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Operation: Envy	By : pronker Category: +M through R > Penguins of Madagascar Views: 447 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I make no profit from this fanfiction set in Dreamworks' Penguins of Madagascar franchise. I do not own Dreamworks.

Chapter List
- 1-1/4
- 2-2/4
- 3-3/4
- 4-4/4
- 1
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Title: Operation: Envy
Author: pronker
Era: Quite some time after the TV show ended. Set in my Skilene Continuity on this site and others, especially on theforceDAHTNET, from where came the prompt: Seven Deadly Sins.
Summary: Labor Day picnics are the bomb.
IOIOIOIOIO
Criminiddly, this middle age Sandwich Generation game is for the birds, Middle-Aged Skipper thought as he drove to meet More-Than-Ancient Special Agent Buck Rockgut for an outing on Labor Day. Here I am, ankle deep in reports that I need to Skype to the Big Boss before oh-six-hundred tomorrow Eastern Daylight Time and it's a holiday weekend and I'm tootling down 57th Street to pick up a penguin who out-paranoids even me.
Despite the team's offers to smuggle him into their care in Central Park Zoo, Rockgut toughed out life in Central Park, evading mounted rangers, groundskeepers and voracious peregrine falcons alike. At Columbus Circle, commando commander and retired commando completed Rendezvous Alpha successfully, Skipper strapped the aged bird into the shotgun seat and took off. The first fifteen minutes passed pleasantly enough because in all truth, he was glad to give the old guy a ride and indulge him in chitchat.
Buck's voice had always been raspy and now it was sprinkled with whispery. "We've discussed the Mets, the Rangers and your wussy team's wussy latest mission, so how about this topic? Right after I wake up after my usual dream about the eeevil White Widow, something exciting happens!" he crowed. "Guess what it is, go on, guess!"
On the side of his body facing away from Rockgut, Skipper cringed. He stated firmly, "I don't need to know this, Buck. Critical intel dispersal is based on need to know, you know? And I don't." He saw that Buck's face grew blank and Skipper persevered because he would never, ever be able to unsee what Buck seemed set on describing. "Need to know, that is. Please."
"Please is for sissies, just like I always thought you were. Well, cupcake, each morning I wake up and - "
" - please, no, stop aw hell go on who else have you got to talk to -- "
"I open my eyes! I'm alive! I survived another night! Why, what did you think I was going to say?"
There was the gimlet gaze that harpooned Skipper's classmates and Skipper himself under Rockgut at long ago OCS; actually, it was a relief after the previous muddled looks. "I thought you were going to talk about the weather," Skipper extemporized as he navigated early traffic from folks out to claim the really prime tables for their Labor Day picnics.
"Why would I?" The gimlet drilled into the side of Skipper's head as he deliberately drove over a rumble strip to jar Rockgut's concentration. It worked.
"Move over and let me drive!"
"You don't have a license anymore, Buck."
"Why the braap not? I can drive as good as you." Skipper dodged a Kia at the 65th Street Transverse Road to keep heading north before replying.
"No, you can't. You wove this very car in figure eights through Penny The Police Horse's legs last Easter."
"Why the braap didn't she get out of the way? Stupid horse."
"She couldn't. She was tied to a drinking fountain while her rider got a drink."
"Stupid human."
Everyone said it was useless to reason with dementia. He had to try, anyway. "In the excitement, she trampled you and our car until Rico chucked a smoke bomb at her because he was quickest to get to you. Remember how you did doughnuts on two wheels on the bridle path six minutes before the drinking fountain? You dumped us four out and we ran up to see the damage. It was so bad I yanked your license after we hauled tail out of there."
Rockgut rubbed his head as if it ached because it probably did. He'd gotten quite a bonk on it during that mishap. "Give it back. That's an order."
"No. Look, there's the J'ouvert West Indian Parade! Our flag, see it? I'll stop and we'll salute." He pulled over.
Buck was already saluting, holding it past the time others in the crowd, even Skipper, let it go. Skipper noted the tremble in the worn flipper and turned on the radio to a soothing station as they got back into the car. Maybe it was nap-nap time. It was only seven in the morning, but maybe?
"Better music, better music! Beatles, Beatles, Beatles!"
"Okayokay. Here." Skipper punched a few buttons and then Yesterday played tinnily through the speakers. "Buck, stop diddling with the bass! Now I have to fix it." He slapped away the pestering flippers as he adjusted the balance. "There, happy now?"
Buck harrumphed as he gestured to the west side of Central Park that held Strawberry Fields and Skipper remained glad that penguins had no fingers to give anyone the finger with. "Let me check the field where I grow my braaps. Oh look, Skipper, I have zero braaps to give."
"Charming. See if I ever take you for a drive again."
"I didn't ask you to. Let me off here and I'll find my way back home."
This wouldn't stand because it would spoil the surprise. Skipper sped up to Rendezvous Beta at West 67th Street.
"I don't think so because it would spoil your surprise."
"What surprise, you wise elbow?"
Aw, she was cute as a button, Marlene was, jumping, scurrying through humans' legs and at last gaining the car. Skipper had only slowed down a little and submitted to a kiss atop his head after she propelled herself into the back seat. He continued along Central Park West, unsure if Buck even realized their group now numbered three. "Hey, girl," he said over his shoulder.
"Hey, boy."
"Kids okay?"
"Two are, one is not. Guess which one."
"Sally and her crushes will drive me to drink. Speaking of, we just passed Tavern on the Green. I guess they're not open this early, though. Nuts."
Marlene settled herself comfortably in the elevated back seat before addressing Buck. "Hi, Buck."
Buck's head had been nodding onto his chest. "Huh?" He twisted around to look Marlene firmly in the knee. "Who're - oh. Arlene."
"Heh, it's Marlene and how've you been?" Open and friendly as always is my love, Skipper mused and felt compelled to clarify the sitch.
"Buck, she's your surprise. You haven't seen her in a long while."
"What surprise?"
"Never mind. Enjoy the fresh air."
"I live in a park. The air's always fresh, bozo."
As she always did in sitches like this, Marlene stroked the back of Skipper's neck to make it less granite-like. She picked up the conversation ball effortlessly. "Mmmhmm, when you're right, you're right, m'man. Say, Buck, the last time I saw you, you'd just captured the White Widow. Is she still up the river in Newark Northern State Animal Prison?"
Skipper wanted to hear this, too. "Since the Widow's been captured, Penguin Enemy Number Two is Dr. Blowhole. Penguin Enemy Number One is classified. All I can tell you two is that she is priming herself to hibernate because she's getting fat as a pig on berries, grubs and nuts. I don't think she can fit on her tricycle anymore."
"I'd be fine getting fat on nuts and berries, honey. Pinkie can have the grubs."
"Mamacita mia, no way nohow can anybody consider you as a villain - "
"I don't suppose you'd like to hear the story of me capturing Whitey?" There, lucidity flourished like a naked lady flower blooming from a dried up bulb in September, thought Skipper before it hit him: Whitey? He and Marlene chorused agreement with enthusiasm and Buck continued.
"We're coming into traffic so we're slowing down, anyway. It ain't a short story, just so you know." Buck pitched his voice over the murmur of tire noise, horn beeps and the growing number of humans up and about on a holiday. "Newfakeplacesberg - that's one code name you nancy cats got right for Detroit, by the way - sounded like a high-falutin' big city so I prepared for disguises, intrigue and a tough capture. She hung out every night at a different venue in a chain of sixteen Spider Monkey Bars sprawled throughout the town. Like Buffalo Wild Wings, but without anybody eating birds."
After shuddering at the image, Skipper glanced sideways at the little smile creasing Buck's seamed face. "You had a good time there, I can tell," he said. Buck endured a dedicated life in the beginning, a tough life now and an even tougher one as he aged in place. He never had smiled much.
Marlene patted Buck's head where the feathers had thinned to almost nothing. "So it wasn't a dive but a nice place?"
"Sure, it was nice, there was action going on every night, those spider monkeys know how to live it up - "
"And how!" Marlene's voice told Skipper something, but he wasn't sure what. He twisted in his seat to look her in the eye after regarding Buck pulling at his beak, obviously deciding how to clean up his story.
"How did you gather that intel, Marlene, and where was I at the time?"
Good gravy, she turned coy. He was glad the kids weren't here to witness their mother putting on her flirt face. "Wouldn't you like to know!"
"Do you two pubescents want to hear this or not?" Buck growled.
"Watch out for that Lexus, Skipper, and yes, we're listening, Buck. Go on, please."
It was like the humans wanted to hear a tale, too, because all traffic chugged along at fifteen miles per hour, some folks headed to the ocean, some to other parts of Manhattan to celebrate. Those humans whose cars sported air conditioning and masked privacy windows ignored the little pink dune buggy pacing them in the curb lane. It was the funky humans, the ones with cars whose windows stayed rolled down in warm weather and who didn't give an owl's hoot who saw them, who looked down onto the pavement. Some humans laughed, some ogled and others aimed high fives at the animals riding in the pink dune buggy. Skipper and Buck paid no mind, while Marlene waved like the Queen of England on parade, palm sometimes towards her and sometimes facing outwards. Buck continued his story as Labor Day proceeded into mid-morning.
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Operation: Envy