Work Text:
“Why?” asked the girl shackled in front of him.
They, along with the rest of Perry the Platypus’s family, were currently being led to “their doom” by a killer robot. His ankle burned after his previous stunt with Platyborg, but the robot behind him kept him moving steadily along.
Heinz shrugged listlessly. “I…couldn’t let it happen.”
Of course, if he had let “it” happen, he probably wouldn’t be about to die, which was unfortunate, to say the least.
At the head of the chain of prisoners, Perry stopped dead in his tracks—causing the others to stumble—and turned as best as he could in his chains. Heinz withered under the platypus’s searching gaze until the robot escorting them forced him forward again.
“But he’s you,” the girl pressed, and Heinz cringed.
“Candace,” said the green-haired boy, the one Heinz was pretty sure was named Frank. His tone was even, but Heinz still picked up on the warning behind it.
Candace. So that was her name. He made a conscious effort to remember this one.
“I—“ He swallowed. “I have a daughter, she’s about your age…” God, he was never going to see Vanessa again, was he? He was going to die here—well, not here, but in a couple more steps, yes, he was going to die. Vanessa wouldn’t even have the closure of knowing what happened to him—he highly doubted other-him would be courteous enough to send his corpse back to its home dimension.
Maybe Norm would tell her.
The hall opened up onto a rocky platform surrounded by lava. Before them, a giant…something under a tarp.
As soon as Heinz stepped off the walkway, it retracted with a groan of metal on metal, leaving him and the others stranded with whatever the dictator had in store for them. He turned his gaze up to the giant monitor, ready to plead once more, to appeal to the ethics that he knew were there, they had to be there, deep down, because they were the same person and he would never—could never do this. He opened his mouth—
“Hey you!”
—And closed it again, because he wasn’t the one who said that.
“You’re not gonna get away with this, you hear me?” Candace shouted up at the screen as the dictator looked on with an amused sneer. “I may not be some awesome resistance leader, but I am an adult, and that means I’m in charge of these two!” She gestured to the boys, then stepped forward with her arms spread as wide as the cuffs allowed. “So you better believe I’ll do what it takes to protect them!”
The dictator’s large face peered down at her, his one eye glittering with malice. Candace’s bravado evaporated; her wide stance shifted to something more vulnerable, and her wrist-cuffs jangled audibly as she began to shiver.
Finally, the dictator spoke. “This will be cathartic,” he said. “I’ve wanted to doom someone who looks just like you for years.”
Everyone on the chain went pale. The dictator laughed, a maniacal laugh Heinz knew all too well, as a claw descended over the tarp.
“I would say so far, adulthood gets a three,” Candace muttered.
“This may be as good as it gets,” Heinz told her.
When Heinz was a child, his father always told him he’d end up as fodder for some wild animal. He didn’t doubt that, but he thought the danger of that happening had gone down significantly when he came to America.
That was his last coherent thought before he was yanked into the air.
What happened next was a blur. He remembered being pulled off his feet, seeing the rocky platform disappear into the distance. He remembered someone screaming—maybe it was him—as whatever was flying swerved erratically over the lava. He remembered crying out as he collided with something heavy.
He didn’t bother trying to remember much more after that.
So while he didn’t know how he and his fellow prisoners ended up on top of the cage they had been facing down mere moments before, he didn’t exactly care either. Because they were safe, they weren’t being hurled through the air anymore, Perry the Platypus had the keys to free them, and why was the Goozim free, when did that happen—
He screamed. No point denying it. He would’ve been more ashamed about it if the kids hadn’t all screamed with him. They had probably never even seen a Goozim, god they must have been so scared…
Candace scrambled backwards into him, causing him to fall back and the whole chain of people to tumble. He distantly registered the sound of metal clinking against metal somewhere far below.
As he pulled himself back upright, he caught sight of Candace. She was crouched on all fours atop the cage, both hands clinging to the bars below her in a white-knuckled death grip. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her uneven breaths shook her whole body.
“Hey,” Heinz said softly, reaching out to her. His fingers brushed her arm and she yelped, eyes flying open. He quickly pulled back.
“It’s okay,” he lied. Nothing about this was okay. They were in mortal danger, their dimension was about to be invaded, and he was having a serious identity crisis. But he’d been a kid before. He’d raised a kid before. Sometimes a little comforting could make all the difference.
Candace stared at him with wide terror-filled eyes before she squeezed them shut again. “I want to go home,” she choked out between whimpers.
The chains around their waists pulled tight. Heinz looked in the direction the tug was coming from and saw the other prisoners climbing down the side of the cage.
He frowned. Why would they—oh. Oh, no. No, no, no…
With a growing dread, he peered down into the cage. Sure enough, the keys dangled precariously from the bars.
Candace followed his gaze down to the keys, then back to the others.
“No,” she whispered, horrified, and while Heinz thoroughly agreed with the sentiment, what else were they going to do?
“Come on.” He nudged Candace on, keeping his own eyes locked firmly on the monster to see if it made a move. He was the adult here, he had to protect her.
When Heinz had reassured Candace, he had conveniently left out his less-than-stellar jungle gym performance in grade school.
“You’re doing great,” he whispered, his voice having automatically taken on a more paternal tone. “Hand over hand—there you go—and again…”
Candace whimpered as she shuffled along the bar. Her grip shifted and she froze.
From his position next to her, Heinz reached out and placed a hand over hers. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
The tiny, tiny part of his brain that wasn’t worried about survival wondered what Perry the Platypus would think if he saw him talking to his family like this.
A tiny subset of that part decided he didn’t care.
As Candace—and by extension, Heinz—started to move again, he started talking aloud. “Just keep going—you don’t need to do anything, don’t need to grab anything, all you have to do is keep going, you can do that…” He wasn’t sure if he was trying to reassure Candace or himself.
Candace chanced a look back at him as she readjusted her footing. Her quivering lips twitched up into a smile. Heinz smiled back.
Just then, the Goozim appeared over the edge of the cage, a furry paw swinging towards him.
He hadn’t meant to let go. But seeing the beast so close to him triggered something. Flashes of cold nights as a lawn gnome, anxiously scanning the tree line for monsters he knew he had no hope of fending off. Of being pinned down by creatures with sharp claws and sharper teeth.
And just like that, his grip had faltered and he was falling, falling…
He jerked to a stop so quickly he almost threw up. Then he looked up and wanted to throw up for other reasons.
His eyes followed the chain up to Candace, who had somehow managed to catch the keys and was now holding them to her chest, up to the boys, who were trying in vain to reach for each other, and up to the cage high above them, where he could barely make out a teal form gripping the bars.
They’d fallen because of him. Because he failed to stop other-him from doing this.
But…maybe he could still do something to save them.
“Candace?” he croaked out. The girl didn’t respond at first, and for a moment Heinz wondered if he’d gotten her name wrong after all. He did do that a lot. But then she twisted to face him.
“You got the keys,” he said, trying so very hard not to let his voice waver. His gaze flicked to his nemesis above them, the only thing keeping the kids from plunging to their doom. If they could only share one last scheme…
No. If he thought like that he wouldn’t go through with this, and then they’d all…
“Quick, unlock me.” His eyes burned. It was better this way, right?
But Candace only stared. “Are you even paying attention right now?” she sputtered incredulously.
She didn’t understand. Why didn’t she understand? Did she really think Perry could support them all much longer? That she and her brothers deserved to die as much as he did?
“Please, Vanessa—“
He froze. What had he just said? It was so hard to remember. Had it always been so hot? Sweat ran into his eyes and made it hard to see, but that was the definitely the shape of a teenage girl in front of him. His daughter, of course. Who else would it be? Now she was saying something, but he couldn’t hear the words. Why couldn’t he hear her? And why did she look so scared? Did she know he couldn’t hear her? He wanted nothing more than to hug his mäuschen, tell her it’s okay—but when he tried, his arms barely moved, and then suddenly the world was tipping, and Vanessa was floating above him, and he still couldn’t reach for her, and—
It all faded away as quickly as it came. He gasped as the reality of his situation set back in. Was the heat making him see things, or was it the stress?
Candace was still staring at him, and he had the presence to be embarrassed. Here he was, projecting his own daughter onto this random girl instead of doing what he had to do to save her and her family.
But…he had a family too. And he’d do anything to see her again.
Did that make him selfish? Maybe. But as long as he stayed here, there was a chance Perry the Platypus could get them all out of this. A chance he’d get back home.
If he fell, there was no chance at all.
He swallowed hard. “Y-you’re right. Later.”