Lena planned that sleepover, and it was only for Webby, Violet, and the triplets. She didn’t count Beakley, even if she’d awkwardly stood guard outside their room for a good chunk of the night and slept with her eyes wide open for the rest of it, which was super unnerving, even by Lena’s standards. It had only been the six of them, but tonight, Scrooge had gone along and invited practically everyone in Duckburg with a million dollars or more to their name who didn’t have a personal vendetta against the McDuck clan. Which was actually more people than one might think, considering how many enemies this family had.

Lena didn’t even see how that made sense. Nobody wanted to watch a bunch of the oldest, richest geezers in the world mingle around the manor foyer, eating hors d'oeuvres and bragging about all the money they earned by founding a bank or running seven individual Ponzi schemes or starting a research program to end world hunger or something, only to conk out on a couch before the clock even hit midnight, snoring so loud that their dentures rattle and you can’t even hear the tired, freezing newscaster on TV announce when the ball drops in Cape Suzette and the new year officially begins. In all honesty, she’d expected Scrooge to be above that, but in hindsight Lena can see why that was poor judgement on her part. He is the oldest, richest geezer in the world.

At least it looked like the others were having fun. Scrooge had put Huey in charge of the guest list, a role that Lena would have taken as a punishment, but which the little dude in the hat seems to be fulfilling with gusto; he scurries around the foyer with a clipboard, ticking names off as people come in and giving the other kids quick smiles whenever he runs into them. Once, he spots Lena across the room, seated in a far chair against the wall, and waves enthusiastically above his head at her. Lena smiles, rolls her eyes only a little, and waves back.

Dewey is darting in between guests and grabbing appetizers off of snack trays in a pleased fervor. Earlier Lena had overheard him telling Violet that he had seen some millionaire’s dainty satin glove slip low and reveal an elaborate, ancient symbol trailing down her arm beneath. He’s convinced she’s an alien now.

“Dewford,” Violet had said, as professional as ever, “we know what alien life forms look like. Your mother knows one quite well.”

Lena had watched as Dewey stuffed an amalgamated stack of crackers and cheese cubes into his mouth, spilling crumbs down the front of his suit. “Penny’s from the moon , though! The evil extraterrestrials in our midst tonight are from a planet that’s much more sinister: Pluto .”

Dewey had forged ahead further into the crowd, and Violet followed, leaving Lena to only imagine what she said next. It was probably interlaced with a sigh.

The youngest triplet is nowhere to be seen. He had slinked off down a side hallway a little while ago the moment he thought no one was looking, but if he hasn’t retreated empty-handed back into the foyer yet, then Lena assumes his New Year’s Eve is going nothing short of swimmingly. If she has to take a guess, he’s hiding out in that coat closet near the front door, rummaging through guests’ fancy fur-lined pockets for a little late Christmas present for himself. Not for anything major, like a wallet (apparently he knew better now, especially after that big fiasco with Della, and Glomgold, and the Bombie—yeah, Webby had caught her up), but Lena thinks Louie’s definitely making at least a couple of bucks in some spare change tonight.

Lena shifts a bit in her chair. It’s only decorative, and hardly something even she’d call comfortable, but she isn’t planning on getting up. The party had started promptly at eight and Lena had planted herself in the corner promptly at eight. She’s keen to observe and stay off to the side, thanks a bunch, and hopefully none of the guests would notice her the whole night and hopefully they wouldn’t point out her curious resemblance to a certain deadbeat sorceress and hopefully Lena wouldn’t spiral into panic mode and shatter all of the lightbulbs in McDuck Manor.

Hopefully Webby was around.

And apparently fate must be on Lena’s side tonight, on this last evening of the decade, because a group of partygoers clear away from the punch table and Lena can see past them and Webby’s there, wearing a pink and cream dress as puffy as functionally possible and her hair done up in two bows instead of her trademark one. There’s another giant bow on her waist. Her friendship bracelet is fastened around her wrist, clear as day and popping against the soft colors of her dress.

Lena gets a funny feeling in her chest. It feels like someone (probably Dewey, if she’s being real) is banging two silver snack platters together inside her with reckless abandon, timing the crashes in tune with the beat of the amulet pumping her with life. She’s just starting to dwell on what exactly this might mean when Webby’s scanning eyes land on her. Unrepentant glee washes over Webby’s face, and she hurries over at breakneck speed, doing a back handspring off the punch table along the way.

“Impressive,” Lena observes casually once Webby’s in front of her. She feels anything but casual. Hyper-awareness of her own appearance races through her like a substitute for blood, and suddenly she feels that lock of awry hair sticking out from the side of her head, the rumples in her jacket, the way her tie is probably listed to one side. She fights the urge to fix all of these things.

Webby beams. “Thanks! This dress is way comfier than it looks! C’mere, I’m gonna show you something.”

She grabs Lena’s hand and hauls her up and into the fray, and Lena is hit with that thumping feeling again. But it fades into background noise pretty easily as they maneuver through the murmury crowd, clinking glasses and sophisticated laughter and practiced conversation that all blots together in a soft symphony. Lena hears all of this, but sees only the back of Webby’s head as she guides her past the last groups of guests and up the grand staircase. Halfway up they run into Scrooge himself, who’s swapped out his usual curved walking stick for a cane with a fat rubystone knob handle.

Scrooge gives them an inquisitive look, eyeing them up and down. “Not liking the party, lasses?”

“No, the party’s great, Uncle Scrooge!” Webby chirps. “I was just bringing Lena upstairs to give her…” She trails off and gestures theatrically in a way that’s meaningless to Lena. Webby looks expectantly at Scrooge, appearing confident he’ll understand.

Scrooge clearly does not. His gaze rests prolonged on Webby’s undeterred cheer, then flicks to Lena. Lena looks down, trying not to show him how weirdly flustered she feels.

Finally, Scrooge huffs, “Very well then, enjoy.” He turns and continues down the stairs to greet the guests, muttering audibly under his breath. “Kids these days, always so elaborate in their proposals.”

Proposals?

Lena wonders if there’s a shadow term for short circuit . If there is, it’d be a pretty solid descriptor for her current mental capabilities. The word proposal plays in Lena’s mind like a mantra from one of Violet’s spellbooks, over and over, driving her crazy until she blinks and then they’re in Webby’s bedroom, and Webby is behind her closing the door.

“So, what’s it you wanted to show me?” Lena asks, trying to sound absentminded, trying desperately to calm herself down and make sure she doesn’t accidentally blow a literal fuse.

“Oh, um… nothing, actually. Sorry.” Webby then does something Lena hasn't seen her do often, but has grown to recognize anyway: she tugs on the front of her ridiculously fluffy dress and tilts her head downward, subconsciously twisting her foot back and forth on the ground. Nervous tics. Webby is rarely nervous—especially around Lena.

Lena gulps and asks softly, “Webs?”

“I—” Webby stops, then takes a sharp, deep breath. Boldly, she meets Lena’s eyes again. “I have something for you. A… New Year’s present, sorta.”

It’s times like these that it really hits Lena that she definitely does have powers—she can do all this wild stuff, like move things without touching them and turn Moonlander weapons into live ravens and even cling to life as a makeshift manifestation of her best friend’s shadow for six months, but she also must be able to read minds, too, because somehow she knows exactly what Webby’s going to do seconds before she does it.

So when Webby suddenly smushes the sides of Lena’s face with her hands and stands on her tiptoes and leans up to kiss her, Lena knows to kiss back.

Lena’s never been kissed before. Living isolated from society under an open-air amphitheater never gave her many chances at romancing anyone up, but in between the buzzing filling her head she understands that it must be okay, because Webby’s certainly never kissed either. It’s sloppy and Lena has to bend her neck at an awkward angle, because even while stretching Webby’s still so short. Time doesn’t stop the way she thought it would whenever she’d imagined this moment (had she dreamt of this moment?) and in a blink it’s over. It’s over but Lena’s cheeks are still tingling where Webby held her.

“Oh my God,” Lena splutters. She stands there gaping, then continues, dimly mortified. “Webby. I am so sorry. I didn’t get you anything .”

Lena realizes immediately after this that she probably just broke the world record for the dumbest thing ever said after being kissed.

Webby doesn’t seem to care. She laughs, fearless and liberated, and kisses Lena again.

*~*~*~*

After that, they sit down on Webby’s bed and talk for a long time, figuring out the logistics of this new relationship they now have—they decide they don’t mind if the rest of the mansion knows, because a) it turns out that apparently everyone was already clued in about Webby’s hardcore crush on Lena except Lena, and b) Lena’s pretty sure that if you watched a girl get vaporized to sorta-half-death by Magica De Spell, the news that she’s gay and dating Webby Vanderquack wouldn’t do much to drastically sway your opinion of her—and then they head back to the party at an hour till midnight, hand-in-hand.

The moment they step foot back in the foyer, Huey appears out of nowhere in front of them. He’s ditched the clipboard, he says, because all of the guests have officially arrived and his work here is done. At some point while they were gone, he had discovered Louie holed up, just as Lena suspected, in the coat closet, and Violet had managed to convince Dewey that every single guest didn’t actually hold the dire possibility of being a malicious Plutonian spy.

“Oh! Congrats, guys,” is all Huey says when he spots their interlocked hands. “So anyway, then we all got pretty bored, but guess what! Louie talked to Uncle Scrooge, and he says we can all leave the party and go watch movies in the TV room, as long as we stay out of trouble and don’t sneak into the garage to release any more vengeful spirits. Sound good?”

Webby’s face lights up like a Christmas tree, and how could Lena say no to that?

*~*~*~*

Dewey is standing on the arm of the couch when the three of them get to the TV room, holding a plastic DVD case of some Christmas movie Lena can’t make out above his head and giving what sounds like a very passionate speech while Louie and Violet sit on the floor and listen with dubious levels of interest.

“Oh, finally ,” Louie drawls when they walk in. “If I had to listen to one more minute of why he thinks this stupid movie is a cinematic masterpiece, I’d consider going back to the party.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Violet adds, then eats a cracker with cheese from a tray of finger foods on her lap.

Lena watches with anticipation as both of them glance at her and Webby’s hands. For a moment the room is quiet. Then, Violet turns to Louie and states simply, “Ten bucks, Llewellyn."

Louie groans, hands her a wad of cash from his pocket, and snatches one of her crackers.

Dewey hops off the couch and walks over to the TV with the movie. “You’ll be taking back your ignorant criticisms soon, my friends,” he says. “You don’t believe me now, but by the end of tonight you’ll see—you’ll see why Macawlay Culkin wasrobbed of that Golden Globe!”

*~*~*~*

Halfway through Home Alone , at the part where a police officer chases Kevin McQuackllister across a skating rink and then wipes out extravagantly on the ice, the cuckoo clock on the wall begins to chime. Lena doesn’t speak until it’s finished, quietly listening to its dozen tolls.

“Midnight, huh?” she whispers beside her to Webby. The others are all asleep—even Dewey is passed out on the floor in a pile of pillows and blankets with his brothers. Violet is curled up on Lena’s other side, quiet as a mouse.

“Yeah.” Webby smiles, her eyes half-lidded with sleep but still the most beautiful thing Lena’s ever looked at. “Happy new year, Lena.”

Lena floats in the feeling of Webby’s hand intertwined with hers and mutters, “Happy new year, pink.”

By the end credits, Lena’s barely awake herself, but she can feel Webby nestled crookedly against her shoulder, snoring faintly into her ear. Lena wouldn’t have it any other way.