Title: Spring Cleaning

Author: pronker

Era: Three days following "Candles."

Summary: Skipper notices that as attentive daughter, romantic partner, and incipient mother, Marlene embraces many facets of femalehood. Can she handle an unwelcome one and still remain on his team?

A/N From the prompt "Stroke of Genius" on TheForceDOTnet. The Americana fact is astoundingly true.

IOIOIOIOIO

"Where's our egg? Ouch." Marlene's first mission as a commando hadn't been all that tough, except for the cannon. If anyone had to be hurt by it, Skipper preferred it be him.

It was.

"It's Rico's turn to chauffeur little Sally or Donald. Lie on your tummy and let me rehab your thighs, okay, honey?"

Concern ebbed from Skipper's face as he clenched the blanket. He concentrated on the stylish globe lamp over the bed. If he turned his head on the pillow just so, he could see it out of the corner of his eye. It glowed crimson, a bright hue he'd chosen to accessorize Marlene's red gouache drawings of San Francisco's Chinatown Arch on her northwest cave wall. The shopping trip to IKEA funded by coins children tossed into the penguin pond had proved most delightful for them both. "Guh."

"Another muscle spasm?" Marlene continued the deep tissue massage.

Skipper clenched harder. "Mmmmmmmmoh!"

"Another and oh one more. Let me dig in deep, there we go. For Mollusk's sake, you're responsive! I'll remember that spot for next time."

Skipper twisted around halfway to look her straight in the rib. "Not going to be a next time."

"Aw, don't say that. We all liked messing with you. You just need more drills on how to take a fall. Roll over."

"¿De veras? You're telling me I need more drills?"

"I'm bicycling your legs thrice aaaand now we're done. Here's a blanket to keep the muscles warm." She swaddled him infant-fashion before snugging beside him.

The all over pressure felt oddly agreeable. "Way t-to get back in my g-g-g-good graces, Ms. Otter."

"I never want to be out of them for long. Honestly, you guys and your horseplay. Count me out next time." Marlene switched from tracing his left flipper on the outside of the swaddling to pointing accusingly at him. Good red eye gravy, he was the one who deserved tender treatment in his expectant state. He was going to be a father out of the blue and she'd confided in him at their pillow talk that her mom had prepared her since teen days to be a mother.

"You're griping because we three blanket tossed you astride a Revolutionary War cannon in Central Park and you landed weird? I don't know about you, Skipper, I just don't know. It was only for fun."

"I like, no, I love, fun! Dial down joining in the machismo manly manhandling, that's all I ask. You're a bad influence on them. Ow, don't move around so much."

Marlene drew figure eights in the air as she played at being two strafing Fokker pilots while making a-a-a-a-a-a-a machine gun noises. "Very well. I'll debut my first coded battle signal just for you. I'll call it Routine Ninety-Nine: Partypooper."

"If you planned to embarrass me, you have."

"Don't pout."

"Not."

She blew on his earhole as he refused to respond in the way he usually did. "What happened isn't worth a fight, Skipper. You briefed us that our mission was to make certain the park staff cleaned out all the live gunpowder they found when they undid the cement plug for refurbishing the cannon to display. It was one hundred percent gone, but now we're positive! New York City safety for the win! Hoo-yah!"

"This was your first mission with me and the guys." That ought to explain everything, Skipper thought.

"So what? You four get collateral damage all the time. Next mission it might be me. I expect to get used to it, even if I am just an as needed commando."

Okay, so it didn't explain everything. "You and I have joshed around before solamente and it didn't hurt or embarrass. The testosterone tripled with Rico and Kowalski and if Private didn't stay behind on Mini-Me watching duty, I hate to think what would have happened. Then when you added a jigger pony of lady stuff, it made, um --- "

"Zesty Exuberance, a commando cocktail?" She finally left his earhole alone. "Do you want me to quit? Manfredi and Johnson quit the team through dying, but you told me regular quitting is allowed. You can Skype the Big Boss tomorrow, although I'd like to explain it to her myself."

By all that was penguin, he didn't wish her to quit. "You blindsided me getting gung ho like you did. Next time dump Gatorade on me when my back is turned, all right? And nope, I'm not splitting up the team, but thanks for hearing me out." He felt cleaner inside.

"Getting defensive isn't my oyster."

Now was a poor time to pursue that one and besides, he was simply too comfortable. "Hey, no more burn of the muscle strain, just feels nice. Cuddle?"

"Always." She pillowed his head on her shoulder and he purred.

A long time passed that they declined to track. In the way of things, Skipper's left flipper escaped the swaddling. It meandered from under the blanket's edge to stroke and pet. Marlene remained still until the little blip in her belly fur stopped the cruising.

"Eh?"

"Not a nipple. Keep moving, it's nice."

"I know it's not a nipple. I'm not ignorant about female bodies, even mammal ones."

He thrummed and strummed. His explorer instinct led him to this discovery and his wide-ranging intel base knew her navel's function when she was a fetus. He admitted being glad that she felt disinclined to lecture on birthing babies and how you nibbled off the cord to leave a stump that became a dimple. Actually, now that he thought more about it, training from her mom would not come into play since she had produced an egg. She was a reverse American pioneer who headed east to the Big Apple from the City By The Bay. How cool was that? It was one of the reasons she attracted him. He added pride to the mix because she laid an egg, his egg.

Skipper drifted into contemplation of her newfound home in New York City, a real home now because it would contain a baby the likes of whom her old Aquarium had never seen. The world had never seen an otguin baby, either. Little Sally or Donald would be unique, a shining star in Central Park Zoo.

Marlene grounded him in that way she had. "I've got no complaints, mister."

Now was also a poor time to start anything of interest. "Quantum excitation! as Kowalski would exclaim." He poked until she grunted. "Does this do anything for you?" Maybe he'd fumbled upon a new erogenous zone in mammals.

"It makes me feel kinda urpy, yeah. Don't do that anymore."

"Are you sure? Kowalski could run some tests --- "

"'Ski doesn't get anywhere near my bellybutton, and if you sic Rico on me, you'll have a civil war. Private will take my side."

Skipper ignored her words to gentle his touch as the fascination continued. He stroked, thinking hard. "Eggs work better," he concluded. "Nice and neat and --- "

"Pure?" smirked Marlene.

"Well, you said it first. Pure creamy white, oval --- "

" --- and delicate because you could crack one --- "

Skipper cringed and his other shoulder came out of the swaddling. "Don't say it even once! It's too terrible to think about."

"I'm sorry, eggs are new to me and if my bellybutton seems new to you, we're even."

He rumpled his brow as he circled the small dimple. "Being even is important?"

"It so is, yeah." Marlene leaned away from the fondling. Aw, her eyelids drooped and she had that ready to nap look. It was too early in the day to snooze.

"Uh huh. So taking turns being even --- "

"Isn't being even, Skipper. No, it's gotta be all the time."

Skipper leaned up on one elbow, still twiddling. "And you call me a purist!"

"You nut, really, Skipper, just stop or I'll, I'll do something you don't like."

"Make me stop, I dare you." He blended in a kiss as he continued stroking. Maybe exercise was just what his muscles needed. Maybe the timing wasn't so poor. "Mmmmmmm."

"Mmmmmno. I mean it." She pushed his chest. "No canoodling for a week. Keep on and I'll make it two."

He hissed in mock dismay until he saw that she grew angry. "Begorrah, macushla, that little nose gets redder and redder! Mad, are we?" He booped her nose as she had booped his beak when they did not know each other half as well as they did now.

She pushed harder at his pecs and he stopped. "Damn. You've been working out." He rubbed his chest.

"Yeah. What you said. And no means no."

"Okay." He arose and stretched. "I feel better, thanks for the tender loving care. You know, I might get used to this celibacy thing. You never realize what you like until you try it. Case in point? Pimentos."

He smoothed the blanket as he peered at her. He could tell that thoughts of napping fled like fleas fleeing a spritz of Black Flag bug spray. She closed her mouth with a snap!

"Nah, I refuse to believe that of you. It's impossible." Let her consider his implication. She'd miss him. He would miss her, well they would miss each other. She smirked, he hid a smile and then she chilled him with a thoughtful expression. Had he driven his love away? What would become of Donald or Sally? He or she would be cared for impartially because it took a zoo to raise a child, but he didn't wish to change his notions of personal parenting any more than he had to. It felt special to think of Marlene and himself as a couple team teaching the baby to smile, to suck down tasty oysters, to play on the waterslide ...

He rarely considered Ringtail's buffoonery as a source of wisdom, but now he remembered how a certain King of the Lemurs' lips wibbled when he recited a couplet in his fractured English. Julien imported a poem from the island of Madagascar to the island of Manhattan: A home without a baby is a rainbow lacking color, a summer with no heat, an ocean still and saltless, a heart that doesn't beat.

Skipper had forged a home with Marlene and their young one and his zoo and his team and he was not about to give anything up. Like any home, it needed spring cleaning at the proper season, cleaning of physical and ethereal qualities. He dimly recalled hearing his own Mimsy and Pop-Pop claiming that everyone finds they possess two families because there is the family you are born into and the family you make, and both are important. How long ago and far away Antarctica was. He would make things in his home as right as he could beside Upper New York Bay as he would beside the Weddell Sea.

"I could abstain, don't you think?" He looked down as he shot his cuffs, so to speak, primping the tips of the flippers that drove her to distraction because she let them. "It can't be more difficult than other missions I've aced."

He had to lean close to hear her. "I d-don't doubt it, honey, if you really want to. You've convinced me." Celibacy? Where did that leave her? What would she do next? He wagered that an epiphany of what to say burst from her brain stem up to her cerebral cortex and shot back down, but her vocal cords refused to cooperate. They failed her as he buffed his flippertips on his chest and examined them held straight before him as he sneaked a peek at her. She appeared worried and then relaxed. She closed her eyes.

Ah. We've played poker. She knows when I'm bluffing. Skipper presented his profile to her before turning to leave. "I'm teasing, Marlene." He stole one last look.

She opened her eyes, spread her paws and mouthed, "Thank You, Labyrinthine Mollusk, for Your grace this day," before pitching the pillow at the part of him that he insisted was all muscle.

IOIOIOIO

The End.

IOIOIOIO

 

A delightfully fun use of stroke of genius. An otguin baby ... I like that

 

+ Mira_Jade Thanks for reading! Marlene and Skipper navigate the traumatizing days of 'oh my we're really going to be parents' with changing attitudes; they're a little at sea and react according to their personalities.

+ WarmNyota_SweetAyesha That was a most excellent prompt! I needed to decide whether Sally or Donald will be called an otguin or pengotter and maybe the term will alternate, or the parents will discover a better term. What counts is the little one will be welcomed with open paws and flippers.