Chapter Text
Fall, 2007. Danville.
The teaching gig was more or less an accident. Perry was simply skulking around Danville High waiting for Heinz’s inevitable Catastrophe of the Day that would require his intervention when Principal Lang came upon him.
Now Perry wasn’t usually one to lurk around high schools waiting for disaster to strike, but ever since Heinz had quit evil and Perry had been put on simple surveillance duty, he was so bored. Especially with all the kids in school, Perry had very little to occupy his days, and thus was stuck creeping around DHS like some sort of weirdo, waiting on Heinz’s usual bad luck to provide some form of entertainment. Even if that sort of entertainment came in the form of Vanessa’s ex boyfriend being turned into a crossbreed between a lizard, a gorilla, and a teenager. That had been a strange first day of Supposedly Reformed Doofenshmirtz. Though no one could really say that he’d done it on purpose, so it couldn’t really be counted as evil. Just an accident.
Like Principal Lang assuming Perry was there for an interview, since he was dressed so nice and pacing around outside the front of the building.
“You must be here about the open teaching positions!” Lang boomed, startling Perry so bad his hat nearly fell off. He spun around to stare at the balding man who somehow managed to be shorter than himself, and started awkwardly fluttering his fingers as if typing on an invisible keyboard while he tried to come up with a quick cover story as to why he was hanging around the high school at 32 years old. Jeez, he was slipping. He used to be more suave than this.
Lang didn’t even notice Perry’s fumbling or obvious reluctance as he swept an arm around Perry’s back and shepherded him into the school. Groaning inwardly, Perry scrambled to come up with a good, non-creepy reason why he was standing outside that didn’t involve explaining he was a secret agent, nor here to apply for a job, but he kept coming up with nothing. Lang half-pushed him past a bored-looking secretary in the school’s outer office and through the door labeled PRINCIPAL.
“So!” Lang exclaimed, gesturing welcomingly at the chair in front of his desk, which Perry sat in awkwardly, chewing the inside of his lip. “Currently we have two open positions that need covering, one for someone going on maternity leave and the other who’s just up and quit! And I also have a particular science teacher that needs replacing, you don’t happen to teach science, do you?” Perry frowned and shook his head, suspicious that Lang was referring to Heinz. Though a little unorthodox, Heinz was a good teacher; his class was one of the favorites among students, despite the fact that Johnny had been turned into some sort of...whatever on Heinz’s first day, and then there’d been the thing with the whole school getting covered in goo, and...other stuff.
“Too bad,” Lang sighed. “The first is for an AP history class, and then a Sign Language course that might be cancelled if we can’t find someone to replace Howard.” Perry perked slightly at the mention of sign language and Lang looked up from examining his blunt fingernails. “You’re pretty quiet, aren’t you?” he said and Perry resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
I don’t talk much, he signed. Lang just looked at him blankly.
“I guess you’re here to take up Howard’s job, then. Mrs. Pierpoint!” he barked, apparently summoning the secretary from outside.
“Yes, Principal Lang,” she sighed, spinning a pen between two of her fingers, a notepad in her other hand as she appeared in the open doorway.
“You know sign language, right?” Lang demanded.
“Rudimentary,” she said, glancing at Perry with a faint spark of interest. He awkwardly waved, and she just cocked an eyebrow.
“Well, see if this guy can teach a room full of teenagers and then start on the paperwork,” Lang said, turning back to Perry. “She can help with the rest. Hope to welcome you aboard, Mister...uh.” With a small sigh, Perry turned to Mrs. Pierpoint.
My name, he signed, then finger spelled, P-E-R-R-I-N F-L-E-T-C-H-E-R.
“Perrin Fletcher, sir,” Pierpoint repeated verbally, scratching something down on her notepad. His name probably, Perry assumed.
“Mr. Fletcher! Very good,” Lang nodded, rounding his desk to settle in his chair, pulling the keyboard for his computer closer to him.
“This way, Mr. Fletcher,” Pierpoint commanded, leaving the principal’s office with Perry trailing in her wake, a faint air of defeat around him. “Let me just get the paperwork together,” she said, one hand darting across her computer to get documents printing at a nearby computer.
While pretending to view some of the rather tacky art hung around the outer office, Perry typed a shorthand message into his agency wristwatch, alerting Carl and Monogram to the situation. A reply came in just a few moments later, as Pierpoint was stapling a thick stack of papers together.
Good opportunity to survey D. Accept job. OWCA will get you through the door w/out problems.
Perry groaned quietly at the message, hiding his irritation behind a mask of polite interest as Pierpoint called him over to start on the paperwork.
He hated paperwork.
A couple of hours later he escaped just in time for school to let out, and was swept along in the river of chattering students through the building and back outside. From snatches of conversation, he didn’t think anything too exciting had happened in Heinz’s class today, aside from something to do with a very large amount of pink styrofoam. He couldn’t imagine what that had to do with science, but since nothing too dangerous had happened, Perry stuffed his hands in his pockets and headed for his car, which was parked around the corner.
He’d been looking forward to seeing Heinz today, too. If only to divert an impending disaster that had never happened.