Work Text:
Despite Della’s fancy flightwork, bullets manage to loop and pepper the sides and pipes of the Cloudslayer, the holes whistling louder than Uncle Scrooge’s screams. There was suddenly a large CLANK, and the plane went spiraling. “Della,” Donald groaned, his feathers taking on a green tint. The turbulence was even worse than when Mickey forced him to journey in his uncle’s stupid time machine. “What’s going on?”
“Ugh,” she growled, flipping switches and twisting knobs. “We’re caught in a tailspin! Whatever they did, it’s upsetting the balance of the plane! But I can’t see through all of this smoke!” Della dared to remove her hands from the wheel in order to slip on her aviator’s goggles, roll down her window, and stick her head out, but it was no use.
Donald unbuckled his belt and allowed himself to slide to the front of the plane, whose nose was now pointed at an angle less than forty degrees. He grabbed a hold of the copilot’s chair and accidentally upset his uncle’s hat. The miser threatened him with that stupid cane. “Watch it, sonny.”
Donald was in the middle of spitting out a sarcastic apology when something in the mirror glinted. “I think there’s something caught in the propeller!”
Della followed her twin’s finger. “On the right side! Damn it!” Alarms began blaring and lights started flashing. Their descent was becoming too sharp, too fast. She started pulling up and down on the throttle. “I’m trying to shake it out, but it’s really jammed in there!”
“What’re we going to do?” Uncle Scrooge screamed over the horns. “Duck!”
“What?” The twins growled simultaneously. Suddenly their emergency duffel bag came flying towards them and slammed into Donald’s head.
“Not ‘Duck,’ you imbecilic ignoramuses! Duck!”
Donald ignored the stars floating into his vision and dug in the bag for their rope. He knotted it around his waist and gave his uncle the other end. “I’m gonna move it!”
“Lad, no!”
“I have to! Unless you wanna end up flatter than Della’s pancakes!”
“Only weirdos like them fluffy, Don!”
“If they’re flat, they’re not pancakes! You might as well be making crepes!”
And with that, he edged out onto the wing.
His uncle’s soft voice was in his ear. He looked down and accepted a parachute from quivering and calloused wings. “Be careful, mo leanabh.”
He hadn’t been called that in years. Donald nodded and continued creeping out of the plane. As he approached the motionless rotor, he employed his navy training and maximized his lung space to prevent inhalation of the inky smog trailing from the damaged turbine.
The mother of all magnets was nestled in the airscrew. Donald sized up the load, bent his knees, and started to lift. It remained glued in place, and he almost went toppling to his death.
Okay, this thing had to be weakened. But he couldn’t remove some of the plane’s attraction; ripping off the propeller’s blades would make it hard to fly, if they managed to not drill into the earth’s core.
Heat? They were going away from the sun.
This was stupid. He told them that they were going to be outnumbered by air pirates if they went through the Tunnel of the Swan instead of Bear’s Cove. But did anyone listen to him? Nooo, of course not. No one listens. Ever. He slammed a clenched hand into the brick of metal. He saw the blades inch from the impact, and the plane immediately, albeit lightly, responded.
No, he didn’t have a hammer, but he had something way better: his fists.
Donald allowed all of his anger to pool into his wings and lost control. Almost immediately the hunk of metal was crushed, and the plane righted itself quickly. Too quickly; the rope had gone taunt and snapped.
Donald fell.
People usually describe how their lives flash before their eyes when they receive a peck from death, but Donald was really thinking about how this could have all been avoided if his uncle had been willing to shell out more than 39 cents for a few yards of rope.
He yanked on the parachute’s cord. Nothing. After a few more failed tugs, Donald accepted that such is life.
Or rather, death.
“DELLA!” Scrooge screamed.
“I see him! Hang on to something!” Her uncle ignored her and threw half of his body out the window in hysterics.
The angle of descent reached zero degrees.
Scrooge, with tears clouding his vision, blindly swung his cane. Something had caught onto it. He looked down in hopefulness and saw his nephew, who seemed almost...bored? Did this nescient numpty not care about the heart attacks the old bird just overcame?
“Alright, alright,” Donald muttered concededly. “Maybe that cane isn’t so stupid after all.” Scrooge regained his strength and gently pulled his nephew up into the craft. After inspecting his duckling for injuries, Scrooge asked, “How are ye feeling, laddie?”
The parachute suddenly deployed, launching Donald to the back of the plane.