Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Perry sits down at his desk, picking up the envelope sitting there. It says Reassignment- Important in bold red letters on the back, and he sighs.

Looks like he was affected after all. And he was just getting used to living in Australia.

Oh well. It’s not like he wasn’t expecting it- Sydney’s headquarters had a massive data breach yesterday night, and almost everyone’s covers were blown. This morning’s walk through the office has given him some idea of the scale- most of the agents in Sydney have been affected.

So everybody is being scattered across the globe. Paris, Hong Kong, São Paulo, the list of locations goes on. Other agents from those divisions will be coming down to Sydney, and they’ll switch back when everything has been fixed.

Perry unfolds the letter, hoping he’s being sent somewhere good. Shanghai, or maybe Los Angeles. Somewhere with plenty to do for the month or so that he’ll be away.

His eyes go wide as he reads the location line, the address of his new temporary headquarters scrawled in green ink.

They’re sending him where?

Perry takes the time during the flight to look over the paperwork his new division has sent over. It’s the usual information; here’s the safe house you’ll be staying at, here are the local customs and laws to watch out for, these are your superiors.

The only unusual thing is the fucking location. This isn’t your average big-city OWCA headquarters. It’s no New York City, doesn’t even hold a candle to Cairo.

No, they’ve sent him to the Tri-State Area. A headquarters in a place in the US that he’s barely heard of.

And that’s only because his brother and nephew live there. Other than that, it’s just another state along the US-Canada border.

According to this brochure from the local evil chapter (LOVEMUFFIN? That’s the best name they could think of?), it’s become a hotspot for practicing evil scientists.

So Perry is going to be assigned one of them as a nemesis. Temporarily, of course, since the breach in Sydney will be fixed soon enough, but still.

The baby crying right behind him finally shuts up, and Perry figures he should get some sleep. This flight is fifteen hours long, so he might as well.

Several long hours and one severely delayed connection out of Los Angeles later, his flight lands at the Tri-State Area International Airport just a few minutes past midnight on December first.

Perry turns his phone on as he waits for his bag, and a text from his brother (sent nearly six hours earlier) lights up the screen.

Heard you were going to be in Danville through Christmas, it says, and Perry has to wonder how exactly Lawrence knows that. The kids are so excited to finally see you in person, ha ha. Do come by once you’re settled, won’t you?

Kids? As in plural?

Oh, that’s right. Lawrence remarried a few years back, and his new wife also had kids from a previous relationship.

Perry had been unable to attend their wedding due to work, and he’s been far too busy to come up and see them since. An unfortunate side effect of his job.

Yes, it means he’s gotten a reputation as a workaholic, and he hasn’t been able to see his niece and nephews very much, but he doesn’t mind. It’s all worth it for the safety of the world. A sacrifice that must be made. And he’s used to it now.

There’s more to the text.

And yes, Lawrence has said, I know you think Christmas is a waste of time, but the kids love it. Do try to at least act excited, okay?

Perry rolls his eyes, retrieving his suitcase and starting out of the airport. Christmas isn’t just a waste of time, it’s completely pointless. It’s just an excuse to play music with way too much sleigh-bell and exchange meaningless gifts. Some even use it as a chance to celebrate the birthday of some guy who died (although apparently not permanently) a bazillion years ago.

But he can pretend, for the kids.

Half an hour later, Perry unlocks the door to his new temporary apartment.

He walks in, looking around as he opens every window he can find. Too many agents seem to have adopted the horrible forties spy-guy trait of smoking, and it tends to leave a lingering smell. This apartment seems to be fine, but by now, it’s a habit to air these places out.

Looks to be the average OWCA safe apartment. The usual tacky decor, with a bowl of fake fruit on the kitchen counter and a “live, laugh, love” sign in the bathroom. The usual mix of random canned goods in the cupboards. The usual complex alarm system that will send any intruder straight into an OWCA holding cell.

Perry leaves his bag in the tiny bedroom (the entire place is tiny, really, OWCA doesn’t have a whole lot of funding) and looks down at the file he retrieved from the local headquarters. His new nemesis. Flipping open the folder, he skims the first page.

His new nemesis is a Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz. Male, six foot two, forty one years old.

Perry snickers when he reads that Doofenshmirtz’s doctorate is a fake, bought off the internet. That should make things easier to thwart, if nothing else.

This file is rather thick, Perry notes, which means it’s going to take quite a while to get through. He takes a cursory look through the cupboards again, hunting for tea.

Crap. There’s nothing there.

Well, looks like he’s going for a walk. He’ll need caffeine to get through all this paperwork.

Thankfully, there’s a coffee shop a few blocks from his temporary home that seems to still be open despite the late hour.

Well, OWCA won’t expect him until morning, and he’s been looking for some tea...this seems like a decent place. Looks clean enough for an all-night cafe.

So he shrugs and crosses the road, clutching the file in his hands a little closer as the wind picks up.

Damn, Danville gets a lot colder at night than Australia.

It’s not like he wasn’t expecting it to be cold. But he was hoping it wouldn’t be literally freezing.

A sign hangs in the door of the coffee shop, proudly proclaiming “Hours: Open when we’re here, closed when we’re not.”

Well, technically, that’s true of most places, but still. Looking in the window, Perry can see a lone man standing behind the counter, scribbling something on a blueprint.

The man looks up and waves, so Perry tucks the files under his arm and opens the door. Might as well.

“Welcome to Lovemuffin Coffee,” the man says as Perry walks in. His accent is distinctly German, and his voice is rather grating.

Perry nods, surveying the menu. He pulls his notebook out of his back pocket and scribbles something down, then shows it to the man behind the counter.

“What?” the barista says. “No, we don’t have tea. It’s not Lovemuffin Tea, it’s Lovemuffin Coffee.”

What sort of- well, fine then. Perry takes his notebook back and writes down medium black coffee, passing the notebook back over.

“You know,” the man behind the counter says, reading the notebook, “you don’t have to use the notebook, I’m not stupid.”

Perry rolls his eyes. Yeah, yeah. How much is the coffee, he signs, doing his best to remember the differences between Auslan and ASL.

Ah, the joys of being mute. At least he ends up in America often enough to keep ASL fresh.

“I’m not deaf either,” the barista says. “Two-fifty.”

Perry hands over the money, then signs But I’m mute, so this will have to do.

“Ah. That’s got to suck, huh?” Perry nods. It’s certainly not convenient, but it’s not like he asked for it. Trauma, it’s a bitch. “Here’s your change, by the way.”

Perry accepts the coins and sticks them in his back pocket.

“If you want to sit somewhere,” the barista says, “I’ll bring your coffee over when it’s done. I wasn’t really expecting anyone to come in this late, so it might be a minute.”

Perry shrugs and finds a table in the corner to sit down to go through the file of his new nemesis. He sits with his back against the wall, out of habit, and flips open the file.

The first page is just basic information, so he moves past that and flips to the second page, which is a list of his known evil activities.

“I mean,” the barista continues, and Perry can tell this guy is one of those people that hates silence, “usually I don’t open up this late, but I’m getting a new nemesis tomorrow, and I just couldn’t sleep.”

Perry nods along, still skimming the information. Most of Heinz Doofenshmirtz’s stuff isn’t that ba- wait a second.

Did that barista just say new nemesis? Perry flips through the pages, and there it is. The barista’s face is staring right back at him, grinning from a cheesy hawaiian background.

Of all the coffeeshops he could have stopped in. Of course he had to stop by the one run by his new nemesis.

Just his luck.

“-Well, Francis won’t tell me who he is, all I know is that he’s a he. And since I don’t know his weaknesses, I can’t make a proper trap around that. I can’t even invent something to take my mind off everything, since Vanessa’s asleep.”

Perry pages through the personal life part of the file. Looks like Vanessa is Heinz’s sixteen year old daughter.

Thankfully, Heinz goes quiet after that, and Perry goes right back to going through the files. Looks like Doctor Doofenshmirtz keeps himself busy, although most of his -inators are rather petty, and all of them end up blown up.

The guy likes self-destruct buttons. Good to know.

After a second, the chair across from Perry scrapes against the ground, and Perry looks up. Heinz has moved from behind the counter to right across from Perry. He raises one eyebrow at the intrusion, but Heinz seems to be oblivious.

“So,” he says, “enough about me. Whatcha doing?”

Work, Perry signs without even looking up.

“What kind of work?”

Paperwork.

“Sounds exciting.” Something beeps, and Heinz gets up to go shut it off. “Say,” he does as he does so, “I don’t believe I caught your name?”

Perry takes a moment to think before he answers. It would be a bad idea to tell his real name to his new nemesis, even more so after he got relocated due to a security breach.

Besides, it’s not like he’s going to ever come back to this coffeeshop. So he can use his fake identity.

Steven, he spells. What about you?

“I’m Heinz Doofenshmirtz,” Heinz says, coming back to the table with two cups of coffee. He sets one down in front of Perry and takes a long drink from the other.

“So why are you up so late?” he asks, sitting back down. “Is your paperwork really that interesting?”

Just got here from Australia. Can’t sleep. That part isn’t actually true, Perry can sleep almost anywhere, but it’s a better explanation than I have a file on your entire life that I need to read through before I formally meet you tomorrow.

“Ah. How long are you staying in Danville?”

Perry shrugs. That all depends on how long it takes OWCA’s cybersecurity department to plug the leak. And that could take anywhere from two weeks to two months, although probably closer to a month or so.

Through the end of the year, most likely, he eventually signs.

“Then you should probably be sleeping and getting used to local time, instead of sitting around a coffee shop.”

Perry shrugs again, turning another page in the file. Eh, he’s had worse jet lag.

“I mean, I don’t mind the company,” Heinz says with a laugh. “Don’t really get a lot of people this late at night.”

You’ve said.

“Have I? I do tend to talk a lot, I guess. Well, since you’re here, want to hear about what I’m designing?”

It turns out that Perry being mute doesn’t pose a problem during their conversation. Mostly because Heinz talks enough for four people.

After about ten minutes of trying to listen and read at the same time, Perry mostly tunes Heinz out. While the man is certainly interesting, he does want to get through the rather sizable file on him before he goes to bed.

Although he does learn the origin story of the cafe (too much alimony from his ex-wife, mostly), so the one-sided conversation isn’t completely pointless.

Apparently Heinz just opens it up whenever, and it’s become sort of a game among the locals to guess when it’s open. Perry’s rather surprised to read that apparently the shop does quite well for itself, despite being run by one guy (and occasionally his daughter) off some alimony.

“Of course,” Heinz says at one point, “I do use one of my -inators to make all the baked goods, and they tend to turn out rather good, so I’m considering just turning this place into a bakery. Who knows, maybe I will.”

Eventually, when Perry’s finally gotten through the file, he gets up and leaves, bidding a cursory farewell to his nemesis.

The cold Novem- no, it’s technically December now- night air is like a slap in the face when he exits the coffee shop, and Perry wishes he brought a coat down.

Danville gets a lot colder than Australia, that has been thoroughly noted.

Oh well. Live and learn.

It’s about three AM when Perry gets back to his temporary home, which is about as cold inside as out. He closes all the windows, sets an alarm for the morning on his phone, and falls asleep within minutes.

The next morning, Perry is woken up by blinking lights right outside his window. Trying to blink the exhaustion out of his eyes (why oh why did he think staying up so late was a good idea?), he opens the blinds to look out.

...What the fuck. There are Christmas lights up absolutely everywhere, including around every window in sight. Little flags with dancing elves on them are hung up on every light post in sight, and there’s a bow on top of each street sign.

Perry picks up his watch from the table by the (horribly uncomfortable) bed to check the time. It’s midni- wait, that’s not right. His watch still must be on Sydney time.

He picks up his phone, which has adjusted itself already.

Okay, so it’s eight AM. That really doesn’t make it any better.

Danville must be absolutely obsessed with Christmas. Perry was up until three AM last night, and there wasn’t a shred of this stuff around. Five hours later, and it’s like Santa’s workshop has thrown up all over Danville.

Well, the citizens of this strange town can waste their own time. As long as he isn’t expected to participate. He’s got work to do.

Speaking of work, he should head into the local headquarters to get his assignment.

Danville’s OWCA headquarters is pretty much the exact opposite of Sydney’s. There’s agents milling about, merely gossiping instead of doing real work. The Major seems to be completely incompetent. The singular (unpaid, how barbaric) intern is practically running the whole division.

In fact, it’s practically a zoo there. Yes, all the agents have animal codenames, but that doesn’t mean they have to act like animals.

All this means Perry gets his assignment (Doofenshmirtz is up to something, as if that’s helpful at all) and leaves as soon as possible.

Of course, as soon as possible means after he’s done with even more transfer-related paperwork, which means he doesn’t get out into the field until nearly two PM.

His assignment takes him up to the top floor of the building he was at last night. The ground floor is mostly the Lovemuffin coffee shop, the rest of it seems to be apartments.

Until the top two or three floors. A rather large sign on the outside of the building proclaims it to be Doofenshmirtz Evil, Incorporated.

Can an evil scientist even be a corporation? Perry honestly has no idea how to answer that question.

Perry lands on the balcony, collapsing his jetpack and stowing it in his hat. He takes two steps forwards and nearly jumps out of his skin when a chorus of voices pops out of nowhere.

“Doofenshmirtz Evil, Incorporated!” the voices sing (as if Perry had no idea where he was), before they disappear into midair. Perry looks around, but there’s nothing there.

Hmm. Must be some sort of proximity alarm. A strange choice, but evil science isn’t the most conventional of careers anyway.

Perry takes a few steps backwards, then forwards again. The jingle doesn’t go off.

...Okay then. Perry takes another step forwards, and is hoisted into the air by his ankles by a rope.

A classic trap, really. Requires quite a bit of abdominal strength to get out without hurting oneself, but it’s nothing that Perry hasn’t seen before.

“Ah, my new nemesis is here!” Heinz Doofenshmirtz says, popping up out of nowhere. “And he’s all caught up in my trap. Hanging in there?” He laughs maniacally at his own joke, and Perry rolls his eyes.

“Oh, I got one of the serious ones. Joy. I mean really, it was just a pun, it’s not like I kicked your dog.” Doofenshmirtz sighs. “Do you even have a name, or a codename, or something?”

He doesn’t remember last night? Perry, despite his career as a secret agent, tends to stand out a bit. Mostly because of the teal hair.

But if Doofenshmirtz doesn’t recognize him, then that’s all the better for his cover.

Perry nods as best as he can, then pulls a business card out of his pocket and hands it to Doofenshmirtz.

“Perry the Platypus, agent of OWCA,” he reads. “What’s a platypus?”

If anybody else asked, Perry would sign that it’s an egg laying mammal with a bill, yes I know it’s strange, but it’s what I was assigned.

But since he’s on the clock, and also upside-down, he doesn’t sign anything.

“Huh, you’re quiet. Anyway, behold, the Advent-Inator! You see, Perry the Platypus, when I was a young boy back in Gimmelshtump…”

Perry tunes out the backstory for a little while, listening to the blood rush in his ears (hanging upside-down will do that) and gathering his thoughts.

Okay. The owning a coffee shop off his wife’s alimony thing, he can get. The strange backup singer proximity alarm thing? Sure, why not. Evil scientists tend to be an eccentric bunch.

But having a Christmas themed scheme on the first day of December? Thanksgiving was less than a week ago. There are still leaves on the trees. Why would someone choose another pointless Christmas scheme?

Besides, aren’t there a whole bunch of other December holidays to theme an evil scheme around? Like Hanukkah, or the winter solstice, or even national llama day?

The hordes of decorations were one thing, but this too? How obsessed is this place with Christmas?

Perry lets Doctor Doofenshmirtz monologue for a while, taking note of how the Advent-Inator will apparently give Doof 23 more festive evil ideas if it works right, before he cuts himself down.

One (one-sided) fight later, Perry chucks a red glass ball-shaped Christmas ornament (yet another pointless convention of the season- breakable glass that can only be displayed once a year) at the self-destruct button on Doofenshmirtz’s -inator.

There, maybe now he won’t have to thwart maids a-swimming, or however the stupid song goes.

Although, with his luck, he’ll end up thwarting Christmas schemes anyway, because Danville just seems to be like that.

“Curse you, Perry the Platypus,” Doofenshmirtz yells as Perry leaps off the balcony.

He lands on the sidewalk below, and the passers-by don’t even bat an eye.

...how often does something like this happen? If the normal citizens of a city are unsurprised to see a secret agent descending from forty stories up with a jetpack, what else happens on a daily basis?

His question is answered when a pair of young boys riding reindeer ride down the street, followed by a few more kids.

Hmm. Strange indeed.

Hang on a second. Those boys look familiar- yes, it’s them. His nephews, Phineas and Ferb.

He’s only seen them through a few scattered video calls, so when the red-haired boy (what was his name? Oh, yes, Phineas,) waves, Perry barely recognizes that Phineas is waving at him.

At least, until he yells “Hi there, Uncle Perry!”

Perry whips off his hat (they definitely can’t know he’s an agent) and waves back.

Phineas pulls his reindeer up to the sidewalk where Perry stands.

“Wanna come help us put up the best lights ever at our house?” he asks, and Ferb smiles a little bit, gesturing to a riderless reindeer near him.

Perry very nearly shakes his head, before he remembers what Lawrence texted to him.

The boys love Christmas, don’t ruin it for them, basically. 

Okay, fine. He can play along for a little while.

Although he does have paperwork to do, and Christmas is a colossal waste of time anyway...

But the boys are both smiling expectantly, and this really shouldn’t take too long. So he boosts himself up onto the reindeer, grips the reins, and gestures for the boys to lead the way.

Chapter Text

Despite his best efforts to remain coolly indifferent about the whole affair, the kids happen to be right. Decorating a house in brightly colored lights is rather fun.

Not because of any holiday, mind you, but just because of the satisfaction to look up and see the products of your work.

It’s not quite like returning to a community previously ravished by a drug cartel years after you drove the cartel away and helped fix up the place, but it’s pretty nice.

The brilliant lights, perfectly placed, light up the night and make things just a bit brighter.

Although they’ll be taken down in a month or so, they do happen to give a bit of cheer to the seemingly-endless nights. (Adjusting to the days being much shorter in December is going to be a pain, Perry can already tell.)

Maybe not everything around Christmas is completely pointless. The elves and candy canes and wrapping presents? Yeah, still pointless. But the lights do serve a purpose. Even if said purpose is just a morale-booster.

As Candace holds a ladder for him (apparently taking a break from “busting her brothers”), he gets an earful of Danville’s history with Christmastime.

Apparently, Santa visits personally every year after an incident involving a naughty-inator, and Danville is always ready to give him a bit of a breather. Local kids take turns helping deliver presents.

Perry can’t help but roll his eyes. That’s got to be nothing more than a local legend, a tall tale. Santa visits Danville personally, just like he visits every single shopping mall in the world personally. Which is to say, he doesn’t.

Candace, however, seems to think otherwise, even saying how she was able to get her boyfriend Jeremy exactly what he wanted because of it.

Isn’t she a little old to be believing in Santa Claus?

Either way, it doesn’t matter, as she spots something and immediately scurries away from the ladder, muttering something about how the boys are going to get busted for once and for all.

Perry follows after her, nearly screeching to a halt when he sees the rather magnificent light display the boys have set up in the backyard.

Okay, so it turns out that the depictions of the things the boys build in his sporadic emails with Lawrence weren’t just the result of an overactive imagination.

Candace immediately runs into the house and starts to call for her mom, just as a giant fish hook flying by catches onto the light display and hauls it off.

Well then. Danville gets stranger by the day.

Still. Perry watches as Linda comes out to the yard, obviously seeing nothing to the dismay of Candace.

“You saw that, right uncle Perry?” she asks, eyes pleading.

I didn’t get a very close look, Perry signs, trying to stay out of the sibling feud.

Thankfully it works, and Candace is merely mildly annoyed as she goes inside, muttering about her nutty brothers.

Much later, as Perry finishes his reports (yawning all the while despite the newly-acquired tea in front of him, changing time zones is a bitch), his mind drifts to what Candace was talking about earlier.

Santa comes to Danville, huh? Obviously, that’s got to be an urban legend. If the kids want to believe in it, though, he won’t stop them.

Yes, Candace might be a little too old to be believing in Santa Claus, but honestly, Perry doesn’t care. She can believe whatever she wants to about Santa.

Although that legend can't be the only reason Danville goes over-the-top with its Christmas spirit. There’s got to be something else- what else could compel an entire town to go so overboard with a useless holiday?

He pulls out his phone to do a bit more research. This whole thing is starting to give him a weird feeling, and the first thing they teach at OWCA training is trust your instincts.

It turns out, with the cursory amount he can manage to do, that Candace is right.

But he can’t quite let that feeling go. There’s got to be something more to this whole thing.

He should do a bit more poking around. As a secret agent, he has access to resources most people don’t, and as one of OWCA’s best, he doesn’t get questioned for using them for non-work purposes either.

But that can happen tomorrow. Right now, he should go to bed, before he passes out right at this table and wakes up with classified information imprinted on his cheek.

A week later, Perry is out with his niece and nephews, watching as they take over Danville’s ice rink with one of their contraptions.

Much as he hates to admit it, their enthusiasm for the Christmas season has started to rub off on him. For example, today’s excursion, courtesy of their parents being busy with their antique shop.

They did their best to convince him to skate too, but even they couldn’t convince him to do that.

So he watches as they build some sort of icy skate park off the rink. Candace, of course, is obsessed with busting them, but honestly as long as the boys are wearing helmets and being safe with power tools, it’ll be all fine.

Of course, someone else just has to show up and recognize him.

“Hey, Steven, is that you?” Heinz asks, walking up to where Perry is standing.

Perry nods and waves politely in acknowledgement. The kids are far enough away so that his cover isn’t completely destroyed by Heinz’s loud voice.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” he says, stopping slightly in Perry’s personal space. “How have you been?”

He shrugs, taking a subtle step back. He’s been okay. Although Heinz should really know that, given that he’s been thwarting the guy for the past week.

Truly, the man’s face blindness is incredible.

“You should come by the coffee shop and catch up, tell me how different Danville and Australia are,” Heinz says. “I might make some tea.”

Perry raises one eyebrow with a little smirk. I thought you said you have a coffee shop, not a tea shop?

“Well, yeah, but I also sell baked goods, and I don’t call it a bakery, now do I?”

You were considering doing that, though.

“I suppose that’s true.” For a moment, Heinz goes quiet, lost in thought. “Hey, why aren’t you skating?”

Perry shrugs. He’s never tried it, and he has no desire to. Likely, he’ll end up falling on his ass, making a fool out of himself. And that really doesn’t go with the whole “cool uncle” persona. Or the “suave agent” persona either, for that matter.

“C’mon,” Heinz says, holding his hand out. “You’ve got to try. I doubt there’s much opportunity to skate in Australia.”

He’s right, there really isn’t. And Heinz is still holding his hand out in invitation...

So ten minutes later, Perry finds himself falling over (just like he thought he would) on the ice. Over and over. Heinz attempts to give him pointers, between laughs.

Once Perry’s finally gotten his footing, he levers his famous unimpressed look towards Heinz.

Was this just an excuse to see me fall over? he asks, one eyebrow raised.

“No, of course not,” Heinz says, but he’s laughing.

“Okay, okay,” he finally concedes. “Tell you what, I’ll race you to the other end of the rink, and if you win, I’ll tell you the truth.”

Well, now that’s just not fair. But damn if Perry doesn’t play to win.

So he pushes off of Heinz to get a head start, hurtling across the ice as fast as he possibly can. He gains speed surprisingly quickly, nearly laughing aloud as he zips across the ice.

Too late, he realizes that he has no idea how to stop. Or turn. Or do anything except crash into the side of the rink.

There’s only one thing he can think of doing, and that’s brace for impact.

He takes the brunt of the impact in his shoulder, then loses his balance and falls rather spectacularly right on his backside.

“Oh jeez, are you okay?” Heinz asks, coming to a stop smoothly with a spin in front of Perry.

What a showoff.

Perry shrugs, rubbing his shoulder. Well, everything hurts, but other than that…

“Really, though, that was a bad fall. You- you might want to put some ice on that shoulder.”

I just did, Perry signs with a roll of his eyes.

Heinz laughs, a short barking sound that sounds almost melodious as it echoes around the rink. “Okay, yeah, I guess you’re right.”

I beat you to this side of the rink, Perry signs with a smirk. So spit it out.

“Only because you cheated!”

I also fell over, so we’re even. Perry gets up, quickly glancing over towards his niece and nephews.

They’re preoccupied. Good. Getting kids involved with evil science is never good.

“I guess you’re right. Fine.” Heinz raises his right hand in a mockery of a testimony. “I, Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz, do solemnly swear that I did not convince you to try ice skating just so I could watch you fall over.”

Perry notices how Heinz’s left hand is behind his back, which means he’s almost certainly crossing his fingers, rendering that completely useless.

But he pretends not to notice, instead smiling and sticking his hand out so he can have something somewhat solid to hold onto as they continue skating.

About an hour later, when the sun is starting to set (damn Northern Hemisphere), Heinz lets go of Perry’s hand.

“I should, uh, probably get going,” he says, his smile a little hesitant. “Not that this wasn’t fun, but I have to go make dinner for my daughter, and…”

Oh, that’s okay, Perry signs. I should go home too.

“This was fun, though,” Heinz says, then his face lights up. “When do you want to, y’know, come by the coffee shop? I do want to hear about Australia.”

I can come by after work tomorrow, Perry signs, knowing full well it’s a bad idea to keep seeing his nemesis like this.

“Okay, that sounds nice. What’s your favorite type of tea?”

Oolong, Perry spells out.

“Oolong, huh? I mean, I’m more of an herbal tea sort of guy, but...I’ll remember that.” Heinz smiles. “I’ll see you after you get off of work, I guess, unless you show up at one in the morning again. Then there’s no guarantees.”

Perry laughs. No, I usually leave work in the late afternoon.

“That’s good. Well, um, I think I should get going, so…”

I’ll see you tomorrow, Perry signs.

“See you tomorrow,” Heinz says, waving as he turns around and walks away.

Perry smiles as he watches Heinz leave.

A few minutes later, when the kids ask why he’s smiling so much as he takes them home, he just shrugs. He doesn’t really know why either, really.

He’s talking to his nemesis, planning to see his nemesis outside of work. Under any other circumstance, he wouldn’t even consider this situation a possibility.

But there’s something different about Heinz. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but there’s definitely something strange there.

Later that night, as he stares at the ceiling of his bedroom and attempts to sleep, a strange thought occurs to him.

What if his cover is blown? What’s going to happen if Heinz finds out that Steven is actually Perry?

What sort of repercussions are there going to be for that? Is he going to be reassigned to another nemesis, or another country?

Hopefully, he never has to find that out. He’ll go back to Australia in three weeks or so. There shouldn’t be any need to worry.

All he needs to do is keep the cover up for a few more weeks. That shouldn’t be too hard.

Chapter Text

The next day brings a text from Lawrence thanking him for watching the kids yesterday, a vague lingering feeling of something left over, and as usual, a summons from Major Monogram.

Perry rolls his eyes and accepts the incoming transmission on his watch. There’s a fifty-fifty shot that he’s actually going to get a mission with this latest summons. It’s either that, or he’s going to just have to sit there while the Major laments about how his unpaid intern messes things up constantly.

He’s already sick of having to listen to Monogram’s little rants, and he’s only been here a little over a week. He thought it was impossible, but he actually feels a little bit sorry for the other agents.

But not too sorry. They found the apartment he’s currently occupying, and broke in at some point to decorate. Now, he’s got to live in an explosion of tinsel as well.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that he had to put up with Danville’s inane traditions outside of his temporary home. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to drive around (jetpacks are truly the best thing to come out of OWCA’s research and development division), because there are Christmas parades daily.

How does a town even have this much so-called “Christmas Spirit”? It’s honestly rather spooky.

Unfortunately, his research on the subject has only turned up the same few things his niece mentioned. Santa comes to town, stopping to give some lucky children the chance to deliver presents as well. Ergo, Christmas spirit to the max.

Perry has to roll his eyes whenever he hears that particular fable mentioned. Is he really the only sane one around here?

Apparently so. On his watch, he can see the Major all dressed up for the season, despite it only being the second week of December.

Honestly, Christmas would be a much better holiday if the lead-up was just compressed into the span of a week. Like Thanksgiving, or St. Patrick’s Day, or Valentine’s day. (Now there’s a horrid holiday, one absolutely overwrought by consumerism and forced heterosexual romance. Ick.)

The Major babbles on about whatever for a few minutes, before finally actually giving Perry his mission.

Go thwart Doofenshmirtz. As usual. How fun. Perry leaves his apartment and sets off towards Doofenshmirtz Evil, Incorporated.

When he arrives, he’s immediately caught in a Christmas-tree stand. Bright and twinkling red and green lights wrap around him, pinning him in place. He tests the tensile strength of the lights, finding them no better than the lights he helped his family hang at the beginning of the month.

Out of absolutely nowhere, Doofenshmirtz pops up, holding a bird for some reason. It’s not the weirdest thing he’s seen in a scheme this month, but it’s probably in the top ten.

“And a partridge on a Perry!” he sings as the bird (apparently a partridge, joy) flutters to land on Perry’s fedora, clearly way too proud of himself for that pun.

Perry merely rolls his eyes in clear “kill-me-now” fashion, before shaking his head in an attempt to get rid of the bird.

“Yeesh, Perry the Platypus, have some Christmas spirit,” Doofenshmirtz says as the bird merely flutters its wings. “You could at least say something.”

Perry chatters.

Doofenshmirtz shrugs. “Eh, I’ll take it. We’ll work on it. Evil science is all about communication, after all. Which is why I decided to put my monologue into song form today!” He pulls a remote out of the pocket of his lab coat and hits a button on it. “On the first day of-”

He stops short when he realizes whatever music he had still hasn’t started. “I said,” he says, hitting the button again, “on the first day of- oh come on, this was working earlier.”

Well, if this is his opportunity, he’s going to take it. Perry wiggles one arm free, then the other, then untangles the rest of the lights from around his body. The partridge finally flaps away, alerting Dr. Doofenshmirtz to his escape.

“Manners, Perry the Platypus!” he exclaims, affronted. “You haven’t even heard my monologue yet! Come on, let me sing my song. Then you can escape and punch me in the face.”

Perry sighs deeply. Why is this his life. Why did he have to end up in Danville, doing this?

Either way, Doof insists, so he leans against a lab counter and motions for him to get on with it. Might as well get it over with quickly.

One inane musical number later, Perry is left possibly even more bewildered than before. Doof’s evil plan is to...flood city hall with hundreds of the birds from the twelve days of Christmas song.

He’s not quite entirely sure how that would enable Dr. Doofenshmirtz to take over the Tri-State Area, but that doesn’t matter. This should be a simple enough plan- get the birds to turn on him, and that will destroy his plans.

See, he can do more than just blow things up. He has more tact than that. (Usually.)

While the birds attack Doofenshmirtz, Perry merely dusts his hands off and heads towards the balcony.

“Curse you, Perry the Platypus,” Dr. Doofenshmirtz yells over the calls of about sixty geese (-a-laying, which is an absolutely absurd gift, Perry notes).

Perry salutes with a cocky smirk, then steps backwards off the balcony. He does a flip, just because he can, before activating his glider and soaring away.

With a look over Danville, he can see his nephews have built something large and festive. He’s tempted to check it out, but he has something else in mind. Instead, he soars in the opposite direction, towards the local history museum.

If any place is going to have accurate, solid information on this strange Santa social phenomenon, it’s going to be an institution of research and truth.

Besides, he’s got some time to kill. It’s going to be a little while until Doofenshmirtz is able to open up his coffee shop. That was a lot of birds, after all.

He folds in the wings of his glider and lands on the front steps of the museum, bending his knees to absorb the shock before he walks in.

The interior of the museum seems to be decorated for the season in a more subdued manner than the rest of Danville, thankfully. It would still be considered over-the-top in Australia, but it’s much better than the rest of the city (which is unfortunately an extremely low bar).

A brief glance at a map reveals a special exhibit on Danville’s history with Santa. Perfect.

Perry makes his way to the exhibit, pausing only briefly to look at a small bit on the history of the Tri-State Area.

Apparently, it was almost named Wisconsin before a John P. Trystate united two areas of land, and then the spelling got butchered over the years.

Honestly, at this point, Perry isn’t even surprised. Just another par for the extremely strange course in Danville.

More surprising is the fact that the Danville history museum seems to also keep up the facade that Santa visits every year.

Even when he closely examines the photos on the walls, he can’t find any evidence of any photoshopping.

Clearly, whoever edited all those images must have done an incredible job. Although Perry will admit that detecting those sorts of imperfections isn’t exactly one of his strong points. The geeks in cybersecurity are much better than he is, and he’s perfectly happy to let them do their thing. They don’t go out in the field, he doesn’t pretend to be any good at hacking, it works.

As he looks around, Perry makes sure to keep a close eye on the time. He’s going to have to walk to the coffeeshop (which thankfully is only a couple blocks away), he doesn’t want to be late to his date.

Perry stops in his tracks. When did “opportunity to keep an eye on his nemesis after hours” become “date”? That’s absurd. Hei- Doctor Doofenshmirtz is perhaps almost the exact opposite of his type. He usually prefers people who share his level of enthusiasm towards major holidays- which is none.

Clearly, he’s been spending too much time around his romance-obsessed niece.

Well, date or not (it’s not, right?) he should really get going. So he leaves the museum and walks the four blocks to the Lovemuffin coffee shop.

The shop seems to be mostly empty when Perry gets there, with a few teens sitting around a table playing cards and a man with his face buried in a newspaper being the only patrons.

Doofenshmirtz waves from behind the counter when Perry walks in. “Hi there, Steven!” he says. The other person behind the counter, a teenaged girl who Perry vaguely recalls as being his daughter, Valerie or Victoria or something, rolls her eyes.

“Can you handle the counter, sweetie?” Doofenshmirtz asks his daughter, who nods, not even looking up from what must be her sketchbook.

“Oh yeah,” he says, “you haven’t met yet. Vanessa, this is my friend Steven. Steven, this is my daughter Vanessa.”

Vanessa waves, sort of, then goes back to looking down at her sketchbook.

“Here,” Doofenshmirtz says to Perry, “I just finished brewing the tea.” He hands Perry a cup, and Perry takes a small sip.

Oolong. Huh. He did remember. Something in Perry’s chest flutters, but he squashes it as fast as he humanly can. Flutters like that mean infatuation, and he absolutely does not like Hei-Doofenshmirtz in that way.

Together, they sit at the same table they did on Perry’s first night in Danville.

Unlike Perry’s first night, Hei-Doofen- oh forget it. Heinz actually wants to listen to Perry, wants to ask him questions about Australia.

At first, the questions are about simple subjects, like the weather, or what his work is like down there.

And then Heinz gets Perry ranting about Christmas being useless.

It’s not exactly hard to get Perry going, which is a little embarrassing. Somehow, he doesn’t feel ashamed of it like people usually make him feel. (He’s been called a Grinch more times than he can count.) Instead, the faint warmth in his cheeks comes from sharing a part of him with someone he maybe, possibly, might actually consider a friend. Of course if it weren’t for the evil scientist-secret agent part.

That, or the blush thankfully hidden by his dark skin tone is due to the heat of the tea. Yeah, that’s a much more likely explanation.

“So you think everything about Christmas is pointless?” Heinz asks when Perry pauses his expressive signing to pick up his mug. “Everything?”

Perry nods, then stops to think. Ice skating is good exercise, and the lights are marginally interesting, but other than that, yes.

“Even Christmas cookies? Do you think those are pointless, too?”

Well, yeah? What’s the point of making special cookies just once a year?

Heinz huffs, clearly affronted. “Okay, before I answer that, when was the last time you made Christmas cookies?”

Perry has to think about that for a moment.There was never any sort of holiday celebration when he was in OWCA’s orphanage, and he was there for a long time.

Probably when I was four, he eventually signs. And I barely remember that.

“Wow, that’s a long time,” Heinz says. “Is there a story there?”

Why yes, yes there is. His parents (also OWCA agents, so there was really no question about his future career) were killed in front of him (yay for trauma), and he was shuffled into OWCA’s overcrowded orphanage, where there was no time to celebrate anything.

Lawrence had been with friends that night, and so hadn’t seen his own parents get shot and bleed out on the floor. He had been devastated at their deaths, but since he didn’t actually see it happen, his memory was wiped and he was sent off to live with distant relatives in England. Lucky bastard.

But while he grew up with OWCA, there were more important things to worry about, so he quickly forgot all about Christmas cookies.

Doesn’t mean he wants to tell that story, though. Especially not to his nemesis. So he shakes his head.

“Well,” Heinz says, and Perry can practically see the wheels turning in his head, “maybe we can bake some cookies, and we’ll see what you think after that.”

Perry nearly declines the offer out of principle, but he stops and thinks for a second. A chance to keep tabs on his nemesis after hours like this doesn’t come around that often. And besides, he isn’t doing a whole lot else (other than endless paperwork) this afternoon.

So he accepts. Why not? Good way to kill an afternoon and do recon. Maybe he’ll even get a raise when he goes back to Australia.

“Cool!” Heinz says, standing up from the table. “C’mon, we can go up to my apartment and bake. We can make gingerbread, and sugar cookies, and maybe even chocolate pinwheels…”

Ten minutes later, their drinks sit cooling forgotten on Heinz’s kitchen table as they work at mixing cookie dough.

Heinz makes a royal mess when he accidentally sets his Butter-Soften-Inator at way too high of a setting, and again when he drops the egg carton, but Perry sticks around. For some reason.

Somehow, Heinz’s klutzy tendencies have gotten under his skin, in a way that isn’t entirely unpleasant.

They manage to get most of the cookie dough for the gingerbread onto cookie sheets without Heinz eating it all- although he does nab a few right out of the oven. Perry worries for a second about him burning his fingers, before remembering that he has titanium arms.

(And they’re nemeses! Why does he care so much about his nemesis hurting himself?)

“See, they’re delicious!” Heinz says through a mouthful of gingerbread. “I know we didn’t decorate them or anything, but still. How could these possibly be useless?”

Perry sighs. Heinz, unfortunately, has a point. The cookies, despite Perry’s extreme lack of baking talent, are actually decent. Okay, okay, maybe making cookies isn’t stupid. But why can’t you make Christmas cookies in July?

“The whole point is that you only do it once a year, silly,” Heinz huffs.

Okay, then why not do it once a year in July?

“You’re from Australia, don’t you know how hot it gets in July? You don’t want to turn o n the oven in that sort of weather.”

Actually, it’s hot in Australia all year, and Perry doesn’t really do very much baking anyway, hence the lack of baking skill. But Perry shakes his head. The hemispheres flip the seasons, he signs, just to be obstinate.

“Oh yeah, that’s right, they do. But here, it gets hot in July, and I barely want to turn on the oven to bake for the coffee shop, let alone do a lot of personal baking.”

Much as he hates to admit it Heinz has a point. Perry nods and picks the cookie cutters back up, focusing on making the sugar cookies into neat shapes while keeping Heinz from eating all the scraps before he can re-roll the dough.

Thankfully, they manage to get a couple sheets worth of stars and trees into the oven before Heinz causes another disaster. This time, he forgets that the lid to the flour container is loose, and he winds up spilling flour all over the floor.

Perry focuses more on cutting out more cookies as Heinz cleans up the spilled flour, laughing and jabbering about how “this isn’t the worst thing I’ve spilled” and that “you don’t know real pain unless you’ve spilled fifteen jars of sprinkles on the floor ten minutes before you open”.

Finally, Heinz gets most of the flour cleaned up. So Perry, of course, has to tease him about something. He looks up from the cookie dough on the counter, setting the rolling pin aside.

You’ve got flour all over your face, he signs to Heinz.

“I do?” Heinz asks, wiping his face on his sleeve, which only makes it worse. “Of course I do.” He laughs, still attempting to wipe the flour away. “Is it better now?”

Perry shakes his head, a smile creeping onto his face despite his best efforts.

That funny feeling from earlier today returns, this time even stronger. He knows there’s a label for what the flutters in his chest are, but the specific words are eluding him at the moment.

It can’t be anything friendly, of course not. He’s known Heinz for two weeks. Heinz is his nemesis, for god’s sake. There is no reason he should be harboring positive sentiments towards his nemesis right now, no matter the stupid reactions he’s having to Heinz’s flour covered face.

In fact, this feeling is just him being nervous about his cover. It’s got to be. ‘Steven’ can’t last forever, it’s a miracle his cover has lasted this long.

Whatever the feeling is, nerves or otherwise, it lasts all afternoon, and into the evening. Right up until Vanessa calls up from the apparently swamped coffee shop. Heinz escorts Perry back down to the ground floor, giving Perry a box of Christmas cookies on his way out.

The cookies get set on the tiny kitchen table in Perry’s temporary apartment, underneath the tiny tree now sitting there. Perry pushes aside the rest of the decorations, ready to start on the world’s weirdest nemesis interaction paperwork.

That stupid feeling in his chest is still there.

Chapter Text

Another week passes, and all of a sudden, it’s only a week until Christmas.

Perry finds himself in Danville’s main town square, holding a cup of tea, walking around a Christmas market with nobody other than Heinz Doofenshmirtz himself. On yet another information gathering mission, definitely-not-a-date-why-does-he-keep-thinking-that.

He’s holding a cup of oolong tea, while Heinz has what has to be the most ridiculously complicated holiday drink Perry has ever seen.

“It’s really not disgusting,” Heinz says. “It tastes like Christmas in a cup.”

Perry, whose hand is a bit occupied, settles for raising an eyebrow instead of signing anything.

“Fine,” he says. “You try it.”

Heinz hands over the cup, his fingers briefly brushing over Perry’s. Perry does his best to ignore the way his face gets warm when that happens.

The blush intensifies when he actually tries the half-sugar concoction and comes to the conclusion that it really isn’t all that disgusting.

It’s just the slightly embarrassing fact that he’s been proven wrong, not the fact that Heinz’s expression is ridiculously endearing.

He shoves the cup back at Heinz as fast as possible, sticking out his tongue at Heinz and ignoring that absolutely unnecessary thought.

“I can’t believe you’d insult my masterpiece like that, Steven,” Heinz says, shaking his head. “More for me, I suppose.”

Perry shakes his head again. As long as Heinz doesn’t blame him for his inevitable sugar crash.

They walk around the market, the scents of pine and cinnamon swirling in the crisp, clear air. Heinz points out everything that draws his attention, which happens to be almost everything.

After about an hour and a half, the sun begins to dip behind the buildings around them, street lamps turning on. Curse the sun setting so early in the Northern hemisphere. (Curse the sun? Heinz’s mannerisms must be rubbing off on him much more than he wants them to.)

I should get going, Perry signs as they loop back around to the entrance of the market. I’m seeing some family that’s in the area tonight.

“Right,” Heinz says. “You’ll have to come by again before Christmas- this was fun.” He looks down, cheeks flushed.

He must be cold. In fact, the air feels like it’s going to snow tonight, a stiff breeze fluttering the ends of Heinz’s scarf.

“I-” he stammers “can I-”

Perry raises an eyebrow.

“Um- nevermind. Have fun with your family.”

Perry smiles and waves before he turns to head back to his temporary apartment.

~~~

A few hours later, after dinner and putting the kids to bed with stern reminders to stay put, the adults get to work on wrapping presents.

“I’m glad to see you warming up to Danville,” Linda says as she pulls packages down from their hiding places.

Perry shrugs, a smile creeping onto his face. Danville, well, it’s grown on him. The city is certainly a pretty place, and most of the people are just fine. His niece and nephews are great- honestly, if it weren’t for the weirdness surrounding Heinz and the whole ‘Steven’ nonsense, he’d stay here forever.

That and the Santa thing. The rest of the Christmas obsession is kind of growing on him (not that he’ll ever admit it out loud), but the Santa thing is just weird.

“You’ll have to come visit us more often, the kids love having you around,” Lawrence smiles. “See if you can get that crazy job of yours to give you a vacation every now and again.”

Perry grins and rolls his eyes. Evil never rests, although it’s not like his brother knows anything about that.

Maybe he does. He does run an antique business, and evil scientists love using old things to give their creations a hint of extra validity. The lovely argument from antiquity fallacy.

Perry pulls a few of his own gifts for the kids out of his bag. Mostly little things from Australia, although he did stop by Blueprint Heaven on his way over from the Christmas market for Phineas and Ferb.

“So, got anybody special back in Australia?” Lawrence asks, setting a box of bows on the counter, and Perry shakes his head.

“Are you sure about that?” Linda asks with a wink.

Absolutely certain, Perry signs. Despite his brother and sister in law’s insistence at sticking their noses where they don't belong, it’s true.

He’s kind of (ok, almost entirely) a workaholic. He doesn’t exactly have time to get to know people enough to fall for them.

Case in point- he’s dated exactly three people in his thirty-six years of life.

A girl in secondary school, which lasted for about a week before he actually confronted the painfully obvious fact that he is quite gay. A man in his criminal psychology class in his second year of university, who he went on one disaster of a date with and never talked to again.

And a fellow agent a few years back, who ended up stabbing him in the back after about a year. Literally- he has the scar and everything.

If one’s longest relationship ends in actual attempted murder, one kind of stops dating.

Of course, Lawrence can’t know about that, since it’s completely classified.

So no, there’s really, truly, nobody back in Australia.

“What about anyone here?” Linda asks. “Got your eye on anyone local?”

Perry shakes his head again, perhaps a bit too quickly based on the look Linda and Lawrence share. No matter what his subconscious likes to believe, he does not have any feelings for his nemesis. They are nemeses! Heinz doesn’t even know that Steven and Agent P are the same person!

Lawrence chuckles. “Whatever you say, Perry, whatever you say.”

~~~

Five days to Christmas, and Perry’s back at Lovemuffin Coffee. He’s casually skimming the local newspaper (hey, it was sitting on what he’s starting to think of as “his” table, why not) with a cup of tea, Heinz is doodling in a sketchbook and rambling about the flammability of various types of window blinds.

A man typing furiously on a laptop, a group of high school students argue about the cube rule of food, and a few couples are scattered around the cafe, providing a low hum of conversation (and occasional cries of “Soup is a wet salad!”, which, okay then) under Heinz’s rough accent.

Perry flips to the crossword in the newspaper, finding it half filled in. Whoever left this on the table must have gotten frustrated halfway through and given up.

For no good reason, since Perry can already see several words he can add. He pulls a pen out of his pocket, penning in the word eggbeater. Nine down.

“-Which made me realize, I should probably just not have blinds on that window, since it keeps blowing up.”

Perry nods along with Heinz’s words, writing in another word.

The bell over the door jingles, and Perry looks up.

His heart drops. It’s the Major, Major Monogram. Quickly, Perry tries to hide behind the newspaper, but it’s too late. He walks right over to Perry and Heinz.

“Oh hello, Francis,” Heinz says.

“Hello, Heinz,” the Major says, indifferently, before turning to Perry.

“And Perry the Platypus! It’s so great to see you taking the extra step and talking to Doof outside of the usual thwarting. I knew you were the best agent here for a reason,” the Major says, and Perry’s stomach plummets further.

“I expect the debrief on my desk by tonight,” he says, leaving without doing anything else, completely unaware of all the trouble he’s just caused.

The door jingles behind him in the now-silent cafe, all eyes on Heinz and Perry.

Heinz narrows his eyebrows.

“Is that all I ever was to you? Just a job?” Heinz shakes his head.“I- I thought we had something special, Steven. Or, I guess I should say Perry.”

I can explain, Perry signs, but Heinz refuses to look. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, his voice almost on the verge of tears.

“I don’t want to listen. I just want to know one thing. Was any of it real?”

I- Perry pauses before he gets too far in his explanation. Was any of their camaraderie true? Or was it all part of the job?

Did Heinz think they were dating? They weren’t, obviously, but…Perry can see how Heinz thought they might have been.

The look on his face must give away his inner conflict, because Heinz is steamrolling on.

“It wasn’t real, was it.” A deep sigh. “Just- I- go.”

Perry wants to protest, but something stops him. Are you sure?

“Please, leave me alone. I don’t want to see you any more.”

Right now, eye contact with his shoes and a quick retreat seems like the best option. As the door closes behind him, he can hear hushed conversations starting in his wake.

Walking out the front door of the coffee shop, eyes following his retreating back, feels worse than the actual backstabbing that ended his last relationship.

That time, he had been unsuspecting. This time, he caused it. Maybe that’s the reason.

But that’s just secret agent life, isn’t it. His turn to backstab- and Heinz is evil. He deserves it, right? So why does it still feel so awful?

~~~

Even in the bitter cold, his feet carry him all over downtown Danville for hours. Up and down every street, staring directly at the ground in front of him. Occasionally, his eyes prick with tears, but he blinks them away

His feet carry him to where the Christmas market was set up just earlier this week. The square is empty at this time of night, just a few strings of Christmas lights strung between buildings.

He sits down on one of the benches under a tree just as a light dusting of snow starts to fall.

Screw this. Stupid snow. Stupid Christmas lights. Stupid holiday. Why did he ever have to go to that coffee shop? What’s the point of all of this?

He sighs. There is no point. It’s just useless. This is all useless. No point, whatsoever.

There’s only one question left. Why does he feel so awful about deceiving his nemesis like he did? He’s a secret agent, it’s his job to be a double-crosser.

Really, there’s no rational reason to be this guilty.

…but what about irrational reasons?

The answer hits him like the truck of -what else- Christmas trees driving by on the street.

Goddammit, he is in love. With his nemesis. Who thinks that this was just a job. Even though it really…wasn’t.

The skating, the cookie-baking, the Christmas market. Maybe those were dates. Perry drops his head in his hands. His brother and sister-in-law were right.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

Christmas Eve approaches far too quickly for Perry’s taste.

Hei- no, Dr. Doofenshmirtz- hasn’t schemed in the past few days, making it easy for Perry to visit his family more and avoid the little cafe a few blocks down the road.

He wrote that report up for Major Monogram, leaving it on his desk that night, conveniently leaving out the fact that he fell in love with his nemesis.

Nobody needs to know that. It’d be best if he could forget about it, too.

It just doesn’t help that Heinz is the least forgettable man Perry has ever met- and remember, he got stabbed by an ex boyfriend.

Snowflakes spin lazily about outside his apartment window, and he sighs as he finally gets up.

It’s been nice to be able to sleep in for the first time since his college days (“sleeping in” meaning “past eight thirty”), but it feels wrong. He should be getting up earlier than this to thwart his nemesis, be assigned a mission, run around putting out both literal and figurative fires.

Perry opens his email as he drinks his morning tea. Not nearly as good as- he shakes his head. It’s time to stop that line of thinking.

And it looks like he’s going to get that chance very soon, since the newest message in his inbox has the subject line of “URGENT: Breach repaired”.

Enclosed is a notice that OWCA’s systems have been repaired and strengthened, along with re-relocation paperwork to go back to Sydney and an airplane ticket with a departure date of December 31st.

Flying home- or back to Sydney, at least- on New Year’s Eve, away from everything he screwed up in Danville. This email couldn’t have come at a better time.

He grins, even as his watch beeps with a summons to Danville’s headquarters.

There, Major Monogram tells him that Heinz is going to be attending…his niece and nephew’s Christmas Eve party? Oh god no.

He’s accepting the assignment to stop Doofenshmirtz from committing evil even before the Major has finished speaking. Forget their tenuous relationship, he’s going to protect his niece and nephews.

So at about five PM, Perry sets down his re-returning paperwork (all it needs is his signature, and he can do that anytime) and heads out towards 2308 Maple Drive.

When he arrives, Heinz and his daughter are heading into the Flynn-Fletcher house. Snow still falls gently, starting to build up just a little bit on the roofs of houses around them.

Walking in the front door, Perry can already see that the party is getting started. They boys’ friends, Isabella, Baljeet, and Buford, are all there, as is Candace’s friend Stacy. Fireside girls run every which way, hanging extra decorations wherever there’s room. (There isn’t any room, so there’s tinsel propped up on top of a Nativity scene, which is sitting on top of a “Joy to the World” sign.)

Perry doesn’t exactly know where to stand or what to do, so he settles for awkwardly standing in the kitchen with Heinz, who is alternating between rushing about making hot chocolate, and standing and wringing his hand.

Neither of them speak or sign to each other, although they both shoot glances towards the other on occasion.

Should he apologize? Or pretend nothing happened? Or just walk away and ignore Heinz altogether?

His decision is quickly made for him as Candace comes rocketing up to the two of them, waving her arms. “Uncle Perry, Uncle Perry!” Phineas, Ferb, Vanessa, and Ginger Hirano are right behind her.

What’s wrong? Perry asks.

“Phineas dropped the cookies in the snow when Ginger ran into him and now they’re all wet and soggy and gross and now we don’t have any Christmas cookies!”

Phineas and Ginger, at least, manage to look apologetic for this misdemeanor.

“Don’t worry,” Heinz says, and all six of them turn to look at him. “I have a cookie-inator at my cafe for emergencies- and I think this sounds like a cookie emergency.”

“Wait, isn’t that -inator really big and heavy, though?” Vanessa asks.

“Oh yeah, it is,” Heinz says. “I’m not sure it would fit in my car, either.”

“Hey,” Phineas says, “you can take Uncle Perry with you, in mom’s station wagon! He’s really strong, he can carry me and Ferb at the same time.”

Perry and Heinz share a glance, before both of them simultaneously and emphatically say no.

“But- you have to!” Phineas says, and dammit, he’s putting on the puppy dog eyes. “You can’t carry it all by yourself!”

Perry sighs. His one weakness, Phineas’s big, pleading eyes.

“Okay, fine,” Heinz says, turning to Perry. “But I’m driving.”

Perry rolls his eyes. He is an excellent driver, and a passable pilot too. (Just don’t ask him to fly anything that carries more than a couple people.)

“Oh, and if it starts snowing even harder,” Phineas says, “we decked it out so it turns into a sleigh! We keep trying to tell Mom about it but she never believes us. Just press the button that looks like a snowflake.”

Perry nods, taking the keys off the hook by the garage door and handing them to Heinz.

The drive to the Lovemuffin Cafe is one long, awkward silence. Neither of them say anything to the other as the station wagon slips down the road, nor anything more than “watch the corner” when they load the -inator into the back. Heinz doesn’t even make eye contact with him.

Perry, never one to be brushed off, picks up a handful of the fallen snow and follows Heinz when he goes back inside. He throws the snow at Heinz, who yelps as he turns around.

“Yeesh- what was that for?”

Why do you keep ignoring me? Perry asks by way of an answer.

Heinz huffs. “I don’t know, because you lied to me?”

I didn’t even know you were my nemesis until after I had met you. It’s not my fault you’re face blind.

“Well, it’s not exactly all sunshine and roses for me, either,” Heinz says. “I just wish you had come clean a little earlier.”

Being a double-crosser is part of my job, though, Perry signs, and as soon as he’s finished signing he knows he said the wrong thing.

“I- I thought what we had was real, though,” Heinz said. “I wanted it to be real.”

I did too, Perry signs. I wanted to get to know you, outside of our nemesis-ship. I just- I have to go back to Sydney on New Year’s Eve. I didn’t want to get attached.

The silence stretches on for a while.

I regret doing that, if it matters. I- I just don’t really know how to have friends, I guess. Especially friends I’m not going to really see much after next week.

Heinz laughs, in a sort of self-deprecating way. “Me too. Boy, we’re both a mess, aren’t we.”

Perry laughs too. I’m so sorry, he signs. Will you forgive me?

After a long pause, Heinz nods. “I guess I get it. It’s not like there were any good choices in that scenario. I forgive you.” He picks up a pair of sheet pans.

And...one more thing.

Heinz sets the pans back down, leaning back against the counter. “What’s that?”

You’ve changed my mind. About a lot of things. You matter a lot to me. I didn’t want to tell you that since I had to leave, and that might scare you off. I didn’t want to hurt you.

“Why? I’m your nemesis, you should want to hurt me.”

Perry looks down, face flushing. Because I...Because even though it’s way too sudden to say anything like this, I’m in love with you. That’s why.

“Oh,” Heinz says softly, then again a little louder.

Oh indeed. The only question is, does Heinz feel the same way? Perry looks up, making tentative eye contact with Heinz.

He steps into Perry’s personal space, forcing Perry to look up to keep eye contact. Slowly but surely, he pulls a sprig of greenery out of his pocket.

Mistletoe. (Why there’s mistletoe in his pocket is…a question for another time.)

He holds the leaves just above their heads, resting his forehead against Perry’s.

“I think,” Heinz says, voice uncharacteristically soft, “I want to kiss you.”

Perry’s heart soars, a smile flickering onto his face as he nods.

Heinz’s other hand comes up to cradle Perry’s cheek, bringing them together in a kiss that tastes of every Christmas cliche, cinnamon and peppermint and pine all at once.

Perry leans into the kiss, arms encircling Heinz’s waist. Heinz drops the mistletoe, his previously occupied hand holding Perry’s other cheek.

They don’t part for a long time, not until Perry’s lungs are burning from lack of breath.

“Even if we only have this,” Heinz says, “I’ll be glad to have had it.”

Perry nods, leaning into Heinz’s embrace, tracing letters onto his back. Me too.

After another long moment, Heinz straightens up. “We should head back- they’re probably wondering where we are.”

Perry nods, picking up the sheet pans and heading to the doors of the cafe.

Looking out the glass, he can see that the snowstorm has picked up quite a bit. Enough to make traversing the road difficult.

Or, it would, if not for Phineas’ extremely convenient improvement to Linda’s station wagon.

When Heinz presses the button shaped like a snowflake, he laughs as the station wagon smoothly transforms into a red and gold sleigh, a blanket covering their laps. Even without horses, the sleigh starts off down the road when Perry taps the dashboard.

If you start singing Sleigh Ride, I will throttle you, Perry signs, sitting back and scooting closer to Heinz.

“Love you too,” Heinz murmurs, putting an arm around Perry’s back. Perry flushes, but still leans into the embrace.

The sleigh makes barely any noise as it glides down the road, snowflakes landing in perfect crystal patterns on the laprobe they share.

“So, you said you were…leaving on New Year’s Eve?” Heinz asks, hesitantly.

Well, now there’s an interesting thought. He was planning on it- but maybe he should rethink. After all, the main reason he wanted to leave Danville behind was because of the mess with Heinz- and that has been resolved in the best way possible.

It’s not like he has any real friends back in Sydney, either. Everyone he’s grown close to in a way that matters is here, in Danville.

So why shouldn’t he stay in Danville? He has every reason to stay in a place that’s far colder- but where the relationships he has are far warmer than anything he ever had in Australia.

He shakes his head. I think I changed my mind, he signs. Everyone that matters is here.

“You’re not just saying that because of me, are you?” Heinz asks.

No, my niece and nephews live here too.

“Oh, the two redheads and the quiet one with the green hair?”

Perry nods. I haven't been a part of their lives much. I want that to change.

Heinz pulls Perry a little closer to him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “Then I’m glad to have you stay here, too.”

After a few minutes, he adds something else. “You’ll still be my nemesis, right?”

Perry laughs, but still nods. There’s nobody else he’d rather fight.

Back at the Flynn-Fletcher house, Heinz loads the Cookie-inator with flour and butter and sugar, churning out plenty of delicious cookies to save the party.

As Perry watches his new boyfriend chat excitedly with his nephews, Perry grins. What a month.

And everything he was worried about ended up working out fine! He really shouldn’t have worried about coming to Danville- the town sure is strange, but the conundrums always end up resolved.

Well, almost. The mystery of Santa was never solved.

Or at least, not this year. Not yet.

And you know what? It doesn’t have to be solved this year.

Because Perry plans to stay in Danville for as long as possible. Sure, he’ll still be sent all over the globe for missions, but now his home will actually feel like home.

Ferb hands him a pair of felt reindeer antlers, and Perry puts them on without even blinking. Maybe the town’s eternal optimism and Christmas-y spirit has rubbed off on him.

He’ll never admit it, of course, but next year on the first of December, he’s helping Phineas and Ferb set up the lights, his boyfriend holding the ladder for him.