Work Text:
Ferb quietly stood in the doorway of the home office, waiting for his father to notice him. When it seemed like that wasn't going to be anytime soon, seeing as the man was engrossed in whatever he was looking at on the computer, Ferb scuffed the toe of his sneaker against the floor to make a small noise.
"Oh, Ferb my boy," his dad said, looking up from the computer. "Sorry about that. I was reading the most fascinating first-person account that has just been discovered from one of the original settlers to the Tri-State area! A whole diary found at an estate sale; I can only imagine how the person who purchased that felt."
He just kept looking at his father.
His dad smiled back at him. "Would you like to pull up a chair and chat?" he asked. "You look like you've got a lot on your mind."
Ferb blinked firmly and grabbed the stool from the workbench, setting it next to his dad's chair and settling on it.
"I'm sure I could make a few guesses as to what you want to talk about, but you know it'll be easier on the both of us if you feel like sharing," Dad said, patting him on the knee. "Though, I suppose if you don't; I'm happy to just sit here with you."
He hummed a small, almost-inaudible note, before sitting in silence with his dad for another long moment.
Then he said, "Phineas told me about a conversation he had with Dad the other night."
Dad leaned back a little in his chair, asking with a goofy, lopsided smile, "Which one? Because I'd imagine those would be two very different types of conversations."
Ferb realized then this talk would be a lot easier if Phineas was here to facilitate – he'd never been the best with long conversations – but he was doing this for his brother's benefit. He had to be the one having this talk, so he forced himself to keep going.
"Dad said that when you married Mum, you were the one to talk about… keeping him in your life," Ferb said, unable to think of another way to describe it.
"Oh?" his dad said, brows raising above the tops of his glasses' frames. "Is this about you and Isabella and Phineas?"
Ferb blinked, and Dad nodded back, saying, "I see… Well, you know, I still don't have the full story on what happened between the three of you. It seems like the only one of us who actually knows is Perry, and he, obviously, isn't telling your mum or I a thing." Dad let out a little chuckle.
It wasn't Ferb's right to tell their dad the conclusions Phineas had come to in regards to how he felt about romance and whatnot – even if none of their parents would care in the least bit – so he just shrugged the tiniest bit.
"Alright then," Dad said, smiling easily and not pressing him for information. "Well, is there something specifically that I can help you out with?"
Reaching into his vest pocket, Ferb pulled out a folded piece of paper, carefully opening it and passing it over to his dad. It was a drawing he'd done of their family when he and Phineas were little, long before they'd gone to school, before he'd realized he shouldn't draw pictures of his three parents holding hands where anyone could see, even if it was what actually happened at home.
He pointed to the drawing of his dads and mum on the page.
Dad was quiet for a long moment. Not angry or upset, just deep in thought. Eventually, he sighed, brushing his thumb along the page as he looked at it with soft eyes. "Oh, Ferb… Son… Where'd you find this then?"
Ferb stayed quiet. He knew his dad could figure it out on his own if he thought about it enough. There were only so many places that Mum stashed their old childhood memories.
"So this is about your mother, father, and myself," his dad said, musing out loud, "as it relates to yourself, your brother, and Isabella."
He blinked.
His dad leaned forward, looking at him intently and staring into his eyes, before blinking back. "Alright then. So you wanted to know how we made it work?" he checked, leaning back in his seat again.
Ferb was glad his father had always understood him, even without words.
"I suppose… Hm, where to start…" Dad said, brow furrowed in thought. "Well, at first, as you know, it was just Perry and myself raising you. We'd had… a rough patch, just after your birth – not because of you," he reassured immediately, "– but your father was going through some things."
He hadn't known that… For as long as he could remember, his parents seemed rock steady and stable, all of them loving each other and seeming to have an effortless relationship. Sure, he saw them disagree from time to time, but everything was always so quickly worked out.
Dad must've seen his thoughts on his face, because he said, "No relationship is perfect, Ferb. But I love your dad a great deal, and we sorted everything out. He's my dearest friend, and I don't know what I'd do without him.
"So of course when he had to move here for his job, I was obviously going to follow. His employer smoothed things over for me to get a visa to work here, and I was at the university as a professor for a time. – I'm sure you remember that bit," his dad said.
Ferb did remember, or at least, the tail end of it he did – after all, the shop hadn't been opened until he was in second grade – but he felt like he was about to learn things about his parents that he hadn't ever known. Sure, Dad liked to talk a lot and tell stories from his past, but Ferb was realizing now that he must've been censoring some of his story choices when they were younger.
"That was, oh, just before your first birthday, so we'd been living here about six or seven months when I met your mum. The two of us ran into each other at a diner, quite literally I mean – you'd had another tooth coming in at the time, and while you were always a fairly quiet baby, you never slept well when teething, so I was fairly knackered that day – and she and I got to talking," Dad said, a little smile on his face at the mention of Mum.
"We bonded over the struggles of parenthood, initially. Your brother is so close in age to you, so she was dealing with the same issues I was. But after that, we found we had a great deal in common. Maybe not on a surface level, but we shared a lot of the same values, and I admired her very much, but I knew your father would always be the deciding factor in things," he continued.
"While I wasn't shy about your father's position in my life, I did wait until your mother and I were closer to explain some of the details – not terribly long, just a few weeks into our acquaintance – but I wanted to make sure she would be safe to tell. It was a different time then, after all," he said, brow furrowed slightly.
Ferb had always been better about recognizing that their parents were fully-fledged human beings rather than a sort of parental monolith like Phineas seemed to a lot of the time, but it was really hitting him that his parents had actual fears and personal problems and inner lives that hadn't been shared with them as children and that they were only old enough to see now.
Logically, he knew his other father would've had issues existing in the world the way he was and that both of his dads would've had some stigma against them for their connection, and Ferb had seen bits of those problems here and there, but they'd done a good enough job gently sheltering him from the worst of it, that he'd never truly realized that they might've been scared at times too.
Dad kept talking, saying, "She was great about it, though, very understanding. So I kept being her friend, and when we went to that Love Handel concert, we ended up kissing for the first time, as you know. I was beyond ecstatic, but I did make sure to tell her after we'd left that as much as I appreciated her company, whatever happened between us wouldn't change anything between myself and your father.
"And do you know what she said to me, Ferb?" he asked.
Ferb carefully didn't blink, just staring at his father.
"She simply said, 'Of course not,' and looked at me as if I was being the ridiculous one," Dad said, smiling that goofy-looking love-struck smile he got from time to time when Mum was involved. "Oh, I fell in love with her almost instantly," he admitted.
Ferb smiled a little at that. It was nice, seeing that his parents loved each other so much. It had always been the one thing he'd never been concerned about growing up. His family was so full of love that he knew nothing was ever going to cause that to stop.
"So after your mother met Perry and immediately set herself to learning sign language, I knew she was the one. She was already thinking about how to make sure he'd be included, and she never stopped trying to make sure that he knew he was a just as important part of our relationship," his dad continued.
"All this is to say, Ferb… I think communication is what's important. And you already know that. Just be sure to talk about the things that worry you or bother you, and make sure you try your best to be understanding and inclusive of the other person or people's issues, and everything will be fine," Dad said.
"Like I said earlier, I still don't fully understand what's going on with you kids, but I hope you both know that we love you no matter what, and that we're always here if you want to talk about it," he concluded, smiling softly at Ferb.
He raised a brow at his dad.
"Hm…" Dad hummed thoughtfully. "Well, while I would appreciate the information, you boys are both getting old enough to make your own decisions about things," he said, "so I don't think either of you are necessarily obligated to tell me anything of the sort. After all, I trust you both to use good judgment and to come to one of us if you need help or advice."
Ferb blinked firmly and stood from his stool, and Dad stood too.
"Good talk, son," Dad said, patting him on the shoulder. "And you know where to find me if you have any more questions."
His dad held his arms out, offering a hug, and while Ferb wasn't feeling much like hugging back, he was still willing to receive one, so he tilted forward and let his dad wrap him in his arms.
"When did you manage to get so tall?" Dad muttered while holding him. "I swear you're going to end up taller than me at this rate… And I know your father's terribly jealous about it all."
Ferb let out a tiny snort of a laugh, and Dad chuckled too, before finally letting him go.
"Alright then," his dad said, "if that's all, I'm going to go back to my reading." He paused for a moment for Ferb to object, but when he didn't say anything, Dad sat back down at the computer.
Ferb turned and walked out of the office, heading to his bedroom where Phineas was stretched out on his own bed reading a comic book.
"Hey, Ferb, how'd your talk with Dad go?" Phineas asked curiously, setting his comic aside.
Ferb smiled and said, "Good," before pulling out a blueprint he'd had stashed in his pocket. "But I think I'd like to build something together now."