Ducktales: Journey To Agartha - Act 2

Chapter 25: Beaks of Steel, Your Local Charity

Mark yawned before opening his crusty eyes. Wiping his little eye boogers away, the blurry figure next to him on the couch became clear. It was Ellie. She had gone back to reading the art history textbook after hours of looking at photo albums of Mark's childhood last night. Even after his mother had left, he couldn't pry it away from her. She was so invested in all of his cringey photos that she refused to get romantic again, saying there were plenty of other times they could do that but only a limited amount of time she could look at the albums. Mark got pissed like the little hoe he was and fell asleep on the sofa after scrolling through tumblr pages that his adoring fans had made to praise him. He had to get his ego from somewhere.

Since the cushions had shifted a tad, Ellie knew he had woken up. Yet, she hadn't taken her eyes off the textbook. "Good morning."

"Sup." He sat up and started whining immediately. "God, I fell asleep on the couch like some commoner. My back hurtssssssss."

Ellie conveniently finished the textbook after his complaint and was able to give him her full attention. "I'm sure a massage could rid you of your qualm." She smiled.

He gasped, placing his hands on the side of his face like Edvard Munch's "The Scream", except he was happy not horrified. Close enough. "You'd be willing to give me a massage?! That'd make up for the lame date!"

"No, your mother has professionals at the spa for that. I need to go retrieve Boyd from Gloria and Gyro's quarters."

Mark threw his head back on the Gucci couch and groaned. "Oh my god, you're laaaammmmeeeeeeeee!"

Ellie smiled. For some reason she started to find his negative personality and complaints more charming lately. Or it was just a coping mechanism for how annoying he was. "I'll see you at breakfast." She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek to make him somewhat happy before putting the textbook and albums away (though keeping some of the photos obviously), finally leaving Mark to continue whining on the couch.

Conveniently and, as always, for plot reasons, the suite was fairly close to the library. Ellie felt partially guilty for leaving Boyd at Gloria's all night, but that was a part of babysitting, wasn't it? She probably should've told Gloria that the time of Boyd's retrieval was unknown.

She lightly knocked on the door, not wanting to cause too much of a ruckus at 7 a.m.

It took a minute but Gloria finally answered the door, rubbing her eyes. She was still in her pj's and her hair was a mess. Ellie wanted to make a comment about how not put together she looked but decided that was rude since Mark looked like that every morning too.

The room behind her was still very dark with the curtain closed so she exited, closing the door behind her to chat with Ellie in the hallway. "Dang, Ellie. You're here early."

"Good morning. I am sorry if I woke you up."

Gloria shrugged. "It's cool. It's probably better that I didn't sleep in that late anyway. Boyd and Gyro are still sleeping." She pointed toward the door. "Speaking of Boyd, I didn't expect you to leave him here all night. Holy shit, dude. That kid is wack! What the hell were you and Mark doing all night." Gloria didn't intend to get in Ellie's personal romance business but she spat the question out without thinking first.

"Oh, I'll show you." Ellie pulled photos out of her dress pocket because if she was going to wear a million dollar dress it better have fucking pockets. "I got distracted when Miss Glamour started showing me pictures of Mark's childhood."

"WHAT?!" Gloria snatched the photos, flipping through them at an alarming rate. Her eyes widened when she got to the emo picture. "Oh my fucking god. This can't be real."