Chapter Text
Perry woke up to a fuzzy blanket on him and the smell of bacon coming from the kitchen. He looked down and noticed Doofenshmirtz curled up at his side. Perry chattered in an attempt to get his attention. It worked, Doofenshmirtz opened his eyes, stretched like a cat and, when he noticed Perry, jumped up off of the couch and said frantically “I—I was just making sure you didn't run off with my body.”
Perry watched in amusement as Doofenshmirtz quickly walked off to the kitchen. Perry sighed, he had hoped when he had woken up that yesterday's events were just a bad dream, but it seemed that wasn't the case.
Vanessa walked into the living room and smiled. “Hey, Perry” she said. Perry nodded in response. “I left a change of clothes for you in the bathroom, you don't have to keep wearing my dad's filthy lab coat”.
Perry smiled, it was starting to bug him but he didn't want to accidentally insult Doofenshmirtz by calling his clothes gross. He went to the bathroom and, instead of the lab coat and pants he expected, found a soft green sweater that looked like it had never been worn and a pair of cargo shorts that were missing a button on one of the pockets.
Perry pulled off the lab coat and carefully folded it on the counter. (Perry knew Heinz spends a lot of money on them and he didn't want to be the reason another one of them got damaged (he tried not to think of how many of them he has ruined in the past)) Perry hesitated for a moment, not wanting to intrude on Hienz's privacy, before realizing that he's seen him in his underwear (several times) before and he has to get this over with at some point and he might as well get it over with.
Perry pulled the long-sleeved shirt off and noticed his body in the mirror; He stopped and stared. Has Heinz always had this many scars? (How had he not noticed sooner?) Perry traced his fingers over a long scar going from his collarbone to his navel. He put his hand on the deep purple bruise on his side, and he flinched, that hurt. Did he really hit Heinz that hard? Was that the reason he had such deep bags under his eyes?
Perry shook his head; that wasn't the point and Vanessa was probably wondering what was taking him so long. He pulled on the sweater admiring how soft it felt. He changed into the shorts and quickly walked out to the kitchen.
“Hey Perry, Norm made us breakfast” Vanessa said.
Perry smiled and followed her to the dining room where he found a massive platter of bacon (the bacon pile was six inches high; how much bacon did Norm think a normal person ate?), and a plate with four muffins.
Doofenshmirtz walked into the dining room wearing a perfectly-tailored platypus-sized lab coat.
They all sat down at the table, Perry hesitated while he tried to find the best way to sit with his tail before he remembered he no longer had a tail. “Where did you get the lab coat?” Vanessa asked.
“Oh, I made it last night after Perry fell asleep” Doofenshmirtz answered.
“It's muffin time!” Norm announced.
“Wait! Did you cook all of the bacon?” Doofenshmirtz asked.
“Yes sir! I thought you would be hungry!”
“That bacon was supposed to last the next four months! That was ten pounds of bacon!” Doofenshmirtz said.
Perry chuckled, he always enjoyed seeing Norm's shenanigans. Perry thoroughly enjoyed breakfast, the bacon was perfectly cooked—even though there was too much of it—and the muffins were still warm. It was so much better than the canned pet food he has to eat at home, some days he can barely manage to choke it down.
“Hey Perry?” Doofenshmirtz said, interrupting Perry's thoughts. “We should probably keep working on the Swapinator”
Perry nodded, that sounded like a good plan. He stood up from his seat and followed Doofenshmirtz out to the lab.
“Do you need any help sir?” Norm shouted after them.
“No!” Doofenshmirtz shouted back. They entered the lab and Doofenshmirtz handed Perry a pair of abnormally heavy shoes that were sitting on a shoe rack next to the door. “Here, put these on”
Perry furrowed his eyebrows, this felt like a trap and he couldn't figure out why Hinez would want to trap him now.
“Oh, stop looking at me like that! I swear they're just shoes! They have steel toes so I don't lose a toe every time I drop something! I’m evil, not reckless! I just forgot to wear them yesterday”
Perry nodded and put the shoes on, they felt really weird and uncomfortable on his feet. (Did humans actually enjoy feeling so separated from the ground? He definitely preferred being bare foot.)
Perry walked over to where Doofenshmirtz had already started rebuilding the Swapinator. He awkwardly stood behind Doofenshmirtz and waited.
“Grab the tool chest. That large red one” Doofenshmirtz said without looking up from his work.
Perry looked around and saw at least five different tool chests. (And Perry knew he's seen at least four others throughout the lab) Perry walked up to the one he thought Doofenshmirtz specified and grabbed it by the handle on the side. He started to pull it towards Doofenshmirtz when it came unbalanced and fell onto Perry. He tried to duck to the side and it mostly worked, except the tool chest was now pinning his right arm to the floor.
Perry let out a high-pitched squeak of pain. Doofenshmirtz, startled by the loud noise, got up and turned to face Perry. He rushed up to Perry. “That's not the one I meant! that one's missing a wheel!” he said as he crouched down to examine where the tool chest fell on his titanium arm. He winced in sympathy.
“NORM!” Doofenshmirtz shouted. Norm enthusiastically burst through the wall of the lab.
“Yes sir?” Norm asked.
“Lift the cart off of him.” Doofenshmirtz instructed.
“Yes sir!” Norm answered as he walked up to the tool chest and lifted it completely off of the floor with one hand. Norm then put it down on the other side of the lab.
Perry stood up and then glared at Heinz, it was one thing to be trapped in his nemesis's body but it was an entirely different issue to be trapped and injured while he was in his nemesis's body.
Perry tried to straighten his sweater when he realized he could no longer feel his right arm. He looked down and saw his mangled titanium hand hanging at his side. He looked up and looked Heinz in the eyes.
Heinz sighed. “Why couldn't you have looked to see if it had four wheels” he said as he walked up to Perry. Heinz jumped up onto the counter next to Perry and pulled the sweater off of him. He sucked in a breath. “Do you have any idea how long this will take to fix!” He said.
Perry shook his head. He rubbed his shoulder, it was getting harder to ignore how heavy the nonfunctional arm was.
Heinz sighed and grabbed Perry's right wrist; he then proceeded to stick his hand in Perry's armpit. Perry pulled back and raised his eyebrows. “I'm not being weird; I put the disconnect switch in the armpit, it's the one spot on an arm you don't hit on everything” Heinz said.
Heinz then hit a small button and the arm came off in his hand; he carefully put it down on a table. He held up a finger and said “Wait here for a moment”. He walked off to a door Perry hadn't noticed before and went inside.
Perry looked down at his armless shoulder, he noticed how thick the scars around the arm socket are. He looked at the inator, it looked significantly different from how it did when he had fallen asleep. (How long had Heinz been working on it?)
Heinz loudly opened the door and walked into the lab. He jumped back up onto the counter and put a cap on his arm socket. Perry raised his eyebrows.
Heinz ignored him and walked over to the broken arm. He sighed and said “this is going to set us back a day or two.”
Perry grabbed the sweater and tried to pull it on; Heinz came over and helped him. Perry glared at him. Something this important and he really didn't have a spare?