Discover Top Posts Tagged with #pandashrine

Alone in Seattle

‘~I’m a blood-red rose with a string of thorns; I’m me!~’

‘~I’m a heart-shaped locket on a cold steel chain; I’m me!~’

Perry sat up from his lawn chair as his phone rang out with Vanessa's ringtone.

“Please tell me Dad is with you.” His eldest kid's voice was tight and rushed when she spoke, not giving him a chance to greet her.

Perry's stomach dropped. Heinz had been home alone since earlier, when he and the boys had left; they must have just gotten home from the ‘girls weekend' Charlene took them on. Heinz was supposed to be waiting for them, they all knew that.

Perry was watching the boys and their friends while they were all playing in the Garcia-Shapiro’s backyard. Vivian was out, so he and Pinky were the adult supervision for the day’s antics.

The kids were floating in the pool, trying to beat the heat and debating on if they wanted to turn Izzy’s backyard into a tropical beach or an alpine mountain to ‘increase the fun and decrease the temperature’, while Perry and Pinky were in the shade on the porch, relaxing with some cool drinks and a sudoku book and custom-built laptop respectively. Pinky the chihuahua was curled up next to human Pinky and had managed to steal half of the teen’s grilled cheese lunch already.

“What happened?” He was already standing, signaling at Pinky he had to leave and patting down his pockets to find his bike keys. The sidecar Phineas and Ferb liked to ride in was shrunken down and hooked to his keys; something Heinz and the boys had a lot of fun making together last summer.

“The door was kicked open. We yelled for him, and called his phone and there was nothing. We're heading up the stairs to the lab to see if he's there.”

“M’kay, just stay together, I'll be home quick. Is Charlene still there?”

“No, she dropped us off on the street.”

“Right.” Perry started his bike. “You two sit tight, keep your heads, we’ll get this sorted.”

“Yeah, ok Poppa.”

They hung up, and Perry gunned his bike, ignoring every traffic law and dodging two different cops as he raced home. The small chases helped settle his nerves; something had happened to his husband, and he was going to find out what.

And God help whoever decided to fuck with his family this time.

*****

“Hey Pinky! Where’s Perry?”

Pinky looked up from his laptop at Phineas’s question. He was coding something the Doc needed for an -inator, and he had been having so much fun figuring out how to get it to do what he needed it to that The Dog had eaten his whole lunch. Again.

“H-he had to take off. Not s-sure where to or what for.” He didn’t tell Phineas that Perry sprinted for his bike as soon as he passed the fence.

“Oh, darn, we could use his help. Hope he’s back soon, he’d hate to miss the beach half!” Phineas pulled his phone out, “And Uncle Heinz and Vanessa would probably love the ski slope half! I’ll send him a text to let him know about Mount S’Winter Beach so he can bring them all over if they want to.”

Pinky smiled, “Good idea, t-this looks great so far.” So far they had built a mash between a decent sledding hill and a tropical resort pool, and they were still expanding. “L-looks like Isa might need a h-hand tying all those hammocks.” He tried for the millionth time to help his baby sister with her crush on the most oblivious genius either of them would ever know by nudging the boy in her direction.

“You think so? Isabella’s normally really good with knots. She has like, thirteen different knot related badges.” Phineas, the sweet summer child, did not take the bait, and got distracted by something Buford and Baljeet were doing before running off after them.

Pinky sighed, shaking his head and walking over to his sister; she really didn’t need the help, Phineas was right about that, but he liked hanging out with Isa regardless of what they were doing. But Ferb actually beat him to it, returning the smile she gave him with one of her own.

Pinky remembered when the Flynn’s had moved in, and when they became the Flynn-Fletchers. Linda was tight-lipped about her first husband, and she had been pretty distant to the rest of the neighborhood until she married Lawrence after about a year. He remembered the first time they had accepted Mom’s dinner invitation; he was barely fourteen, Isa and the boys were all around three, and one evening playing together had cemented their bond as best friends.

He was the oldest kid on Maple Street by a few years, so it had been harder to make friends in the neighborhood for him. Pinky was glad Isa seemed to be having an easier time, with best friends like Phineas and Ferb.

The Dog yipped at him when his laptop beeped with an alert; the little rat his baby sister adored for some reason was grumpy about being woken up.

Pinky’s stomach dropped when he saw the message from Perry.

*****

Vanessa ground her teeth while she watched her sister pace in the hall outside the apartment. Dad wasn't in the lab, there were just more signs of a fight; she was trying not to freak out, they both were.

But Vanessa needed to keep her head, so Candace could freak out if she needed to, so Perry wouldn’t need to worry about her, so they could all focus on saving Dad. She could freak out on her own time once this was all over.

The elevator dinged open, and Perry sped out and over to them. He pulled them both into a firm hug.

“You both okay?” He pulled back and looked them both up and down quickly, checking for injuries out of habit.

“I will be once this-” Candace gestured at the apartment, “-is taken care of.”

Vanessa nodded. “We didn't touch anything yet, we were waiting for you.” Perry had been giving them lessons on investigative practices and anything else he’d learned as an agent he thought they could use; Candace was better at the Sherlock Holmes shit than her, but neither of them wanted to mess with any of the evidence without Perry. Not with this.

“Alright, what’ve we got here.” Perry's gaze was sharp as he stepped into the apartment, pushing the damaged door open.

The sisters stood to the side, watching in silence.

Perry’s actions were direct, quick, moving first to the family's desktop and pulling up the security cameras. The footage cut out about an hour ago, starting with a gloved hand popping out from above one in a corner outside the front door, and then the rest blinked out; they had a timeline if nothing else.

He checked the dent left in Dad’s in-process -inator, reaching up to measure the height relative to him.

Samples were taken from the muddy spots left in the carpet and the sandwich with a single bite taken out of both ends. That was supposed to be Dad’s lunch, that was just petty.

Perry hooked one of the many science machines Dad and the boys used to the computer and slid the samples in the analysis device. A few quick clicks had him starting up the machine and setting it to send the analysis to Pinky’s laptop; they didn’t want to pull the boys and their friends away from their summer fun unless it was absolutely necessary.

“There was no sign of blood, that’s a good thing.” Perry’s voice was low when he spoke. Vanessa shared a look with Candace. No-one said anything as the little loading symbol whirled on the screen as the machine and Pinky worked.

The results popped up.

The muddy footprint traced back to Seattle; Pinky was able to narrow down the search radius using traces of certain coffee beans and mineral deposits and water content in the mud to a certain warehouse district.

The saliva brought up a LOVEMUFFIN membership file; Professor Mystery, former nemesis of that jackass Panda, and current resident of Seattle.

“So, butt-hurt evil scientist going after his old nemesis’s new assignment, I guess?” Candace muttered, twisting a poof of hair between her fingers to try and keep from gnawing her nails.

Perry grumbled, “There’s a bit more to it than that, but basically yeah.” He had a hard scowl behind his glasses.

“A bit more?” Vanessa cocked her head to the side, sharing a curious glance with an equally curious Candace. “Did you and Panda like, train together or something?”

He scoffed, “Thankfully I haven’t known the cunt that long, just a few years. Me’n Heinz can tell you both later if you want the full story, but Panda and Heinz had had a run-in at an evil expo or something years ago.” He rolled his eyes, “It was in Seattle, Panda was stationed there before Danville, and it was some right bullshite we both thought was over and done with.”

“I guess OWCA didn’t get the memo.” Vanessa couldn’t help but sneer. “Assigning him to us and all.”

“Hmm.” Perry turned towards his and Dad’s room, “Suit up, we’re heading to Seattle in ten.”

*****

Maggie was chewing on the tip of her hair as Harry drove them to Maple Street. This was the first time they had been called in by the Doofenshmirtz boys to help them with something, and the fact they had been called to a quaint little suburban neighborhood was making her nervous. Sure, they were just kids, but they had to have the threat level they did for a re-

“Uh, you guys see that too, right?” Karen was staring out the window at-

Maggie’s brain took a moment to process what Karen was pointing out.

“What the fuuuuuuu…?!” Harry gaped as he parked, rolling down his window and sticking his whole upper body out instead of…just opening the door? Seriously Harry?

There was, somehow, a mountain behind the house they were at.

An honest-to-god snowy mountain with a ski resort had materialized in this quaint little suburban neighborhood.

“Hey guys! Glad you made it!” Phineas and Ferb were walking up to the car, and while Phineas was dressed appropriately for the inexplicable winter wonderland, Ferb looked like he was about to host a luau.

“Uh, hey boys. What’s going on?” Karen had opened her door and was leaning her arms on the top of it while talking to the trio’s ten-year-old employers.

“C’mon, we’ll show you!” Maggie scrambled out of the car to catch up to Karen and the boys, and she heard the ‘thud’ Harry made when he fell out of the window trying to follow. He was rubbing his chin when he jogged up to her.

“Welcome to Mount S’Winter Beach!” Phineas spoke while he and Ferb both struck a pose to present their project to Maggie and her friend once they made it through the gate.

Not only was there a mountain, it was connected to a tropical beach resort?

…what the fuck?

At least that explained Ferb’s clothes.

“Uncle Perry had to run a last minute errand, and Uncle Heinz and our sisters are busy until later today, so we need your guy’s help with some things around the resorts for a while!”

This was way bigger than anything they had seen from anyone in DEI. This was what the two little kids could do?

“Dibs on the beach!” Harry, being Harry, immediately forgot they were doing something important godammit and jumped into trying to have fun instead of doing their jobs.

“Alright! I guess that means Maggie and Karen are coming to the slopes with me!” Phineas smiled at them and Ferb gave a thumbs up before waving at Harry to follow him.

Maggie tried her best not to groan. She hated the cold, the snow, things like that, and Harry knew that because he did too. So of course he jumped on the beach first!

Once they were done with this…was this even a scheme? when they got home she was going to shortsheet his bed.

*****

Heinz squirmed, as much as one can squirm in a giant metal tube-thing that was holding everything from their shoulders down in place. One of his legs was falling asleep, his prosthetics were both aching because of the rain, and the fabric that his captor was using to blindfold and gag him was scratchy and tied too tight and his mouth tasted like detergent. Cheap detergent too.

So he had gotten kidnapped by some unprofessional hack. And taken to Seattle, the north end of the city going by the smell.

Great.

Fantastic.

It’s not like he had things to do today, or a life in general!

He’d been working on the gag, meaning he had been grinding the cheap fabric between his molars, and if the amount of lint in his mouth was anything to go off of he had almost gotten it chewed off.

He was gonna be flossing string out of his teeth for a while after this though. Gross, but not the worst thing he’d had to chew through in his life.

“Aha! Ptoo, bleh, gotcha stupid gag!” Finally got that part done, now onto the next part of his brilliant escape plan: annoy his captors until Perry showed up to save him. “Hey, sandwich stealer! I know you’re out there!”

…

“Uh, helloooo? Anyone there?”

…

“Marco!”

…

“You're supposed to say Polo! There better be a satisfying explanation for this when it's over or I'm gonna be merciless on my blog!”

Finally, he heard some movement behind him, and the blindfold was being untied. His eyes quickly adjusted to not being covered, and he gaped at the…interesting display he was stuck in front of.

“Agent Panda? Oh, that was a good shot of me. Oh, and that one. That one, too. And that one, that one was terrible, my nose looked all crooked, eh, it needed scribbling on it.” It was a freaky altar or something, with dozens of photos from that incident from the first year he and Perry were nemeses.

He still didn’t know what he had been thinking. No, that was a lie; he did what he did because he was getting comfortable with Agent Platypus, and Heinz wanted to ruin that himself before someone he was starting to consider a good friend could choose to leave him first.

And he almost did.

Thankfully for their whole family Heinz had pulled his head out of his ass and he and Perry had worked things out by their one year Nemiverasry.

Over to the side, hiding in the shadows like a little bitch, his captor finally spoke. “Hello, Doofenshmirtz!”

“Hello, inky shape hovering in the darkness, what gives?” Heinz could clearly see his trenchcoat-and-ski-mask-clad captor, but for most people it would have been too dark to see much more than the light reflecting off his eyeballs.

“It is I, Professor Mystery.” The guy talked like that should mean something to him.

“…okay.”

“Agent Panda never mentioned me?”

“No, but OWCA Agents aren’t allowed to, you know, talk in front of Villains. Usually. So, you gonna tell me why you kidnapped me?”

…

Aaaand back to the silent treatment.

“Um, hello! I know you're still out there. I can see your eyeballs. What's with all the silence? It's very off putting.”

“Mystery...is my allure.” Through the shadows Heinz could see this guy was making some hand motions in front of his face that he probably thought made him look cool.

“Oh. This is gonna be a fun conversation.” Heinz rolled his eyes, and Mystery finally came out of the shadows to wheel him in a furniture dolly to a different spot in the…warehouse? This looked like a warehouse. “Seriously though, what's with the kidnapping? And why do you have an obsessive shrine to Agent Panda?”

“Because I am Agent Panda's nemesis!” He spit the words at Heinz with venom.

Heinz couldn’t help but gasp. Even if it was kinda obvious in hindsight.

He was focusing on his brilliant escape plan, not trying to figure out who kidnapped him and why.

“You're surprised?” Mystery sneered back.

“Well yeah, of course, he had a red band on his fedora back then!” A red band on an OWCA Agents fedora meant they were basically ‘on-loan’ from some other spy agency. Normally it was a temporary thing, but very rarely it was like a probationary period for someone transferring in. Agent Panda turned out to be the latter. “But come on, if I knew he had a nemesis… I-I would never want to be the other evil scientist.”

Heinz’s teeth clicked together when Mystery parked the furniture dolly in front of a classic looking evil ray gun. “Ooh! An -inator! So what does it do?” The design was sleek, threatening without being too overbearing.

“I can't divulge that because mystery…” Mystery went to make that stupid hand motion in front of his face again, so Heinz cut him off.

“...is your allure. Yeah, yeah, I know.” Heinz was quickly losing the little bit of patience he had for this guy. “So do you tell Agent Panda your plans before or after you trap him? I just...I'm always interested in process.” If he could get a little insight on the Agent who was gonna be trying to thwart him and his family from the perspective of a former long-term nemesis then maybe this whole thing wouldn’t be a waste of a day.

Mystery made a stupid face under his stupid mask, “I don't tell him at all. It would ruin the mystery...which is my-”

“But he's your nemesis!” Heinz shouted, rocking the tube thing he was trapped in. Seriously, what was this thing? “He's gotta know what he's thwarting! I mean, that's just common courtesy! What, you expect him just to infer it from your complicated backstories?”

Professor Mystery just turned and walked away from him.

“Wait, don't- Oh, no.” And there went that last bit of patience, “Don't tell me that you've never even given him a backstory! Well, there's your problem! There's your problem right there!”

“What?” Mystery looked back at Heinz, making a different face than before. So was that… surprise? How did this guy stand wearing that stupid balaclava all the time?

Heinz shook his head, “Lack of communication. Gimme a beat!”

He started to bob his head along to the music that started as the light changed and the chorus girls strutted in.

At least he got a song during this whole time wasting snafu!

*****

Monty had been taught back in HSWCA that surveillance work would be mind-numbingly boring, and told up front that his assignment with Agent Panda would have a lot of surveillance work, but so far that summer had been worse than he could have ever imagined. No-one in DEI had even done anything Evil since he and Agent Panda had been assigned to them.

He was in a tree in a little…park? across the road from the home the youngest Doofenshmirtz kids were playing at with some friends. It was weird, just a little thing on the corner of a suburban neighborhood with a small duck pond and a stone bench and flower bushes and the tree he was in. But it gave him a good spot for staking out the house, so he wasn’t too curious about it.

Probably some community garden or something, it didn’t really matter.

What did matter was that Fletcher had left a while ago, and Agent Panda had left to tail him, making Monty stay behind to see if the kids were going to do anything Evil. They were building…something all right, but he didn’t think it was a scheme. Again.

Monty was incredibly bored.

His watch beeped, and he could have cheered at the message he got. Agent Panda wanted him to meet back up with him; they needed to head off Fletcher and the teen girls on the way to…

Seattle?

That was where Agent Panda had been stationed before, hadn’t it been?

Weird.

Monty had started to climb out of the tree when something looped around his ankle and yanked him off the branch he was on, hard.

He bounced off of a few branches, but was able to catch himself on one and turn his fall into a more graceful descent, landing on his feet.

“You’re really lucky I’m the one who found you here Fedora Boy, and not Candy or Nessa.” His attacker was, of course, a teenage girl!

Were all teen girls just naturally stealthier than trained agents? You’d think they would have covered that in HSWCA, gender division or not.

She was Japanese-American, dressed for the beach and tying a ribbon back into a bow on her head. Had she attacked him with a hairbow?

“You’d be trying not to drown in the pond if it had been one of them.” She was glaring at him, and it wasn’t too hard to put two and two together about ‘Candy’ and ‘Nessa’.

“What, do they own the garden or something?” Monty scoffed, “Take trespassing super seriously here?”

She sighed, “Just don’t hide here again. For your sake.” She shoulder-checked him with surprising strength for how short she was as she walked away. “No one will be this nice again.”

That made Monty hesitate. There was something in the way she spoke that made him feel like she was talking about more than just Doof’s family and their immediate friends. He made a note to research this little garden-thing later, see what it actually was. He had to meet up with his mentor right then.

*****

“ETA, Candy?” Perry adjusted his grip on the hovercar’s wheel.

On the flight to Seattle Candace had called up LOVEMUFFIN’s membership office to get the address of Peter’s former nemesis, ‘Professor Mystery’. The man lived up to his name, he made everything he did a million times more complicated than it needed to be living up to his chosen bit.

He used five different P.O. boxes, but Candace was able to puzzle out a rough search radius for his lair. From there she and Vanessa had eliminated most of the buildings, leaving them with an area of about four square blocks with half a dozen buildings to check.

“About five minutes.” Candace was staring out the window, absentmindedly massaging her upper leg; the rain was probably making her sore.

“Look!” Vanessa popped out of her seat, pointing down out of her window. “Diane’s dance troupe!”

Perry banked the hovercraft, and Nessa was spot on, that was the bus that one of Heinz’s go-to groups of back-up for musical numbers used. And it was moving in roughly the same direction as them.

They tailed the van, and when it stopped he snapped his head over to Candace for confirmation.

She checked the addresses twice before nodding. That was one of their targets. Even if Diane’s girls weren’t there for Heinz, the coincidence was enough to make it their first stop.

He landed in an alley that dead-ended behind the warehouse; both girls were hopping out before he was on the ground.

Perry signalled to climb to a high window, crouching under it with his back braced against the wall underneath with hands cupped and fingers linked.

Candace ran at him and jumped.

He caught her foot and boosted her up the wall. She kicked off it twice before grabbing the bottom of the open window.

Vanessa went next, catching Candace’s hand on the way and slipping easily into the warehouse.

She pulled her sister in, and both leaned out for him.

Perry backed up, and charged the wall himself.

They caught his hands and pulled him in.

They were on a catwalk.

Below them were Heinz, Professor Mystery, and half a dozen dancers doing a number about… communication, it sounded like.

Perry gave a half sigh of relief, before giving a quick set of hand signals to tell the girls how they would do this.

Candace would go around the catwalk to the -inator pointed at Heinz.

He and Vanessa would head down to the ground floor, she would get in position to secure Heinz, and Perry would go for Professor Mystery.

Just because OWCA’s ranking system for Villains had him downgraded to minor threat because Phineas and Ferb wrecked the curve didn’t negate the fact Peter, a very high ranking field Agent, had been assigned to him for a reason. Better to let Perry learn what that reason was first than one of his kids.

“How did you get chorus girls in here?” Mystery barely let the music fade before speaking to Heinz. Perry had slid down a support pole from the catwalk during the musical number, and he was creeping through the warehouse to get in position.

“They're union, they'll travel.” Heinz seemed like he was unhurt, and he looked more annoyed by his masked kidnapper than anything, “So, you gonna talk to the Panda or…?”

“You're the last person I'm going to take advice from, you nemesis stealer!” Mystery jabbed a gloved finger in Heinz’s face before storming over to his -inators control panel. Perry couldn’t tell what the device did; he was already so sick of this ‘mystery’ shite. Heinz’s -inator’s were always themed, much more interesting than the generic junk that was being aimed at his husband.

“Even with musical accompaniment, you just don't get it. Ugh!” Heinz was rolling his eyes, Perry could hear it in his voice, “I'munna have to spell it out for you: It's not my fault that you and Panda are having problems. It's yours!”

Perry found a good spot against the wall in the shadows while Mystery scoffed, angrily punching at his -inators controls. “We'll see whose fault it is, once I activate my true-purpose-shrouded-in-an-enigma-inator!” And of course he couldn’t even give it an actual name. “Because in just a few moments, you will be zapped, and my vengeance will be complete!” Not if Perry had anything to say about it.

“Yawn!” Heinz shouted at the guy. “I mean I'd be so much more concerned if I understood what the stakes were, man-” The sound of the wall being cut through with a laser next to Perry had him scrambling to hide.

The chunk of wall fell away, and a figure jumped through.

“Agent Panda, great.” Heinz groaned in his trap, “Is there a rollercoaster full of grade schoolers somewhere around here that needs to be thwarted?” Perry bit back a chuckle at that. Monogram’s boy was there too, looking apprehensive.

“Agent Panda isn’t here for your petty rollercoasters, he’s here for me!” Mystery squealed, even stomping his foot. “He’s my nemesis, not yours! He was never yours!”

At least that was one thing this dumb fuck had right.

Heinz rolled his eyes, “He was barely even my side-nemesis. He was more of a thwarty call.”

Mystery actually started towards him at that, finger pointing and all. “Don't you diminish him like th-” And that was when fucking Peter jumped him. “See? He's thwarting me! You mean nothing to him, Doofenshmirtz!”

Agent Panda was straddling Professor Mystery and repeatedly punching him in the face, while Mystery cheered. “Yes yes! You see? This is good, isn't it?” Perry wanted to tell them to get a room already. “What did he give you that I couldn't give you?”

“An evil monologue for one thing!” Heinz barked out.

“What?” Both men stopped to look at him, Panda with his fist poised for another strike.

“Communication! Oh, for cryin' out loud! At least tell him what your -inator does!!”

“Huh? Oh yes!” Did he forget that he had a giant machine powering up? Bellend. “It's an unexist-inator!”

It took a half second for that to process in Perry’s brain.

He saw red.

*****

“It’s an unexist-inator!”

“WHAT?!??!?!” Heinz’s heart shot into his throat. “Well, now I'm worried! See? Communication. It works.” The Unexist-inator’s whirring and glowing hit a fever pitch, and it would have been nice to know it was a death ray before Heinz wasted his time trying to help this idiot with his problems instead of escaping.

“DAD!!” For a single, heart-stopping moment, Vanessa shot out of the shadows and was in-between Heinz and the Unexist-inator, jamming a crowbar into the seams of the trap Heinz was locked in.

Then the barrel of the -inator tilted away from them with a metallic groan, and Heinz saw Candace was there too; she smashed the end of her staff into the side of the control panel as she passed it, causing the machine to whine to a stop before it could fire. Then she darted over to the both of them, practically jumping on the crowbar.

He stumbled when it popped open; his leg had fully fallen asleep at that point. His daughters caught him before he could face-plant, and for a moment the three just held onto each other.

“HEY!” A voice Heinz didn’t recognize echoed through the warehouse, and he looked over to see-

Oh.

Perry had Professor Mystery pinned to the wall; he was strangling him.

Francis jr and Agent Panda were trying to pull him off, but Perry wouldn’t let go.

Agent Panda yelled again, glaring at Heinz like this whole thing was his fault. “He’s gonna kill him!”

“Good!” Vanessa snarled, stepping away from Heinz and toward the struggle, and Heinz was hit by just how tired this whole thing had made him.

He just wanted to go home.

And he knew Perry wouldn’t want any of their kids to see him kill someone, well-earned murder or not.

“Hang on, hang on.” Heinz darted ahead of his girls, felt them follow close behind him more than saw it, and he placed his hands over his husbands. Perry’s glare, dark and determined and single-minded, snapped to Heinz’s face; it felt like he was seeing through him, blind with fury.

“I’m fine, Süßer, I’m okay!” Heinz pried Perry’s fingers off of Mystery’s throat, and reluctantly Perry dropped the man. He slid down the wall, gurgling; Panda caught him before he could hit the ground.

As Heinz pulled Perry away from…that whole situation, he felt his husband’s full attention fall on him, eyes and hands roving to check for himself that Heinz was in one piece before both settled on his face.

“I’m fine, we’re all fine, let’s just go home.” Heinz pressed his cheek into one of Perry’s calloused palms, watching the fury and focus crack and give way to relief and an aching fear in his deep brown eyes. “Please? I wanna go home.”

Perry gave a shuddering sigh before nodding once, giving the one and a half Agents and gasping idiot a final glare and wrapping his arm around Heinz’s waist, pressing the two men together as tightly as possible.

“WHAT!?!?” Candace shrieked, “We’re just leaving?! After he tried- he tried to ki-!” She started breathing harder, her face turning red under her freckles, and Heinz reached out to wrap his free arm around her shoulders.

“He’s not worth it,” Heinz murmured to her, “C’mon sweetie, we’re going home”. He started pulling most of his present family towards the hole in the wall, the closest exit to the warehouse he could see, looking over his shoulder to make sure Vanessa was still with them. Sometime when he wasn’t looking she had grabbed Perry’s other hand; there was a stormy glare on her face.

The hole was unfortunately close to where Mystery and the Agents were hunched up on the floor; Heinz walked faster to be near them as little as possible.

He heard more than saw when Vanessa kicked the wheezing Mystery in the face when she had the opportunity; he walked even faster then, following Candace’s pointing finger to where their hovercar had been parked so they could get the hell out of Seattle already.

*****

“Head back to the hovercraft, wait for me.” Peter couldn't keep the edge out of his voice as he gave Monogram's kid orders

Fury twisted in his stomach, but he wasn't sure who exactly it was aimed at.

Fury at Mystery for deciding to pull this insane stunt.

Fury at Fletcher for putting his hands on Peter's ne- on Mystery.

Fury at himself for being so mad in the first place.

“Are you-” a glare over his shoulder silenced the fetus’s question and sent him hurrying for the hovercraft.

And Peter was able to turn his full attention to Professor Mystery for the first time in over a month.

The tall man groaned, semi-conscious thanks to the eldest Doofen-brat; his bleeding nose was making a mess of his mask. Peter adjusted his hold on Mystery, stood, and carried the absolute fucking idiot into the little kitchenette where they used to have their coffee. He was lighter than he should be; he probably hadn't been eating if he had been upset enough to do…this.

Moron.

Why was he actively making things harder than they needed to be?

They had had a clean break handed to them on a silver platter, but Mystery couldn’t just take it like Peter had been able to.

Goddamn asshole.

“..ugh-” Mystery jolted and coughed when Peter set him on the table; he wanted to throw him across the room like the ass deserved, but he wasn’t mad enough to want to exacerbate any head trauma. “...wh…ah..”, He sounded awful, and there were burst capillaries in his unfocused green eyes.

Mystery tried to speak a few more times, while Peter’s back was turned to search for a first aid kit, but all his words ended in pained, wheezing coughs.

Good, he wouldn’t be able to argue or interrupt.

“Never,” Agent Panda growled, “do something like this again.”

Professor Mystery had the audacity to look stunned. The small first aid kit was shoved into the evil scientist's chest; it bounced between his gloved hands before he got a grip on it.

“I have been reassigned.” Agent Panda’s voice was hard. Peter ignored the way Mystery’s dark green eyes grew wider than he’d ever seen. “If you continue to interfere with my new assignment, my superiors will get involved.” It didn’t matter if he reported the scientist or not, there were eyes on the Flynn-Fletcher-Doofenshmirtz's, eyes belonging to very powerful and very dangerous people.

The last thing Peter needed was to have Professor Mystery caught up in the mess he himself couldn’t avoid.

For both of their sakes.

“Goodbye, Professor.” Agent Panda turned on his heel and started to storm out.

Something shot through the air towards the back of his head; it was only thanks to his training that he dodged the projectile.

A mug shattered against the door frame in front of him.

All of Mystery’s mugs were identical, and unremarkable in any way, and Peter had drunk out of all of them over the years, it almost felt like something personal had been shattered.

Almost.

Peter clenched his jaw, but kept going, ignoring the raspy half-yells that Mystery was trying to throw at him.

The fetus had the good sense not to speak when he got to the hovercraft and flew back to Danville.

Since he didn't have anything else to do that day, Peter spent the next few hours at OWCA’s gym to burn through his fury.

Because that's all he was feeling. Fury. There was absolutely nothing else he was trying to shake off.

Other than the desire for some decent coffee.

That was it. Even if he didn't quite believe himself when he thought that.

*****

Candace wrapped her arms around herself. They were almost home; Vanessa was flying them the last leg while Heinz cleaned up the scratches on Perry’s forearms and the backs of his hands.

Mystery had been clawing at him, and so had Panda based on the direction and placement of the wounds. Nothing too bad, but there was a bit of beaded blood to clean up. Didn’t look like he’d really need bandages though.

No-one had said anything the whole flight yet.

…Candace wondered…

Would an un-exist-inator just make the person it hit like, not exist anymore or would…

Would it make it so they had never existed?

Because that warehouse would have been the third place they checked, if it hadn’t been for that bus.

…

If Heinz Doofenshmirtz had never existed, Vanessa would have never been born.

Perry would have died not even a week after Mom and Dad did, on the day of their funeral.

And Candace and Phineas and Ferb would have been ripped away from each other forever.

Thrown into different academies to make sure they weren’t as emotionally compromised as ‘the Rogue Platypus’, moulded into the perfect replacements for the parent who died in vain.

That-that burnt baklava of a man could have just killed all that was left of Candace’s family, and she wouldn’t even have known.

It would have just happened!

“...what do we tell Phineas and Ferb?” Her voice cracked, and she was so quiet she wasn’t sure if anyone could hear her question. She also wasn’t sure if she wanted to start talking right then, so half of her hoped no-one did.

When she learned Perry had been a secret agent for longer than she or Mom had ever known him, she had been angry about him lying about something so big for so long. But she had had a few more pressing matters to deal with that distracted her from that anger until after she had first hand experience in why someone would want to lie to the people they love.

She didn’t want to lie to her brothers about what happened in Seattle.

But she did not want them to know they came so close to losing another parent.

Candace wished she didn’t know how close they had come to losing another parent. Her hands would tremble whenever she let go of herself. She was probably over-thinking things, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask Heinz to help talk her through if she was over-thinking or if that -inator was as bad as she thought it was because if it was-

…

She didn’t want to keep thinking about it.

“I mean, the truth?” Heinz didn't sound sure himself. “Agent Panda’s old nemesis is upset he got reassigned, and he wanted some vengeance.”

“And that you could have been-been unexist-inator-ed?!” She barely kept her voice even.

There was more silence.

“... let's just go enjoy whatever the boys did to Vivian's backyard for now.” Heinz closed the first-aid kit and slid it back under the seat. “We’ll figure it out after dinner, alright?”

No, no it was not alright, nothing that had just happened was alright.

But she nodded, lips pressed together.

The rest of the trip back to their apartment was silent.

*****

Harry had been having an absolute blast helping Ferb and the other kids run the beach, but eventually duty called and he had to put his ‘game face’ on.

‘Work face’?

‘Spy face’?

Whatever face he put on, it was on as he tailed Vanessa through a grove of palm trees; it had been maybe an hour since the older four members of DEI had showed up to the dope-ass beach and mountain combo that Phineas and Ferb had made, and this was the first time he’d seen one of them head off alone.

He wasn’t sure what exactly Maggie thought they would be able to learn by snooping at times like this, but it was whatever. Harry was just happy he got to have a beach day while ‘working’. He hoped all of their jobs with the Doofenshmirtz’s were like this, this was awesome!

He stepped off the faint path through the palms when Vanessa stopped and sat on a fallen tree further ahead. Stealth training was one of his best subjects back in training, so it was easy to stay silent on the sand.

Harry froze when Vanessa let out a half-muffled sob. He watched as she curled forward, pressing her forehead against her knees and wrapping her arms around her head to help keep the sobs that were shaking her whole body silent.

It was obvious that the girl had been tense and on edge when she showed up to the beach, but Harry couldn’t have guessed she was about to have a breakdown!

He wasn't equipped for this!

Slowly, Harry back tracked back to the path. Maybe he could just, ‘accidently’ find her out there? It felt ..cruel to just leave a sobbing kid alone, Evil or not. Or maybe he should just go find one of her dads or siblings and let them know she needed one of them?

Probably not Candace; with the way she glares at Harry and his friends she might blame him for her sister's distress.

Then again, what if she ran out there because she didn't want her family to know she was so upset? Then he’d have to deal with both sisters trying to kick his ass. They kicked hard!

Harry put his best poker face on, and slowly strolled back down the path; he would just ‘find’ her out there, ask if she needed anything, and go from there. That was probably the best way to do this, right?

As he rounded the turn in the path, Harry saw someone else coming from the other side; he couldn’t remember if he had been told the other girls name, but he knew she was the older sister of one of the scarily capable Fireside Girls who were friends with the Doofenshmirtz boys.

“Nessa?!” He heard her yelp before darting towards the sobbing Vanessa. He really hoped that meant they were friends, and he didn’t have to figure out how to comfort a teen girl who already didn’t seem to like him.

“-guh-shi-it-” Vanessa tried to sit up, and scrub at her face to hide how hard she had been crying, “-Stace, yo-ou don-”, another massive sob wracked her, this time with the girl Harry now remembered was named Stacy catching her friend before she could completely fold in on herself again, “I-i, I’m fi-”

The heaving sobs overtook the…evil? teen girl, but her friend pulled her into the best hug she could with how they were sitting. Harry could hear Stacy saying something to Vanessa, but he couldn’t hear what.

Harry had already been slowly walking backwards, but when Stacy spotted him over Vanessa’s shoulder and gave him both a withering death glare and a quick shooing motion with one hand he gave up on stealth and just turned and jogged away from…whatever was going on with Vanessa.

Thankfully Harry didn’t have to try and intervene with whatever had happened earlier that day to upset her so much. That had to be it, something really bad had happened or almost happened on whatever little scheme the teen girls and the old guys of DEI had been pulling before turning up to the beach/mountain, which really couldn’t have anything to do with how Doof and Fletcher took out an absolute legend like the Platypus (yeah they were a high level threat, but come on. Those two goofy old guys?), so Harry picked up the pace to get back to the party.

If he was quick enough, he would still be able to catch the limbo contest!

*****

Monty pulled the beanie tighter on his head. It was early enough in the summer that he didn’t have to wait for a super long time before it got dark, but he still had killed a few hours at his mom’s house playing video games before going out on his unofficial mission. He had pedaled his old bike most of the way out to Maple Street, but locked it to a lightpost a few blocks away before going on foot the rest of the way.

Because the two Doofenshmirtz girls had seen his favorite hoodie in the museum, he had grabbed a dark blue sweatshirt and beanie he rarely wore to go investigate the little park.

The mountain that had been made across the road had vanished as easily as it had appeared, and there was no one out in the quaint suburban neighborhood. It was easy to make it back to the garden thingy without being seen.

His stomach dropped into his shoes when he finally saw the dated plaque on the bench.

IN LOVING MEMORY

LAWRENCE FLETCHER

LINDA FLYNN-FLETCHER

WE WILL ALWAYS MISS YOU

…

Oh.

The files he was able to access on the Flynn-Fletcher-Doofenshmirtz family didn't say anything about a ‘Linda’ or ‘Lawrence’, but it was easy to guess who they were.

This was a memorial garden for Candace, Phineas, and Ferb’s parents.

No wonder that neighbor girl was defensive.

Monty was going to make sure he avoided it from now on. Not just for his own self preservation either; it just felt…wrong to spy on someone using a memorial to their deceased parents. He pulled out his phone on his way back to his bike, and made a quick internet search before heading out. That memorial garden was built on the lot their house burned down on.

…he felt extra gross, thinking about spying in the garden earlier that day. Biking back home was a good outlet for those emotions.

His mom had dozed off on the couch again by the time he got home.

Monty pulled a blanket over her and turned the tv off before heading to his bed.

*****

Something had happened.

It was easy for Ferb to see once they got home. He and Phineas had been too busy with Mount S’Winter Beach to really notice earlier.

Everyone was…tense was the best word he could think of.

He and Phineas weren’t able to ask about what had happened until after dinner.

“Soooo where’d you have to run off to Uncle Perry?” Phineas asked while their family was deciding what show to watch before heading to bed.

It was already quiet in the living room, but it went dead silent after that.

Ferb shared a look with Phineas. That wasn’t good.

Uncle Heinz started, “Well boys, y’see, I uh, I had gotten myself in-”

A scoff from Vanessa and a soft ‘oh come on’ from Candace had him stammer to a stop.

There was an awkward beat, before Vanessa sat up a bit straighter where she was sitting on the floor, leaning against the couch in front of Candace and next to Uncle Heinz’s legs. “Agent Panda’s old nemesis was mad that Panda got reassigned to us, and kidnapped Dad to…try and take it out on him.”

That, and Nessa’s hesitation, was really bad. He and Phineas scooted closer to Uncle Perry; no wonder he was holding on to Uncle Heinz like he could float away from the couch at any second.

“How?” Ferb decided to speak up then.

How had Agent Panda’s old nemesis try to take his anger out on Uncle Heinz?

“...well, he uh…” Uncle Heniz was hesitating a lot. He was hesitating too much. “It was…a bad -inator.” Candace leaned against him. “An…Un-exist…-inator…heh. But Perry and your sisters took care of it easy peasy!” He rambled out before grabbing the remote and picking a random channel.

Uncle Perry reached out and wrapped a strong arm around both brothers.

The show that was picked played out over a silent living room.

Ferb couldn’t remember what they watched when he and Phineas curled up back to back together in his bed. Neither of them could fall asleep alone.

*****

It was dark, in a little apartment in Seattle.

He hadn’t bothered turning the lights on when he got back from…what happened.

“Never do something like this again.”

Those were the first words he’d ever heard from his nemesis.

A demand that he, what, stop trying to fix things?

To get things back to normal?

Isn’t that what Agent Panda wanted too?

“I have been reassigned.”

…had their nemesis-ship really just been an assignment to Agent Panda?

Professor Mystery finally forced himself to sit up from the couch in the small apartment where he actually lived. That was when he realized he hadn’t even changed out of his work suit before heading back.

He…didn’t actually care. He was too tired, too sore to care if he had exposed any of his secrets because of that.

There was a dull ‘thunk’ as the spare first aid kit from his main lair slid off his lap as he shifted more.

“If you continue to interfere with my new assignment, my superiors will get involved.”

Was that a threat? Or…something else. He didn’t know what else it could be though.

…his face hurt, and the blood from his nose had soaked into his mask and dried. When he got into his bathroom, he saw that the high collar on his trenchcoat kept any blood from darkening the grey fabric, and of course it didn’t show on the black fabric of his mask.

That was probably the only reason the cops hadn’t been called on him.

He pulled his boots off, dumping them on the floor as he walked; normally he took his shoes off by the door because of how muddy parts of the city he walked through could get.

He turned the sink’s tap on cold, and stuck his face, mask and all, under the stream until he felt its hold on his lower face loosen.

Miggs Ortega looked down at the empty-eyed mask in his hands. It was damp, blood and water and tears all mixed together invisibly in the dark fabric.

Something clenched in his stomach, and he threw the mask as hard as he could.

It launched out of the open bathroom door, hit the wall across with a surprisingly loud ‘thwump’, and slid for a moment before peeling off the wall and hitting the floor.

Miggs spent a long time doing nothing in the shower. Nothing but replay the last few years over and over in his head.

“Goodbye, Professor.”

…it felt like watching that capsule disappear into the bright summer sky as a kid all over again, watching him walk away.

Why?

They really…were just co-workers, the more he had thought about it.

Sure, they drank coffee for a few minutes before Agent Panda would tip his fedora and run off without a second glance, but…that really was it.

As much as he hated himself to even consider it as a possibility, but…

…Doofenshmirtz…might…

…have been…

…right…

…about communication.

Maybe, maybe if Miggs had just taken off his mask, just once…

…he would have just been ignored again.

…

That was why things with Agent Panda had worked.

Some of the Agent’s he’d had to deal with were weirdly nosey for silent secret agents, and didn’t know when to stop messing around trying to learn any of his secrets.

None of the buffoons ever did.

Agent Panda never tried.

He showed up, he did his job, he drank the free coffee Mystery had started making sometime over the years, and then he fucked off to go do…whatever he did whe he wasn’t thwarting Professor Mystery.

His assignment.

His former assignment.

Anger welled up in Miggs’ chest, but this time it was aimed at his former nemesis.

Professor Mystery had a new assignment too it seemed.

Miggs pulled up the email draft he had made for his realtor and sent it, cracking the casing of his mouse as he clicked on ‘send’.

He was going to move to the Tri-State Area, and he was going to raise hell for both Agent Panda and Doofenshmirtz.

…Miggs wasn’t sure how he would do that specifically, but he would figure something out.

#pandashrine

Trending Tags

Recently Viewed Tags

#pandashrine