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Marlene's Log	By : pronker Category: +M through R > Penguins of Madagascar Views: 1780 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I wrote this not-for-profit fanfiction using Dreamworks' Penguins of Madagascar characters and settings and I do not own Dreamworks.

Chapter List
- 1-1/?
- 2-2/3
- 3-3/3
- 1
- 2
Title: Marlene's Log
Author: pronker
Setting: After Un-Boxing Day Instructions and also after replacing Remember, Remember The Fifth Of November with its AU that, yes, Manfredi and Johnson chose to rejoin the Central Park team.
Summary: Marlene ponders the wisdom of accepting Skipper's proposal, but it's too late now.
A/N Thanks to WarmNyota_SweetAyesha for the prompts over on theforceDAHTNET.
IOIOIOIOIO
Marlene bounced down the ladder into her team's HQ. Spring daylight shone dit dit dit dot like Morse code into the lair through the plexiglass portholes. The blue circles looked like a stained glass window to outdo the overhead lights that today appeared a sickly yellow. Marlene's world was copacetic despite iffy weather.
"Guys, guys! I like Manfredi and Johnson, they're funny!"
She flooded sunshine onto her sober-faced team. Rico lay in his bunk staring at slick magazine pages in Guided Missiles Quarterly without noticing he held it upside down, Private sighed as he patted his lunacorn and Kowalski regarded her gravely. The atmosphere drizzled Debbie Downer all over her Stuart Smalley up.
Skipper sat at the head of their all purpose table as bubbles rose in the porthole behind him. "Yes, they're funny, I agree," he pontificated. "They're how I remember them in nearly every way and I missed them. But Kowalski informs me that they fail the Avian Bechdel-Wallace Test since their six-year incarceration. I can't use them and they're not here to stay."
Marlene ran with the ball for a touchdown despite interference and threatening weather. "What? I know they're disabled now but can't you use them as dedicated liaisons on our BlackBerry sets? You know, advising or, or, consulting while you four and sometimes me are on missions. Um. I don't know what their capabilities are but you should."
She ought to have expected that Skipper deployed Routine Thirty-Four: Confuse and Distract as he generally did when needing time to think of a leaderly answer. "Who's minding the baby?"
"Momma Duck brought her brood to my indoor habitat and the five of them plus Sally are all having oodles of fun and don't change the subject."
Kowalski turned away from the discussion with a good luck with that one and Marlene didn't know if he were addressing her or Skipper. Private sighed again and Rico turned over to face the inside of his bunk without even a hooboy.
"Marlene, it was super to get them back," ventured Private as unofficial Morale Officer. "On another note, let's be thinkin' practical-like, though. Wot if - "
"I've got this, Private, but thank you." Skipper put aside his cup of joe. "Can you see Manfredi and Johnson tied underground to our lair? Or maybe they should dodge Alice and other humans along the zoo walkways while trying to get the best BlackBerry reception? With their handicaps? Would you want that as a life for yourself if you were a warrant officer?"
Marlene firmed her lips. "Yes. I like feeling useful. And it wouldn't be forever, just hours or, or maybe a day and a night, right? What's the beef?" She wished for the presence of Sally who always softened her love's mood. But what was this mood?
Suddenly, it hit her and the words just popped out. "You're sucking up to the Big Boss and showing her how you can be all hard tail and cut your two favorites from your team!" She crossed her paws and turned her back on him. Anything for a friend remained her motto and even though she had just met Manfredi and Johnson a few days ago, she warmed towards their upbeat personalities unclouded by their limitations. So what if they weren't what they used to be physically? So what if they edged upon middle age?
Kowalski had been skulking to his lab door, but he made a U-turn. "Skipper doesn't play favorites, Marlene, and if you think he does, then maybe you better - "
Rico growled holdonnamint from his bunk and Private dropped his lunacorn with a "Marlene!"
The dynamic shifted in HQ to what it had been when she got infected with cooties and everybody was against her and feared her touch, even Skipper. Of course, there was no such thing as cooties but nobody knew that at the time. Itchy old poison ivy hadn't been that bad, actually, and sharing the oatmeal bath with these birds made her feel all comrade-ly even before joining the team.
"Hah bupbupbup, I said I've got this, men. Rico, Ringtail has been quiet for too long and we know what that means. Take Private and check the perimeter of the lemur habitat. The weather is inside outside upside down with clouds today and makes the weak-minded itchy for action. Lemur action we don't need, correctamundo?" There it was, gathering consensus for an order already given and just like Marlene expected, Rico and Private scurried up the ladder. Private hesitated at the top and seemed about to say something, but Rico's muscled flipper hauled him topside even as a kung fu kick replaced the food bowl hatch.
Marlene turned to face her superiors and Kowalski rounded on her with feathers ruffled and voice level. "You didn't know Manfredi and Johnson earlier and you've formed a hypothesis. Let's hear it."
Skipper held his tongue as his love proceeded. "I, I just wondered if they couldn't prove some use despite everything and, and what if some horrible injury happened to me like it did to them? Would I get bounced, Kowalski?"
"Ye- N- I don't - At least allow me to get out of the blast radius!" Kowalski edged toward the hatch's welcome escape. "Catch you later! If you're both alive!"
"Marlene, do you regret joining our team?" Skipper broke in with a dismissing nod to his lieutenant. Kowalski assumed parade rest, eyes front, beak clamped shut and earholes wide open.
"I'm thinking."
"The team depends on everyone in tiptop shape. Manfredi lost a leg along with one eye and Johnson's flipper will always be stiff. It's his burn under the flipper that bothers him the most because I caught him the day after his return with a pained look as he bent to do something or other - well, it was just sad. I have to look beyond my own feelings and think of the team."
"You - You would bounce them?" She had never thought to put these thoughts into words but dangit, she had to. "I've never thought of you as a mean penguin. Paranoid yes, but not cruel."
By his face, he was having difficulty dealing with the issue, too. "I can't help what happened to them and I can't fix it. I would if I could." His next words alternately comforted and disturbed her. "If you, Godmother Death forbid, were injured then I'd bounce you to wherever you'd be safe, just like I intend to do with Manfredi and Johnson. Think about it: What if Hans shot them with one of the weapons he loves so much because they couldn't evade him - they're compromised and they won't get better, they won't recover."
"Way to rub their faces in it, Skipper." Now she deployed Routine Thirty-Four. "What's the Avian Bechdel-Wallace Test?"
"Kowalski, science Marlene, por favor." Skipper folded his flippers and put on the face that Marlene honestly didn't know how to break up short of doing a fandango.
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Marlene's Log