Archive of Our Own

Perry didn't like natural history museums. They were just glorified animal and sometimes human cemeteries, and there was that smell of earthly death that lingered around.

“Hey, you know, kids, these fossils are of creatures that lived right here in Danville millions of years ago,” Lawrence said as they entered the local fossil exhibit.

That didn't make Perry feel any better. It meant that it wasn't just their final resting place, but probably also where they took their last breath.

“Lucky these things aren't still here today,” Linda said, looking at the skeleton of a triceratops that Perry was pretty sure had been a herbivore anyway, so it didn't pose much of a risk except maybe if it got into his mother's begonia bed.

“No, lucky would be if we weren't still here today.”

Perry had to agree with Candace this time. He would have preferred to be sitting on the couch right then, eating froyo and watching a dinosaur documentary or even one of those weak sequels to The Land Before Time.

“Hey, Perry, look,” Phineas said, pointing to a skeleton that looked much more recent than prehistoric. “Didn't we have a dog named Bucky who got sick and went to live on kindly Old Man Simmons' farm?”

Oh, no. Perry had completely forgotten about that. He had wondered when it would come up.

Bucky had been their dog, at least for a while. He had been an Australian Shepherd and red-haired Irish Setter mix, which made him seem like a match made in Heaven when Betty Jo and Grandpa Clyde found him wandering on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. It had been some time after Phineas was born and before Lawrence and Ferb had entered the picture. Perry, and especially Candace, had not yet fully gotten over Linda's divorce and the departure of their previous father, so Bucky had been a welcome addition to their family. Perry had loved Bucky, but he and Candace were inseparable, the best of friends in the world. However, a few years after Linda had remarried, Old Man Simmons, a prairie farmer, claimed that he was Bucky's original owner, who had a habit of straying away from home. He had recognized him from their new family photo Linda had posted on her blog.

It had been horrible. They had no choice. They had to pretend Bucky was sick, or at least homesick. Candace had been devastated and couldn’t believe Bucky would choose Old Man Simmons over her. She had felt betrayed, like when their father never came back. She didn’t want to hear anything about Bucky anymore, and maybe that was for the best because not even a year later, a meteorite had hit Old Man Simmons’ desert ranch, no joke. Considering that the same thing had wiped out the dinosaurs, the Natural History Museum had decided it would be a brilliant idea to keep Bucky’s remains on display alongside fragments of said meteorite.

This was a mess and only served to reinforce Perry's point. Bucky deserved a proper place in the pet cemetery, or to be kept in an urn shaped like his favorite squeaky toy that Perry knew for a fact Candace kept safely in her room. At least she was busy texting Stacy about how bored and wronged she was, to notice anything. This was probably a conversation for another time.

“And the next exhibit is called Kindly Old Man Simmons,” Ferb observed.

“Um, hey, this is new,” Perry said urgently, pointing to the Gadgets Through the Ages exhibit.

Phineas’ eyes grew twice as big as they were, and Perry could almost hear an angelic choir echoing from his brain. “This exhibit was made for us, Ferb!”

Perry watched them leave, then let out a breath of relief.

“Good thinking, old bean,” Lawrence whispered. “I was just about to offer to treat you, lads, to a round of milkshakes.”

“Oh, no, I’ll still take you up on that offer,” Perry said.

Five minutes later, he was strolling through the gadget exhibit, sipping a peanut butter cookie milkshake through a straw.

“Hey! Stop right there!”

Perry turned and came face to face with the museum security guard with his commanding mustache and shiny badge.

“No drinks allowed in the museum,” he said, pointing to a sign conveniently hanging on the wall opposite them.

Perry rolled his eyes. Then why did they put a milkshake booth in the museum, let alone the Slushy Dawg?

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me, young man,” the guard said, jabbing him in the chest with his finger.

Perry just continued his milkshake, unperturbed. He had put thousands of mass murderers and shady crooks behind bars, who would have made this guy’s skin crawl. He wasn't going to take any nonsense for something as trivial as this.

Luckily, the guard had to answer his walkie-talkie before he could say anything else. “What? A 10-957? Kid steals pterodactyl fossil? Not again!”

Perry watched him run, shrugged, and kept walking. He found Phineas and Ferb tinkering with some retro steampunk-looking contraption. He shrugged at that, too.

“Hey, you guys want something from the milkshake booth?”

“Maybe later,” Phineas said. “Perry, check this out! A real-life time machine! Ferb and I are going to fix it.”

“Cool, just try not to mess with the space-time continuum, kay?”

"Don't worry. We've seen the movies, isn’t that right, Ferb?"

Ferb gave a thumbs up, then put his welding mask back on.

Good thing the noise drowned out Perry's watch beeping. For once, this came at the right time. Whatever Doctor D had planned for the day, it couldn't possibly be more mind-numbing than this.

The good thing was that there was an entrance to his secret base in the Danville Natural History Museum; the bad thing was that it wasn’t exactly what Perry would call subtle.

“Really? They have a photo booth here?” Candace asked.

“I know, right?”

“I get it. Everyone says you’re the most photogenic in the family. No need to flex about it.”

“What? No one says that,” Perry said defensively.

Candace raised an eyebrow.

It was true that Candace had a reputation for looking a little... eldritch in some pictures, for lack of a better word, but everyone looked horrible in pictures sometimes. It wasn't a big deal.

Candace shook her head and went to join their parents. Perry waited until she turned the corner, then pulled the booth curtain aside. He slapped his spy badge on a secret panel, and the hatch opened beneath his feet just as the camera flash went off. He hoped no one would find the pictures, although maybe they would have proved to Candace that he wasn't photogenic all the time either.

The tunnel was efficient and fast enough to ruin his hair and nearly knock his fedora off. He landed in his chair in one piece and automatically saluted the screen that was already on.

Major Monogram didn't reply; he just stood there, rubbing his chin and looking at him, judging him.

"Major? Everything okay?" Perry asked.

No answer.

"Are... are you giving me the silent treatment? Is it something I did? You're not going to tell me?"

The Major just kept looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

Perry was starting to get annoyed. "Then it can't be helped. I'm ready whenever you are."

He crossed his arms and turned his face away from the screen, waiting for the Major to drop whatever this was and say something. Perry tried not to look at him, but it almost seemed like the Major wasn’t blinking or even breathing, though with those unusually large nostrils it would have been easy to tell.

Around the one-minute mark of their silent game, Perry’s eye began to twitch, and he couldn’t help it anymore.

“You’re not di-dis-disappointed in me, are you?” he asked, as if his tongue were testing the word for the first time. “Is it about the time I crashed my hoverjet into Lady Liberty and bent one of the spikes on her crown? Because I’m sure no one noticed.”

Still nothing.

“Didn’t you like my last birthday present? Was the Fourth Best Father Figure mug too blunt? That’s still top five. Should I have gone for the Best Boss mug? You’re my only boss; it felt a little pointless. Please, just say something. Anything!”

“Uh, Agent P? Hey, it's me: Carl. The intern?”

Perry brushed a few beads of sweat from his forehead. “I know who you are, Carl. Have you been there long?”

“Uh, not long. We got a bit of a situation here. Major Monogram has been frozen like this pretty much all day. Solid as a rock.”

“What? Just like that? And doesn’t it seem a little suspicious to you?”

Carl shrugged. “I thought it was just an old person thing. Their joints probably need a rest.”

Major Monogram grumbled disapprovingly.

“Even the jaws?”

“Seriously, almost like a fossil,” Carl said, knocking on the Major’s petrified arm.

“Oh, please don’t remind me of fossils. I’ve seen enough to last me a lifetime.”

Major Monogram grumbled even louder.

"Anywho, if the Major were able to, I'm sure he'd say Doofenshmirtz was up to something, and you should get to the bottom of it," Carl imitated the Major's gruff voice as best he could.

"Okay, then we'll look into this when I get back," Perry decided.

“Good luck, Agent P. And if it makes you feel any better, I got him the Best Boss mug, but he still drinks his morning coffee out of yours.”

“I’m sure he’s just keeping yours safe in case mine breaks or something.”

“You really think so?”

Perry nodded convincingly.

Carl smiled at him softly. “You’ve always been an excellent liar, Agent P. I mean that as a compliment.”

Perry sighed and smiled back. “I know.”

He was aware now that the Major wasn't really disappointed in him. Still, he felt the need to put on his best performance on this mission, especially since he had a hunch that Doofenshmirtz was somehow responsible for what had happened to the Major. So he infiltrated the drainage system of the patio pool and grappled the edge of the glass dome of Doofenshmirtz's Evil Incorporated. He was itching for a fight, but it seemed that Doofenshmirtz was itching harder.

Through the semi-transparent purple glass, the very distinctive silhouette of the doctor was firing what was very distinctively an evil laser ray gun, and definitely not at Perry. Well, that was weird, but not too weird. Doofenshmirtz had probably seen a spider on the wall or something and decided to be extra about it. Yeah, that must have been it.

He slammed the emergency door open, and Doofenshmirtz immediately hid his gun behind his back. That set off alarm bells because it was definitely not the right position to sneak a shot at Perry.

"Perry the Platypus! I, uh, I uh, uh... There's no one else here. I mean, w-what are you doing here, Perry the Platypus?"

A sound came from the storage closet.

"Heh. I have mice?"

Perry ignored him and went to check for himself. Knowing the doctor, if he really had mice, he would have already tried to turn them into his minions or use them as an alternative energy source like Norm's squirrel. And sure enough, in the closet, among the spare lab coats, he found no mice, just a man who looked slightly taken aback, and a rather big one at that.

He was at least as tall as Perry and much wider. He must have been somewhere between thirty-five and forty, but he was East Asian, so for all Perry knew, he could have been twice as old. Those guys had crazy good genes. And he was wearing a tuxedo, but the kind that was comfortable and didn't constrict your midsection. He seemed honest that way, like he wasn't trying to hide what others might have deemed an imperfection, which Perry couldn't quite relate to. He had to be in perfect shape at all times and never show a soft spot, figuratively or otherwise.

While all this was going on in Perry's head, they just stood there face to face and blinked at each other.

"Perry the Platypus, I swear I can explain—"

"Did you trap the delivery guy again?"

"Uh… yeah, that's exactly what I did," Doofenshmirtz said quickly. "How evil of me, heh?"

"Wait! Is that an OWCA hat?"

"What? Of course not, Perry the Platypus. Uh, he's from that trendy hipster place where young people go. OWCA doesn't own the IP for fedoras, Perry the Platypus."

"Okay, so what's up with that?"

Doofenshmirtz laughed awkwardly, covering his left eye with his hand. "Well, there's an agent-looking man in my closet, and I have a black eye. But it's not what you think."

"Come on, D. Why do you have to complicate things? The kid deserves to know the truth," the agent-looking man said out of the blue.

Doofenshmirtz sighed, long and heavy. "Sorry, Perry the Platypus, I didn't want you to find out this way. Okay, here it is. Peter the Panda is my new nemesis. We met at an evil genius expo in Seattle, and, well, me and Peter, we just instantly disliked each other."

"Evil genius expo? Is that a thing?" Perry asked. "And wait, what do you mean new nemesis?"

Out of nowhere? That was ridiculous. Would the Major have told him about this if he hadn't been frozen? Or was he just pretending to be frozen so he wouldn't have to break to Perry the awkward news?

"And, I didn't plan it that way, it just happened," Doofenshmirtz said cautiously.

“So you’re replacing me? Just like that, like an old sock?” Perry retorted.

“Oh, Perry the Platypus, don’t take it personally. You’re not an old sock, you’re actually a very new sock, that’s the problem.”

“What?”

“Peter the Panda and I just have a lot more things in common to talk about. Like, did you know he has five ex-wives?”

“And three ex-husbands.” Peter held up three fingers. “Still counting.”

“What?” Perry repeated.

“Just kidding,” Peter chuckled. “Actually, I’m taking a break to focus on my career. For now.”

Perry pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, first of all, that’s eight wasted wedding cakes, and I really don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“Well, you never tell me anything about your personal life,” Doofenshmirtz said.

“Oh, I think you talk enough for the both of us," Perry shot back.

“Exactly! Seriously, Perry the Platypus, all you do is stand there and let me ramble on for hours on end, with the occasional eye roll. Not a very balanced dynamic, Perry the Platypus.”

Perry rolled his eyes.

"See? There it is!" Doofenshmirtz pointed at him, then turned to Peter. "Peter the Panda, be a dear and go get us a soda."

"Uh, okay, I'll figure out where you keep them myself then," Peter said nonchalantly.

Perry crossed his arms and looked at Doofenshmirtz.

"It's not that I don't hate you anymore. I do, but look, I-- look, Perry the Platypus, I think we both know your skills are wasted on me. You're so young, and you have your whole career ahead of you. I mean, I bet there are thousands of people out there who want you dead."

"Wow, thanks for the reassurance."

Doofenshmirtz smiled weakly. "I'm going to miss that sarcasm of yours, Perry the Platypus."

Peter returned with the sodas. "I couldn't find more than two," he said apologetically.

"Thank you, Peter the Panda." Doofenshmirtz sipped his soda. "I'd offer you one, Perry the Platypus, but I-- I think it's best to leave it at that, so it doesn't get awkward. Don't you? So, where was I? Oh, yes." He wiped his mouth, tossed the soda can aside, and pointed the laser ray gun at Peter. "So, Peter the Panda, you think you have outwitted me!"

Perry didn't move.

"Perry the Platypus, you-you're still just standing there. Go on, it's over now. I'm sure you have better things to do."

"Oh, yeah? Then what’s that?"

"Oh, that? That's a Freeze-inator ray but, uh, I-- I don't want to explain it again. I just gave the whole spiel to Peter."

At least that was one mystery solved.

"But, don't worry. He's stopping me. He's-- He's got it well in hand."

Peter gave him a thumbs-up.

"See? You don't have to worry, Perry the Platypus. We've got everything under control here," Doofenshmirtz said, and he actually closed the door in Perry's face.

Perry stood in the doorway for a few moments, trying to register what had just happened. This was a first, to say the least. He was used to being thrown through windows, not politely shown the door. Still, there wasn’t much he could do about it.

“Curse you, Peter the Panda!” came a muffled voice through the door.

Okay, now that was just heartless. Perry didn’t want to hear any more, so he stepped into the elevator and tried to focus on the background music.

It certainly hadn't rained when Perry stepped out of the pool. It seemed like the weather was trying to match his mood. And wait, Better Panda, really? Perry was sure that restaurant hadn't been there before.

He took off his hat and ran a hand through his wet hair. This was getting ridiculous. He didn't understand why it bothered him so much. It wasn't like he'd been fighting Doofenshmirtz for very long. Perry could have sent him to prison on day one if he wanted to and return to the higher-stakes missions he was trained for, but something had always stopped him. The better he knew the doctor, the more it became clear to him that he didn't deserve it. He was petty and eccentric, but he wasn't a bad person, at least not compared to what Perry was used to. Plus, he had to admit, his last few missions had been almost... fun.

As he strolled carelessly along the rain-slicked sidewalks with everyone else around him running in the opposite direction for shelter, Perry thought back to all the good times they had together, like the lava incident at Mount Rushmore or the office building turned into a giant robot, or the garden gnome apocalypse. He never expected he'd feel so nostalgic for something that had happened less than a few weeks ago.

Somehow, he found his way home and used the first entrance he came across to his secret base. The Major was still frozen on the screen, and Carl was trying to feed him mashed potatoes like a baby, making a mess of his uniform. Well, Peter better hurry up and destroy that Freeze-inator, but in the meantime, Perry had no reason to rush. He put his fedora in its safe until he had to take on another mission.

***

“And who is this Peter guy anyway?” Perry asked, sitting cross-legged and arms folded on the control desk.

Pinky, who was sitting in Perry’s briefing chair, playing with a Rubik’s Cube, sighed. “I see you're still not over this.”

Perry ignored him. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“Well, he’s not exactly the best rated in our Seattle division,” Carl said from the screen. “But he’s been employee of the month for ten months in a row. He’s very popular.” A picture of a smiling Peter in a deliberately sloppy tie appeared next to him.

“As an agent or a civilian?” Perry asked.

“Uh, I’m not sure, I think both.”

“What? That doesn’t make any sense. It’s not even strategic!”

“Big deal. You're pretty popular too. The whole neighborhood loves you,” Pinky said encouragingly.

“Yeah, they love Perry Flynn. Nobody likes Agent P.”

Pinky cleared his throat. “Excuse me?”

“Okay, except for you.”

Carl coughed a little.

“You two.”

The Major grunted, a little softer this time.

“Okay, you three,” Perry said gratefully. "But no one else at OWCA likes me, not since I got my badge. And I know that's not the point of OWCA, but it still stings a little. I thought Doctor D was one of the few people who liked Agent P, even if in an antagonistic way, but it seems I was wrong."

“But I thought this was just a summer job for you.”

“Summer’s just started, Pinky. That means I’m the problem.”

Pinky didn’t know how to reply to that.

“Do I… do I really roll my eyes that much?”

“You have beautiful eyes—Uh, I mean, I’m sure they don’t bother anyone,” Pinky said quickly at the confused look Perry gave him.

He became very preoccupied with his cube.

“You know what, I’m being stupid,” Perry said abruptly, jumping off the control panel. “Doofenshmirtz was right. There are thousands of people out there who want me dead, maybe more.”

“Uh, I’m not sure that’s something to brag about, Agent P,” Carl said.

“Find me someone new to fight who hasn’t been assigned yet,” Perry said, pointing at the screen. “Preferably someone really bad, blood-curdling bad, like a human trafficker or a puppy killer. Someone I can punch and punch as much as I please without feeling any remorse.” He slammed his fist into his palm several times.

Carl flinched. “O-okay, if you’re sure that’s what you want, I’ll go check it out.”

If Major Monogram had anything to say about this, then there was literally not much he could do about it.

“Oh, look, now you scared poor Carl,” Pinky remarked. “Was that really necessary?”

“I’ll apologize later,” Perry said coldly.

Pinky set his cube down on the desk and turned the chair toward him. “You can fight Cruella de Vil another time, but don’t you think you should address the elephant in the room first?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Perry said, turning away from him.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe how every time your insecurities come up, you get irritable.”

“What insecurities?”

“You know, the ones you like to repress so much,” Pinky said with an eye roll of his own. “Like your abandonment issues.”

Perry spun on his heel. “What? I don’t have abandonment issues.”

Pinky raised an eyebrow.

Perry sat back down and fell silent. Well, okay, maybe he had some unaddressed childhood trauma. He knew his biological parents hadn't meant to abandon him. The Australian bush wasn't for the faint of heart, and some things just couldn't be helped. And then his Uncle Kane had been right to send him away before something happened to Perry, too. He hadn't abandoned him either. And then his paternal grandparents had rejected him, but who wanted to live locked up in their snobbish mansion anyway? They'd actually done him a favor. He'd gotten a much better family anyway. At least until his adoptive father left them...

Okay, so he might have had some issues with abandonment, but that didn’t prove anything. He still cared and thought fondly of his uncle and adoptive father, enough to include them in his list of top favorite father figures. Surely that meant he had moved on and not the exact opposite, right?

Pinky watched his face change. “Ahem.” He nodded.

Perry sighed in defeat. “Okay. I’ll sort things out with Peter and Doctor D before I get another assignment.”

Pinky breathed a sigh of relief. “Hey, maybe you should give him a Fifth Best Father Figure mug.”

“Not funny, Pinky,” Perry said, but he smiled anyway.

***

“We’re not open yet!”

Perry let himself into the restaurant. Peter was perched on a table, hanging a paper lantern from the ceiling. He’d ditched his suit and kept only his shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

He gave Perry a quick glance. “Oh, it’s you. I was wondering if you were going to show up. Did some digging through those classified personal files, huh?”

“I mean, it was kind of on the nose,” Perry said, pointing to the letters printed on the front window next to the cartoon panda bear. “Better Panda, really?”

“I have to stay on brand somehow, don’t I?” Peter laughed, rubbing his hands together and jumping down from the table. “But where are my manners? Please, please, have a seat.”

"Thanks, but I won't be long," Perry said, taking a seat on one of the bamboo benches.

"We haven't worked out all the details of the menu yet, but let me at least get you some Oolong tea to make up for the soda-pop incident."

Peter disappeared through a back door, leaving Perry to take a look around.

It was a small, cozy restaurant, neither too fancy nor too over the top in terms of theme. No doubt it would be very popular with the townspeople. And of course, Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated was right across the street. Peter seemed to have thought of everything and was ready to settle there permanently.

Peter returned with a small teapot and sat down opposite him.

“I have to admit I did a little research of my own,” he said, pouring steaming tea into Perry’s cup. “Although I didn’t have to go very deep. Your reputation has preceded you. Quite impressive, I must say. You’re half my age, and you’ve already accomplished more in your career than I ever did. Did you set out to achieve world peace before you're thirty or what?” he joked with a burst of jovial laughter.

Perry took a small sip. “You know that’s not a realistic goal even if I were to live a thousand years, but at least I can die trying, knowing I gave my best shot.”

“Wow, now that’s dedication if I ever saw one,” Peter said, rocking back and forth in his chair and spilling some tea from his cup.

“Look, I just wanted to talk real quick. If you’re going to be Dr. Doofenshmirtz’s permanent nemesis—”

“Oh, yeah, sorry about the whole thing. I really thought you were briefed about it.”

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault. Before you start, I just wanted to give you this.” Perry pulled a rolled-up piece of paper from his pocket.

Peter put on his black-rimmed reading glasses and glanced over it.

“It’s a list of all of Doctor D’s allergies and weaknesses that I’ve discovered during my time as his nemesis.”

“Ah, I see,” Peter said, rubbing his chin. “So I can exploit them. Good thinking!”

“What? Of course not! It’s so you can avoid them. Trust me, he’s not that bad once you get to know him. Plus, if you play dirty, he’ll turn this into another tragic backstory for the next Inator.”

“Huh, noted,” Peter chuckled. “You have my word that I’ll never unleash a swarm of bees on him or a herd of rabid cattle to trigger his lactose intolerance.”

Perry smiled faintly. "Thanks. Oh, and one more thing, you need to remind him that he has a dental implant appointment next Wednesday. I, uh, may be partly responsible for that."

"Ouch," Peter said, watching Perry flex his guilty fist.

"So... I know it's not my place to ask, but did you handle the Freeze-inator ray? I think he hit my boss with it."

“Yeah, no problem. I took it apart in the middle of his musical number.”

“You didn’t wait for him to finish his musical number?” Perry said in shock. “Oh, man. I mean, you wouldn’t have known that, but that’s number 17 on the list. He’s very sensitive about his musical numbers. You have to wait for him to finish his backstory, then you destroy the Inator. We kind of have a routine.”

“Huh, that explains why he ran out of the room crying like my second husband.”

“Yeah, sounds like him,” Perry said. “But why didn’t you use the self-destruct button? It would have been easier that way.”

“Hmm, I don’t think there was one.”

“Interesting… Well, maybe he wants to change his strategy, new nemesis and all.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Peter agreed. “Fortune cookie? The first three are on the house.”

Perry curiously picked up a cookie and tore it open, reading the message inside, “The journey of a thousand miles begins the moment you face your inner demons… That’s not how I remember the saying.”

“Yeah, we're trying something new. We wanted it to be more relatable to the younger generation. So, what do you think?”

Perry crumpled the piece of paper into a small ball and dropped it into his empty teacup.

“Okay. We’ll work on that,” Peter said.

***

“Well, it was fun while it lasted, but I’m ready to move on.”

“Hmm, I didn’t expect you to reach the acceptance phase so quickly,” Pinky observed.

Carl popped up on the monitor screen. “I just put the Major to bed. Thought he’d be more comfortable that way.”

“You mean he’s not back to normal yet?” Perry asked. “Odd. Peter said he got rid of the Inator.”

“Maybe it’s taking longer for the effects to wear off?” Pinky offered.

“Hmm... Maybe.”

"You've received an email," Perry's supercomputer's female voice announced, and a block of text covered Carl's face.

Perry pressed his palms against the control desk and read:

Dear Agent Platypus,

We are pleased to announce that you are invited to a live television interview on Dr. Feelbetter's famous show ‘I Want to Be Your Nemesis Again’ on the Super Secret Spy Channel this afternoon at 4:30 PM alongside your former nemesis, one Evil Genius Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

“It's not even signed. Looks fake.”

“Oh, no, it’s real. I’ve heard of it,” Carl said, trying to sneak behind the text.

Pinky squinted at the letters. “Yeah, me too. It’s a restricted show, of course, so I don’t know about the famous part, but it basically started as an inside joke between the secret agents and their assigned evil scientists when this evil genius wanted to play the mediator to fix their relationship issues,” he said, making quotation marks with his fingers on the last two words. “You think it’s a trap?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Perry said. “That’s why I’m going.”

“Are you sure? Peter probably has it under control, and what could Doofenshmirtz possibly still want with you?” Pinky asked.

“No idea, but I’d like to find out.”

***

As he sat in an oversized armchair with cameras and spotlights flashing all around him, Perry still couldn't believe this was real. Because he was technically off duty, and he didn't want to seem suspicious, he didn't wear his hat, keeping it tucked away in his back pocket. But without it, he was aware that he looked much younger and more vulnerable than usual. Even the older secret agents and their evil scientists in the audience were staring at him with slightly softer looks on their faces than Perry was used to seeing from them.

Doofenshmirtz, too, looked strangely sympathetic and silent in the chair opposite him. Yeah, definitely a trap.

“You ever wonder what would happen if you lost your nemesis?” Dr. Feelbetter, a small, balding man with glasses, asked the audience. “Well, that's precisely what happened to our first guest, Perry the Platypus. Perry the Platypus, share with us your thoughts.”

Dr. Feelbetter held the microphone to his face.

“Why bother? He never understood me anyway,” Perry said, turning his face away and putting up his nose.

"Perry the Platypus, you sound like my teenage daughter!"

"Ah, I see," said Doctor Feelbetter. "And this generation gap is what led you to replace Perry the Platypus?"

"No, o-of course not!" said Doofenshmirtz. "I mean, sure, it's nice to have someone closer to my age like Peter the Panda to talk to about things like mortgages and anti-hair loss shampoos."

Perry reached back to touch his rich, wavy, turquoise hair with a mixture of self-consciousness and concern.

“Right. Doctor, what if I were to tell you, Peter the Panda is backstage right now,” said Feelbetter.

“What? Peter the Panda is here? Perry the Platypus, I-- I had no idea. I-- ”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Peter the Panda!”

Peter entered the stage to a sea of ​​boos from both his agent allies and the enemy evil geniuses.

“Wow, it’s like that time I accidentally got invited to my third ex-wife’s family reunion,” Peter said in good humor.

And then Feelbetter randomly asked Peter to stack a bunch of chairs, probably to fill some time before the first commercial break.

"Thank you, Peter. I've been meaning to stack those chairs. Dr. Doofenshmirtz, tell Perry the Platypus how you feel."

And that was when the technicians chose a moving, tragic background score. Perry didn't like that. He could feel every eye in the room on him. That was why he hated reality TV. It always made things more complicated and stuffy than they really were.

"Perry the Platypus, I-I'm so sorry I hurt you; When I wasn't actually trying to hurt you."

Perry snorted. "Touching."

"No, I mean it," Doofenshmirtz said, a hand on his chest. "Perry the Platypus, we may not always understand each other, but you listen, you wait, you try to understand, even when I don't make much sense."

Perry blinked and listened carefully.

"I took you for granted, but you're a good kid, Perry the Platypus, and I don't mean as in good versus evil, you're a good friend, or a frenemy, oh, you know what I mean."

"I-- I do," Perry said, taken aback.

"Well, what do you say, Perry the Platypus?" asked Doctor Feelbetter.

For once, Perry was speechless, but he felt something in his eyes. Maybe Doctor D liked Agent P after all, maybe he wasn't the problem, maybe he never had been. So, at the risk of giving himself away, he put his fedora hat back on.

And the entire audience, no matter how stoic or ruthless they tried to appear on a daily basis, acted as if this was the most touching moment they had ever witnessed. Perry was more comfortable when they disliked him, something he could handle, but to be honest, at that moment, he didn't care. He felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his chest.

"Thank you, Perry the Platypus," Doofenshmirtz said, covering his face as if trying not to cry with happiness. That didn't last long, though.

With a single push of a button, Doofenshmirtz handcuffed the secret agents in the room, who were all conveniently holding their hands on the armrests, without exception. Yup, OWCA and its stupid conduct rules.

“You know, Peter the Panda thought that he had disassembled my Freeze-inator ray, but that was just a decoy!”

“No, duh,” Perry muttered.

“You see, my plan was simple; assemble all the best secret agents in one room, and then turn them all into statues for my giant chess board!”

“In that case, can I be the queen?”

“Peter?” Perry asked. “I didn’t see you sit down.”

“What do you think? I got tired. I’ve stacked at least fifty chairs.”

If they hadn’t been handcuffed to his chair, Perry would have run a hand over his face.

One of the backstage staff members casually wheeled in the real Freeze-inator ray, which was actually labeled The Real Freeze-inator Ray in big, bold letters.

Dr. Feelebetter was oddly okay with all of this, as if he’d known all along and probably thought it would boost his ratings.

“Okay, I’ll kick him, you take care of the inator,” Perry said as the Real Freeze-inator ray charged up, whirring loudly.

“No, I kick him, you take care of the inator,” Peter said. “I feel used, like with my fifth wife.”

Perry rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever.”

"Uh, Perry the Platypus, you don't mind if I say goodbye to Peter the Panda, do you?" Doofenshmirtz whispered, leaning over him.

"Be my guest."

Doofenshmirtz made this easy, but Perry would be lying if he said he didn't miss it.

So when Peter kicked the doctor in the nose, Perry seized the moment, swung his legs over the back of his chair, and pushed it across the slippery floor, right into the Freeze-inator that was about to fire into the secret agent auditorium. The Freeze-inator ray flipped over, and the beam shot straight through the ceiling, leaving a large, smoking hole. Perry just hoped it hadn't hit anything alive, or worse, a plane.

While Doofenshmirtz was coming to his senses, Perry flipped the chair sideways and smashed the remote control the doctor had dropped. What followed was chaos. Now that every secret agent was free, they didn't miss a second to get their payback. And maybe OWCA had the right idea to give their agents animal code names, because Perry was pretty sure he had seen Douglas the Dog use his canines, while Malcolm the Mallard was more practical and used a wooden chair he was carrying around for some reason.

Peter and Perry took care of Doofenshmirtz together.

"Did you know about his plan?" Peter asked as Doofenshmirtz lay unconscious on the floor with his tongue hanging out dramatically.

"I had a hunch. I know my nemesis."

Peter chuckled. "Then my services are no longer needed."

"Are you going back to the Seattle department?"

"I suppose I'll have to, although I've grown quite attached to your little town. Maybe I'll keep the restaurant open and go back and forth."

"I'll see you around then."

"Hey, if you ever need help, anything, you know where to find me."

Perry smiled and nodded. They both tipped their hats in goodbye, and Perry hurried to get to the museum before his family started wondering where he had disappeared to.

***

“Don’t tell me you were in that photo booth the whole time I was running for my life from an eight-ton T-Rex,” Candace said as they walked down the stairs outside the museum.

“I couldn’t get a single picture I liked,” Perry said, deciding to ask more questions about the eight-ton T-Rex when they got home. “I think I was having one of those bad hair days.”

“But Perry, you have great hair,” said Phineas, who was a bit of the family hair expert.

Ferb made the perfect finger gesture.

“Thanks, guys, but you know, I don’t think anyone looks good in pictures alone.”

“Then next time maybe Ferb and I can help with that.”

“Sounds great.” 

“Candace?” Phineas turned to look at her. “What do you say, sis? It wouldn’t be a Flynn-Fletcher sibling picture without you.”

“Ugh, okay, I guess it wouldn't hurt,” said Candace, who seemed in a much better mood than she had been that morning. Perry suspected that it had something to do with Jeremy working at the museum's Slushy Dawg.

All in all, the day had turned out better than it had promised. Perry knew that eventually he would have to return to the more serious cases and bloodthirsty criminals, but until then, he could take a leaf out of his little brothers' book and enjoy his summer.