Chapter Text
Heinz #1 - My Nemesis
What started off as an unremarkable day would later turn out to be the most significant event of his—so far—long and miserable life.
Heinz was on his way to the photo studio, when he felt rather than heard that he was being followed. To his stalker’s credit, a normal person would never have noticed.
A normal person wouldn’t have checked the Beaufort Scale before leaving to avoid crisping like a vampire when the wind scatters their SPF 120 sunscreen. Therefore, they wouldn’t hear an added swish in the breeze, echoing behind them whenever they cut a sharp corner.
A normal person wouldn’t have memorized Danville’s street network from every angle for their scale model. As such, they wouldn’t notice the mailbox’s shadow being an inch larger than it was supposed to be when they turned around unexpectedly.
Heinz wasn’t many things, and normal was one of them.
He felt almost giddy with Evil when he saw the clear glass on the studio’s doors. Turning toward them, he pushed one open, let the bell’s chime ring out, then waited. Using the reflection as a makeshift mirror, he scanned for a glimpse of his pursuer… so he could zap them out of existence with the MINI-BYE-BYE-INATOR™, which he’d accidentally brought along.1 He didn’t know it then, but the first thing he saw would change his life, his philosophies, and his favorite color forever.
Teal.
The fedora did little to hide the striking hair color. Beneath it, a piercing glare dragged from Heinz’s face reflected by the glass, down across his back, to his hand pinching the mini-inator in his lab coat’s pocket.
Within seconds, the man was gone.
He knew that Heinz saw him.
When Heinz got home, he went straight to the drawing board for a TEAL-HAIR-STALKER-APPEAR-INATOR. Messing with molecular transportation had been on his Evil Bucket List ever since graduating from E-Cad2. All he needed now was a supercomputer capable of filtering every molecule in Danville for humans-wearing-teal-wigs. It had to be a wig, right?
He’d just finished a draft of the blueprint when his doorbell rang. It couldn’t be Charlene or Vanessa, since they’d just, well, walk right in. For anyone else, Heinz’s usual policy was to blast Driven to Tears3 at maximum volume as a “Do Not Disturb” notice.
But it had been two whole days since he’d had a Fireside Girl cupcake…
He checked the camera, hoping for the Almond Brittle Chocolate Special today, and froze.
Teal.
Heinz scrambled to open the door and came face to face with a well-dressed man. While he was terrible with faces—and names, for that matter—the fedora and teal hair were dead give-aways.
It was his stalker. His stalker had showed up at his apartment and rung the bell. His stalker was an incredibly handsome man in a neat teal suit. His stalker wore a fedora…
Okay, yes, it was completely normal to call something that was objectively handsome, handsome. A fact is a fact. Nothing to emphasize really. No need to boldface “normal” in his thought narrative.
“Uh… Can I help you?” he stammered. The stalker raised an eyebrow, as if to say, “You’re going to pretend like you didn’t notice?”
The man took off his fedora—wow, the teal was natural—and handed Heinz a business card he kept in his breast pocket.
Agent P.
Code name: the Platypus
I use ASL
Fearless
A word almost slipped out of his mouth before memory took over: Yesterday, he got a call from OWCA about being assigned a nemesis.
In the Evil world, OWCA was (in)famous for dispatching top secret agents to stop people like him from taking over. It took a whole year of scheming and a dozen of failed inators for Heinz to even get on their Evil radar. It took another 5 months of consistently causing minor inconveniences to warrant the assignment of his own nemesis.
He’d almost squealed during the call. His photo shoot today was to complete the assignment paperwork.
“Ohhhh! You’re my nemesis. From OWCA.” Agent P nodded.
“And here I thought you were just a regular stalker and was about to vaporize you for it. No offense, that was a little creepy and totally out of line if you weren’t my sworn enemy.” The agent squinted when he mentioned the inator, then gave a small shrug of agreement on the stalking.
Wow, this guy was a professional!
“Well, nice to meet you. I am Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz, but you’ve probably done your research.” Heinz smirked proudly. He was Evil enough to have his background checked now!
“Sorry, my ASL is a bit rusty, so you can write things down for now.” He should look up ASL classes in the area. Stock up notepads and pens around the lab, too.
“I also don’t have an eeevil business card for you, agent P. Agent the Platypus. Agent P the Platypus. Okay, I give up. What does the P stand for? Wait, can you even tell me since, you know, you’re all ‘secret agent’ and stuff? Well, that’s… actually kind of cool but, um, is there a specific way you want to be called?”
There was a moment of complete silence between them as Agent P stared at him like he’d grown a second head (huh, he should write that down for later). Then, the man padded along his suit until he found a teal pen.4 He grabbed the business card in Heinz’s hand, paused to think for a quick second, then scribbled something down and gave it back.
Agent P.erry
Code name: the Platypus
I use ASL
Fearless
“Perry? Perry the Platypus? Huh. Perry the Platypus. Peeeeeerry the Platypus. Hey, I like it! Rolls off the tongue.” He could already hear his catchphrase when thwarted. Something like, “Damn you, Perry the Platypus!”
…
Eh. Too biblical. He’d have to workshop that.
Perry snapped his fingers. Heinz didn’t realize he was just staring at the business card, thoughts drifting to the scheme notebook and ways to update it to account for an additional force of dynamic fury sent to stop him. The agent pointed at his watch.
“Oh. Is it time already? Alright, well, nice to meet you! I- Well, uh- See you soon?” Perry tipped his hat and turned to leave.
Heinz watched Perry step into the elevator. He gave the agent a small wave as the other glanced back, and Perry returned it with a brief, almost mechanical, flick of the fingers. Efficient, like the rest of him.
Heinz held perfectly still until the elevator doors slid shut… then he let out a gleeful whoop and did a little hop in place.
He couldn’t believe it! This assignment meant that he, Heinz Doofenshmirtz, had honorably graduated from a Bachelor to a Master of Villainy.5 More than that, he was apparently Evil enough to be assigned a downright lethal nemesis. Perry’s suit did nothing to hide his muscular shoulders, and while he was shorter, those biceps could put Heinz in urgent-care for a long time if he was not careful.
Perry was also dangerously attractive.
…
Okay, Heinz was a littleee attracted to his nemesis, but who cares? It’s the twenty-first century! Hadn’t we gotten past being attracted to your mortal enemy since Wicked? Not that it mattered or that he was going to do anything about it. Nobody in their right mind would ever want him. Certainly not a professional secret agent whose job description was to stop him from being, well, himself.
Plus, Perry looked like he was rushing home to a warm kiss and a hot meal. And to quote Mother during his wedding with Charlene, the best Heinz could offer was a headache… She wasn’t wrong. He could never be the warm kiss nor the hot meal. At best, maybe he could build a Hot-Meal-Inator, but who would want a headache serving dinner?
Seeing that he’d been standing at his door clutching the business card for the last fifteen minutes, Heinz shut down the internal monologue he’d been listening to. He had a handsome agent for that now. And if he scrapped the stalker-whatever-inator to build something Evil enough by the end of the week, he might have a reason to see Perry again.
Just professionally, of course. Strictly business. Nothing else.
Perry looked up at DEI from outside. The orange evening glow was casting an almost ironic, ethereal aura over Doofenshmirtz’s high-rise condo. He tried to make sense of today’s mission, which was supposed to be a simple reconnaissance to complete the background check on his newly assigned nemesis.6
It turned out to be a total disaster.
First came the “secret lair,” which turned out to be just a lair because it was a huge building in the middle of downtown Danville with the word “Evil” spelled out on its giant banner. It even showed up as a business address on Noogle Maps.
Pushing his bafflement aside, Perry followed his target to… OWCA’s recommended photo studio. Was he taking his portrait for the assignment paperwork?
Perry’s heart jumped into his throat when Doofenshmirtz suddenly spun around. He ducked behind a mail box, holding his breath. Then, the doorbell rang, its chime a bit too loud, too deliberate.
He should’ve listened to his gut when, as soon as he peeked out, he found the target staring straight at him through the reflection in the glass door. Doofenshmirtz had one hand in his lab coat7, holding something that spelled trouble.
Perry had no choice but to flee.
Botched recons were nothing new to him—you don’t become OWCA’s top agent without learning from your mistakes—but this was the first time he thought his life was truly on the line. He didn’t stop running until he was blocks away.
Calming the shake in his fingers, Perry dug through his motorbike’s basket for Doofenshmirtz’s file and added a note: cunning, calculating, and deeply unsettling.
If stealth wouldn’t work, maybe intimidation would.
Here goes nothing.
Readying his glare, Perry rang the doorbell to Doofenshmirtz’s apartment. After a long minute, the door flew open, revealing his target whose expression swung from utter shock to poorly fabricated confusion.
“Uh… Can I help you?”
Perry fought the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. This guy had to be taking pity on him.
Right?
He took off his fedora and handed over a business card.
“Ohhhh!” Did his target’s face just light up like a holiday tree, or was that just in Perry’s head?
“You’re my nemesis. From OWCA. And here I thought you were just a regular stalker and was about to vaporize you for it.” Yeah. Close call.
“No offense, that was a little creepy and totally out of line if you weren’t my sworn enemy.” Monogram was a stickler for “well-established procedures,” no matter how… problematic they might sound.
Just when he thought his new nemesis couldn’t be weirder, the guy started enunciating his code name in every variation imaginable, then straight up asked what he wanted to be called.
Who, in their evil mind, asked the enemy for their preferences?
Clearing the slurry of questions in his head, Perry took out a pen and grabbed the card.
The right thing to do would’ve been to circle the P or his code name—simple, professional, no room for error. But the way Doofenshmirtz had sounded them out earlier… they’d bounced off Perry like raindrops on oiled glass.
The next best option was “Peregrine,” his real name that didn’t exist anywhere on government records. But then again, it was cumbersome and heavy on the tongue. Doofenshmirtz had asked for what he wanted, hadn’t he?
“Perry” was a compromise. It was technically a nickname the boys’d given him. Common enough that, without his last name, Doofenshmirtz couldn’t use to track him. Plus, Perry would make absolute certain that his family and his work never mixed—(Never again.)—so what harm could it do? It wasn’t like he was blurring lines.
When he handed back the annotated card, his nemesis looked awestruck. Embarrassingly so. He drawled out the name again, tracing the teal scribbles with his finger tip, careful as though he was afraid to smudge them. Perry would’ve waited for the guy to process everything if he hadn’t had pumpkin pie to get home to, so he snapped his finger, pointed at his watch, and bid his silent farewell.
Just as he stepped into the elevator, he saw Doofenshmirtz waving at him. Waving.
He hurried to toss a quick wave back, more of a reflex than a gesture, and it felt all wrong. Perry stared straight ahead, pretending like nothing happened. He could have sworn he heard whooping when the elevator door closed.
The report would have to wait. He’d first have to come up with a good enough excuse for his failures today.
For why he thought Heinz Doofenshmirtz was going to be his biggest problem.
1 Mini as in the-size-of-a-coin mini. Like Oreos mini or those replicas-of-real-things-but-fit-on-the-pad-of-your-finger mini. The inator had one shot in it because Heinz couldn’t fit a button in properly, so he wired the trigger to activate self-destruction right after. He built it last week, but he was distracted by the paperwork to get it trademarked and must have forgotten it in his lab coat. Had it been there the whole time?
2 Evil Academy. Not just any evil academy, the Evil Academy. In title case, mind you. Basically Hogwarts for Evil-doers. While he’d have loved to tell you this backstory, you’re not his nemesis, and this footnote would get too long even for his standards. So yeah.
3 The live version with Robert Downey Jr. He liked the original recording too, but there was something about those live guitar rifts that really got his Evil mind going. Also, RDJ’s plutonium-level charisma was the almond brittle on top of a great chocolate cupcake.
4 Do they even make pens in teal? Did… did he need to stock up teal pens and teal notepads? Where the hell was he going to find those? Did he need to make a TEAL-INATOR?
5 The Codex Maleficorum, section the Second, line item 3:
“The rite of graduation from Bachelor to Master of Villainy may be fulfilled by accomplishing two out of three of the following:
(1) The composition of a scholarly parchment (preferably aged and slightly singed), written beyond the scope of common lessons, detailing some dread topic of villainous import;
(2) Founding or joining a Guild of Evil recognized by one’s regional villain registry;
(3) Official nemesis assignment by a legitimate evil-fighting institution.
Shouldst thou, overachiever of darkness, complete all three, thou shalt receive a Congratulatory Gift Basket™, containing one evil-scented candle, artisanal doom snacks, a coupon for half off a new lair rug, and a scroll of moderately dark inspirational quotes.”
6 OWCA COCOA (Code Of Conduct for Operatives & Agents), protocol 2.5:
“Know thy enemy. Before engagement, conduct a full background scan. If intelligence is lacking, field reconnaissance is authorized. The better you understand their trauma, the better you can weaponize it.”
7 Perry thought he was assigned to a pharmacist when he first saw Doofenshmirtz. Who wears a lab coat over turtleneck in June?