hdl separated at birth au hdl separated at birth au hdl separated at bir-
i can always count on you to ask abt the separated at birth au. ok this is long af so im gonna post most of it under a read more
basically: when della steals the rocket and disappears, the eggs disappear too. donald and scrooge still get into their huge fight and stop speaking to each other, but without the boys to ground him, donalds a wreck, assuming his sister and nephews are all dead. well, not quite
about 6 years after della disappears, donald gets mugged by some beagle boys who realize that hes scrooge mcducks nephew and decide to try and ransom him. they take him back to the junkyard where he meets a little duck kid. turns out the beagles found him as an egg and took him in (why? idk! because i need them to!) and hes lived with them ever since. donald can see that the kids in bad shape--all the beagles are older and bigger and even the ones that are nicer to him are still. pretty mean. the kid doesnt even have a name, they all just call him “duck”. donald feels bad for him and says if he helps him escape he’ll take him in, and the kid hesitates but agrees. the two escape, and if scrooge ever shows up to rescue donald, hes long gone by the time he arrives.
the boy needs a name, and he likes donalds suggestion, huey. to avoid any retaliation from the beagle boys, they decide to take the houseboat out of duckburg for a while, sailing it along the coast from town to town for about a year. huey is kinda nervous and tends to lash out, but he opens up to donald over time and once he does sorta latches on. when hes around seven, they settle in cape suzette for a while. donald formally adopts him, and theyre doing pretty well for themselves, even if huey is still anxious a bit and doesnt get along well with others. hes pretty grown-up for his age, as a result of being mistreated for so long and now being an only child with a pretty open adult (donald answers a lot of hueys question. he never goes into detail about what happened with scrooge and della but he does allude to it).
when huey is nearly 8, he and donald get into a scuffle with sky pirates (entirely by accident, but you know how it is). don karnage and his crew had just returned to cape suzette, and donald and huey are kinda dragged into an adventure dealing with them. as part of that, they meet the youngest member of the skypirate crew, dancin’ dewey, whos lived with the pirates as long as he can remember, and of course he and huey notice that they look exactly the same. dewey helps them avoid don karnage and crew as they plan to get to the houseboat and get out of cape suzette. along the way, they run into a few members of the crew, who encourage dewey to go with them--don karnage really doesnt like dewey, and definitely wont like him any more when he finds out dewey helped donald and huey escape. dewey loves a lot of members of the crew, who were like family to him, but he knows its best to leave, plus now hes got a mystery to solve, ie what the deal is with he and huey. so the three leave on the houseboat, and celebrate huey and deweys 8th birthday back in duckburg.
donald adopts dewey, too, and the three of them get along pretty well. dewey schemes more than huey ever did, and huey gets dragged in because theyre all “pretty dumb” and he wants to make them work. donald enrolls them both in the junior woodchucks to help them make friends, and while dewey quits bc its boring (donald doesnt mind, bc hes very social and makes a lotta friends at school anyway) huey loves it and comes out of his shell even more. he still prefers hanging out with adults (and dewey) to kids his age, but hes getting better at socializing.
2 years after meeting dewey, theyre 10, and the pilot happens. donald leaves them home alone during his job interview (theyre more self-sufficient in this au, and donalds better at listening to them when they say they can handle something), but when he gets hired he gets them a babysitter, since he’ll be gone for a few days. turns out, that doesnt matter, because they stowaway on glomgolds ship bc his job sounds cool. donald decides he has to hide them or risk getting fired, and he shoves them into a cabin only to find yet another, identical duck their age. surprise!
basically, this kid spent most of his life in the duckburg foster program, since he was found just on the street, but glomgold took him in as his nephew in hopes of recreating scrooges formula. “flinty jr”, as glomgold calls him, (or louie, which is what he went by until glomgold took him in a year ago) is... pretty salty, and doesnt really care that he looks the same as these two other kids. hes really jaded from growing up on his own and now living with glomgold, whos always dragging him places only to ignore him or yell at him when things go wrong. donald, being donald, tries to sell him on the whole adoption thing, but hes really not interested. in any case, most of the pilot plays out the same--instead of donald trying to protect scrooge and fam, hes trying to hide the kids and keep them out of trouble, but they all come together in the treasure room with scrooge, launchpad, and webby. glomgold reveals his nefarious scheme, they all make it out, great. the houseboats fine, donald and scrooge dont really make up (they actually fight a little bit more), and the boys (louie included, hes been won over) arent super interested in moving in with him, so they just. dont. the new family of four goes back to the houseboat and settles in.
thats the basics, really. donald and scrooge start to fix their relationship bc HDL stay in touch with webby and hang out all the time. this timeline pushes back the adventures/magicas schemes until the boys are 12, at which point they and donald actually have moved in with scrooge. i havent decided yet how they finally find out that theyre related to donald and scrooge, but i want it to happen around shadow war? idk. the other thing to note is that the triplets are all a bit different, personality-wise, as a result of growing up in different environments, and their relationship w donald is pretty different too, but beyond that it all sorta falls into place eventually??
if you want to hear any more, send me an ask! this is probably my most fleshed-out au so i have a lot of thoughts about it!
