Story [Penguins of Madagascar] Flag Day (response to prompts, complete)

Title: Flag Day

Author: pronker

Era: Sometime after Debriefer, Debetter, to which this is a loose followup.

Summary: Marlene thought her "condition" was cured.

A/N Used prompts from theForceDOTnet.

IOIOIOIOIO

Skipper barged into Marlene's habitat as usual. He cartwheeled with a double tuck over the brick wall and spun around her plane tree's lowest branch like Nadia Comaneci. He aced a three-point landing next to her on the grassy knoll where she'd decided to stargaze without her telescope since New York City was less hazy in June than predicted. He must have run like Loca The Pug could not to reach her side.

Strange.

"Running late again?"

He regained his breath quickly, but there was still something off about him. "Yeah, had some things to think over. The men picked Go Fish! to play tonight and I'm just sick of it, you know how you get sick of stuff? And then I remembered hey, Marlene invited me to visit, so here I am."

Mmmmm, handling three vibrant personalities could get wearisome during down time, she supposed. "I just figured you got busy when you missed watching the sunset with me. Forget commanding and see what the sky does after dark, leader man." The grass cushioned them both as she babbled about the starry ribbon in the sky containing Orion's Belt, Oxfords and Matching Wallet.

From the distant Children's Zoo arose a screech from the spider monkeys and she felt rather than saw Skipper's frown. "The spider monkeys are up to something, I just know it. Nobody can understand their lingo, but I'm 110 percent sure they understand ours. I don't trust an animal that doesn't like to talk."

She chanced a change of subject to a more pleasant thread of conversation. "Oh I don't know. Kitka doesn't talk a whole lot and you like her."

"Kitka and I are history. I thought you knew."

Smart move, Marlene, smart move. "I'm not a gossip, so how could I know unless you told me? And I'm sorry, friend. She seemed just your type."

"Seemed being the operative word. Hell, Marlene, I'm at loose ends and I hate that. The missions go well, at least. It sucks big time when work and personal life get out of control."

Pumping up a friend's ego is easy when he gives you a headstart. "Yes, you and the guys really fried the poison ivy invading the Children's Zoo play yard!"

"Aw, that was Rico's flamethrower. The rest of us fanned so no humans spotted the smoke."

Sometimes being a friend was hard work, just like the teachings of the Labyrinthine Mollusk said. "You gave the command to fire, didn't you? And deduced the menace to kiddies, humans and otherwise? What if little Eggy and his duckling bros waddled through the patch?"

"Still was Rico. My superior officer says that we rely too much on him. She's correctamundo."

Wow, he must really be bummed if he let slip so much about his organization's structure. "So it was a team effort and you acted like a team. That's what you're about, right? Doing good as a team?"

She felt his chest swell against her side with an inrushing prideful breath. "We did, didn't we?"

"You bet! The rest of us talked about it for hours!"

The chest deflated. "I, I have a rep, er, you know --- " A loud grunt from another zooster made them both look around before continuing. It was probably Roy, because rhinos circled three times before flopping into their bed for the night just like dogs did.

"I do know. You've earned it, pal."

Now he floundered. It was sort of cute. "Not just in work, but personally. At our main base's seminars across the Big Pond, they call me the Neverending Story."

"You're kidding." More boring information about his chain of command. Wait, what? Neverending Story? The nickname couldn't refer to him telling war stories because he wasn't that good with words. Kowalski was better.

"No, really. You remember the song" --- Skipper tuned up his pleasant tenor to warble Well I'm the type of guy who really gets around before he slumped --- "and I'm stuck in non-action mode like two kids in a Chinese finger trap, only I don't have fingers." Eh, another screech from the spider monkeys, those night owls. Somebody must be near their domed wire cage to send them into a tizzy and they'd sent up the alarm. It was a good thing the nearby Zoo Nursery sported soundproofing.

What he sang next stirred up unquiet reminiscences, not bad ones exactly, but not really good ones, either, especially when she recalled how everything ended.

At least it had been mutual between her and Guillermo.

At least she could tell herself that without fibbing.

Marlene pushed away disgruntled memory as Skipper coasted into another oldie. Dang, how did he come up with them? Still, singing meant her fix-it was working.

She wished he would quit.

"I'm a traveling man, made a lot of stops, all over the world, if you're ever in Freirina stop and see my cute little Chile girl ... " Skipper's musicale trailed off at her grumpy face. "Her name is Araceli," he explained.

"You're kidding."

"Stop saying that. It's true. We parted on good terms. I wish she could swim up here so the whole zoo could see I don't let grass grow under my feet rebounding from crash and burn flings."

He called it a fling to sound tough but it hadn't been simply a fling, just like Guillermo hadn't been. The stars still twinkled but failed to distract. Nuts, now she was thinking even more about Guillermo and she hadn't thought of him in months. "Why are you telling me?"

"So I can hear myself tell it and believe it inside myself. I don't like feeling like this and you make me feel better most times. We first bonded when you saved me from drowning in the sewer, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah, and you saved me from going all feral every time I leave the zoo." Would singing break the fugue? A purple dinosaur's song came to the rescue because she was getting tired of wallowing in downsville. "I saved you, you saved me, we're a happy family, with a great big hug and a kiss from me to you, won't you say --- "

"Marlene! Don't finish!" Skipper sounded panicky and there was a whupsh noise from someplace. My goodness, the neighbors proved restless tonight. Were those footsteps? Well, just because she felt safe and secure inside her habitat nighttimes didn't mean that everybody else had to. Maybe wandering after the zoo closed was their way of going feral in a safe way, even though feral and safe didn't sound right together.

"Don't!"

Oh good grief, more damage control. You are needy this evening, my friend. "What? Oh, right, the rest of the lyrics. Um. Not appropriate, sorry."

"No. They're not."

"Yup." She made a rueful noise as the unwelcome mood persisted. "You know, though, if I could have talked when I turned feral those times, it would be something that I would have said, uh, sung. Everything around me was looser and open to possibilities, I guess? The sky looked bluer, the leaves in the park whispered to me in tree-speak, Julien seemed attrac--- "

Skipper clamped her lips in what she supposed she could call a kung fu lip lock. "Speaking of loose, Ringtail is a loose cannon like everybody else from that whackadoo island. Don't go there." Mister, just because you dislike Julien is no reason I can't appreciate his fun side. Marlene brushed him away.

"Maurice is from Madagascar, too, and he isn't loose. Mort is adorably loose. The baby fossa was loosely adorable. I wonder which zoo in the circuit the little cutiepie is touring now?"

"Maurice is the exception who proves the rule. You need somebody not loose, somebody to tie up all the loose ends in your life."

"Who says I have loose ends? I'm comfortable here in New York City." She nudged him. "I have good friends and a good habitat. I'm okay."

"Don't you want more than just okay?"

"Going feral every time I left the zoo and then being cured made me appreciate being okay, okay?"

What sort of a face was that? "Oh no, we wouldn't want you feeling loose. Nothing better trigger feeling loose, no way nuh uh."

Marlene growled at him the way she had when her world was looser and he subsided.

Minutes passed uncomfortably until Skipper returned to the original reason for the visit. "Look at the Big Dipper up there. Is it half full or half empty?"

"It's both."

"I'm a watery kind of guy, Marlene, so I say it's half full."

"Well I'm a watery kind of gal, and I say it's both. Nyah."

He laughed and the night turned from sultry-with-a-chance-of-showers to clear-but-we-need-the-rain. "Why the crabby face before, hermana?"

He drove Fast and Furious on Interstate TMI and she searched her GPS for the exit onto Awkward Turnpike. "Old, old sludge, nothing too bad. Just old. Back to you, Kowalski could offer a sympathetic shoulder, him and Doris, you know --- "

"Kowalski and I do not discuss Doris. It's better that way, just take my word for it."

"I didn't know she was another notch --- "

He used his officer voice on her, darn him. "Take my word for it, I said. Kowalski and I would start swinging at each other again. He's taller than me with a reach like Muhammad Ali's so it's not pretty, and the team doesn't need squabbles over something more serious than whether or not to play Go Fish!"

"All right, all right, sheesh. I raise the white flag, just like you did about playing Go Fish."

Marlene bit her tongue. Ooops.

To her surprise, he was ready with a measured, thoughtful reply. "I've raised one before. The team wrestled me to the ground once to lambaste me about Kitka. They were wrong about her character, mostly." He brightened. "The intervention took the whole team to pin me. Doris has her good points, too, so if Kowalski and Doris get back together, I'll be the first one to breathe easier."

"I'll be happy for them when that happens." She should have known that she couldn't use, um, deploy their Routine 34: Confuse and Distract as well as a commando could.

"Onward to you, lady, did Kitka and I having a fling bother you?"

She took some time to form a reply that wouldn't offend him. "Uh huh. Because, my dear, you are the one I run to with my problems. I needed to know that that wouldn't ever change, and I got to worrying that it would. Change, I mean."

"And you thought me loving Kitka would mean less time for you?"

Loving? So it had gone that far, uh oh, worse fallout than she had imagined. Marlene rubbed the back of her neck and sought out Zubeneschamali above them. "Uh huh yeah, kinda." If he wanted to entertain this notion, well all righty then. It was only one facet of the troubles she'd dithered over in their friendship and now that she had discovered her fears were unfounded even in the hottest throes of romance, she'd really rather forget them. They were embarrassing, to be honest. "I'm up for a swim, last one in is a rotten oyster!"

The pair were on their seventh circuit of the pool before Skipper said anything more. "I don't believe you about Kitka."

"It's the truth, Skipper. I've seen friendships die when one friend began an exclusive relationship and well, there simply wasn't enough time in the day for, for friends and lovers both. That's all, really." Drop it, please oh please. There came a snort of disbelief but it didn't sound like his snort.

Strange.

"Hmph. Bet none of those friends were penguin commandos. We make time for our friends."

He'd sidestepped or ignored any offense, good on him. "Ha ha, right you are!" She flicked spray on his beak. "Gotcha!"

He dipped below to lift her up easily as she squealed. She laughed when he performed like a synchronized swimmer and whirled his legs in the eggbeater kick. He kept upright in the water with only his beak projecting to breathe as he supported her by his flippers on the small of her back. Just to be showmanlike, she sprawled her paws and made little circles with them. When she glanced around gleefully, she spied Burt spying on them. She tensed in her friend's grip while her laughter choked off. Skipper plopped her into the water as he spun to see what was in her view.

An elephant isn't known for subtlety, but Burt tried. "Oh hi, guys, don't mind me just trodding a walkabout this fine evening. See you around have fun you two I didn't hear anything." Burt flapped his ears. Those were the ears that heard the Vesuvius Twins and Skipper's team fall out of a tree together from five habitats away.

Marlene could tell that Skipper didn't believe what Burt told him, either.

"Big Gray! Stay awhile! What's your hurry?" Marlene could also tell that Skipper believed he could do this. He could intimidate an elephant.

"Aw that's all right really --- "

"I insist. Don't you insist too, Marlene?"

"I guess so --- I mean, yeah! I insist! Stay and we'll, we'll, uh --- "

"Discuss astrology and the stars, right you are, Marlene! Ever look up at the stars, Pachyderm?"

Burt was artistic more on canvas than in his word choices. "Yeah 'cause they're purty like lil fireflies."

Skipper was in his element of command, and Marlene could only watch and support as she did normally for his team's bewildering array of missions. The times when she could help were few and far between, snack runs and judging burping contests excepted. She watched as the penguin exited her pool by leaping to the bottom of her waterslide and then slicing against its current to stand atop it at Burt's eye level.

Burt had arrived in his stroll behind the waterslide that hid his bulk from them. Marlene didn't want to think that his presence was anything more than chance followed by his weakness for gossip that stayed his feet from wandering further. Burt was big-hearted and frankly, not all that smart. His artistic talents and bravery confronting Savio The Boa Constrictor were his standout achievements in life.

"Burt" --- oh ho, no nicknames, Skipper what do you have in mind? --- "Burt, Marlene and I were just stargazing, isn't that right, Marlene?" He gestured to her and she nodded vigorously before realizing that Burt would have trouble seeing her if she stayed in the pool.

"Yeah, we were so stargazing! Lovely night tonight, huh Burt?"

"Spectacular, uh huh." Suspicion laced the elephant's tone and it sounded as if he were getting the drift of being hoodwinked.

"Now, Burt, what's your sign?" Gloriosky, this was a conversation right out of the sixties, or so she'd heard one was like. What was going on in her friend's battle mind? Because protecting his private life from disclosure was a battle, to Skipper's way of thinking. Well, such an issue would be touchy to her, too, but she didn't think she'd go ballistic if her problems surfaced to others. The trouble was, she conceded, that once a secret got out, it didn't stop with one or two in the know. It spread like poison ivy rash when you scratched it.

Marlene hyperventilated. First her problem would be known to Burt and then Burt would tell Roy. Roy wasn't a gossip. Neither were the spider monkeys, nor the baboons except among themselves. But there was Pinkie who flew around the zoo to spout the goings on between members of her flamingo flock that nobody else could tell apart. There was Barry, noxious little Barry who looked cute but held a blabbing foot-long tongue in his toxic dart frog mouth. Soon her difficulty would spread to outside the zoo! Maybe even to Fred! Or back to Guillermo! It was time to act to keep exes out of the loop!

Burt rumbled to himself before replying. "I'm a --- "

"I'm a Scorpio! Yup, a true friend! No revealing secrets for me! You'd think otters might be Aquarius or Pisces but nope I'm a Scorpio!"

Pachyderm and penguin alike beheld her scramble upwards to the top of her waterslide. When she joined him, Skipper looked sideways at her. "That's nice to know, Marlene. Now, Burt --- "

"Gemini." Burt appeared as bashful as a newborn Dumbo. "I'm so big, it makes sense that two humans get to be me." He batted his long eyelashes at them.

Skipper wasn't charmed. "Gemini? So you like to chat with everyone."

"Guilty as charged! I'm a people person aw I don't care if it's baboon people or rhino people or cockroach people --- I hate mice people, though." He stomped one massive foot. If Skipper or Marlene had been under it, they would have been done for.

Skipper continued anyway. "We've noticed. Moving on, Burt, we Aries are impulsive and we hate delays."

"Huh. Who knew." Was that a touch of sarcasm from Burt? Marlene couldn't tell. And was the foot stomp meant to show off Burt's great physical mass in a passive-aggressive way? She couldn't let Skipper wend his way alone through this mine field that was so terribly important to him.

"Yeah um we Scorpios love truth and grand passions" --- she resisted looking pointedly at Skipper --- "and we also are resourceful and and true friends ---"

"Even though you said that before, we Aries appreciate that fact, really we do, Marlene, and now it's time for us Fire Signs to forge ahead like we do best." Skipper pulled her close and she was so taken off guard that she fostered the public display of affection. She slung her right paw over Skipper's shoulder and drummed a soft tattoo against his collarbone. She saw Burt's eyes catch the movement. She saw the curiosity in them.

She licked her lips for effect. Guillermo had liked that.

Skipper squeezed her waist and Marlene snugged her hip against his to sway them back and forth a little. Were they planting confusion in Burt by the flurry of messages? Was the body language of her and Skipper at this very moment saying "We two are so getting it on beneath everyone's nose in Central Park Zoo?"

Confusion ruled as Burt seemed to lack words and Skipper filled the power vacuum. "Interesting thing about the sign of Aries, Burt. We are filled with loving emotions yet we can hold a grudge, too. Kind of moody, we are." He pecked Marlene's cheek and smoothed her whiskers. "You never know which side of us will prevail. It makes us dangerous."

Marlene felt obliged to contribute more than a suggestive smile at the touches. She leaned her head on Skipper's shoulder and sighed gustily as if overcome by either memories or anticipations.

Burt's face was a study in Gemini's trademark nervousness and indecision. "Yeah I see that uh huh," he managed. "Well it's been a little slice of heaven gabbing with you two but I'm getting a cramp just standing here gotta move on I'm a big boy you know."

Skipper left him with a final evocative image. "Ta ta, Burt! Toodle oo!" He let go Marlene's waist to seize each foot and heave upwards. She stood straight and tall on his flippers and then he inched them together judiciously so she could balance like a wirewalker. Burt stared as Skipper collapsed the pose. Marlene plummeted to straddle the flippers, which Skipper then angled downwards so that she slid to land on her hind feet. Her eyes rolled up and she stumbled at the landing but eventually stuck it with a dreamy smile in Burt's direction. Skipper steadied her spine against his front as he held her around the waist and grinned.

Burt's trunk uncurled. "'Bye guys. I'll, I'll um leave you to it whatever it is. Nice stars tonight, really guys we gotta do this again um. 'Bye. Again." He could move silently when he did the old elephant trick of pulling up the inner muscles of his enormous feet to leave only a ring of strength to support his weight. He could relax the muscles just as easily to shape each foot into a flattening sledgehammer disk. As he strode away as quietly as Savio could slither, he threw them a backwards glance as if to confirm what he'd just seen. The opportunity was right and Skipper acted as a true Aries would.

The kiss plunged to threaten her tonsils as Marlene got into the spirit of the thing and wove her paws through the feathers on Skipper's head. She bent backwards to a supple 225 degree angle and wrapped one leg around his hip. They balanced until gravity won out and they collapsed to the cement together.

"He's gone! Hooha! We did it, Marlene! He'll think twice about what he heard and then what he saw before he passes it along as gossip! My rep is secure! Way to go, lady! High one! Or high four! Whatever!"

Skipper's warm weight still pinioned her like Guillermo's used to and muscle memories flooded her lower brain. She felt looser when he slid backwards between her legs and then stood. She gasped as the reaction hit. It had been months since she'd ushered the feral condition out of her life, but its revival was unmistakable. Dang, she did not need this when a friend visited, or ever, really.

"Oh hey! Sorry!" Skipper looked flustered and if she could have spoken a soothing word, then she would have but she felt out of control. He backed away, not yet in defense stance, which was good because when he did, she would attack by reflex. He said something else that she struggled to hear because blood roared in her ears before shooting downward. The sensation blended with liquid fire in her veins.

The ghost of Guillermo's bass blotted out Skipper's tenor and it was so strange to hear Guillermo's voice again that she whimpered.

"Marlene, get it together. Don't relapse and go feral."

"Ngah. Ngah."

She wavered like a chameleon caught between hues as the battle pitting her usual self against the self who disturbed her peaceful life took her breath away. She blinked when Skipper's voice rose in pitch to override Guillermo's. "Is that yes, you're okay, or no, you're not? I can't understand you!"

It was best he couldn't. He'd prompted her to control her feral side by using the resolve she had inside her, with a little help from Kowalski's Persona Disentangle-izer. She struggled to rise. No no no, she would meet this head on, standing, and would not admit defeat. A howl ripped from her throat as she stood up and threw back her head.

Skipper retreated another step, flippers at attention and ready to defend. "Marlene, it's okay to be wild now and then. I know you can control how wild you get --- "

"Rawrlr?"

Gah, she hadn't yet reached the state of not understanding but oh my, she couldn't talk. His defensive stance riled her. What did he fear from her? Going wild wasn't that heinous. Irritation flared to anger before it settled down into pique, seesawing until she couldn't stand herself any longer.

The only way out is through, girl.

Marlene's toes spread to scrape sharper claws than normal against unforgiving concrete as she dug deep into herself. She closed her eyes to concentrate, afraid that they were the horrid yellow that signaled a worsening feral state.

She had to escape.

From the top of her waterslide to the plane tree's highest branch was a fifteen foot leap but she managed it. She flung back her head for another howl at Sirius, the Dog Star as it peeped through the leaves and the comparison wrenched an awful sounding laugh from her. She slapped her front paws on her mouth as her hind ones circled the branch. She rocked back and forth, strung out between rapture and horror at her state. She felt something was coming to a climax and she didn't know what.

Of course he had followed her. Darn the luck, his head popped up through the foliage by her off-colored right foot and the splotch of white fur on it blended into his snowy white throat in the starlight. She could kick him off the tree if she wanted, to be left alone to struggle through this.

She tried.

Skipper's honed reflexes allowed him to dodge the kick and he clung to her extended foot, threatening to overbalance them both onto the sward below. That fall would hurt, or would it? Would it hurt her and not him, because he always bragged how he knew how to take a fall? Would he be hurt and not her, because she'd leaped around like Tarzan in the park's tree canopy at first transformation all those months ago? That part actually had been exhilarating. The memory of fun took over her brain and pushed speech aside.

"Zoggles," Skipper said in his new opaque language. "Kairnstwifme." He pulled her foot and in a fury she doubled forward to rake claws across his handsome face. She took herself in hand because no talons, not for him, even if he did trigger this whole loosening incident. Her claws brushed the tip of his beak as he whipped his head back, flailing on his perch. This was not going to end well.

"Rawrlr!" Words, words, what good were they?

"Frumkus!"

"Rawrlrrrrrr!"

"Braap!"

Down they fell, caroming from branch to branch until the grass tickled them.

"Ow."

"Ow! Braap! What's with you, Marlene? I don't need another broken bone! Knock it off! Are you going feral? Well do it right now! Change!" He snapped to his feet, feeling himself all over, rolling his shoulders, rubbing his behind.

She'd won the skirmish with her feral side, but there was a cost. She must have looked half-dead because Skipper's training kicked in and he threw himself beside her to grab her jaw. He pulled it forward to clear her airway until she gathered her strength to push aside the beak that wanted to breathe for her. She started to say, "Stop, I'm okay," but her strength had limits and she lolled against him, her head falling backward to the crook of his neck. She looked sideways into the terminator of black and white feathers, breathing heavily.

Marlene felt him give a little jolt as he softened into understanding and came down from high alert. They blinked their eyes in unison, she was certain. "You can let go of me now" was what she tried to say next but when she edged away to look him in the face to speak the words of explanation, Marlene lost it. She covered her face as she sobbed.

The commander knelt by her head. He petted her ear until she batted him away because if there were anything she hated, it was unwelcome touching and never was touching more unwelcome in these circumstances. She had seldom heard him speak so softly. "No no no, honeygirl, don't. I got so tied up in the mission, and, and, and not for the hope of the Endless Iceberg would I do this on purpose. Stop crying. That's an order."

Now hysterical laughter mixed with the humiliation, great, just great, Marlene, you sound like Doc ought to cart you away. "J-Just leave me alone." She heard the pat-pat of penguin feet retreat like they never would from any other sort of battle. She trembled her way to balance after the tears stopped and she peeked through her paws. He had only moved off a few feet. "That's the bad way of bonding," she said huskily. "I'm so embarrassed! I-It's been such a long time since this happened and I couldn't help it oh no I'm embarrassed about that, too!"

The pat-pat approached and he lifted her paws away from her face. She couldn't meet his eyes. "Marlene, don't mess with Mama Nature when She wants you to get loose." He plotzed beside her head and squeezed her shoulder. She rolled away from him because she still could use more time to recover and feeling his hot bird body heat through her cheek fur threatened to set her off once more.

She struggled to use words because otherwise she would explode. She might explode anyway if he acted other than what she thought he would. He'd put the blame for her volcanic response to his playacting on Mother Nature or the Labyrinthine Mollusk or whatever he chose to call the Higher Power, right? She had to reply to him or die trying. He'd already said he didn't trust animals who didn't like to talk.

"Whew, I haven't had such a workout since basic! Thanks, Marlene!"

He wanted to gloss everything over, aw gee, that's sweet but I don't need that, my friend. Marlene twisted back to finally meet his gaze. "Mama Nature rolls us snake eyes, Skipper, when this happens."

If he made a joke, she'd kill him, no regrets. "So reach for tomorrow, lady. See up there?" He pointed to Aries and as if on cue, two meteors swam perkily before drowning in New York City's skyline.

"An Arietid!" she exclaimed. He looked startled.

"Uh, yeah, what you said. No lie, I just meant keep looking to the stars for your future. An Arietid, huh?"

They settled in to watch the sky for the rest of the night.

IOIOIOIOIO

The End.

IOIOIOIOIO

 

+ Mira_Jade Thanks for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed their back and forth and subterfuge with Burt. It was fun to write and yes, they are there for each other at this stage of the game, even through debilitating stuff like falling from trees, breakups and feral relapses. The s.1 ep "Otter Gone Wild" established the condition and it came into play in a number of other times. Kitka may be history, but she casts a shadow, as does Guillermo, who were more than just flings. Fred counts as a fling.

 

Fun and companionable and quite sizzly chemistry between Marlene and Skipper Although they'll both insist "we're just friends" - yeah.

 

+ WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Thanks so much for reading! Yup, they have got something going on and they may take a while to decide just exactly where they want to go with it. Baby steps, baby steps ...